The origins of art; a psychological & sociological inquiry

The work treats artistic activity as a psychological impulse shaped and constrained by social life, using ethnological and historical examples to test that thesis. It examines sensation and the feeling-tone of perception, the formation of emotions, and even the enjoyment of pain to show how expressive forms arise from inner states and communal interactions. The argument then deduces characteristic art-forms, considers art as relief and a means of information, and extends the inquiry to animal display and sexual selection, the origins of self-decoration and erotic imagery, and the relations between art, labor, warfare, and magic, closing with an integrated account of art’s origins and functions.