we are all inclined now to overpraise it; and because I mean to keep my
head I shall doubtless by my best friends be called a fool. Judging from
the available data--no great stock, by the way--I should say that Negro
art was entitled to a place amongst the great schools, but that it was
no match for the greatest. With the greatest I would compare it. I would
compare it with the art of the supreme Chinese periods (from Han to
Sung), with archaic Greek, with Byzantine, with Mahomedan, which, for
archæological purposes, begins under the Sassanians a hundred years and
more before the birth of the prophet; I would compare it with Romanesque
and early Italian (from Giotto to Raffael); but I would place it below
all these. On the other hand, when I consider the whole corpus of black
art known to us, and compare it with Assyrian, Roman, Indian, true
Gothic (not Romanesque, that is to say), or late Renaissance it seems to
me that the blacks have the best of it. And, on the whole, I should be
inclined to place West and Central African art, at any rate, on a level
with Egyptian. Such sweeping classifications, however, are not to be
taken too seriously. All I want to say is that, though the capital
achievements of the greatest schools do seem to me to have an absolute
superiority over anything Negro I have seen, yet the finest black
sculpture is so rich in artistic qualities that it is entitled to a
place beside them.

I write, thinking mainly of sculpture, because it was an exhibition
of sculpture that set me off. It should be remembered, however, that
perhaps the most perfect achievements of these savages are to be found
amongst their textiles and basket-work. Here, their exquisite taste and
sense of quality and their unsurpassed gift for filling a space are seen
to greatest advantage, while their shortcomings lie almost hid. But it
is their sculpture which, at the moment, excites us most, and by it they
may fairly be judged. Exquisiteness of quality is its most attractive