Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Plates bright and vivid. Pages in great condition.. Year 1929. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Can we speak of peasant art without at least asking ourselves how it originated? What then is that impulse that irresistible force which will not let the peasant rest content with the merely useful but drives him to seck the best propor- tioned and most harmonious forms that which appeals to the eye by colour and line is pleasant to the touch and produces that rare sense of contentment and that poise of mind and joy which characterise ?sthetic enjoyment? In the study of peasant art this point is doubtless one of the most interesting. Many resemblances many parallelisms might be explained if we could know for certain what factors cause the peasant and primitive man generally to express himself by means of forms and colours whose immediate advantage is not always perceptible. But to throw light on this problem and indeed on many others connected with the art of the common people we are reduced as yet to simple hypo- theses of a more or less plausible nature. Even where this kind of problem has been eagerly studied by research workers for much longer than in my country there can be no ques tion as yet of unchallengeable conclusions. The fact is that the field is wide the problems are not clearly circumscribed or have been approached from the wrong angle and the issues are still further confused by considerations of national pride or even of professional interests. (MP)