Material Culture, the Museum and Primitive Art

Primitive art is a newcomer in the traditional art gallery and even in the ethnological museum it is now sometimes presented as art rather than just baskets, fish hooks and amulets. These changes have come gradually and have an interesting history. While it cannot be definitely claimed that anthropologists of this century introduced primitive art to the modern art world, it is probably fair to say that their knowledge of remote cultures, both in time and space, have brought to the attention of artists, achievements in this field that might otherwise have long remained undiscovered. Not only has the anthropologist new parts of the world to suggest but new media of art. The European has devoted his attention primarily to painting and sculpture and often overlooked other media in his own culture. In a primitive art collection there are pieces of pottery like the portrait jars of Peru, beadwork of the Plains Indians, feather trimmed basketry of the Pomo of California, ribbon applique from the modern Indians of Oklahoma, painted bark cloth from the South Pacific or pile embroidered palm textile from the Congo of Africa.