Page 32 - Studio International - September 1965

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to suppose. All have used different materials. Beauty
is everywhere, as is invention, and it is our feeling for
form, whether it is realized in animal forms. human
forms, or imaginary ones. Religious belief inspired them.
Visitors to the Museum ask me what made the
organisers choose these particular objects from among
100,000 in our collection. and why we did not arrange
them in an ethnological or geographical order. The
answer is, that the Friends of the Musee de \'Homme
meant this show to be a source of pleasure to the eye.
Since the way we see has been influenced by modern
artists. the choice of these objects was made for us
through them. The choice would not have been the
same fifty years ago, and feelings about it will not be
the same fifty years from now. That the source of visual
pleasure has changed in the last fifty years is certain.
Modern art-originators would have made other choices.
and art-lovers nowadays have to choose this way.
I myself came to discover this art and its treasures
through my love for the art of Picasso. Brancusi,
Modigliani, etc .... , and may have been guided by the
affinities they have with 'Primitive Art.' Though the
catalogue is arranged in geographical order with
ethnological texts, the choice of pieces and the way
they were displayed, was governed solely by aesthetic
reasons.
All is left up to the public. The public, without any
didactic guide, can make its own 'rapprochements.' As
Herbert Read said, 'Aesthetic sensitivity is indivisible.·

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