Anthropology and Art

Abstract

THE exhibition of “Traditional Art of the British Colonies’ at the Royal Anthropological Institute, 21 Bedford Square, London, W.C.I, which I have had the privilege of arranging, has now been extended until August and is open during 10 a.m.–7 p.m. every day except Sunday. It is perhaps one of the few serious attempts so far made in Great Britain to recouncile in an exhibition the supposedly conflicting disciplines of art and anthropology, and provides a useful occasion to consider whether they are not fundamentally compatible and complementary in much the same way as, for example, religion and science. The great Wilberforce–Huxley controversy of the nineteenth century has long ceased to excite much heat, as divines and savants have equally learned to respect each other's fields ; and it is time that artists and anthropologists made the concessions which would enable them to work together for fuller understanding of the highest manifestations of man's genius.