Hellenism and Ethnographic Art

Abstract

The naturalist aesthetics which resulted from the attachment of art to science was not without its ambiguities. Both the key terms, ‘nature’ and ‘aesthetics’, were variously interpreted, and the scientific community which was expected to pronounce on these matters was itself divided. Indeed, anthropological scientists could not agree on what nature, and particularly human nature, was. Did all the different forms of mankind which they had discovered constitute human nature? Individual views on this issue depended on differing theories of race. The two main positions might be called the unitary and the pluralist views of human nature. The unitary view claimed that there was a single norm in nature and that any variation from it meant deformity and degeneration.¹ a pathological condition. The pluralist view was that man displayed a variety of equally ‘natural’ types.