Ancient Art and Ritual

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Ancient Art and Ritual

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Title: Ancient Art and Ritual
Author: Jane Ellen Harrison
Release Date: November 18, 2005 [EBook #17087]
Language: English
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Ancient Art and Ritual JANE ELLEN HARRISON

Geoffrey Cumberlege OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON
NEW YORK TORONTO

_First published in 1913, and reprinted in 1918 (revised), 1919, 1927,
1935 and 1948_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFATORY NOTE
It may be well at the outset to say clearly what is the aim of the present
volume. The title is Ancient Art and Ritual, but the reader will find in it
no general summary or even outline of the facts of either ancient art or
ancient ritual. These facts are easily accessible in handbooks. The point
of my title and the real gist of my argument lie perhaps in the word
"_and_"--that is, in the intimate connection which I have tried to show
exists between ritual and art. This connection has, I believe, an
important bearing on questions vital to-day, as, for example, the
question of the place of art in our modern civilization, its relation to
and its difference from religion and morality; in a word, on the whole
enquiry as to what the nature of art is and how it can help or hinder
spiritual life.
* * * * *
I have taken Greek drama as a typical instance, because in it we have
the clear historical case of a great art, which arose out of a very
primitive and almost world-wide ritual. The rise of the Indian drama, or
the mediæval and from it the modern stage, would have told us the
same tale and served the like purpose. But Greece is nearer to us to-day

than either India or the Middle Ages.
* * * * *
Greece and the Greek drama remind me that I should like to offer my
thanks to Professor Gilbert Murray, for help and criticism which has far
outrun the limits of editorial duty.
J.E.H.
_Newnham College, Cambridge, June 1913._
* * * * *
NOTE TO THE FIFTH IMPRESSION
The original text has been reprinted without change except for the
correction of misprints. A few additions (enclosed in square brackets)
have been made to the Bibliography.
1947

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I ART AND RITUAL 9
II PRIMITIVE RITUAL: PANTOMIMIC DANCES 29
III PERIODIC CEREMONIES: THE SPRING FESTIVAL 49
IV THE PRIMITIVE SPRING DANCE OR DITHYRAMB, IN
GREECE 75
V THE TRANSITION FROM RITUAL TO ART: THE DROMENON
AND THE DRAMA 119

VI GREEK SCULPTURE: THE PANATHENAIC FRIEZE AND THE
APOLLO BELVEDERE 170
VII RITUAL, ART AND LIFE 204
BIBLIOGRAPHY 253
INDEX 255

ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL
CHAPTER I
ART AND RITUAL
The title of this book may strike the reader as strange and even
dissonant. What have art and ritual to do together? The ritualist is, to
the modern mind, a man concerned perhaps unduly with fixed forms
and ceremonies, with carrying out the rigidly prescribed ordinances of a
church or sect. The artist, on the other hand, we think of as free in
thought and untrammelled by convention in practice; his tendency is
towards licence. Art and ritual, it is quite true, have diverged to-day;
but the title of this book is chosen advisedly. Its object is to show that
these two divergent developments have a common root, and that
neither can be understood without the other. It is at the outset one and
the same impulse that sends a man to church and to the theatre.
* * * * *
Such a statement may sound to-day paradoxical, even irreverent. But to
the Greek of the sixth, fifth, and even fourth century B.C., it would
have been a simple truism. We shall see this best by following an
Athenian to his theatre, on the day of the great Spring Festival of
Dionysos.
Passing through the entrance-gate to the theatre on the south side of the
Acropolis, our Athenian citizen will find himself at once on holy

ground. He is within a temenos or precinct,