The early cultivation of painting in religious art arose chiefly from the symbolism of colours, to which I previously made a passing allusion. Its origin was in the effect which certain hues have upon the mind, either specifically or from association. Colour-symbolism, indeed, forms a prominent feature in nearly every primitive religion. The import of the different colours varies, but not to the degree which excludes some general tendencies. The white and the blue are usually of cheerful and peaceful signification, the black and the red are ominous of strife and darkness. In many tribes the yellow bore the deepest religious meaning. The Mayas of Yucatan assigned it to the dawn and the east; and when the Aztecs gathered around the dying bed of one they loved, and raised their voices in the paean which was to waft the soul to its higher life beyond the grave, they sang: “Already does the dawn appear, the light advances. Already do the birds of yellow plumage tune their songs to greet thee.”
These symbolic colours are those with which the early temples were tinted and the rude images of the gods stained. They were rarely harmonious, but they were effective, and appealed to the people for whom they were intended. Their preparation and their technical employment were improved, and, as the art advanced, it reacted on the religion, directing its conceptions of divinity into higher walks and toward nobler ideals.
Art in line and colour is of vast antiquity, probably preceding that in shape or form, carving or sculpture. But this, too, we find was fairly understood by the cave-dwellers of France and Switzerland at a time when the great glacier still covered a good part of the European continent, and there is scarcely a savage tribe to-day that does not make some rude attempts at carving the images of its deities.
A natural object which has a chance resemblance to a man or beast is chosen as a fetish, and the worshipper by chipping or rubbing increases slightly the likeness. This is the infancy of the sculptor’s art, and it is usually for a religious purpose that it is exercised. Soon it is developed, and in stone, or bone, or wood, in baked clay, or rags, or leaves, we find thousands of effigies in use to represent the tutelary deities and the other denizens of the supernatural world.