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Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art

<h2>ORIGIN OF ORNAMENT.</h2> The birth of the embellishing art must be sought in that stage of animal development when instinct began to discover that certain attributes or adornments increased attractiveness. When art in its human sense came into existence ideas of embellishment soon extended from the person, with, which they had been associated, to all things with which man had to deal. The processes of the growth of the æsthetic idea are long and obscure and cannot be taken up in this place. The various elements of embellishment in which the ceramic art is interested may be assigned to two great classes, based upon the character of the conceptions associated with them. These are ideographic and non-ideographic. In the present paper I shall treat chiefly of the non ideographic, reserving the ideographic for a second paper. Elements, non-ideographic from the start, are derived mainly from two sources: 1st, from objects, natural or artificial, associated with the arts; and, 2d, from the suggestions of accidents attending construction. Natural objects abound in features highly suggestive of embellishment and these are constantly employed in art. Artificial objects have two classes of features capable of giving rise to ornament: these are constructional and functional. In a late stage of development all things in nature and in art, however complex or foreign to the art in its practice, are subject to decorative treatment. This latter is the realistic pictorial stage, one of which the student of native American culture needs to take little cognizance. Elements of design are not invented outright: man modifies, combines, and recombines elements or ideas already in existence, but does not create. A classification of the sources of decorative motives employed in the ceramic art is given in the following diagram: <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" summary="Origin of ornament"> <tr> <td style="white-space: nowrap">Origin of ornament—</td> <td style="white-space: nowrap">{ </td> <td style="white-space: nowrap" valign="top"> Suggestions of features of natural utensils or objects. Suggestions of features of artificial utensils or objects——— Suggestions from accidents attending construction.———— Suggestions of ideographic features or pictorial delineations. </td> <td style="white-space: nowrap; text-align: right" valign="bottom">{ { </td> <td style="white-space: nowrap" valign="top"> Functional————— Constructional——— Marks of fingers. Marks of implements. Marks of molds, etc. </td> <td style="white-space: nowrap; text-align: right;" valign="top"> { {</td> <td style="white-space: nowrap" valign="top"> Handles. Legs. Bands. Perforations, etc. The coil. The seam. The stitch. The plait. The twist, etc. </td> </tr> </table> [Pg 454] <h4>SUGGESTIONS OF NATURAL FEATURES OF OBJECTS.</h4> The first articles used by men in their simple arts have in many cases possessed features suggestive of decoration. Shells of mollusks are exquisitely embellished with ribs, spines, nodes, and colors. The same is true to a somewhat limited extent of the shells of the turtle and the armadillo and of the hard cases of fruits. These decorative features, though not essential to the utensil, are nevertheless inseparable parts of it, and are cast or unconsciously copied by a very primitive people when similar articles are artificially produced in plastic material. In this way a utensil may acquire ornamental characters long before the workman has learned to take pleasure in such details or has conceived an idea beyond that of simple utility. This may be called unconscious embellishment. In this fortuitous fashion a ribbed variety of fruit shell would give rise to a ribbed vessel in clay; one covered with spines would suggest a noded vessel, etc. When taste came to be exercised upon such objects these features would be retained and copied for the pleasure they afforded. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image12.jpg" width-obs="450" height-obs="169" alt="a.—Shell vessel. b.—Copy in clay. Fig. 475.—Scroll derived from the spire of a conch shell." title="a.—Shell vessel. b.—Copy in clay. Fig. 475.—Scroll derived from the spire of a conch shell." /> Fig. 475.—Scroll derived from the spire of a conch shell. </div> Passing by the many simple elements of decoration that by this unconscious process could be derived from such sources, let me give a single example by which it will be seen that not only elementary forms but even so highly constituted an ornament as the scroll may have been brought thus naturally into the realm of decorative art. The sea-shell has always been intimately associated with the arts that utilize clay and abounds in suggestions of embellishment. The Busycon was almost universally employed as a vessel by the tribes of the Atlantic drainage of North America. Usually it was trimmed down and excavated until only about three-fourths of the outer wall of the shell remained. At one end was the long spike-like base which served as a handle, and at the other the flat conical apex, with its very pronounced spiral line or ridge expanding from the center to the circumference, as seen in Fig. 475 a. This vessel was often copied in clay, as many good examples now in our museums testify. The notable feature is that the shell has [Pg 455] been copied literally, the spiral appearing in its proper place. A specimen is illustrated in Fig. 475 b which, although simple and highly conventionalized, still retains the spiral figure. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image13.jpg" width-obs="450" height-obs="93" alt="Fig. 476.—Possible derivation of the current scroll." title="Fig. 476.—Possible derivation of the current scroll." /> Fig. 476.—Possible derivation of the current scroll. </div> In another example we have four of the noded apexes placed about the rim of the vessel, as shown in Fig. 476a, the conception being that of four conch shells united in one vessel, the bases being turned inward and the apexes outward. Now it is only necessary to suppose the addition of the spiral lines, always associated with the nodes, to have the result shown in b, and by a still higher degree of convention we have the classic scroll ornament given in c. Of course, no such result as this could come about adventitiously, as successful combination calls for the exercise of judgment and taste; but the initiatory steps could be taken—the motive could enter art—without the conscious supervision of the human agent. <h4>SUGGESTIONS BY FEATURES OF ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS.</h4> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image14.jpg" width-obs="450" height-obs="96" alt="Fig. 477.—Ornament derived through the modification of handles." title="Fig. 477.—Ornament derived through the modification of handles." /> Fig. 477.—Ornament derived through the modification of handles. </div> Functional features.—Functional features of art products liable to influence ornament comprise handles, legs, feet, rims, bands, and other peculiarities of shape originating in utility. Handles, for instance, may have been indigenous to a number of arts; they are coeval and coextensive with culture. The first load, weapon, or vessel transported by man may have been suspended by a vine or filament. Such arts as have fallen heir to handles have used them according to the capacities of the material employed. Of all the materials stone is probably the least suited to their successful use, while clay utilizes them in its own peculiar way, giving to them a great variety of expression. They are copied in clay from various models, but owing to the inadequate capacities of the material, often lose their function and degenerate into mere ornaments, which are modified as such to please the potter's fancy. Thus, for example, the series of handles placed about the neck of the vessel become, [Pg 456] by modification in frequent copying, a mere band of ornamental figures in relief, or even finally in engraved, punctured, or painted lines, in the manner suggested in Fig. 477. Legs, pedestals, spouts, and other features may in a like manner give rise to decoration. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image15.jpg" width-obs="450" height-obs="117" alt="a.—Coiled fillet of clay. b.—Double coil. Fig. 478.—Scroll derived from coil of clay." title="a.—Coiled fillet of clay. b.—Double coil. Fig. 478.—Scroll derived from coil of clay." /> Fig. 478.—Scroll derived from coil of clay. </div> Constructional features.-Features of vessels resulting from construction are infinitely varied and often highly suggestive of decoration. Constructional peculiarities of the clay utensils themselves are especially worthy of notice, and on account of their actual presence in the art itself are more likely to be utilized or copied for ceramic ornament than those of other materials. The coil, so universally employed in construction, has had a decided influence upon the ceramic decoration of certain peoples, as I have shown in a paper on ancient Pueblo art. From it we have not only a great variety of surface ornamentation produced by simple treatment of the coil in place, but probably many forms suggested by the use of the coil in vessel building, as, for instance, the spiral formed in beginning the base of a coiled vessel, Fig. 478 a, from which the double scroll b, as a separate feature, could readily be derived, and finally the chain of scrolls so often seen in border and zone decoration. This familiarity with the use of fillets or ropes of clay would also lead to a great variety of applied ornament, examples of which, from Pueblo art, are given in Fig. 479. The sinuous forms assumed by a rope of clay so employed would readily suggest to the Indian the form of the serpent and the means of representing it, and might thus lead to the introduction of this much revered creature into art. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/image16.jpg" width-obs="450" height-obs="167" alt="Fig. 479.—Ornamental use of fillets." title="Fig. 479.—Ornamental use of fillets." /> Fig. 479.—Ornamental use of fillets. </div> Of the various classes of utensils associated closely with the ceramic art, there are none so characteristically marked by constructional features [Pg 457] as nets and wicker baskets. The twisting, interlacing, knotting, and stitching of filaments give relieved figures that by contact in manufacture impress themselves upon the plastic clay. Such impressions come in time to be regarded as pleasing features, and when free-hand methods of reproducing are finally acquired they and their derivatives become essentials of decoration. At a later stage these characters of basketry influence ceramic decoration in a somewhat different way. By the use of variously-colored fillets the woven surface displays figures in color corresponding to those in relief and varying with every new combination. Many striking patterns are thus produced, and the potter who has learned to decorate his wares by the stylus or brush reproduces these patterns by free-hand methods. We find pottery in all countries ornamented with patterns, painted, incised, stamped, and relieved, certainly derived from this source. So well is this fact known that I need hardly go into details. In the higher stages of art the constructional characters of architecture give rise to many notions of decoration which afterwards descend to other arts, taking greatly divergent forms. Aboriginal architecture in some parts of America had reached a development capable of wielding a strong influence. This is not true, however, of any part of the United States. <h4>SUGGESTIONS OF ACCIDENTS.</h4> Besides the suggestions of surface features impressed in manufacture or intentionally copied as indicated above, we have also those of accidental imprints of implements or of the fingers in manufacture. From this source there are necessarily many suggestions of ornament, at first of indented figures, but later, after long employment, extending to the other modes of representation. <h4>IDEOGRAPHIC AND PICTORIAL SUBJECTS.</h4> Non-ideographic forms of ornament may originate in ideographic features, mnemonic, demonstrative, or symbolic. Such significant figures are borrowed by decorators from other branches of art. As time goes on they lose their significance and are subsequently treated as purely decorative elements. Subjects wholly pictorial in character, when such come to be made, may also be used as simple decoration, and by long processes of convention become geometric. The exact amount of significance still attached to significant figures after adoption into decoration cannot be determined except in cases of actual identification by living peoples, and even when the signification is known by the more learned individuals the decorator may be wholly without knowledge of it. [Pg 458] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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