EVOLUTION IN ORNAMENT. 275 



Decorative art has developed through the constant attempt to 

 please the eye by more and more beautiful forms, and in obedience to 

 the law of the survival of the most beautiful or of the fittest to please ; 

 for pure, well-constructed forms are persistent, while those that are 

 abnormal, bizarre, or not adapted to the eye, die out. We still, to- 

 day, use straight lines and frets, and a multitude of beautiful forms, 

 many of which, doubtless, have come down to us from an immense 

 antiquity. They are normally beautiful and we shall always need 

 them. These, I may add, are also the forms which we shall find most 

 widely distributed. 



The connection between the manufacture of pottery and the evolu- 

 tion of ornament is exceedingly close ; and some of the most beautiful 

 ornamental borders, etc., have originated on pottery, the soft, easily- 

 scratched clay furnishing an excellent surface for drawing upon. In 

 savage America the manufacture of pottery falls everywhere to the 

 lot of women, since, as it is a branch of cooking, she, having the charge 

 of domestic affairs, naturally makes the vessels in which to prepare 

 food. But the- Indian woman not only makes the pottery, she also 

 ornaments it. Elsewhere, as among certain tribes in Africa, and also 

 among the Papuans and the Feejees, woman is the ceramic artist. 

 Llewellyn Jewett thinks that the Celtic burial-urns were made and 

 ornamented by women. But, the world over, woman, among savage 

 tribes, not only makes ornamented pottery, but she spins and weaves, 

 and makes and decorates clothes. She is, in fact, the pi-imitive deco- 

 rative artist. Even in civilized life she still loves to cover with beau- 

 tiful, purely aesthetic forms every thing her hand touches, and it is 

 through her influence, more than through that of man, that decoi'ative 

 art flourishes to-day. I do not know whether her greater susceptibility 

 to the influence of decorative art-forms springs from her greater deli- 

 cacy of physical organization, or whether, what is perhaps more prob- 

 able, it is owing to the wants of an entirely different life from that 

 which man leads. 



Ornament is something so necessary to civilized life, so universally 

 necessary, that, like music and the other fine arts, it merits serious and 

 intelligent study. A song is evanescent, but a good ornament " is a 

 joy forever." To-day, in our craving, we cover every thing about us 

 with a motley mixture of classic and detestably rude forms, and half 

 even of the educated really do not know how to distinguish a good 

 ornament from a bad one. Ornamental art will never take its proper 

 rank, and be fully appreciated, until it is, in the first place, systemati- 

 cally studied, and, in the second place, intelligently and widely taught. 



eral effect of the latter border when seen at a distance. Ruskin cannot see what arrows 

 have to do with eggs, and, though he admits the border to be beautiful, he characterizes 

 it as a " nonsense " ornament. 



