34 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



motives in races can hardly be sepa- 

 rated from a studious consideration of 

 the features in nature that evoke the 

 5ense of color or suggest the catego- 

 ries of form. The lines in vegetation, 

 and its concrete products in flow^er, 

 leaf and trunk, stem, tendril and bud, 

 have indisputably been assimilated in 

 art and architecture. The column, the 



SHELL BASKET MADE BY INDIANS OF 

 LOWER CALIFORNIA. 



acanthus and lotus-leaf capitals are 

 examples. The shapes and attitudes 

 of animals, with expressions derived 

 from their qualities of strength or fe- 

 rocity, have most conspicuously fur- 

 nished heraldic design and tropical sculp- 

 ture with motives and ornament. 

 Shells, less noticeably, must have stim- 

 ulated artistic feeling, although their 

 involution in art in the way of conven- 

 tion is not conspicuous. Ruskin in his 

 ^'Stones of Venice" enumerates twelve 

 "prop-er materials" of ornament de- 

 rived from the visible universe — which 

 with Ruskin was the most valid and 

 the truest source of decorative ideas. 

 The sixth of these, in a progression up- 

 Avard, was shells, of which he wrote : 

 'T place these lowest in the scale 

 (after inorganic forms) as being 

 moulds or coats of organisms ; not them- 



selves organic. The sense of this, and 

 their being mere emptiness and desert- 

 ed houses, must always prevent them, 

 however beautiful in lines, from being 

 largely used in ornamentation. It is 

 better to take the line and leave the 

 shell. One form, indeed that of the 

 cockle, has been in all ages used as 

 the decoration of hajlf-domes, which 

 were named 'conchas' from their shell 

 form : and I believe the wrinkled lip of 

 the cockle, so used, to have been the 

 origin, in some parts of Europe at least, 

 of the exuberant foliation of the round 

 arch. The scallop also is a pretty rad- 

 iant form, and mingles well with other 

 symbols when it is needed." 



Ruskin is always naively interesting, 

 often stimulating, not invariably ra- 

 tional. The palette of nature has been 

 more lavishly requisitioned in other 

 areas of animal life, but it would be a 

 crabbed and carping judgment to deny 

 the charm of color in shells, its abun- 

 dant variation or the delicacy of its em- 

 ployment ; while the shells themselves 

 are as organic as is a skeleton, or the 

 ribbed and netted framework of a leaf. 

 Very recently Mr. Y. Hirase of the 

 Kyoto Conchological Museum, pub- 

 lished a very suggestive analysis, for 

 decorative uses, of shell outlines which, 

 half conventionalized and more or less 

 intricately interwoven, form patterns 

 possibly of wide adaptability to domes- 

 tic and public ornament, in wall papers, 

 curtains, embroidery and textiles. 



Perhaps the most original, and in a 

 sense presumptuous use of shells for 

 ornament is the recent successful at- 

 tempt to coat them with a dull silver 

 film which, being electrolytically ap- 

 plied, reproduces with fidelity every 

 feature and detail of the shell's surface. 

 Examples of such shells are on exhibi- 

 tion in the Museum. These silverized 

 shells support variously designed im- 

 jilements, or themselves form finished 

 vessels, handles and ornaments. The 

 effects are ingeniously diversified by 

 combining with the shells other ob- 

 jects, such as sea urchins, and by com- 

 bining contrasted types of shells into 

 an artistic composition. — The Ameri- 

 can Museum Journal." 



The Planets. 



With star-strewn heavens as their foils, 

 The planets are our nightly spoils. 



—Emma Peirce. 



