132 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



may be non -ideographic. By the processes of convention all classes 

 of delineations may become in time wholly geometric. 



Ideographic elements do, however, enter art at a very early stage. 

 Devices at first geometric and non-significant come in time by vari- 

 ous methods to have ideas associated with them, still retaining 

 their original forms. Features derived from natural objects, and 

 from pictorial elements may often have a similar history. Again, 

 both mechanical devices and pictorial representations may have ideas 

 associated with them originally, but as a rule these motives are 

 ])robably later to be absorbed into pure decoration than the simple 

 non-significant devices, as they originate independently of the 

 objects decorated, and are devoted to especial uses. At the same 

 time it must not be assumed that they are really later in origin. 

 The first attempts at delineation are probably ideographic, as in the 

 case of painting and tattooing the face and body, in executing de- 

 vices of a demonstrative character, such as pictographs, and in the 

 various delineations attending the practice of "medicine" and other 

 mummeries. 



If it is true, as already pointed out, that any simple element of 

 design may as time goes on acquire significance, it is also equally 

 true that any one may lose its significance. Neither do elements of 

 decoration retain a uniform expression, they are, especially after 

 having lost their significance, subject to modification by environ- 

 ment, just as are the forms of living organisms. The various agen- 

 cies of modification are constantly reducing the natural forms to 

 conventional, geometric shapes, and new combinations are forming. 

 The stems or bases of design may be few but the variants are infinite. 



All forms of decorative elements, ideographic and non -ideo- 

 graphic, may be in common use by a people at the introduction of 

 the ceramic art. We cannot, therefore, intelligently begin the study 

 of decorative art from ceramic products alone. Even the simplest - 

 device thus employed may have an obscure and complicated pre- 

 ceramic history, excepting of course such as can with certainty be 

 traced to the non-ideographic origins referred to in a preceding 

 paragraph. It will readily be seen that we can do little towards de- 

 ciphering the many geometric devices of prehistoric peoples, and to 

 this class the decoration of the mound-builders is chiefly confined. 



There are still many motives clothed in realistic or semi-realistic 

 guises that were evidently significant, and which are rendered more 

 or less intelligible to us by the analogies of historic art. The origin 



