444 FORM AND ORNAMENT IN CERAMIC ART. 



The material presented in the following notes is derived chiefly from 

 the native ceramic artof the United States, but the principles involved 

 are applicable to all times and to all art, as they are based upon the 

 laws of nature. 



Ceramic art presents two classes of phenomena of importance in the 

 study of the evolution of aesthetic culture. These relate, first, to form 

 and second, to ornament. 



Form, as embodied in clay vessels, embraces, 1st, useful shapes, which 

 may or may not be ornamental, and, 2d, (esthetic shapes, which are orna- 

 mental and may be useful. There are also grotesque and fanciful shapes, 

 which may or may not be either useful or ornamental. 



No form or class of forms can be said to characterize a particular age or 

 stage of culture. In a general way, of course, the vessels of primitive 

 peoples will be simple in form, while those of more advanced races will 

 be more varied and highly specialized. 



The shapes first assumed by vessels in clay depend upon the shape 

 of the vessels employed at the time of the introduction of the art, and 

 these depend, to a great extent, upon the kind and grade of culture of 

 the people acquiring the art and upon the resources of the country in 

 which they live. To illustrate: If, for instance, some of the highly ad- 

 vanced Alaskan tribes which do not make pottery should migrate to 

 another habitat, less suitable to the practice of their old arts and well 

 adapted to art in clay, and should there acquire the art of pottery, they 

 would doubtless, to a great extent, copy their highly developed utensils 

 of wood, bone, ivory, and basketry, and thus reach a high grade of 

 ceramic achievement in the first century of the practice of the art; 

 but, on the other hand, if certain tribes, very low in intelligence and 

 having no vessel-making arts, should undergo a corresponding change 

 of habitat and acquire the art of pottery, they might not reach in a 

 thousand years, if left to themselves, a grade in the art equal to that 

 of the hypothetical Alaskan potters in the first decade. It is, there- 

 fore, not the age of the art itself that determines its forms, but the grade 

 and kind of art with which it originates and coexists. 



Ornament is subject to similar laws. Where pottery is employed by 

 peoples in very low stages of culture, its ornamentation will be of the 

 simple archaic kind. Being a conservative art and much hampered 

 by the restraints of convention, the elementary forms of ornament 

 are carried a long way into the succeeding periods and have a very 

 decided effect upon the higher stages. Pottery brought into use for 

 the first time by more advanced races will never pass through the 

 elementary stage of decoration, but will take its ornament greatly from 

 existing art and carry this up in its own peculiar way through succeed- 

 ing generations. The character of the ornamentation does not there- 

 fore depend upon the age of the art so much as upon the acquirements 

 of the potter and his people in other arts. 



