HOLMES.) 



ORIGIN OF CERAMIC ORNAMENT. 



453 



ORIGIN OF ORNAMENT. 



The birtb of the embellishing art must be sought iu that stage of 

 animal development when instiuct began to discover that certain attri- 

 butes 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 aesthetic idea are 

 long and obscure and cannot be taken up in (his place. 



The various elements of embellishment in which the ceramic art is 

 interested may be assigned to two great classes, based upon the char- 

 acter of the conceptions associated with them. These are ideographic 

 and non-ideographic. In the present paper I shall treat chiefly of tin* 

 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 construc- 

 tional and functional. In a late stage of development all things in na 

 ture 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, com- 

 bines, 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 : 



Origin of ornament . 



/■Suggestions of features of natural utensils or objects. 



f 



Suggestions of features of 

 artificial utensils or objects. 



Functional . 



r Handles. 



J Legs. 



] Bands. 



y Perforations, etc. 



The coil. 

 The seam. 



Constructional •{ The stitch. 



I The plait. 



I The twist, etc. 



f Marks ot fingers. 

 Suggestions ln.ni accidents 



•[ Marks ot implements, 

 attending construction. 



[ Marks of molds, etc. 



Suggestions of ideographic features or pictorial delineations. 



