MODIFICATION OF TEXTILE DESIGNS. 



463 



carelessness in the drawing two of tbe rays are crowded out and ter- 

 minate against tbe side of a neighboring ray. In copying and recopy- 

 ing by freehand methods, many curious modifications take place in 

 these designs, as, for example, the unconformity which occurs in one 

 place in the example given may occur at a number of places, and there 

 will be a series of independent sections, a small number only of the 

 bands of devices remaining true rays. 



A characteristic painted design from the interior of an ancient bowl 

 is shown in Fig. 487, in which merely a suggestion of the radiation is 

 preserved, although the figure is still decorative and tasteful. This 

 process of modification goes on without end, and as the true geometric 



1'IG. 487. — Design painted upon pottery. 



textile forms recede from view innovation robs the design of all traces 

 of its original character, producing much that is incongruous and unsat- 

 isfactory. 



The growth of decorative devices from the elementary to the highly 

 constituted and elegant is owing to a tendency of the human mind to 

 elaborate because it is pleasant to do so or because pleasure is taken in 

 the result, but there is still a directing and shaping agency to be ac- 

 counted for. 



I have already shown that such figures as the scroll and the guilloche 

 are not necessarily developed by processes of selection and combination 

 of simple elements, as many have thought, since they may have come 

 into art at a very early stage almost full-fledged; but there is nothing 

 in these facts to throw light upon the processes by which ornament fol- 

 lowed particular lines of development throughout endless elaboration^ 

 In treating of this point, Prof. C. F. Ilartt 2 maintained that the devel- 

 opment of ornamental designs took particular and uniform directions 

 owing to the structure of the eye, certain forms being chosen and per- 

 petuated because of the pleasure afforded by movements of the eye in 

 following them. In connection with this hypothesis, for it is nothing 

 more, Mr. Hartt advanced the additional idea, that in unison with 



' Hartt : Popular Science Monthly, Vol. VI, p. 266. 



