HOLMES.] RESUME. 187 



as a rule are small and shapely, and are so carefully and elaborately 

 decorated as to lead to the inference that their office was in a great 

 measure ceremonial. They take a high place among American fictile 

 products for grace of form and beauty of decoration. There is neither 

 glaze nor evidence of the use of a wheel. Besides vases we have sev- 

 eral other classes of objects, which include grotesque, toy-like statu- 

 ettes, small, covered receptacles resembling needlecases, seat-like ob- 

 jects elaborately modeled, spindle whorls, and musical instruments. 

 The occurrence of numerous specimens of the two latter classes in- 

 dicates that the arts of weaving and music were assiduously practiced. 



An examination of the esthetic features of the ceramic art has 

 proved exceptionally instructive. We find miich that is worthy of 

 attention in the forms of vases as well as in the plastic or relieved 

 features of embellishment, and a still richer field is opened by the 

 .study of the incised and painted — the flat — decorations. 



I have shown that the elements of decoration flow into the ceramic 

 art chiefly through two channels, the one from art and the other from 

 nature. Elements from art are mainly of mechanical origin, and 

 are, therefore, non-imitative and geometric. Elements from nature 

 imitate natural forms, and hence are primarily non-geometric. Ele- 

 ments from art, being mechanical, are meaningless or non-ideograpliic : 

 those from nature are in early stages of art usually associated witli 

 mythologic conceptions, and hence are ideographic. All decorations 

 may therefore have four dual classifications, as follows: First, with 

 reference to method of realization, as plastic and flat; second, with 

 reference to derivation, as nii'i-luiiiical and imitative; third, with 

 reference to plan of manifestation, as ,i;iMin nitric and non-geometric; 

 and, fourth, with reference to the association of ideas, as significant 

 and non-significant. 



I have found that the ceramic art, having acquired the various ele- 

 ments of ornament, carries them by methods of its own through 

 many sti'ange mutations of form. The effect upon life forms is of para- 

 mount importance, as is indicated by the following broad and striking 

 generalization : The agencies of modification inherent in the art in 

 its practice are such that any particular animal form extensively em- 

 ployed in decoration is capable nf clianging into or giving rise to any 

 or to allot the highly conventional ileeorative devices upon which our 

 leading ornaments, such as tlie meander, the scroll, the fret, the chev- 

 ron, and the guilloche, are based. It is further seen, however, that 

 ideographic elements are not necessarily restricted to decorative or 

 symbolic runctions, for tlie p]-(,resses ,,f siinplincation rediuv tlieni to 

 forms well snite,lt,.enii,lovnient inliier,,-ly|.liiean.levenin pli-metic 

 systems of expivssion. Such systenisare proKaMy made uji t.. a ,t;i-eat 

 extentof characters the conformation of wliirb is due to the unthink- 

 ing — the mechanical — agencies of (lie various arts. 



