noLME-s] KKLATIUN OF (iEOMETRIC TO GRAPHIC CHARACTERS. 223 



in various ways, always following the guide lines of construction 

 through simple and complex convolutions. Whatever is done is at 

 the suggestion of technique; whatever is done takes a form and ar- 

 rangement imposed by technique. Kesults are like in like techniques 

 and are unlike in unlike techniques; they therefore vary with the art 

 and with its variations in time and character. 



All those agencies pertaining to man that might be supposed im- 

 portant in this connection — the muscles of the hand and of the eye, the 

 cell structure of the brain, together with all preconceived ideas of the 

 beautiful — are all but impotent in the presence of technique, and, so 

 far as forms of expression go, submit completely to its dictates. Ideas 

 of the beautiful in linear geometric forms are actually formed by tech- 

 nique, and taste in selecting as the most beautiful certain ornaments 

 produced in art is but choosing between products that in their evolu- 

 tion gave it its character and powers, precisely as the animal selects its 

 favorite foods from among the products that throughout its history 

 constitute its sustenance and shape its appetites. 



Now, as primitive jjeoples advance from savagery to barbarism 

 there comes a time in the history of all kinds of textile products at 

 which the natural technical progress of decorative elaboi-ation is in- 

 terfered with by forces from without the art. This occurs when 

 ideas, symbolic or otherwise, come to be associated with the purely 

 geometric figures, tending to arrest or modify their development, or, 

 again, it occurs when the artist seeks to substitute mythologic sulijects 

 for the geometric units. This period cannot be always well defined, 

 as the first steps in this direction are so thoroughly subordinated 

 to the textile forces. Between what may be regarded as purely 

 technical, geometric ornament and ornament recognizably deline- 

 ative, we find in each group of advanced textile products a series 

 of forms of mixed or uncertain pedigree. These must receive slight 

 attention here. 



Fig. 335 represents a large and liandsome basket obtained from the 



X 



FiQ. 325. Coiled basket ornamented with devices probalily very higlily eonveiitionalized mj-tholc.gical 

 subjects. Obtained from the Apache — J. 



