IIOLJIES.J TKANSFKK OF TKXTILK (11 AK.VCTKKS TO OTHKR ARTS. -^45 



lifi-it iiiauy cliaractrrsiit' form and ornament conceived in the textile 

 sta,i;e. It may lie (lilliiult to say with reference to any particular 

 example of design that it had a textile origin, for there may be mul- 

 tiple origins to the same or to closely corresponding fornis; biit we 

 may assert in a general way of the great body of geometi'ic ornament 

 that it owes something — if not its inspiration, its modes of expres- 

 sion — to the teachings of the textile system. This appears rea- 

 sonable when we consider that the weaver's art, as a medium of 

 esthetic ideas, had precedence in time over nearly all competitors. 

 Being first in the field it stood ready on the birth of new forms of 

 art, whether directly related or not, to impose its characters upon 

 them. What claim can architecture, sculjiture, or ceramics have 

 upon the decorative conceptions of the Digger Indians, or even 

 upon those of the Zufii or Moki? The former have no architect- 

 ure, sculpture, or ceramics; but their system of decoration, as we 

 have seen, is highly developed. The Pueblo tribes at their best have 

 barely reached the stage at which esthetic ideas are associated with 

 building; yet classic art has not prodxiced a set of geometric motives 

 more chaste or varied. These examples of the development of high 

 fornis of decoration during the very early stages of the arts are not 

 isolated. Others are observed in other countries, and it is larobable 

 that if we could lift the veil and peer into the far prehistoric stages 

 of the woi'ld's greatest cultures the same condition and order would 

 he revealed. It is no doubt true that all of the shaping arts in the 

 fullness of their development have given rise to decorative features 

 peculiar to themselves; for construction, whether in stone, clay, 

 wood, or metal, in their rigid conditions, exhibits characters unknown 

 before, many of which tend to give rise to ornament. But this orna- 

 ment is generally only apiilicablc to the art in which it develoiJs. 

 and is not transfrrahl.' Iiy iiatinal ]iro<fsscs — as of a parent toils 

 offspring — as an- thr I'stJictii- rcatui-cs of tlic weaver's art. 



Besides the direct transmission of characters and forms as suggested 

 in a preceding paragraph, there are many less direct but still effica- 

 cious methods of transfer by means of which various arts acquire 

 textile decoi-ative features, as will be seen by the following illustra- 

 tions. 



Japanese art is celebrated for its exquisite decorative design. Upon 

 superb works of porcelain we have skillful representations of sui)- 

 jects taken from nature and from mythology, which are set with per- 

 fect taste upon fields or within l)orders of elaboratr gii mul rir design. 

 If we should ask how such motives came to be eiiiploved in ceramic 

 decoration, the answer would be given that they were selected and 

 employed because they were regarded as fitting and beautiful by a 

 race of decorators whose taste is well nigh infallible. But this explan- 

 ation, however satisfactory as applied to individual examples of 

 modern art is not at all applicable to primitive art, for the mind of 



