150 



ORNAMENT 



[b. a. e. 



of decorative treatment, and their appre- 

 ciation of the esthetic values of form and 

 line comparen favorably with that of the 

 eastern Asiatics. 



The native ornament may first be con- 

 sidered with respect to the several meth- 

 ods of execution or utilization of the ele- 

 ments: 



(1) The sculptor's art (see Snilpture and 

 Carving) was employed in shaping and 



ENGRAVED DESIGNS— Potter 



Mississippi; c. Flop 



decorating objects of stone, wood, bone, 

 liorn, and shell, and in some sections 

 this branch is still practised with excep- 

 tional skill. Among the N.W. coast tribes 

 totem poles, house posts, mortuary col- 

 umns, masks, batons, pipes, and various 

 implements and utensils represent the 

 forms of beasts, meii, and monsters, in 



relief and in the round. Although these 

 motives usually have primarily a sym- 

 bolic or other special significance and 

 rarely take wholly conventional forms, 

 they are employed with remarkable skill 

 and appreciation of their decorative 

 values. The carvings in stone, bone, and 

 ivory of the Eskimo are particularly 

 noteworthy, and taste is exercised in the 

 shaping of ^olijects of every class. The 

 motives employed are apparently not so 

 generally symbolic as among the Indian 

 tribes, and life-forms are executed with 

 the simply artistic idea more definitely 

 in view. The excellence of this far-north- 

 ern work is no doubt due in part to the 

 introduction of implements of steel and 

 to the influence of the art of the whites. 

 Among the tribes of middle North Amer- 

 ica sculptural embellishment of minor 

 works was conmion, and the mound- 

 building tribes, for example, showed 

 decided cleverness, especially in the deco- 

 ration of their tobacco pipes, carving the 

 forms of birds and blasts and even men 

 with excellent taste. Sculpture and 

 sculptural embellishment deal largely 

 with symbolic and ceremonial subjects, 

 and are almost exclusively the work of 

 the men. 



(2) Plastic ornament, the work of the 

 modeler (see Pottery), is confined to pot- 

 tery-making tribes, such as the mound- 

 builders and the Pueblos. In pottery, as 

 in sculpture, various beasts, as well as men 

 and fanciful beings, were rendered in the 

 round and in all degrees of relief in con- 

 nection with utensils, implements, and 

 other objects, and their utilization is prob- 

 ably due largely to the association of reli- 

 gious notions with the creatures repre- 

 sented. All were introduced under the 

 supervision of taste, and are thus properly 

 classed as embellishments. Formal geo- 

 metric decorations were rarely executed 

 by plastic methods, save the simple in- 

 cised varieties, better classed with en- 

 graving, and the impressed or stamped 

 varieties, which bear somewhat the same 

 relation to the plastic art proper that en- 

 graving bears to sculpture. The potter's 

 art, relating primarily to household af- 

 fairs, is practised almost exclusively by 

 the women. Ornamental designs worked 

 out in the native metals, excepting where 

 the methods of the whites have been in- 

 troduce<l, are essentially plastic in' charac- 

 ter and execution. North of Mexico the 

 work of the early days was confined very 

 largely to repousse figures executed in 

 sheet metal. The working of metal, so 

 far as known, is a man's art (see Metal- 

 ivork). 



(3) Engraved ornament (see Engrav- 

 ing) is executed with pointed tools on 

 surfaces of various kinds, and has charac- 

 teristics in common with l)oth sculpture 



