LIFE-FORM IN ART. 



281 



When an attempt to produce symmetrical designs upon the same supposed 

 inventive basis is recognized, it is doubtful whether at some earHer stage of its 

 development a class of natural objects had not been the original source of inspiration. 

 In the later examples only of the ornamentation of the so-called Iron Age and the 

 Saracenic styles, namely at the time of approaching decadence, do we find engrafted 

 upon them imitations of the life form. In the former, it is of an animal type, and in 

 the latter, it is a vine-like tracery.* 



But even here it is not by any means certain that imitation did not form the 

 basis of design. Worsaae claims that the embellishment of the ornaments of the Iron 

 Age was derived from the Roman taste,t while for the Saracenic, it would be very 

 difiicnlt to prove that at the time of the I'apid development of this style, much was 

 not unwittingly copied from the ancient monumental ornamentation constantly before 

 the Moslem people. 



The ease with which designs, either apparently or really the outgrowth of man's 

 ingenuity, rather than direct copies from nature, run into set figures, endlessly re- 

 peating themselves, is very noticeable. The time at which a given people will adopt 

 a pattern holds a direct relation to the tendency of their art. If the art inclines to 

 invention, the patterns will appear early; if it inclines to imitation, they will appear 

 late. We have seen that primitive man copies the animal forms about him ; now of 

 these the serpent is the only one which is facile to the purposes of the pattern-maker, 

 if we exclude that exceptional accessory, the feather. As a result, the animal form 

 is excluded from the arabesque, which is noted for its involved and apparently arti- 

 ficial ornamentation ; and towards its decline when its typical expression has been 

 modified, the vegetable form is introduced instead of the animal. It is, indeed, almost 

 a necessity that the animal, or at least the footed form of it should be so excluded, 

 both from the style of the Iron Age and Islam. It is interesting to compare these 

 examples of traceries with the elaborate entwinings of Celtic ornament. The labors 

 of the Celtic artist to construct monograms and mouldings from the animal form, 

 ended in a tangle of eccentric lines ; and in order to make the four-footed shape in 

 any degree obedient, it has been stript of all characteristic proportion and made as 

 snake-like as possible.J 



* The Arabian Antiquities of Spain. J. C. Murphy, 1813. 



f "The characteristic ornamentation of the iron period are symmetrical windings and arabesques. As they not 

 infrequently terminate in a rude representation of tlie liead of some fantastic animal, these symmetrical winding 

 ornaments have been regarded as tlie figures of snakes, wlience tlicy liave been called snake ornaments. * * * 

 These occupy the place of what were originally leaves." .1. A. Worsa*. The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, 

 Loud., 1849, 73. 



X For a good example sec Grammar of Ornament. Owen Junes, London, 1856, pi. Ixiii. 



