LIFE-FORM IN ART. 



285 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



Bustard of Incarian design. 



Didelphian Mammal of Incarian design. 



delineations of plumage. Fishes are so well delineated on Chaldean remains, that two 

 closely allied forms, the carp and the barbel, can be distinguished.* In Egyptian 

 art, noted for its realistic tendencies, we have animals so truthfully portrayed that 

 naturalists have been enabled to identify many of them.f We also find well- 

 defined realisms in the early stage of Assyrian art.l It is not our purpose to 

 enumerate the examples of realistic art to be met with in the more familiar monu- 

 ments of Greece and Rome ; but may mention in passing the really fine representa- 

 tations of crustacea,§ (such as crabs and lobsters) and mollusca,|| in the Pompeian 

 style. 



The figures of animals and plants upon coins are often rendered with great 

 fidelity. We may direct special attention to the tunny upon Spanish-Roman coins.^ 



Palissy, in his Rustic Figulines, gives realistic examples of frogs, fishes, serpents, 

 etc., while his representations of fossil shells from the Paris beds are so faithful, that 

 in many instances the species can be given.** In marked contrast to the average 

 Polynesian designs may be mentioned the admirable figures of terns, cetaceans, and 

 sharks, carved on a beam of a hut at Uji, one of the Solomon Group of Islands.ft 



Sectioist Y. The Conventional, (a.) General Remarks. By far the greater 

 number of designs adopted by man are not of the realistic type. It is a tendency of 

 the mind to cling to a model when it has been once removed from nature. The entire 

 fabric of society is made up usages, the origin of which is either forgotten or 

 ignored. '^Uhi homines sunt modi sunt. It is the deepest law of man's nature; 

 whereby man is a craftsman and a 'tool-using' animal ; not the slave of impulse."J;|[ 

 Since art is in no wise exempt from the operation of such influences, we find 



* Rawlinson, Five Ancient Monarchies, I, 107. | Selections from Egyptian Ant. in British Mns., Birch. 



X Botta. Mon. de Ninive, pi. 95, A, fig. 17. 

 , § Museo Borbonico, Vol. IV, 29 ; Vol. VI, 38 ; Vol. XV. 

 II Agancourt, History of Painting, Tab. 4, fig. 4. 

 ^ ArchiTBologia. 



**Morley's Life of Palissy, Boston, 18)3, I, 203. (ilso, Keramic Gallery, Wm. Chaffers, I, pi. 60.) 

 \\ Jottings during a Cruise of the Uiiracoa, Lieut. J. S. Brenchley, London, 1S73, Frontispiece. 

 Carlyle, French Rev., 11,178. 



A. r. s. — VOL. XV. 3s 



