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THE ORIGIN OF DECORATIVE ART. 
July, 1890. 
The most complicated designs are frequently nothing 
more than a combination of simple ones, repeated over and 
over again in geometrical arrangements, The Fijian 
furnished with a simple wooden stamp, cut, say, in the form 
of a lozenge-shape or triangle, can print upon his bark cloth 
a number of diamonds or triangles, arranged in any order 
which can be varied at pleasure, and give rise to apparently 
complex geometrical patterns. Thus a combination of 
simple elements can produce elaborate results, even in the 
hands of the most uncultivated. 
Would-be realistic pictures very frequently become fanciful 
or unrealistic because of the material used. This is especially 
noticeable in basket work, in which attempts at representing 
figures of animals, etc., fail to be at all realistic because of 
the impossibility of forming satisfactory curves. Woven 
designs often exhibit the same unavoidably strained designs. 
Let me, in conclusion, briefly recall the main points of my 
paper. 
The archaeological evidence of the gradual growth of 
decorative art is very incomplete, and we, therefore, turn to 
modern savage life and study the condition of art among the 
lower races, in order that we may supply what is lacking in 
the archaeological record. We have every reason to believe 
that the art of decoration was evolved in the first instance 
from a simple appreciation of striking natural peculiarities, 
accidentally brought under man’s notice. This appreciation 
of natural peculiarities led to the desire to increase their 
effect by artificial means, and later to copy them where they 
did not exist. Copying gives rise to variations from an 
original design, and this in two ways: by unconscious varia¬ 
tion, the result of want of skill in copying ; and by conscious 
variation, when it is the intention to vary the design. By 
means of successive copyings, a design may completely 
change its character, so that at a late stage it may have 
utterly lost all resemblance to the original idea. 
General Pitt-Kivers was practically the first to point out 
the importance of the study of the evolution of ornament, by 
means of series arranged to show the sequence of ideas, and 
the gradual development of patterns by successive slight 
changes. This was an item in his vast scheme of the similar 
treatment of all the arts of mankind. The changes which 
we can see taking place in the art of the nineteenth century, 
and the processes by which the field tends always to increase, 
are but the reflection of what has gone before during countless 
ages. Art is not a thing of spontaneous origin, but of slow 
and gradual growth, ever changing, and tending to advance 
from the simple to the complex. 
