8 4 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
PRIMITIVE POTTERY 
[CONTINUED.] 
[Address before the National League of Mineral Painters, at the Pan-Ameri- 
can, by W. J. Holland, Ph.D.,LL.D„ Director of the Carnegie Museum Pitts- 
burgh, Pa.] 
ADDED to the attempt to ornament by modifications of 
form and outline, and an advance upon this, is the em- 
ployment of pigment applied for decorative purposes to the 
surface of the pottery. The primitive potters of America had 
not at their command the resources which are within easy 
reach of the merest tyro in more civilized communities. 
Their pigments were obtained from the earth about them and 
were exceedingly simple. For producing a yellow color they 
used various ochres ; for producing the reds they used earth 
impregnated with sesquioxide of iron. Their blacks and dark 
purples were produced by earth containing manganese ; their 
greens by using an impure carbonate of copper. The white 
was produced by applying a slip composed of more or less 
impure kaolin. When the object was simply sun-dried, as was 
much of the pottery that has been found in the mounds of 
the Mississippi valley, the pigments were applied to the 
surface, to which they adhered by the mere process of absorp- 
tion and mechanical adhesion. From such vessels the pig- 
ment is easily rubbed, or washed off, and in many examples 
now contained in the museums only faint traces of the pig- 
ment originally applied to them remain. When the vessels 
were baked the pigment became in the process of baking 
more or less incorporated with the clay and has remained 
more durably attached to the surface. The result in some 
cases has been the formation of a coating upon the ware par- 
taking of the nature of a glaze. This has, in the best 
specimens which I have examined, evidently been produced 
by the use of very silicious clay containing more or less 
alkaline matter. While examples of this glazed or semi- 
glazed ware are in certain localities not uncommon, never- 
theless the process of glazing and enameling as commonly 
understood by us appears to have been exceptional. In 
many cases where it does appear it is probable that the in- 
fluence of Spanish artificers is reflected. The pottery taken 
from the most ancient graves gives very little evidence that 
those who made it understood the art of glazing. Enameled 
ware is wholly wanting among the products of the potter's art 
as practiced in America. 
And now I pass on to speak of the artistic effects achieved 
by the simple means at the disposal of these primitive potters. 
We err when we think that artistic taste is the product of the 
highest civilization. It is a gift innate in man and is the 
prerogative of races often lower in the social scale than those 
whose philosophy and science have made them leaders in the 
affairs of nations. " Poefa nascitur, non fit." Poetic genius 
is a gift, which no amount of mere scholastic training can 
impart. And what is true of poetry is true also of the other 
arts. While a certain amount of ability to delineate forms 
and produce pleasing effects in color may be conveyed by 
processes of tuition to the average mind, the artistic sense 
which attains to the highest reaches of achievement is a gift, 
and its possession, while characteristic of the individual, may 
to a certain extent be also characteristic of a race in other 
respects highly developed. The truth of these observations 
has been impressed upon my mind as I have studied from time 
to time the ancient pottery of the aboriginal races of America. 
Leaving out of sight the cruder work of the more barbarous 
tribes and confining our attention to what was done and is 
even to-day being done by the semi-civilized peoples of the 
southwestern plateaus and the races which inhabit Mexico, the 
Isthmus, and northwestern South America, we find evidences 
among them of the possession of a very large degree of artistic 
ability. This is revealed not merely in the gracefulness of 
outline which characterizes their pottery, but also in the de- 
coration of the ware. While many specimens of their art are 
crude, the student is delighted often by finding specimens 
which for purity and grace of form vie with the choicest ex- 
amples of ancient Etruscan art, which reflected, as you are 
aware, the genius of the Greek. The potters of the unwooded 
mesas, as well as those of the forests of Yucatan, Chiriqui 
and of Peru, were profundly alive to the value of a graceful 
curve, to symmetry of form and to the possibilities of variety 
in unity. And when we come to study the art of decoration 
as practised by them we cannot fail to be impressed ' with the 
versatility in the combination of geometrical figures which 
they have shown and the pleasing effect which they have 
achieved by devices of a comparatively simple character. 
Even where there has been a great attempt at elaboration 
they appear to have been guided intuitively by the canons of 
refined art. This is especially true in the decorations of the 
margins and exterior of vessels by lines and bands composed 
of lines, in which all manner of conceivable modifications in 
decorative effect are produced by means of triangles, rectan- 
gles, closed, open, and broken frets, spurs, crooks, and con- 
ventional forms representing feathers. The modern decorator 
of fictile ware might derive valuable hints and suggestions 
from the art of these primitive peoples, which in their sense 
of beauty of form were as much advanced beyond the crudi- 
ties of contemporary English and American Colonial pottery 
as the art of Japan was advanced beyond the art of the 
roughly utilitarian Anglo Saxon three or four generations ago. 
In this connection permit me to refer to the elaborate paper 
of Mr. J. W. Fewkes upon the results of the archeological 
expedition to Arizona in 1895, contained in the second part 
of the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ameri- 
can Ethnology which has recently appeared. If you will take 
the trouble to examine the wealth of illustrations contained 
in that article I think you will confirm the entire justice of 
the observations which I have made. What is there given 
by Mr. Fewkes, founded upon his investigations made among 
the ruins of the ancient pueblos, finds confirmation in what 
we know of the ancient pottery that has been exhumed at 
various localities in Mexico and on the Isthmus. These 
ancient potters, crude as was their art in many respects, had a 
fine sense of the beautiful in form, and their works, though 
the works of a race comparatively low down in the scale, are 
to be classed among the products of genuine art, possessing a 
spirit and an originality from which we may draw a measure 
of inspiration. 
In classifying the pottery ware of the primitive American 
races we may adopt various methods. A classification based 
upon the uses to which the articles were put is of course 
admissible, and such a classification will tend to throw light 
upon manners and customs. Another method of classifica- 
tion may be based upon the method of manufacture, and such 
a system would be useful in showing the various stages of pro- 
duction and of manipulative skill which have been reached by 
various tribes and at different periods of the development of 
the art. Still another method of classification, and one that 
is commonly followed in museums, is based upon the locality 
and the tribe whence the specimens have been derived. 
If we examine the ancient pottery that remains to us 
from the hands of the primitive peoples of America we find 
that there is a great difference in the character of the products 
