The Textile Art In Its Relation To The Development Of Form And Ornament Part 3

All those agencies pertaining to man that might be supposed important in this connection--the muscles of the hand and of the eye, the cell structure of the brain, together with all preconceived ideas of the beautiful--are all but impotent in the presence of technique, and, so far as forms of expression go, submit completely to its dictates.

Ideas of the beautiful in linear geometric forms are actually formed by technique, and taste in selecting as the most beautiful certain ornaments produced in art is but choosing between products that in their evolution gave it its character and powers, precisely as the animal selects its favorite foods from among the products that throughout its history const.i.tute its sustenance and shape its appet.i.tes.

Now, as primitive peoples advance from savagery to barbarism there comes a time in the history of all kinds of textile products at which the natural technical progress of decorative elaboration is interfered with by forces from without the art. This occurs when ideas, symbolic or otherwise, come to be a.s.sociated with the purely geometric figures, tending to arrest or modify their development, or, again, it occurs when the artist seeks to subst.i.tute mythologic subjects for the geometric units. This period cannot be always well defined, as the first steps in this direction are so thoroughly subordinated to the textile forces. Between what may be regarded as purely technical, geometric ornament and ornament recognizably delineative, we find in each group of advanced textile products a series of forms of mixed or uncertain pedigree. These must receive slight attention here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 325. Coiled basket ornamented with devices probably very highly conventionalized mythological subjects. Obtained from the Apache--1/8.]

Fig. 325 represents a large and handsome basket obtained from the Apache. It will be seen that the outline of the figures comprising the princ.i.p.al zone of ornament departs somewhat from the four ruling directions of the textile combination. This was accomplished by increasing the width of the steps in the outline as the dark rays progressed, resulting in curved outlines of eccentric character. This eccentricity, coupled with the very unusual character of the details at the outer extremities of the figures, leads to the surmise that each part of the design is a conventional representation of some life form, a bird, an insect, or perhaps a man.

By the free introduction of such elements textile ornament loses its pristine geometric purity and becomes in a measure degraded. In the more advanced stages of Pueblo art the ornament of nearly all the textiles is pervaded by ideographic characters, generally rude suggestions of life forms, borrowed, perhaps, from mythologic art.

This is true of much of the coiled basketry of the Moki Indians. True, many examples occur in which the ancient or indigenous geometric style is preserved, but the majority appear to be more or less modified. In many cases nothing can be learned from a study of the designs themselves, as the particular style of construction is not adapted to realistic expression, and, at best, resemblances to natural forms are very remote. Two examples are given in Figs. 326 and 327. I shall expect, however, when the art of these peoples is better known, to learn to what particular mythic concept these mixed or impure geometric devices refer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 326. Coiled tray with geometric devices probably modified by ideographic a.s.sociation. Moki work--1/4.]

The same is true of other varieties of Pueblo basketry, notably the common decorated wickerware, two specimens of which are given in Figs. 328 and 329. This ware is of the interlaced style, with radially arranged web filaments. Its geometric characters are easily distinguished from those of the coiled ware. Many examples exhibit purely conventional elaboration, the figures being arranged in rays, zones, checkers, and the like. It is to be expected, however, that the normal ornament of this cla.s.s of products should be greatly interfered with through attempts to introduce extraneous elements, for the peoples have advanced to a stage of culture at which it is usual to attempt the introduction of mythologic representations into all art.

Further consideration of this subject will be necessary in the next section of this paper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 327. Coiled tray with geometric devices, probably modified by ideographic a.s.sociation. Moki work--1/4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 328. Tray of interlaced style of weaving, showing geometric ornament, probably modified by ideographic a.s.sociation. Moki work--1/4.]

The processes of pure geometric elaboration with which this section is mainly concerned can be studied to best advantage in more primitive forms of art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 329. Tray of interlaced style of weaving, showing geometric ornament, probably modified by ideographic a.s.sociation. Moki work--1/4.]

_Non-essential constructive features._--Now, all the varied effects of color and design described in the preceding paragraphs are obtained without seriously modifying the simple necessary construction, without resorting to the multiple extraordinary devices within easy reach. The development and utilization of the latter cla.s.s of resources must now receive attention. In the preceding examples, when it was desired to begin a figure in color the normal ground filament was dropped out and a colored one set into its place and made to fill its office while it remained; but we find that in many cla.s.ses of work the colored elements were added to the essential parts, not subst.i.tuted for them, although they are usually of use in perfecting the fabric by adding to serviceability as well as to beauty. This is ill.u.s.trated, for example, by the doubling of one series or of both warp and woof, by the introduction of pile, by wrapping filaments with strands of other colors, or by twisting in feathers. Savage nations in all parts of the world are acquainted with devices of this cla.s.s and employ them with great freedom. The effects produced often correspond closely to needlework, and the materials employed are often identical in both varieties of execution.

The following examples will serve to ill.u.s.trate my meaning. The effect seen in Fig. 330 is observed in a small hand wallet obtained in Mexico. The fillets employed appear to be wide, flattened straws of varied colors. In order to avoid the monotony of a plain checker certain of the light fillets are wrapped with thin fillets of dark tint in such a way that when woven the dark color appears in small squares placed diagonally with the fundamental checkers. Additional effects are produced by covering certain portions of the filaments with straws of distinct color, all being woven in with the fabric. By other devices certain parts of the fillets are made to stand out from the surface in sharp points and in ridges, forming geometric figures, either normal or added elements being employed. Another device is shown in Fig. 331. Here a pattern is secured by carrying dark fillets back and forth over the light colored fabric, catching them down at regular intervals during the process of weaving. Again, feathers and other embellishing media are woven in with the woof. Two interesting baskets procured from the Indians of the northwest coast are shown in Figs. 332 and 333. Feathers of brilliant hues are fixed to and woven in with certain of the woof strands, which are treated, in the execution of patterns, just as are ordinary colored threads, care being taken not to destroy the beauty of the feathers in the process.

The richly colored feathers lying smoothly in one direction are made to represent various figures necessarily geometric. This simple work is much surpa.s.sed, however, by the marvelous feather ornamentation of the Mexicans and Peruvians, of which glowing accounts are given by historians and of which a few meager traces are found in tombs. Much of the feather work of all nations is of the nature of embroidery and will receive attention further on. A very clever device practiced by the northwest coast tribes consists in the use of two woof strands of contrasting colors, one or the other being made to appear on the surface, as the pattern demands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 330. Ornament produced by wrapping certain light fillets with darker ones before weaving. Mexican work.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 331. Ornamental effect secured by weaving in series of dark fillets, forming a superficial device. Work of the Klamath Indians.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 332. Baskets ornamented with feather work.

Northwest coast tribes--1/4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 333. Baskets ornamented with feather work.

Northwest coast tribes--1/4.]

An example from a higher grade of art will be of value in this connection. The ancient Peruvians resorted to many clever devices for purposes of enrichment. An ill.u.s.tration of the use of extra-constructional means to secure desired ends are given in Figs.

334 and 335. Threads const.i.tuting a supplemental warp and woof are carried across the under side of a common piece of fabric, that they may be brought up and woven in here and there to produce figures of contrasting color upon the right side. Fig. 334 shows the right side of the cloth, with the secondary series appearing in the border and central figure only. Fig. 335 ill.u.s.trates the opposite side and shows the loose hanging, unused portions of the auxiliary series. In such work, when the figures are numerous and occupy a large part of the surface, the fabric is really a double one, having a dual warp and woof. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but it will readily be seen from what has been presented that the results of these extraordinary means cannot differ greatly from those legitimately produced by the fundamental filaments alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration FIG. 334. Piece of cotton cloth showing the use of a supplementary web and woof. Ancient Peru.]

[Ill.u.s.tration FIG. 335. Piece of cotton cloth showing the use of a supplementary web and woof. Ancient Peru.]

_Superconstructive features._--In reviewing the superconstructive decorative features in the preceding section I cla.s.sified them somewhat closely by method of execution or application to the fabric, as st.i.tched, inserted, drawn, cut, applied, and appended. It will be seen that, although these devices are to a great extent of the nature of needlework, all cannot be cla.s.sed under this head.

Before needles came into use the decorative features were inserted and attached in a variety of ways. In open work nothing was needed but the end of the fillet or part inserted; again, in close work, perforations were made as in leather work, and the threads were inserted as are the waxed ends of the shoemaker.

The importance of this cla.s.s of decorative devices to primitive peoples will be apparent if we but call to mind the work of our own Indian tribes. What a vast deal of attention is paid to those cla.s.ses of embroideries in which beads, feathers, quills, sh.e.l.ls, seeds, teeth, &c., are employed, and to the mult.i.tude of novel applications of ta.s.sels, fringes, and tinkling pendants. The taste for these things is universal and their relation to the development of esthetic ideas is doubtless very intimate.

Needlework arose in the earliest stages of art and at first was employed in joining parts, such as leaves, skins, and tissues, for various useful purposes, and afterwards in attaching ornaments. In time the attaching media, as exposed in st.i.tches, loops, knots, and the like, being of bright colors, were themselves utilized as embellishment, and margins and apertures were beautified by various bindings and borders, and finally patterns were worked in contrasting colors upon the surfaces of the cloths and other materials of like nature or use.

No other art so constantly and decidedly suggested embellishment and called for the exercise of taste. It was the natural habitat for decoration. It was the field in which technique and taste were most frequently called upon to work hand in hand.

With the growth of culture the art was expanded and perfected, its wonderful capacity for expression leading from mere bindings to pretentious borders, to patterns, to the introduction of ideographs, to the representation of symbols and mythologic subjects, and from these to the delineation of nature, the presentation of historical and purely pictorial scenes.

And now a few words in regard to the character of the work and its bearing upon the geometric system of decoration. As purely constructive ornamentation has already been presented, I will first take up that cla.s.s of superconstructive work most nearly related to it. In some varieties of basketry certain bindings of the warp and woof are actually left imperfect, with the idea of completing the construction by subsequent processes, the intersections being gone over st.i.tch by st.i.tch and lashed together, the embroidery threads pa.s.sing in regular order through the openings of the mesh. This process is extremely convenient to the decorator, as changes from one color to another are made without interfering with construction, and the result is of a closely similar character to that reached by working the colors in with warp and woof. In a very close fabric this method cannot be employed, but like results are reached by pa.s.sing the added filaments beneath the protruding parts of the bindings and, st.i.tch by st.i.tch, covering up the plain fabric, working bright patterns. Fig. 336 is intended to show how this is done. The foundation is of twined work and the decorating fillets are pa.s.sed under by lifting, with or without a needle. This process is extensively practiced by our west coast tribes, and the results are extremely pleasing. The materials most used are quills and bright colored straws, the foundation fabric being of bark or of rushes. The results in such work are generally geometric, in a way corresponding more or less closely with the ground work combination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 336. Gra.s.s embroidery upon the surface of closely impacted, twined basketry. Work of the northwest coast Indians.]

A large cla.s.s of embroideries are applied by like processes, but without reference to the construction of the foundation fabric, as they are also applied to felt and leather. Again, artificially prepared perforations are used, through which the fillets are pa.s.sed.

The results are much less uniformly geometric than where the fabric is followed; yet the mere adding of the figures, st.i.tch by st.i.tch or part by part, is sufficient to impart a large share of geometricity, as may be seen in the buckskin bead work and in the dentalium and quill work of the Indians.

Feather embroidery was carried to a high degree of perfection by our ancient aborigines, and the results were perhaps the most brilliant of all these wonderful decorations. I have already shown how feathers are woven in with the warp and woof, and may now give a single ill.u.s.tration of the application of feather work to the surfaces of fabrics. Among the beautiful articles recovered from the tombs of Ancon, Peru, are some much decayed specimens of feather work. In our example delicate feathers of red, blue, and yellow hues are applied to the surface of a coa.r.s.e cotton fabric by first carefully tying them together in rows at regular distances and afterwards st.i.tching them down, as shown in Fig. 337.

The same method is practiced by modern peoples in many parts of the world. Other decorative materials are applied in similar ways by attachment to cords or fillets which are afterwards st.i.tched down. In all this work the geometricity is entirely or nearly uniform with that of the foundation fabrics. Other cla.s.ses of decoration, drawn work, applique, and the like, are not of great importance in aboriginal art and need no additional attention here, as they have but slight bearing upon the development of design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 337. Feather embroidery of the ancient Peruvians, showing the method of attaching the feathers.]

Attached or appended ornaments const.i.tute a most important part of decorative resource. They are less subject to the laws of geometricity, being fixed to surfaces and margins without close reference to the web and woof. They include fringes, ta.s.sels, and the mult.i.tude of appendable objects, natural and artificial, with which primitive races bedeck their garments and utensils. A somewhat detailed study of this cla.s.s of ornament is given at the end of the preceding section.

_Advent.i.tious features._--Ornament is applied to the surfaces of fabrics by painting and by stamping. These methods of decoration were employed in very early times and probably originated in other branches of art. If the surface features of the textile upon which a design is painted are strongly p.r.o.nounced, the figures produced with the brush or pencil will tend to follow them, giving a decidedly geometric result. If the surface is smooth the hand is free to follow its natural tendencies, and the results will be a.n.a.logous in character to designs painted upon pottery, rocks, or skins. In primitive times both the texture of the textiles and the habits of the decorator, acquired in textile work, tended towards the geometric style of delineation, and we find that in work in which the fabric lines are not followed at all the designs are still geometric, and geometric in the same way as are similar designs woven in with the fabric. Ill.u.s.trations of this are given in the next section.

I have dwelt at sufficient length upon the character and the tendencies of the peculiar system of embellishment that arises within textile art as the necessary outgrowth of technique, and now proceed to explain the relations of this system to a.s.sociated art.

In the strong forward tendency of the textile system of decoration it has made two conquests of especial importance. In the first place it has subdued and a.s.similated all those elements of ornament that have happened to enter its realm from without, and in the second place it has imposed its habits and customs upon the decorative systems of all arts with which the textile art has come in contact.

GEOMETRICITY IMPOSED UPON ADOPTED ELEMENTS OF DESIGN.

At a very early stage of culture most peoples manifest decided artistic tendencies, which are revealed in attempts to depict various devices, life forms, and fancies upon the skin and upon the surfaces of utensils, garments, and other articles and objects. The figures are very often decorative in effect and may be of a trivial nature, but very generally such art is serious and pertains to events or superst.i.tions. The devices employed may be purely conventional or geometric, containing no graphic element whatever; but life forms afford the most natural and satisfactory means of recording, conveying, and symbolizing ideas, and hence preponderate largely. Such forms, on account of their intimate relations with the philosophy of the people, are freely embodied in every art suitable to their employment. As already seen, the peculiar character of textile construction places great difficulties in the way of introducing unsymmetric and complex figures like those of natural objects into fabrics. The idea of so employing them may originally have been suggested by the application of designs in color to the woven surfaces or by resemblances between the simpler conventional life form derivatives and the geometric figures indigenous to the art.

At any rate, the idea of introducing life forms into the texture was suggested, and in the course of time a great deal of skill was shown in their delineation, the bolder workmen venturing to employ a wide range of graphic subjects.

Now, if we examine these woven forms with reference to the modifications brought about by the textile surveillance, we find that the figures, as introduced in the cloth, do not at all correspond with those executed by ordinary graphic methods, either in degree of elaboration or in truthfulness of expression. They have a style of their own. Each delineative element upon entering the textile realm is forced into those peculiar conventional outlines imposed by the geometric construction, the character of which has already been dwelt upon at considerable length. We find, however, that the degree of convention is not uniform throughout all fabrics, but that it varies with the refinement of the threads or filaments, the compactness of the mesh, the character of the combination, the graphic skill of the artist, and the tendencies of his mind; yet we observe that through all there is still exhibited a distinct and peculiar geometricity.

So p.r.o.nounced is this technical bias that delineations of a particular creature--as, for example, a bird--executed by distant and unrelated peoples, are reduced in corresponding styles of fabric to almost identical shapes. This conventionalizing force is further ill.u.s.trated by the tendency in textile representation to blot out differences of time and culture, so that when a civilized artisan, capable of realistic pictorial delineation of a high order, introduces a figure into a certain form of coa.r.s.e fabric he arrives at a result almost identical with that reached by the savage using the same, who has no graphic language beyond the rudest outline.

A number of examples may be given ill.u.s.trating this remarkable power of textile combination over ornament. I select three in which the human figure is presented. One is chosen from Iroquoian art, one from Digger Indian art, and one from the art of the Incas--peoples unequal in grade of culture, isolated geographically, and racially distinct. I have selected specimens in which the parts employed give features of corresponding size, so that comparisons are easily inst.i.tuted. The example shown in Fig. 338 ill.u.s.trates a construction peculiar to the wampum belts of the Iroquois and their neighbors, and quite unlike ordinary weaving. It is taken from the middle portion of what is known as the Penn wampum belt. The horizontal series of strands consists of narrow strips of buckskin, through which the opposing series of threads are sewed, holding in place the rows of cylindrical sh.e.l.l beads. Purple beads are employed to develop the figures in a ground of white beads. If the maker of this belt had been required to execute in chalk a drawing depicting brotherly love the results would have been very different.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 338. Figures from the Penn wampum belt, showing the conventional form imposed in bead work.]