Fig. 43.—Rubbing of the decoration of a Maori flute, in the Natural History Museum, Belfast; one-half natural size.
Some of the New Zealand patterns (Fig. [43], and Plate [VI.], Fig. 12) certainly have a superficial resemblance to the more typical scroll patterns from the South-Eastern Archipelago of New Guinea, but there is no ground for comparing them except for this casual resemblance. The bird element is entirely lacking, and there is far less interlocking in the Maori than in the Papuan scrolls; there are also noticeable technical differences. My impression is that the carved designs have been derived mainly from tattooing, and possibly also partly from the dismemberment which so often befalls the conventionalised carvings of their ancestral figures. (Plate [VI.], Fig. 11.) When one looks at tattooed Maori heads or carvings of human figures one finds that rounded surfaces, such as the wings of the nose, the cheeks, the shoulders and thighs are usually decorated with spiral designs; this is in such places an appropriate device, as it accentuates the features which are ornamented, and personally I am inclined to believe that artistic fitness is the explanation of this employment of the spiral, and that it has been transferred to other objects as being a pleasing design, and that connecting lines have been made to give coherence to the decoration. It is worth noting that in early European art the shoulders and haunches of animals are often decorated with spirals.[17]
THE MATERIAL OF WHICH PATTERNS ARE MADE.
Having sketched the main features of the decorative art of a definite locality, I now pass on to a different field, and will select examples from every age and clime, in order to illustrate the life-histories of a number of designs. In this I have a twofold object. First, I wish to indicate in this section the material out of which designs and patterns are formed—the objective originals which become gradually transformed into æsthetic conceptions; and, secondly, I also wish to illustrate the fact that this process of transformation is confined to no one people.
We shall see that the originals of decorative art are mainly either natural or artificial objects, and the latter will first claim our attention.
I.—The Decorative Transformation and Transference of Artificial Objects.
Dr. H. Colley March has introduced the term “Skeuomorph”[18] for the forms of ornament demonstrably due to structure. Professor G. Semper[19] “was the first to show that the basket-maker, the weaver, and the potter originated those combinations of line and colour which the ornamentist turned to his own use when he had to decorate walls, cornices, and ceilings.” So write MM. Perrot and Chipiez;[20] but this statement is too sweeping. A considerable amount of ornamentation is doubtless due to technique, but in Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa plant forms have had a great influence in the origin of designs, some of which have been modified by passing through a textile technique.
Given any object, two forces, so to speak, attack it—the utilitarian and the æsthetic. The resultant may be an implement which is solely useful and has little or no beauty to recommend it; or while retaining a full measure of utility, it may be beautified in form or in surface decoration; or, lastly, the object may become so glorified by the artist as to be translated from earthly use into the realm of æsthetics.