[12] This absence of decorative feeling may be due to the irregular and vague outlines of the picture space. It is when the picture must be fitted within determined limits that decoration begins. I have noticed that children’s drawings are never decorative when they have the whole surface of a sheet of paper to draw on, but they will design a frieze with well-marked rhythm when they have only a narrow strip.
[13] This is certainly the case with the Australian Bushmen.
[14] Athenæum, 1920.
[15] Burlington Magazine, 1918.
[16] Thomas A. Joyce, (1) “South American Archæology,” London (Macmillan), 1912; (2) “Mexican Archæology,” London (Lee Warner), 1914; (3) “Central American Archæology,” London and New York (Putnam), 1916.
[17] The Burlington Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 22 (April, 1910).
[18] Burlington Magazine, 1910.
[19] G. Migeon, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June, 1905, and “Manuel d’Art Musulman,” p. 226.
[20] I cannot help calling attention, though without any attempt at explaining it, to the striking similarity to these Sassanid and early Mohammedan water jugs shown by an example of Sung pottery lent by Mr. Eumorfopoulos to the recent exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, Case A, No. 43. Here a very similar form of spout is modelled into a phœnix’s head.
[21] The following, from the Monthly Review, 1901, is perhaps more than any other article here reprinted, at variance with the more recent expressions of my æsthetic ideas. It will be seen that great emphasis is laid on Giotto’s expression of the dramatic idea in his pictures. I still think this is perfectly true so far as it goes, nor do I doubt that an artist like Giotto did envisage such an expression. Where I should be inclined to disagree is that there underlies this article a tacit assumption not only that the dramatic idea may have inspired the artist to the creation of his form, but that the value of the form for us is bound up without recognition of the dramatic idea. It now seems to me possible by a more searching analysis of our experience in front of a work of art to disentangle our reaction to pure form from our reaction to its implied associated ideas.