Fig. 256. Whistle in grotesque life form, with decorations in black and red, alligator ware—⅔.
The human figure was occasionally utilized. The treatment, however, is extremely rude and conventional, the features having the
peculiar squirrel-like character shown in the figurines already given. The unique piece given in Fig. 256 represents a short, clumsy female figure with a squirrel face, carrying a vessel upon her back by means of a head strap, which is held in place by the hands. The mouthpiece of the whistle is in the right elbow and one sound hole is in the middle of the breast and the other in the left side. The costume and some of the details of anatomy are indicated by red and black lines in the original. Its notes are the same as those presented with [Fig. 249].
[ LIFE FORMS IN VASE PAINTING.]
This section is to be devoted to a short study of the decorative system of the ancient Chiriquians, and more especially to a consideration of the treatment of life forms in vase painting. Many of the finest examples of these designs, so far as execution and effect in embellishment are concerned, have already been given; but it is desirable now to select and arrange a series to illustrate origins and processes of growth or modification.
Elements of ornament flow into the ceramic art from a number of sources, but chiefly in two great currents: the one from art, and consisting chiefly of technical or mechanically produced phenomena, and hence geometric, and the other from nature, and carrying elements primarily delineative, and hence non-geometric. When once within the realm of decoration the various motives or elements are subject to modification by two classes of influences or conditioning forces: the technical restraints of the art and the esthetic forces of the human mind. Mechanical and geometric elements, although born within the art or its associated arts, are modified in the processes of adaptation to the changing requirements and conditions of the art and through the tendency towards elaboration under the guidance of the esthetic forces; left by themselves they remain, throughout all changes of use and modification of form, purely geometric. Imitative elements tend, under the same influences, to move in the direction of the unreal or geometric. In this way the realistic forms undergo marked changes, gradually assuming a geometric character and finally losing all semblance of nature.
Now it must be noted that the decorations of any group of art products may embody both classes of elements or they may be restricted rather closely to either. This fact enables us to account for many of the strongly marked distinctions observed in the decorative systems of different communities, races, and times. In a recent study of ancient Pueblo art I traced the decoration to a mechanical origin, mainly in the art of basketry, and thus accounted for its highly geometric character. Chiriquian art presents a strong contrast to this, as the great body of elements are manifestly derived from nature by delineative imitation. It was further observed in Pueblo art that as
time went on life forms were little by little introduced into its decoration and that in recent times they shared the honors equally with the primitive geometric forms. In Chiriquian art we find but meager traces of a primitive geometric system, and conclude that either the earliest art of the people did not give rise to such a system or that the graphic motives, entering gradually and steadily multiplying, supplanted the archaic forms, finally usurping nearly the entire field. As noticed in the preceding sections, there is always a certain amount of geometricity in the arrangement and the enframing of the designs, as well as a certain degree of convention in the treatment of even the most graphic motives; but these characters may be due to the restraining conditions of the art, rather than to the survival of original or ancestral features or characters.
In beginning the study of Chiriquian decorative art I found it impossible to approach the subject advantageously from the geometric side, as was done in the Pueblo study, since life elements so thoroughly permeate every part of it. I have, therefore, turned about, and in the following study present first the more realistic delineations of nature, arranging long series of derivative shapes which descend through increasing degrees of convention to purely geometric forms. These remarks relate wholly to the plan or linear arrangement of the motives.
As to method of realization, ceramic ornament may be arranged in two classes: the plastic or relieved and the non-plastic or flat. Life forms are freely rendered by both plastic and non-plastic methods, and in either style may range from the highly realistic to the purely geometric. As shown in a preceding section, plastic life forms in Chiriquian art appear to have been subject to two divergent lines of thought, the one trivial and the other serious. Through the one we have grotesque and perhaps even humorous representations of men and of animals. The figures are attached to the vessels for the purpose—perhaps for the exclusive purpose—of embellishment, and often with excellent success, as judged by our own standards of taste. The other deals with plastic representations apparently of a serious nature, although utilized also for embellishment. The animal forms employed are treated in a way to suggest that in the mind of the artist the creature bore a definite relation to the vessel or its use, a relationship originating in superstition and preserved throughout all changes of form. Their office was symbolic, and this office was probably not always lost sight of by the potter, even though, through the forces of convention, the animal shapes were reduced to mere knobs, ridges, or even to painted devices.