Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. / Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1882-1883, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1886, pages 437-466.

by William Henry Holmes

Fig. 482.—Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts.

Fig. 483.—Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts.

Fig. 484.—Variations resulting from change of method.

Many excellent examples illustrative of this tendency to modification are found in Pueblo art. Much of the ornament applied to pottery is derived from the sister art, basketry. In the latter art the forms of decorative figures are geometric and symmetrical to the highest degree, as I have frequently pointed out. The rays of a radiating ornament, worked with the texture of a shallow basket, spring from the center and take uniform directions toward the margin, as shown in Fig. 485. But

when a similar idea derived from basketry (as it could have no other origin) is executed in color upon an earthen vessel, we observe a tendency to depart from symmetry as well as from consistency. I call attention here to the arrangement of the parts merely, not to the motives employed, as I happen to have no examples of identical figures from the two arts.