Charles Frederick Hartt

“ Instead of fixing my eye immovably upon one point, I deliberately run it over the leading lines of the view, and then trace lines upon the paper that produce the same effect upon my eye as those in Nature have done. My sketch will at best be imperfect, but its accuracy will be in proportion to the care with which I have examined the outlines in the landscape. In observing an object, we do not then look fixedly at it—we run the eye over it. Let us see what this means.
The retina is not in all parts equally sensitive to light, and the whole of a visual image is not distinctly perceived at once. ”

“ Man, the world over, seeks to give pleasure to the eye. He is not satisfied that an object should be useful to him; it must be at the same time beautiful; and indeed he is usually quite as anxious that it should look well, as that it should minister to his comfort. It is not enough that clothing should be warm: it must be graceful in form, and covered, more or less, with ornament. ”

“ Purely æsthetic decorative art has had its origin in the attempt to please the eye by lines and colors, just as music has originated in the attempt to give pleasure to the ear by a rhythmic series of sounds. Imitative decorative art appeals to the understanding as well as to the feelings: it is a song with words, but mere aesthetic ornament is visible music without words, and it is to this latter division of ornament that I shall principally invite your attention. ”

“ When I look out of my window, the image of a very large tract falls upon my retina. I see at once a multitude of houses, and the infinitude of objects that go to make up the picture, and apparently I see every thing distinctly, but this is really far from being the case. If I look suddenly out at a landscape that I have never seen before, and fix my gaze upon a church-spire for a few moments, the image of the landscape falls immovably upon the retina ”

“ The secret of the pleasant effect produced upon us by beautiful lines is, I believe, to be found in the structure of the eye itself, and I shall attempt to show that a line is beautiful, not because of any inherent quality of its own, but, primarily, because of the pleasure we take in making the muscular movements necessary to run over it with the eye, though, through education, we may afterward come to recognize, at a glance, and get the full effect of a form that has once given us pleasure ”

“ Pleasure-giving, graceful, muscular movements are always in curves, and their grace depends upon the subtileness of the curve.
If decorative art has had a beginning and an evolution, we should expect to find a progress from straight lines to circles, spirals, and ellipses, while more subtile curves, such as we find in Nature, would be adopted later, and this is the case, not only in the art-history of nations, but also in that of individuals, for the child must be educated not only to make, but to appreciate and enjoy beautiful lines. ”

“ Yet, while it is quite easy to understand how pottery might be invented by two different tribes, how is it possible that the same series of ornamental forms should arise among several independent and disconnected peoples? ”

“ Perpendicular and horizontal straight lines are the more easy to examine, because their images fall directly between two opposing muscles. An oblique line is difficult to examine, and we instinctively turn the head, in order to bring it in the plane of rotation of one or the other set of muscles. In following a curved line with the eye, two muscles are used together, one contracting more rapidly than the other. A curve is therefore more difficult to observe, or run the eye over, than a straight line, and the difficulty increases with the subtileness of the curvature. ”

“ The connection between the manufacture of pottery and the evolution of ornament is exceedingly close; and some of the most beautiful ornamental borders, etc., have originated on pottery, the soft, easily-scratched clay furnishing an excellent surface for drawing upon. In savage America the manufacture of pottery falls everywhere to the lot of women, since, as it is a branch of cooking, she, having the charge of domestic affairs, naturally makes the vessels in which to prepare food. But the-Indian woman not only makes the pottery, she also ornaments it. ”

“ An Amazonian Indian will listen enrapt for hours to the repetition of the same monotonous song, which produces on civilized ears only increasing torture. The fret is at first drawn with all its unity running in the same direction, but in course of time it is found that a change of direction not only relieves the eye but gives greater pleasure, and the series comes to be broken up into bars, alternating in direction. This is observable not only in the classic Greek frets, but also in similar ornaments in America. ”

“ I do not know whether her greater susceptibility to the influence of decorative art-forms springs from her greater delicacy of physical organization, or whether, what is perhaps more probable, it is owing to the wants of an entirely different life from that which man leads. ”

“ It will be observed that the sides of the little triangles are approximately parallel to the parts of the sigmoids and bounding lines to which they are adjacent, thus producing a pleasant effect on the eye. The next step in the evolution of this border consists in uniting the little triangles with the sigmoids, as in Fig. 14, and this form I have observed on a Peruvian vase.
With progress in culture comes the love of variety and change. Savage music, savage art, every thing in fact in uncivilized life, is monotonous. ”

“ Unless care is taken in drawing a current fret, one is apt to round down the angles, and, in running the eye over this ornament, there is a tendency not to follow lines down to the angles, but to swerve from one line to another, avoiding the corners—the muscular movements of the eye being such as would be necessary to follow a curve. It was soon found that frets drawn, probably at first unintentionally, with rounded corners, were pleasant to examine with the eye, and afterward they were purposely rounded down, giving rise to the beautiful linked scrolls, Fig. ”

“ We still, today, use straight lines and frets, and a multitude of beautiful forms, many of which, doubtless, have come down to us from an immense antiquity. They are normally beautiful and we shall always need them. ”

“ The distribution of these simple ornamental forms among widely-separated savage tribes renders it extremely unlikely that they should have all been derived from a common source, and their independent origin is all the more probable, since it has been conclusively shown that identical myths, religious ideas, manners and customs, found in different parts of the earth, have often originated independently of one another. ”

“ Elsewhere, as among certain tribes in Africa, and also among the Papuans and the Feejees, woman is the ceramic artist. Llewellyn Jewett thinks that the Celtic burial-urns were made and ornamented by women. ”