William Henry Holmes

“ As I have already amply shown, the textile art possesses vast advantages over all other arts in this respect, as it is first in the field, of widest application, full of suggestions of embellishment, and inexorably fixed in its methods of expression. The mind in its primitive, mobile condition is as clay in the grasp of technique. ”

“ Color elements are present in the art from its very inception, and many simple patterns appear as accidents of textile aggregation long before the weaver or the possessor recognizes them as pleasing to the eye. When, finally, they are so recognized and a desire for greater elaboration springs up, the textile construction lends itself readily to the new office and under the esthetic forces brings about wonderful results without interfering in the least with the technical perfection of the articles embellished. ”

“ The textile art is one of the most ancient known, dating back to the very inception of culture. In primitive times it occupied a wide field, embracing the stems of numerous branches of industry now expressed in other materials or relegated to distinct systems of construction. Accompanying the gradual narrowing of its sphere there was a steady development with the general increase of intelligence and skill so that with the cultured nations of to-day it takes an important, though unobtrusive, place in the hierarchy of the arts. ”

“ Turning to other branches of art, what traces do we find of the transfer to them of textile features? Take, for example, sculpture. In the wood carving of the Polynesians we observe a most elaborate system of decoration, more or less geometric in character. We do not need to look a second time to discover a striking likeness to the textile system, and we ask, Is it also derived from a textile source? In the first place let us seek within the art a reason for the peculiar forms. ”

“ It is no doubt true that all of the shaping arts in the fullness of their development have given rise to decorative features peculiar to themselves; for construction, whether in stone, clay, wood, or metal, in their rigid conditions, exhibits characters unknown before, many of which tend to give rise to ornament. But this ornament is generally only applicable to the art in which it develops, and is not transferable by natural processes—as of a parent to its offspring—as are the esthetic features of the weaver's art. ”

“ It would seem that the esthetic tendencies of the mind, failing to find satisfactory expression in shape, seized upon the non-essential features of the art—markings of the surface and color of filaments—creating a new field in which to labor and expending their energy upon ornament. ”

“ In time the attaching media, as exposed in stitches, loops, knots, and the like, being of bright colors, were themselves utilized as embellishment, and margins and apertures were beautified by various bindings and borders, and finally patterns were worked in contrasting colors upon the surfaces of the cloths and other materials of like nature or use.
No other art so constantly and decidedly suggested embellishment and called for the exercise of taste. It was the natural habitat for decoration. It was the field in which technique and taste were most frequently called upon to work hand in hand. ”

“ Color employed in the art is not related to use, excepting, perhaps, in symbolic and superstitious matters; nor is it of consequence in construction, although it derives importance from the manner in which construction causes it to be manifested to the eye. It finds its chief use in the field of design, in making evident to the eye the figures with which objects of art are embellished. ”

“ We are accustomed, at this age of the world, to see needlework employed successfully in the delineation of graphic forms and observe that even the Indian, under the tutelage of the European, reproduces in a more or less realistic way the forms of vegetal and animal life. As a result we find it difficult to realize the simplicity and conservatism of primitive art. The intention of the primitive artist was generally not to depict nature, but to express an idea or decorate a space, and there was no strong reason why the figures should not submit to the conventionalizing tendencies of the art. ”

“ The desires of the mind constitute the motive power, the force that gives rise to all progress in art; the appreciation of beauty and the desire to increase it are the cause of all progress in purely decorative elaboration. It appears, however, that there is in the mind no preconceived idea of what that elaboration should be. The mind is a growing thing and is led forward along the pathways laid out by environment. Seeking in art gratification of an esthetic kind it follows the lead of technique along the channels opened by such of the useful arts as offer suggestions of embellishment. ”

“ What claim can architecture, sculpture, or ceramics have upon the decorative conceptions of the Digger Indians, or even upon those of the Zuñi or Moki? The former have no architecture, sculpture, or ceramics; but their system of decoration, as we have seen, is highly developed. The Pueblo tribes at their best have barely reached the stage at which esthetic ideas are associated with building; yet classic art has not produced a set of geometric motives more chaste or varied. These examples of the development of high forms of decoration during the very early stages of the arts are not isolated. ”

“ Models furnished by nature, as they are usually graceful, do not interfere with the preceding agencies, and all these forces united tend to give symmetry, grace, and the unity that belongs to simplicity. Taste which is in a formative state can but fall in with these tendencies of the art, and must be led [Pg 201] by them, and led in a measure corresponding to their persistency and universality. If the textile art had been the only one known to man, ideas of the esthetic in shape would have been in a great measure formed through that art. ”

“ It is fortunate perhaps that in this work I am restricted to the products of rather primitive stages of culture, as I have thus to deal with a limited number of uses, simple processes, and simple shapes. In the advanced stages of art we encounter complex phenomena, processes, and conditions, the accumulation of ages, through which no broad light can fall upon the field of vision.
In America there is a vast body of primitive, indigenous art having no parallel in the world. ”

“ With the growth of culture the art was expanded and perfected, its wonderful capacity for expression leading from mere bindings to pretentious borders, to patterns, to the introduction of ideographs, to the representation of symbols and mythologic subjects, and from these to the delineation of nature, the presentation of historical and purely pictorial scenes. ”

“ Ideas of the beautiful in linear geometric forms are actually formed by technique, and taste in selecting as the most beautiful certain ornaments produced in art is but choosing between products that in their evolution gave it its character and powers, precisely as the animal selects its favorite foods from among the products that throughout its history constitute its sustenance and shape its appetites. ”

“ The devices employed may be purely conventional or geometric, containing no graphic element whatever; but life forms afford the most natural and satisfactory means of recording, conveying, and symbolizing ideas, and hence preponderate largely. Such forms, on account of their intimate relations with the philosophy of the people, are freely embodied in every art suitable to their employment. As already seen, the peculiar character of textile construction places great difficulties in the way of introducing unsymmetric and complex figures like those of natural objects into fabrics. ”

“ Textile and fictile arts are, in their earlier stages, to a large extent, vessel making arts, the one being functionally the offshoot of the other. The textile art is the parent, and, as I have already shown, develops within itself a geometric system of ornament. The fictile art is the offshoot and has within itself no predilection for decoration. ”

“ It may appear that I have advocated too strongly the claims of the textile art to the parentage of geometric ornament and that the conclusions reached are not entirely satisfactory, but I have endeavored so to present the varied phenomena of the art that the student may readily reach deductions of his own. A correspondingly careful study of other branches of art will probably enable us finally to form a just estimate of the relative importance of the forces and tendencies concerned in the evolution of decoration. ”

“ Now, as primitive peoples advance from savagery to barbarism there comes a time in the history of all kinds of textile products at which the natural technical progress of decorative elaboration is interfered with by forces from without the art. ”

“ House building, or architecture as it is called in the higher stages, is in primitive times to a great extent textile; as culture develops, other materials and other systems of construction are employed, and the resultant forms vary accordingly; but textile characters are especially strong and persistent in the matter of ornament, and survive all changes, howsoever complete. In a similar way other branches of art differentiated in material and function from the parent art [Pg 245] inherit many characters of form and ornament conceived in the textile stage. ”

“ Figures or patterns of a relievo nature arise during construction as a result of the intersections and other more complex relations—the bindings—of the warp and woof or of inserted or applied elements. Flat or surface features are manifested in color, either in unison with or independent of the relieved details. Such is the nature of the textile art that in its ordinary practice certain combinations of both classes of features go on as a necessity of the art and wholly without reference to the desire of the artist or to the effect of resultant patterns upon the eye. ”

“ The inherent morphologic forces of the art are strong and stubborn and tend to produce the precise classes of results that we, at this stage of culture, are inclined to attribute to esthetic influence. If, in the making of a vessel, the demands of use are fully satisfied, if construction is perfect of its kind, if materials are uniformly suitable, and if models are not absolutely bad, it follows that the result must necessarily possess in a high degree those very attributes that all agree are pleasing to the eye. ”

“ From the very beginning the workman finds it necessary to direct his attention to these considerations in the preparation of his material as well as in the building of his utensils. If parts employed in construction are multiple they must be uniform, and to reach definite results (presupposing always a demand for such results) , either in form or ornament, there must be a constant counting of numbers and adjusting to spaces. The most fundamental and constant elements embodied in textile art and available for the expression of embellishment are the minute steps of the intersections or bindings ”

“ First, it is found that in the practice of primitive textile art a variety of methods of combination or bindings of the parts have been evolved and utilized, and we observe that each of these—no matter what the material or what the size and character of the filamental elements—gives rise to distinct classes of surface effects. Thus it appears that peoples who happen to discover and use like combinations produce kindred decorative results, while those employing unlike constructions achieve distinct classes of surface embellishment. ”

“ Adventitious features.—Ornament is applied to the surfaces of fabrics by painting and by stamping. These methods of decoration were employed in very early times and probably originated in other branches of art. If the surface features of the textile upon which a design is painted are strongly pronounced, the figures produced with the brush or pencil will tend to follow them, giving a decidedly geometric result. If the surface is smooth the hand is free to follow its natural tendencies, and the results will be analogous in character to designs painted upon pottery, rocks, or skins. ”

“ In countries where the textile art is unimportant and the textile system of decoration does not obtrude itself, free hand methods may prevail to such an extent that the geometric influence is but little felt. The Haidah Indians, for example, paint designs with great freedom and skill, and those applied to woven surfaces are identical with those executed upon skins, wood, and stone, but this art is doubtless much modified by the means and methods of Europeans. Our studies should be confined wholly to pure indigenous art. ”

“ If we should ask how such motives came to be employed in ceramic decoration, the answer would be given that they were selected and employed because they were regarded as fitting and beautiful by a race of decorators whose taste is well nigh infallible. But this explanation, however satisfactory as applied to individual examples of modern art, is not at all applicable to primitive art, for the mind of [Pg 246] man was not primarily conscious of the beauty or fitness of decorative elements, nor did he think of using them independently of the art to which they were indigenous. ”