Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. | Page 2

the study of the evolution of ?sthetic culture. These relate, first, to form, and second, to ornament.
Form, as embodied in clay vessels, embraces, 1st, useful shapes, which may or may not be ornamental, and, 2d, ?sthetic shapes, which are ornamental and may be useful. There are also grotesque and fanciful shapes, which may or may not be either useful or ornamental.
No form or class of forms can be said to characterize a particular age or stage of culture. In a general way, of course, the vessels of primitive peoples will be simple in form, while those of more advanced races will be more varied and highly specialized.
The shapes first assumed by vessels in clay depend upon the shape of the vessels employed at the time of the introduction of the art, and these depend, to a great extent, upon the kind and grade of culture of the people acquiring the art and upon the resources of the country in which they live. To illustrate: If, for instance, some of the highly advanced Alaskan tribes which do not make pottery should migrate to another habitat, less suitable to the practice of their old arts and well adapted to art in clay, and should there acquire the art of pottery, they would doubtless, to a great extent, copy their highly developed utensils of wood, bone, ivory, and basketry, and thus reach a high grade of ceramic achievement in the first century of the practice of the art; but, on the other hand, if certain tribes, very low in intelligence and having no vessel-making arts, should undergo a corresponding change of habitat and acquire the art of pottery, they might not reach in a thousand years, if left to themselves, a grade in the art equal to that of the hypothetical Alaskan potters in the first decade. It is, therefore, not the age of the art itself that determines its forms, but the grade and kind of art with which it originates and coexists.
Ornament is subject to similar laws. Where pottery is employed by peoples in very low stages of culture, its ornamentation will be of the simple archaic kind. Being a conservative art and much hampered by the restraints of convention, the elementary forms of ornament are carried a long way into the succeeding periods and have a very decided effect upon the higher stages. Pottery brought into use for the first time by more advanced races will never pass through the elementary stage of decoration, but will take its ornament greatly from existing art and carry this up in its own peculiar way through succeeding generations. The character of the ornamentation does not therefore depend upon the age of the art so much as upon the acquirements of the potter and his people in other arts.

ORIGIN OF FORM
In order to convey a clear idea of the bearing of the preceding statements upon the history of form and ornament, it will be necessary to present a number of points in greater detail.
The following synopsis will give a connected view of various possible origins of form.
/ By adventition. Origin of form--| By imitation--------/ Of natural models. \ By invention. \ Of artificial models
+FORMS SUGGESTED BY ADVENTITION.+
The suggestions of accident, especially in the early stages of art, are often adopted, and become fruitful sources of improvement and progress. By such means the use of clay was discovered and the ceramic art came into existence. The accidental indentation of a mass of clay by the foot, or hand, or by a fruit-shell, or stone, while serving as an auxiliary in some simple art, may have suggested the making of a cup, the simplest form of vessel.
The use of clay as a cement in repairing utensils, in protecting combustible vessels from injury by fire, or in building up the walls of shallow vessels, may also have led to the formation of disks or cups, afterwards independently constructed. In any case the objects or utensils with which the clay was associated in its earliest use would impress their forms upon it. Thus, if clay were used in deepening or mending vessels of stone by a given people, it would, when used independently by that people, tend to assume shapes suggested by stone vessels. The same may be said of its use in connection with wood and wicker, or with vessels of other materials. Forms of vessels so derived may be said to have an adventitious origin, yet they are essentially copies, although not so by design, and may as readily be placed under the succeeding head.
+FORMS DERIVED BY IMITATION.+
Clay has no inherent qualities of a nature to impose a given form or class of forms upon its products, as have wood, bark, bone, or stone. It is so mobile as to be quite free to take form