A Study of the Textile Art in its Relation to the Development of Form and Ornament | Page 2

Figure
of a bird woven in a basket 241 348. Figures embroidered on a cotton
net by the ancient Peruvians 242 349. Figures of birds embroidered by
the ancient Peruvians 243 350. Conventional design painted upon
cotton cloth 243 351. Herring bone and checker patterns produced in
weaving 246 352. Herring bone and checker patterns engraved in clay
246 353. Earthen vase with textile ornament 247 354. Example of
textile ornament painted upon pottery 248 355. Textile pattern
transferred to pottery through costume 248 356. Ceremonial adz with
carved ornament of textile character 250 357. Figures upon a tapa
stamp 251 358. Design in stucco exhibiting textile characters 251

TEXTILE ART IN ITS RELATION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF
FORM AND ORNAMENT.
BY WILLIAM H. HOLMES.
INTRODUCTION.
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.

Woven fabrics include all those products of art in which the elements
or parts employed in construction are largely filamental and are
combined by methods conditioned chiefly by their flexibility. The
processes employed are known by such terms as interlacing, plaiting,
netting, weaving, sewing, and embroidering.
The materials used at first are chiefly filiform vegetal growths, such as
twigs, leaves, roots, and grasses, but later on filiform and then fibrous
elements from all the kingdoms of nature, as well as numerous artificial
preparations, are freely used. These are employed in the single, doubled,
doubled and twisted, and plaited conditions, and are combined by the
hands alone, by the hands assisted by simple devices, by hand looms,
and finally in civilization by machine looms.
The products are, first, individual structures or articles, such as shelters,
baskets, nets, and garments, or integral parts of these; and, second,
"piece" goods, such as are not adapted to use until they are cut and
fitted. In earlier stages of art we have to deal almost exclusively with
the former class, as the tailor and the house furnisher are evolved with
civilization.
In their bearing upon art these products are to be studied chiefly with
reference to three grand divisions of phenomena, the first of which I
shall denominate constructive, the second functional, and the third
esthetic. The last class, with which this paper has almost exclusively to
deal, is composed mainly of what may be called the superconstructive
and superfunctional features of the art and includes three subdivisions
of phenomena, connected respectively with (1) form, (2) color, and (3)
design. Esthetic features of form are, in origin and manifestation,
related to both function and construction; color and design, to
construction mainly. In the following study separate sections are given
to each of these topics.
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. Uncontaminated by contact with the complex
conditions of civilized art, it offers the best possible facilities for the
study of the fundamental principles of esthetic development.
The laws of evolution correspond closely in all art, and, if once rightly
interpreted in the incipient stage of a single, homogeneous culture, are
traceable with comparative ease through all the succeeding stages of
civilization.
FORM IN TEXTILE ART.
Form in the textile art, as in all other useful arts, is fundamentally,
although not exclusively, the resultant or expression of function, but at
the same time it is further than in other shaping arts from expressing
the whole of function. Such is the pliability of a large portion of textile
products--as, for example, nets, garments, and hangings--that the
shapes assumed are variable, and, therefore, when not distended or for
some purpose folded or draped, the articles are without esthetic value
or interest. The more rigid objects, in common with the individuals of
other useful arts, while their shape still accords with their functional
office, exhibit attributes of form generally recognized as pleasing to the
mind, which are expressed by the terms grace, elegance, symmetry, and
the like. Such attributes are not separable from functional attributes, but
originate and exist conjointly