Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/221

Rh aspect; not only as a specimen, but as a character. Hence the value of this book as coming from a skilled observer at first hand, who has dealt with the decorative art of a particular region "much in the same way as a zoologist would study a group of its fauna, say the birds or butterflies." The representative types, examples of which illumine the text, bring out strikingly what an index art is to the character of a people, and how closely it stands in relation to their ethnology; while the comparison of examples from different centres evidences a similarity in primitive design which further proves the unity of mankind. Take, for example, early Greek and American pottery with their common designs of the key and wavelike order, and the bird-like decoration in which the too-eager fancy of Dr. Schliemann saw the symbol of Athene. Herein, too, we may note the limitations which the materials themselves impose, affecting for all time the character of a people's art. From the stubborn granite of the Nile quarries the Egyptian sculptor, charm he never so wisely, could not evoke the graceful forms which Praxiteles released from the yielding marble. As for the savage, the hard-grained wood must be followed along the line of least resistance, and, as it opposes itself to the incision of curves and spirals, only the angular zigzag patterns can be produced by his primitive tools. Hence this modern representative of man of the Reindeer Period falls below his remote ancestor's spirited etchings of horse and mammoth on bone and slate.

A glance at the numerous illustrations of this volume shows from what divers sources Professor Haddon has drawn the materials for his induction. His lucid sketch of the main features of the art of the Torres Straits is followed by a section on the metamorphosis, so to speak, of designs and patterns. But, for the folklorist, the interest of this sprightly-written book centres in the exposition of the motives which have impelled man at his lowest to artistic effort. These are grouped under the four heads of Art, Information, Wealth, and Religion. Art, as qualifying "the sensuous pleasure of form, line, and colour"; information, when picture-writing is a medium of communication; wealth, when the possession of works of art is one of its indications; and religion, when "the need of man to put himself into sympathetic relation with unseen powers expresses itself in visual form," as in magic knots and patterns; representation of the