Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/489

Rh Mexico. All their ceremonial weavings are covered with more or less realistic designs, while all their ordinary wearing-apparel presents geometrical motives. In fact, the style of the two is so different that it hardly seems to belong to the same tribe (Fig. 2). The same phenomenon may be observed outside of America, as is demonstrated by the difference in style between the shaman's coat and the ordinary coat of the Gold of the Amur River (Fig. 3). We may perhaps recognize the same tendency in the style of decoration of modern dwelling rooms and in that of public buildings. The designs on the stained glass of house-windows are usually arranged in geometrical forms; those of churches represent pictures. The wall decorations of houses are wall papers of more or less geometrical character; those of halls devoted to public uses are generally adorned with symbolic pictures.

This difference in the treatment of ceremonial and common objects shows clearly that the reason for the conventionalization of motives can not be solely a technical one, for if so, it would act in one case as well as in the other. In ceremonial objects the ideas represented are more important than the decorative effect, and it is intelligible that the resistance to conventionalism may be strong; although in some cases the very sacredness of the idea represented might induce the artist to obscure his meaning intentionally, in order to keep the significance of the design from profane eyes. It may, therefore, be assumed that, if a tendency to conventionalization exists, it will manifest itself