The Evolution of Decorative Art. By H. Balfour. (Percival and
Co.)—The process of artistic evolution in mankind is admirably described in these hundred and odd pages. The three stages— adaptive, copying, and variation—are illustrated, and their con- nection traced. The earliest stage has been called "realistic," from the clever drawings of animals preserved for us on bone. The most interesting part of it, however, is the idea of adapting carved representations of animals to the exigencies of use, as seen in the handles of daggers, some illustrations of which are dis- tinctly artistic. The variation stage, including unconscious and conscious variation, must be looked upon as the true cause of ornament. General Pitt Rivers arranged several objects in a series which made this very plain, showing clearly how the lines meant to portray the human face, assume ornamental curves, become doubled and balanced, and otherwise altered, to suit the artist's fancy. The result of successive copying is most striking, and can be understood by any one who sets a dozen unskilled draughtsmen to copy, one from the other, some design. The influence of one design over another is strikingly seen in the drawings of canoe figure-heads from the Solomon Islands. The representation of the human profile has been impressed upon the frigate-bird design to such an extent as to produce a most absurd prognathism, a gross caricature of the good-looking islanders. The development of design, and the numerous causes which affect it, are followed out in a really interesting and instructive book.
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