File:Lacework embroidery, Peruvian,1885 report.jpg

Title: Annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Identifier: annualreportofbu618841885smit (find matches)
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology
Subjects: Ethnology; Indians
Publisher: Washington : G. P. O.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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KOKM AND ORNAMENT. â iuporstructural iiii 242 TKXTILE AKl' IN KELATK ;(r<-i(luic(l ill pii-torial motives introilurcd Mm ad\'ciil iiimis .-iLi'i'iicies. We an-arcustomed, at this agf'if the world, to see needlework em- ployed successfully in the delineation of graphic forms and observe that even the Indian, under the tutelage of the European, reproduces in a more or less realistic vfay the forms of vegetal and animal life. As a result we find it difficult to realize the simplicity and conserva- tism of primitive art. The intention of the primitive artist was gen- erally not to depict nature, but to express an idea or decorate a space, and there was no strong reason why the figures should not submit to the conventionalizing tendencies of the art. I have already shown that embroidered designs, altlicmgh not f rijm necessity confined to geometric outlines, tend to take a purely geo- metric character from the fabric upon which they are executed, as well as tiom the mechanical proce'-ses of stitchuig This is well shown m Fig .4s a hue specimen gnen b\ Wienei in his work P(?rou et Boln e
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which the textile combinations are followed step by step. A life form worked upon a net does not differ essentially from the same subject woven in with the web and woof. The reason is found in the fact that in embroidery the workman was accustomed from the first to follow the geometric combination of the foundation fabric step by step, and later in life delination he pursued the same method. It would seem natural, however, that when the foundation fabric does not exhibit well marked geometric characters, as in compactly woven canvas, the needlework would assume free hand characters

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