Читать книгу Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs - Alfred C. Haddon - Страница 19

Fig. 23.—Clay pot with an incised pattern, from Wari (Teste Island), after a sketch by Dr. H. O. Forbes.

Throughout the whole of this district one finds lime-spatulas,[9] wooden clubs, canoe carvings, and other objects ornamented with scrolls. Nowhere else in British New Guinea do we find the continuous loop coil pattern, the guilloche, or loop coils. The spiral is absent from the Torres Straits and Daudai, but present up the Fly River and in the Papuan Gulf. It is absent again in the Central District, but reappears in the Massim Archipelagoes. It is only in the last district that we meet with a wealth of curved lines. What is the meaning of this?

Fig. 24.—Rubbing of the half of one side of the handle of a spatula in the author’s collection; one-third natural size.

Fig. 25.—Rubbings of both sides of a float for a fishing-net; one-half natural size.

All over this district we find decorative art permeated with the influence of the frigate bird. This beautiful bird is the sacred bird of the West Pacific. I shall allude to it again in a later section. The bird, or its head only, is often carved more or less in the round, especially for the decoration of canoes. It must, however, be remembered that such representations are conventional and not strictly realistic.

The same head is repeated on the handle of a spatula (Fig. 24), the curved tip of the beak of one bird forming the head of the bird immediately in front of it. From this simple origin the varied and beautiful scroll patterns have been developed. One important factor in the evolution of this pattern has been the confining of the design within narrow bands. When a band happens to be exceptionally broad, one often finds that the pattern becomes erratic. Queer contorted designs also result from the attempt to cover a relatively broad area, as in Fig. 25. Here there is nothing to guide or restrain the artist, except the boundary of the float; but on canoe carvings and some other objects there are usually structural or vestigial features, round which the design may be said to crystallise, and in these cases the pattern is approximately or entirely symmetrical.

Fig. 26.—Rubbing of upper two-thirds of the decoration of a club, in the Glasgow Museum; one-third natural size.

Rubbings of part of the decoration of clubs; one-third natural size. Figs. 27 and 28, D’Entrecasteaux, Edinburgh Museum; Figs. 29 and 30, Cambridge Museum.

The triangular spaces left above and below the beaks in the bird-scroll pattern are usually more or less filled up with crescentic lines, as in Fig. 26. Sometimes they are blank, and in this case the triangles may be coloured red instead of the white lime which is rubbed into the carving. The eyes of the birds are, as often as not, omitted altogether. (Figs. 27-30.) Their presence seems to have a conservative effect on the design, for where absent the elements of the design may slip upon or run into one another.

In Fig. 27 we have a good example of what I mean by the slipping of the elements of the design, with the result that a guilloche is arrived at. It will be noticed in this figure that the ends of the curved lines are mostly joined by an oblique bar. These oblique bars have become emphasised in Fig. 28, and a degeneration of the curved lines results in a simple pattern.

An example of the elements of the design running into one another is shown in Fig. 29, which, like the last two figures, is a reduced rubbing of part of the decoration of a sword-shaped wooden club. The band, shown in Fig. 30, is on the handle of the same club; the central pattern is clearly a simplification of that on the blade of the club, and it passes naturally into the zigzag carved below it.

Fig. 31.—Rubbing of the pattern round the upper margin of a betel-pestle in the Cambridge Museum; one-third natural size.

In a carved border round the top of a betel-pestle (Fig. 31) the bird’s-head scroll has become simplified, and at the same time developed into a more convolute scroll. A very degraded example is seen in the upper band of Fig. 32.

It would be easy to multiply examples of simple and complex derivatives of the bird’s-head motive, but these few will serve to demonstrate the kind of modifications which occur.

Fig. 32.—Rubbing of part of the carved rim of a wooden bowl from the D’Entrecasteaux Islands; one-third natural size.

Fig. 33.—Rubbing of the handle of a turtle-shell spatula, from the Louisiades, in the British Museum; one-half natural size.

Instead of only the head with its beak, the neck of the bird may be introduced. Fig. 33 is from a rubbing of a beautiful spatula in the British Museum, carved in turtle-shell (tortoise-shell); in it will be seen the interlocking of birds’ beaks and of birds’ necks. If the interlocking beaks were isolated we should get the band pattern which runs along the concavity of the crescentic handle.

Fig. 34.—Rubbing of the decoration of one side of a club; one-third natural size. The block is turned round to show the pattern more clearly, the zigzag bands in reality run across the blade of the flat club.

The birds’ heads and necks are usually confined to bands, and the design becomes subject to a new set of influences. A careful inspection of Fig. 34 will give the key to many details that may be found in carved objects from this district. In the band immediately below the central band are seen the heads and necks of three birds which have already undergone a slight transformation. In the corresponding band above the central band a bird is readily recognisable, but those on each side of it have degenerated into looped coils. The other designs can easily be recognised as bird derivatives.

The birds’ heads and necks may be so arranged in a linear series that interlocking takes place. In some cases one can distinguish between the beaks and the necks; in others, as, for example, in the outer bands of Fig. 35, this is impossible. The interlocking of the beaks or necks, as the case may be, and the isolation of the involved parts, has given rise to the central pattern on this spatula. Simple or complex coils like the last are of frequent occurrence in decorated objects from these islands. Both kinds of coil are found in Fig. 34, and by far the greater number of them can be proved to be bird derivatives.

Fig. 35.—Rubbing of the handle of a spatula in the British Museum; one-third natural size.

The eyes of the heads in such a pattern as the two outer bands of Fig. 35 may disappear, and here also the elements of the design may fuse with each other. These two phases of decadence have overtaken the pattern shown in Fig. 36, A, which is the decoration of a spatula with a three-sided handle; on another side (B) the degeneration has advanced a stage, and on the third side (C) it has run its course, and again the bird-motive has degenerated into a zigzag.

Fig. 36.—Rubbings of the three sides of the handle of a spatula from the D’Entrecasteaux, in the Dublin Museum; one-half natural size.

Fig. 37.—A, B. Sketches of two stages of the “bird bracket” of two spatulas, probably from the Woodlarks, in the author’s collection, C, D. Analogous details from canoe carvings—C. From a photograph; D. From a specimen in the Edinburgh Museum. Not drawn to the same scale.

Some spatulas have small lateral adjuncts or “brackets,” as I have elsewhere termed them. In spatulas which come, I believe, from the Trobriands and Woodlarks, these brackets are often carved to represent two birds’ heads, whose necks are united together over their heads (Fig. 37, A). I have examples of these showing a degeneration into a simple scroll (Fig. 37, B). The same is taking place on a club (Fig. 38), where several phases of modification are illustrated, one result of which is that the beaks break away from their respective heads; the design in the left-hand lower corner is clearly an extreme stage, where each beak is represented by two small marks. This can be compared with the design in the right-hand lower corner of Fig. 39, where further simplification has occurred. The mark in the centre of the design is the relic of the four which occur in the last figure, and these are the disrupted remains of the beaks of the two birds. The other spirals in this figure are serial repetitions of the involved bird’s eye of the lower design; the limitation of these within narrow bands causes their elongation, and from these we are led to the concentric ovals. All the concentric ovals met with in this district may not have been arrived at in this manner, but those in Fig. 39 appear to have had this origin.

Figs. 38 and 39.—Rubbings of the decorations of clubs in the Dublin Museum; one-third natural size.

To return again to Fig. 37, in A and B we have two phases of the bird-bracket on spatulas; C and D are analogous designs in which the birds’ beaks are also united; these are details from canoe carvings.

Fig. 40.—Rubbing of the central longitudinal band of a club from the D’Entrecasteaux, in the Edinburgh Museum; one-third natural size.

Fig. 41.—Rubbing of part of the decoration of a club from the D’Entrecasteaux, in the Edinburgh Museum; one-third natural size.

A simplified type of bird’s head and neck is seen in Fig. 40. Probably, owing to the narrow space at his disposal, the artist omitted the typical curvature of the beak. In the centre of the band a looped arrangement is to be seen. It is very tempting to imagine that the central band of Fig. 41 has had a similar origin. It is possible, however, that it may be an aberrant modification of the serial bird’s head design. I have no doubt that it is a bird derivative.

In this district, but principally, I believe, on the mainland and in the neighbouring islands, we find carvings which represent a bird and a crocodile; often this design forms the handles of paddles, spatulas, and axes (Fig. 45, A). I have not at present direct proof that the animal is a crocodile, but I have sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption.

With but very few exceptions the bird has a hooked beak; often it is provided with a crest. Normally it has a body and wings, but never any legs. Only the head with the eye, jaws, and tongue of the crocodile are carved. The bird is undoubtedly based on the frigate-bird, but the crest is a gratuitous addition; in a few instances it seems as if the artist had a hornbill in his mind.

Fig. 42.—Bird and Crocodile designs, Massim Archipelago.

 A. Canoe carving from Wari (Teste Island); about two-ninths natural size.

 B. Handle of a paddle in the Cambridge Museum; one-half natural size.

 C. Handle of a spatula in the Leiden Museum; three-sevenths natural size.

 D. Handle of a spatula from Tubutubu (Engineer Group), in the Cambridge Museum; three-sevenths natural size.

 E. Handle of a paddle in the Cambridge Museum; three-sevenths natural size.

The body and wings of the bird are frequently omitted, then the neck disappears; in some examples only the eye and hooked beak persist (Fig. 42, B, D), and in one or two examples known to me the eye alone remains of the vanished bird.

The eye of the crocodile may develop into a grooved sigmoid curve, or degenerate into a simple loop. One or both jaws may terminate in a loop; the teeth are more often absent than present; in one spatula they occur on the tongue only (Fig. 42, C). The tongue usually reaches the bird, but it may be quite short; though generally straight, it may be carved and may terminate in a small bird’s head; indeed, either jaw may occasionally have a similar termination. For a selection of characteristic modifications of this motive I would refer the reader to Plate XII. of my Memoir, from which I have borrowed the examples seen in Fig. 42. Of these A is a conventional but readily recognisable representation of both the bird and the crocodile; B, C, D are varieties which present no difficulty of interpretation, and E is a slightly carved handle of a paddle in which the design is very greatly simplified.

The decorative art of the outlying Trobriands (Kiriwina) and Woodlark (Murua) Groups appears to differ in many respects from that which is characteristic of the other groups of this district; this is especially noticeable in the lime-gourds, and on the oval-painted shields.

The north-east coast of British New Guinea is now being opened up by the Administrator, Sir William MacGregor, but as yet no specimens of its decorative art have found their way to British museums.