DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0041
chap, i Social aspect of Decoration 21
acquiring or retaining that distinction, and even, according
to the theory worked out by Mr. Darwin in his Descent of
Man already quoted, it is possibly to this motive intensified
at pairing time, that may ultimately be ascribed the brilliant
colours of the male peacock, and creatures apparelled in
similar bravery. In man the art may have played the
same role in the earliest courtships, though in modern life
parts are shifted, and it is not the male who plumes himself
up to attract his mate, but rather the tenderer of the pair
who is careful to don all that may enhance her beauty in
the eyes of an adorer. But whatever its beginnings, the
decorative art under the influence of social feeling soon
extends itself, and becomes significant of wider relations
than those between the sexually contrasted pair. The con-
sideration of art in its decorative aspects is reserved for
treatment on a subsequent occasion, or it might here be
shown how it advances from being a simple artistic expres-
sion of care for a person or object, till it has invested all
the outward apparatus of civic, religious and national life
with poetic associations and with beauty. All buildings
and objects used by members of a family or brotherhood
or state possessed in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome a
distinctive character as connected with common celebra-
tions, and their place in the life of the community was
accentuated by decorative statues and reliefs, by the repre-
sentation of sacred creatures and flowers, and by the
significant device on warlike shield and standard or on the
merchant’s coin. To most people in modern times the
objects,that make up their material environment are mere
things. Cheap, abundant and without character, we use
them and lose them and replace them without a thought.
In old days they were few in number and proportionately
prized. They lasted a lifetime and became as it were a
part of their owner’s personality; they descended from
acquiring or retaining that distinction, and even, according
to the theory worked out by Mr. Darwin in his Descent of
Man already quoted, it is possibly to this motive intensified
at pairing time, that may ultimately be ascribed the brilliant
colours of the male peacock, and creatures apparelled in
similar bravery. In man the art may have played the
same role in the earliest courtships, though in modern life
parts are shifted, and it is not the male who plumes himself
up to attract his mate, but rather the tenderer of the pair
who is careful to don all that may enhance her beauty in
the eyes of an adorer. But whatever its beginnings, the
decorative art under the influence of social feeling soon
extends itself, and becomes significant of wider relations
than those between the sexually contrasted pair. The con-
sideration of art in its decorative aspects is reserved for
treatment on a subsequent occasion, or it might here be
shown how it advances from being a simple artistic expres-
sion of care for a person or object, till it has invested all
the outward apparatus of civic, religious and national life
with poetic associations and with beauty. All buildings
and objects used by members of a family or brotherhood
or state possessed in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome a
distinctive character as connected with common celebra-
tions, and their place in the life of the community was
accentuated by decorative statues and reliefs, by the repre-
sentation of sacred creatures and flowers, and by the
significant device on warlike shield and standard or on the
merchant’s coin. To most people in modern times the
objects,that make up their material environment are mere
things. Cheap, abundant and without character, we use
them and lose them and replace them without a thought.
In old days they were few in number and proportionately
prized. They lasted a lifetime and became as it were a
part of their owner’s personality; they descended from