Studio: international art (15.1899)

James Allan Duncan

deliberate intention; the snakes and cat-fish, when Part of these elements consist of European forms
they appear as recurved human legs (Fig. 16), form- which the native mind, so prone to copy, has not
ing the only piece of fancy we have observed, are failed to hand down to us, and part, if not the
undoubtedly symbolic and hence deliberate, but actual foundation of the art, has been introduced
belong to neither category. from other portions of Africa. Speaking generally,

We must, however, remember that there are the art may be said to be characterised by bold-
considerable foreign elements in Bini decorative ness, freedom, clearness in execution, originality,
art which will account for many contradictions. due perhaps as much to a grotesque mixture of

subjects as to the method
in which they are handled,

V—.'I—~ :—-^^hTMli«^- :T :~.T~~~:.. variety, a want of fantasy,

and, excepting a few special
cases, by primitive designs.
It has not by a long way
reached the stage attained
for instance in New Guinea,*
for it limits itself to the de-
lineation of isolated portions
of religious or court cere-
monial, historical events, and
individual peculiarities of
human, animal, or artificial
form, and hence it belongs
to that early period so aptly
described by Henry Balfour
as " the age of realistic re-
presentation." |

Hy. Ling Roth.

M

R. JAMES
ALLAN
DUNCAN,
DESIGNER
AND IL-
LUSTRATOR.

DESIGN FOR A BOOK-COVER
184

Mr. James Allan Dun-
can is a young Glasgow
designer who has recently
settled in London. Al-
though of the same city as
many whose works have
been noticed in The
Studio, his manner is en-
tirely unlike that of the
group wherein figure the
Misses Macdonald, Messrs.
Mackintosh, McNair, and
Talwin Morris. For he is

* " The Decorative Art of Brit.
New Guinea." Dublin.

t "The Evolution of Decora-
tive Art." Lcndon, 8vo, 1893,
BY J. A. DUNCAN P- 7-