Fig. 10.-Ancient Peru.
Fig. 11.-Ancient Peru. Fig. 12.-Ancient Peru.
How early the varied decoration showed itself we cannot know, but in many examples of early fictile work, the meander, the chevron or saw-tooth, and the fret, now called the Greek fret, are sure to appear-and among the most diverse and distant nations; so, too, the forms and the uses of the vessels.
Fig. 13.-Ancient Peru.
Do not these things show that man develops everywhere along a corresponding line? They have not copied from one another, but a like want has produced a similar result in all.
Fig. 14.-Ancient Peru. Fig. 15.-Ancient Peru.
As we approach the historic ages, we find among the Egyptians, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Gauls, the Germans, the use of the potter's wheel, one of the earliest machines made by man. Of the Egyptian and Greek pottery I shall have something to say in a chapter upon the "Greek Vase."
Fig. 16.-Roman Cup.
The Mexican pottery, sometimes called Aztec, is usually of reddish clay, and the vessels are almost identical in form and decoration with those of the Peruvians, which will appear in their place. They are of great variety, and must have been made in large numbers. The Mexicans also made grotesques and idols of clay, which are usually hideous, and are intended to be; for the gods of evil were those they feared and worshiped most. These potteries are of unglazed clay, as are all those we are now treating.
Fig. 17.-Roman Vase.
The civilizations which organized themselves in Mexico have always been an interesting and curious study. When Cortez and his conquering, gold-seeking white men reached the high lands of the beautiful interior (1517), they found the splendid city of Mexico, built over and along the shores of the inland lake, and stretching toward the foot-hills which protect it from unfriendly winds. Here the Aztecs had organized society. They had succeeded to the Toltecs, a prosperous, industrious, and probably a peaceful people-a people coming from the warmer South, and unable to cope with the more hardy Aztecs, who came down from the North.
Fig. 18.-Roman Vase found at London.
These Aztecs had not only developed the arts of architecture and painting, as well as most of the mechanic arts; they had also reached to a literature, to laws, to a religion most elaborate and splendid; and they had not neglected to conquer and tax surrounding tribes, and make them pay tribute, as all the "great" white nations of the world have done. But all their civilizations, laws, religions, arts, were swept into ruin by the conquering hand of Cortez and his successors.
And what have we now in Mexico? What has come of the destruction of the great Indian races there? What but greed, anarchy, cruelty, ruin? It would be a curious speculation now to picture what that country-the most beautiful and most bountiful-might now be in the hands of its own people, and with a government which could protect life and make labor safe. As it is, its life and its art give us nothing to look at or to enjoy.
Must man always destroy first in order that he may build up, and then be himself destroyed? No remains have come to us of glazed pottery belonging to these times; and it is probable that, their wants being fewer, their climate milder, and their food simpler, invention was not so much on the alert as it might have been in a colder and harsher climate. That these races were for some unknown reason superior to those living farther to the north, none will doubt when they know what they accomplished as compared with the Indians of the United States.
The Peruvians were the most cultivated and comfortable nation upon the Western Continent when Pizarro (1531) invaded, and, I may say, destroyed them. Indeed, when we read the accounts given of them by the Spanish writers themselves, we have only another proof that what we call "carrying to other peoples the blessings of civilization and Christianity" means rather the cursing them with cruelty and greed.
Fig. 19.-Vase. Pottery of Ancient Gaul.
A large collection of their pottery was shown at the United States Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and there is a sufficient and most interesting exhibit of it in the Peabody Museum at Harvard in Cambridge. In this collection, also, are to be found many examples of like unglazed pottery found in the Western mounds of the United States by Professors Shaler and Carr, who for some years have been engaged in researches in Kentucky and at other points in the West.
Upon some examples of this American pottery (Figs. 8 to 15) are to be seen decorations in color, mostly red, black, and brown; and it would seem impossible that these colors should have lasted through so many centuries, if they were not fixed by fire, and therefore were mineral.
Fig. 20.-Pottery of Ancient Gaul.
The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned.
The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques, must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found; indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15-and in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one (Fig. 15) is seen the double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which evidently pleased potter and people in those "good old Peruvian times."
A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their casseroles the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped.
One curious fact is asserted by the French savants,[1] that there is abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years, perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar; which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations, some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road, downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and the beautiful.
Fig. 21.-Ancient Gaul.
The opening of the Cesnola collections, at the New York Museum of Arts, shows us a vast number of early potteries which are as yet hardly classified or understood. Many of them bear marks of Assyrian or of Phonician inspiration; and among them are rude vessels closely resembling those of Peru, and also many grotesque forms of vases and animals, such as mark the early attempts at Art in other nations. That collection should be examined by those who are interested in this subject.
The hand-book published by the Museum is full of condensed information, and should be carefully preserved.
The pottery of the Romans went wherever their armies went. Thus it is found in France, in England, in Germany, in Spain, etc., etc. This Roman pottery has been found where excavations have been made, in Italy, in France, in England, along the Rhine, and in other places. It is distinguished as being more heavy and clumsy in form than that made in Greece, and the color of the clay is red, lighter or darker. The best of the Roman ware is often called Samian, because it was supposed to resemble that made at Samos in Greece, though it is quite different. The finest pieces approach to the color of sealing-wax, and have a lustre thin and brilliant, which has given rise to some dispute whether or not it is the result of an applied mineral varnish, or whether it is the product of careful hand-friction, developed and perfected by a high heat. The varnish, if such, is so thin that it has not been possible to analyze and decide upon it.
Fig. 22.-Ancient Gaul.
This red Samian or Roman much resembles the polished red ware made to-day in Egypt-of which a collection was shown in the recent Philadelphia Exhibition, and this bore no varnish.
One thing remarked as to this Roman pottery is, that it is never decorated with designs or ornaments in one or more colors. The decoration is sometimes incised, but more often is in relief. This is curious, too, as those master-potters, the Greeks, used colors in their designs. These pieces are to be seen in the museums of Paris, London, and elsewhere. The example engraved (Fig. 16) is a cup on which the decoration is in relief, and the fillets and bands are carefully moulded on the potter's wheel.
Figs. 17 and 18 were found in excavations made in 1845 in the city...
