DECORATIVE DESIGNS IN LINE AND COLOR.
Probably the first canvas on which man exercised his taste for decora tion was his own skin. To the naked savage, painting his face and body takes the place of clothing, both in its useful aspect as a protection against the weather and the attacks of insects, and in its more important purpose of adding to his beauty and dignity. Humboldt tells us that among the Indians of the Orinbco their expression for the most abject poverty is, " The man has not enough to paint half his body;" and adds that their more esteemed paints are so costly that the wages of a fortnight's labor are required to purchase sufficient for one toilette.
The choice of colors and the designs varied with the nation, the age, and the rank. The colors were obtained both from vegetable and mineral sources, red, blue, and white clays being especially sought after. They were transported for long distances, and rubbed and mixed with great pains. The numerous " mullers" and paint-pots found among the remains of the Stone Age in all parts of the world—especially, perhaps, in America—furnish abundant testimony to the zeal with which the art was carried on.
The custom was found in every continent, and still remains among many uncultivated tribes. Survivals of it, indeed, are noticeable in nations of considerable cultivation. Most of the Malays color their teeth, others stain the finger-nails, and the belles of Paris and their imitators dye their hair, tint the eyebrows, darken the under lid, and the like, with the same motive that the Mohave girl draws a broad band of red paint across her face (comp. pl. 12, figs. r, 2).
akin to this is the custom of tattooing. Here the paint is fixed indelibly in the skin by pricking the surface with a sharp thorn or needle.. Scarcely more than a thousand years have passed since this barbaric decoration was so common in Great Britain that one of its native tribes, the Picts "painted "), is believed to have derived its name from the tattooed skins of its warriors.
The object aimed at is usually to increase the personal impression.
The woman desires to make herself attractive, like the New Zealand belle, who is considered repulsive unless her lips are carefully tattooed black; the warrior wishes to strike terror into the hearts of his foes by his grisly visage. Accessory purposes are, that the tattooed designs answer for permanent records of the individual's noteworthy deeds, or when, as in the South Sea islands, the figure of the personal divinity or "guardian angel" is pricked into the skin, and is thus sure to be always present with its protecting power (see 5; ,61. r6, fig. 3; pl. 19, figs. 7, 9).
This custom is by no means extinct. Probably the ancient world offered no finer specimen of tattooed skin than that of the Albanian who for a number of years has travelled in Europe and America exhibiting Himself. It is curious to note how the elaborate and artistic designs con vey the effect of clothing and remove the impression of nudity. Sailors delight in this decoration, and few will be found who have not designs on their arms and legs. Indeed, among the minor industries of the great cities professors of the art still flourish, as came prominently to the know ledge of the public in Philadelphia recently through one of them inocu lating about forty of his patrons with a specific disease. He was accus tomed to moisten the tip of his needles in his mouth before inserting them, and thus conveyed the poison to their systems.
An of by lines and the art of drawing had already attained considerable advancement at a period when the reindeer and the hairy mammoth sported over the fields of France. That region was then occupied by a nation of such surprising artistic capacities that the remains of its drawings, scratched on bones and stones, excited when first discovered the incredulity of antiquaries. But later research removed all grounds of scepticism, and we must recognize in that early folk a people of about the plane of culture and capacity of the present Eskimos.