Book Description

Excerpt from A History of Decorative Art In the series of papers of which this is the first, I purpose giving a brief but succinct sketch of the whole field of decorative art, from the earliest times to the present, taking its rise and growth in due chronological order. The history of decorative art is essentially the history of an evolution. That being conceded, I shall take a backward glance at the beginning of humanity upon the earth, when decorative art was necessarily in its infancy. Here it may be borne in mind that, as it has never proceeded beyond this stage with the savage tribes of modern times, there will be found among the Polynesians of the present day much the same rude description of ornaments as are to be met with amongst the pre-Adamite autochthones and the people of the Swiss lake dwellings. The human animal, even in its lowest and most savage phases, has a natural tendency to form and to accumulate articles of a decorative character. For my first illustration I will go back to the Stone Period, long anterior to all human history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.