red ground dotted with symbols and strange devices. The work is
executed in brilliant colors and in great detail. But with all the
facility afforded for the expression of minutely modulated form the
straight lines and sharp angles are still present. The traditions of
the art were favorable to great geometricity, and the tendencies of
the warp and woof and the shape of the spaces to be filled were
decidedly in that direction.

[Illustration: FIG. 342. Human figure in Peruvian gobelins, showing
characteristic textile convention. From chromolithographs published by
Reiss and Stübel in The Necropolis of Ancon.]

[Illustration: FIG. 343. Human figures from a Peruvian vase, done in
free hand, graphic style.]

In order that the full force of my remarks may be appreciable to the
eye of the reader, I give an additional illustration (Fig. 343). The
two figures here shown, although I am not able to say positively that
the work is pre-Columbian, were executed by a native artist of about
the same stage of culture as was the work of the textile design. These
figures are executed in color upon the smooth surface of an earthen
vase and illustrate perfectly the peculiar characters of free hand,
graphic delineation. Place this and the last figure side by side and
we see how vastly different is the work of two artists of equal
capacity when executed in the two methods. This figure should also be
compared with the embroidered figures shown in Fig. 348.

The tendencies to uniformity in textile ornament here illustrated may
be observed the world over. Every element entering the art must
undergo a similar metamorphosis; hence the remarkable power of this