exclusively to deal, is composed mainly of what may be called the
superconstructive and superfunctional features of the art and includes
three subdivisions of phenomena, connected respectively with (1) form,
(2) color, and (3) design. Esthetic features of form are, in origin
and manifestation, related to both function and construction; color
and design, to construction mainly. In the following study separate
sections are given to each of these topics.

It is fortunate perhaps that in this work I am restricted to the
products of rather primitive stages of culture, as I have thus to deal
with a limited number of uses, simple processes, and simple shapes. In
the advanced stages of art we encounter complex phenomena, processes,
and conditions, the accumulation of ages, through which no broad light
can fall upon the field of vision.

In America there is a vast body of primitive, indigenous art having no
parallel in the world. Uncontaminated by contact with the complex
conditions of civilized art, it offers the best possible facilities
for the study of the fundamental principles of esthetic development.

The laws of evolution correspond closely in all art, and, if once
rightly interpreted in the incipient stage of a single, homogeneous
culture, are traceable with comparative ease through all the
succeeding stages of civilization.


FORM IN TEXTILE ART.

Form in the textile art, as in all other useful arts, is
fundamentally, although not exclusively, the resultant or expression