be difficult to say with reference to any
particular example of design that it had a textile origin, for there
may be multiple origins to the same or to closely corresponding forms;
but we may assert in a general way of the great body of geometric
ornament that it owes something--if not its inspiration, its modes of
expression--to the teachings of the textile system. This appears
reasonable when we consider that the weaver's art, as a medium of
esthetic ideas, had precedence in time over nearly all competitors.
Being first in the field it stood ready on the birth of new forms of
art, whether directly related or not, to impose its characters upon
them. What claim can architecture, sculpture, or ceramics have upon
the decorative conceptions of the Digger Indians, or even upon those
of the Zuni or Moki? The former have no architecture, sculpture, or
ceramics; but their system of decoration, as we have seen, is highly
developed. The Pueblo tribes at their best have barely reached the
stage at which esthetic ideas are associated with building; yet
classic art has not produced a set of geometric motives more chaste or
varied. These examples of the development of high forms of decoration
during the very early stages of the arts are not isolated. Others are
observed in other countries, and it is probable that if we could lift
the veil and peer into the far prehistoric stages of the world's
greatest cultures the same condition and order would be revealed. It
is no doubt true that all of the shaping arts in the fullness of their
development have given rise to decorative features peculiar to
themselves; for construction, whether in stone, clay, wood, or metal,
in their rigid conditions, exhibits characters unknown before, many of
which tend to give rise to ornament. But this ornament is generally
only applicable to the art in which it develops, and is not
transferable by natural processes--as of a parent to its offspring--as
are the esthetic features of the weaver's art.

Besides the direct transmission of characters and forms as suggested
in a preceding paragraph, there are many less direct but still
efficacious methods of transfer by means of which various arts acquire
textile decorative features, as will be seen by the following
illustrations.

Japanese art is celebrated for its exquisite decorative design. Upon
superb works of porcelain we have skillful representations of subjects
taken from nature and from mythology, which