Thus a rude sort
of natural diaper ornament was set up, to which the eye soon became
accustomed, and which it learned to regard as necessary for beauty.
Hence, wherever newer and more improved methods of modelling came into
use, there would arise an instinctive tendency on the part of the early
potter to imitate the familiar marking by artificial means. Dr. Klemm
long ago pointed out that the oldest German fictile vases have an
ornamentation in which plaiting is imitated by incised lines. 'What was
no longer wanted as a necessity,' he says, 'was kept up as an ornament
alone.'
Another very simple form of ornamentation, reappearing everywhere all
the world over on primitive bowls and vases, is the rope pattern, a line
or string-course over the whole surface or near the mouth of the vessel.
Many of the indented patterns on early British pottery have been
produced, as Sir Daniel Wilson has pointed out, by the close impress of
twisted cord on the wet clay. Sometimes these cords seem to have been
originally left on the clay in the process of baking, and used as a
mould; at other times they may have been employed afterwards as
handles, as is still done in the case of some South African pots: and,
when the rope handle wore off, the pattern made by its indentation on
the plastic material before sun-baking would still remain as pure
ornament. Probably the very common idea of string-course ornamentation
just below the mouth or top of vases and bowls has its origin in this
early and almost universal practice.
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