The decorative art of the Amur tribes / by Berthold Laufer.

  • Berthold Laufer
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The decorative art of the Amur tribes / by Berthold Laufer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    closely to it (a). The head of the fish is surmounted by a slight curve terminat¬ ing in two parallel branchlets to the right (T) and a beak-like figure to the left (r). It is hard to decide whether this part is intended for an independent cock, or merely for the tail-feathers of that larger cock whose head joins the body of the spiral-formed fish (d) and sends off a long beak (e) in the form of a semicircular wave. On its head is a crest, the shorter component of which is treated as a cock’s beak (/), with an oval in front of it; the other makes a wide curve termi¬ nating in a fish-tail (g), one branch of which contains a dot for an eye, thus indicat¬ ing a bird’s beak, which is corroborated by placing an ellipsoid in front of it. This whole offshoot has the shape of a triskeles. Returning to the large cock filling the middle ground of this area, we see the outlines of its body rendered true to nature, and a scroll on its hind part (d), to which two feathers are attached, indicating the tail, or, if the figure above the fish-head is correctly to be interpreted as a cock’s tail, the pinions. In the smaller intervening part the two cocks rampant are easily discernible, their feet united, the long falciform beaks directed upward and the tails downward, the latter being connected by a pair of small ellipsoids. In accordance with this, the remainder of this ornament is self- explanatory : the cock rampant is to be seen single in one of the following fields. Fig- 3, Plate xi, is an ornament cut out of paper, which was to serve as an embroidery-pattern of a bag for a strike-a-light. The exquisite gracefulness of lines and the fine taste here displayed deserve special mention. The two artistic fishes in the extreme lobes are explained as crucians, with ciliated mouth ; the whiskers are formed like a cock’s comb, the under arm having the shape of a conventionalized fish. The middle of the centre is filled up with two large cocks rampant, facing each other, heads and necks recurved, their beaks join¬ ing in a long curve to which two conventionalized fishes are attached. The outline of the body of this cock, generally speaking, has the form of a spiral, and is a well-designed fish at the same time. Above the head of this fish is a spiral with a closely adjoining strongly conventional form of a fish, this whole figure being already familiar to us as symbolizing the cock’s wing-feathers. Below the eye of the fish we note a conspicuous crescent accompanied by an ellipse, ap¬ parently derived from the cock’s beak. Close by it is a well-developed fish-tail, which, if the drawing be inverted, signifies the tail of this latter cock ; in this case the spiral containing the fish should be considered as its body. Fig- 4, Plate xi, is an ornament cut out of red paper and pasted on a triangular cartoon. This object, hung to the wall, was used as a holder for newspapers by a rich Gold living in Khabarovsk, who, as a gentleman, was proud of having Russian papers, although he could neither read nor write. The ornament spread out along the border consists of a succession of spiral triskeles. The main field is occupied by two spirals with two fishes adapted to the outline of the first winding. Attached to the ends of these spirals is a triskeles with two long arms and one short one. The outer arm is continued by a double triskeles below ; the longer arm of the latter, as well as the adjoining one of the