Peruvian Art as Shown on Textiles and Pottery (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Peruvian Art as Shown on d104iles and Pottery The Museum's collections of textiles and pottery vessels from prehistoric graves in Peru provide an opportunity for the study of primitive art that is not excelled, if, indeed, it is equaled in any other field. The great beauty of the color schemes and the wonderful number of curious conventionalized animal figures, especially in the.textiles, make these exhibits particularly valuable to the student of design. That this opportunity exists and that the Museum authorities as a part of their educational system are providing all the assistance and comfort possible to visiting artists and students are fast becoming known, as shown by the fact that for quite a number of years an average of one hundred and fifty a month have availed themselves of this privilege, while during the last few years that number has been doubled. As a large part of the students of design who make use of these textiles expect later to obtain positions in textile houses, carpet, rug, or wall paper manufactories, or to enter into some other business where designers are employed, it will interest and encourage them to know that many textile houses have lately put upon the market silks and other materials decorated with designs inspired by the figures and color schemes of the prehistoric Peruvians. Our large textile manufacturers have, year after year, sent their best artists to Paris for designs, having no idea that such a wealth of material, eminently suitable for decoration, was waiting for them in the Museum so near at hand. In the past five years many of these textile manufacturers have visited the Museum and have become aware of the existence of these collections. Having once seen them they were by no means slow in recognizing their value and in sending their artists to copy the color schemes and create designs from the decorative figures of the ancient Peruvians. Having satisfied themselves of the commercial value of the Peruvian collections to them, they naturally began to look about for the decorative work of other primitive peoples and today their designers may be seen at work in many of the Museum halls. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.