Cantor lectures on the arts of tapestry making and embroidery ..delivered before the Society, April 5th, 12th and 19th, 1886 . body. Its eyes gleam frombeneath two angular brows—the forehead is low—the nose small. A large broad lippedoval forms the mouth, into which is thrust threefingers which do duty for the whole hand. Thencomes the arm of this hand, starting abruptlyfrom a plum-shaped body. Across the bodywe see three fingers like those in the mouth,and the arm belonging to them is set a-kimbo,the two legs are straddled outwards. This oddrendering of the human figure constantlyrecurs in Ne
Cantor lectures on the arts of tapestry making and embroidery ..delivered before the Society, April 5th, 12th and 19th, 1886 . body. Its eyes gleam frombeneath two angular brows—the forehead is low—the nose small. A large broad lippedoval forms the mouth, into which is thrust threefingers which do duty for the whole hand. Thencomes the arm of this hand, starting abruptlyfrom a plum-shaped body. Across the bodywe see three fingers like those in the mouth,and the arm belonging to them is set a-kimbo,the two legs are straddled outwards. This oddrendering of the human figure constantlyrecurs in New Zealand ornament. The patternon its surface perhaps represents tatoo the human figure are horn-shaped andtwisting details, also covered with tatoo some of them we see the three , if we look at the device set betweenthe two spirals in the upper part of the canoehead, the three finger device, thrust into anopen oval and a pair of eyes will be found;thus indicating—obscurely perhaps—that themotive of this open pattern is the humanhead. In a second similar New Zealand prow Fig. we find the human figure in the lower spacemore grotesque through distortion than in thecorresponding space of the first prow we lookedat, and this distortion in the second prow arisesno doubt from the artist of this piece beingless skilful than the artist of the first. Never-theless, in this second piece we recognise thesame general characteristics which, as it were,give a style to this] method of using anddepicting forms. It is likely that both werewrought during the present century, though Iam not aware of any circumstances why theymight not have been produced in previouscenturies. It is allowable, I think, to conceivethat, in the course of years, as other NewZealanders imitate with variations what hasgone before, at the same time developing theircompliance with rules as to balance of formsin arrangement, contrast, and so forth, a per-fectly different style
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Keywords: ., bookautho, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectembroidery
