File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17539826043).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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A uovel method of converting natural objects into elegant objects for the home consists in coating shells, sea urchiDS, sea horses, corals and the like, with a thin film of silver. Above are shown two large abalone shells sup- ported by sea horses to form bon-bon dishes.i The sea horses and the outside of the shells are silvered. One shell is shown below the other in reversed position the Gabay collection of the Museum is seen the metallic blue, polished shell of the nautilus, and in the Museum's South Sea Island hall, the heraldic use of the nautilus in conjunction with flat plates of mother-of-pearl is shown in the head- dress of the Tingua tribes of the Samoan Islands. The problem of determining the chronological succession of aesthetic motives in races can hardly be sepa- rated from a studious consideration of the features in nature that evoke the sense of color or suggest the categories ' Loaned by Mrs. F. A. Constable that they might be photogriiphed for reproduction in the JotiRNAi.. 118 of form. The lines in vegetation, and its concrete products in flower, leaf and trunk, stem, tendril and bud, have indis- putably been assimilated in art and ar- chitecture. The column, the acanthus and lotus-leaf capitals are examples. The shapes and attitudes of animals, with expressions derived from their qual- ities of strength or ferocity, have most conspicuousl\' furnishetl heraldic design and topical sculpture with motives and ornament. Shells, less noticeably, must have stimulated artistic feeling, although their involution in art in the way of convention is not conspicuous. Ruskin in his Stones of Venice enumerates

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