Design basics 2d and 3d 8th edition ebook pdf by sharon.guy530

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER

SCALE AND PROPORTION INTRODUCTION Scale and Proportion

MANIPULATING SCALE AND PROPORTION Surrealism and Fantasy

SCALE OF ART Human Scale Reference

68 80

PROPORTION Geometry and Notions of the Ideal 82 Root Rectangles 84

SCALE WITHIN ART Internal References 74 Internal Proportions 76 Contrast of Scale 78

CHAPTER

BALANCE INTRODUCTION

86 Balance by Texture and Pattern 100 Balance by Position and Eye Direction 102 Analysis Summary 104

IMBALANCE Horizontal and Vertical Placement 90 SYMMETRICAL BALANCE Bilateral Symmetry 92 Examples from Various Art Forms 94 ASYMMETRICAL BALANCE Introduction 96 Balance by Value and Color

RADIAL BALANCE Examples in Nature and Art

106

CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC BALANCE Allover Pattern 108 98

CHAPTER

RHYTHM INTRODUCTION Engaging the Senses Visual Rhythm 114

112

RHYTHM AND MOTION Shapes and Repetition 116

110 PROGRESSIVE RHYTHM Converging Patterns 120 POLYRHYTHMIC STRUCTURES A Study in Contrast 122

ALTERNATING RHYTHM Patterns and Sequence 118

Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CONTENTS

Part 2

DESIGN ELEMENTS CHAPTER

LINE INTRODUCTION A Point Set in Motion

126 LINE QUALITY Creating Variety and Emphasis

128

LINE AND SHAPE Defining Shape and Form

130

TYPES OF LINE Actual, Implied, and Psychic Lines 132 LINE DIRECTION Horizontal, Vertical, and Diagonal Lines

138

LINE AS VALUE Using Lines to Create Dark and Light 140 LINE IN PAINTING Outline of Forms 142 Explicit Line 144 LOST-AND-FOUND CONTOUR Suggestions of Form 146

134

CONTOUR AND GESTURE Precision or Spontaneity 136

INHERENT LINE Structure of the Rectangle

148

CHAPTER

SHAPE INTRODUCTION Shaping Perception

150 ABSTRACTION Essence of Shape

152

PREDOMINANCE OF SHAPE

154

VOLUME/MASS Working in Two and Three Dimensions 156 NATURALISM AND DISTORTION Exaggerated Shapes 158 NATURALISM AND IDEALISM Nature and Aspiring to Perfection 160

162

NONOBJECTIVE SHAPES Pure Forms 164 CURVILINEAR SHAPES

166

RECTILINEAR SHAPES AND COMBINATIONS 168 POSITIVE/NEGATIVE SHAPES Introduction 170 Isolation or Integration 172 Emphasis on Integration 174 Ambiguity 176

vii

viii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PATTERN AND TEXTURE PATTERN Creating Visual Interest Order and Variety 182

TEXTURE Creating Visual Interest

TACTILE TEXTURE Actual and Implied Collage 190

180

TEXTURE AND PATTERN Similarities and Differences

178

184

188

VISUAL TEXTURE Verisimilitude and Trompe L’oeil

192

186

CHAPTER

ILLUSION OF SPACE INTRODUCTION Translating Space to Two Dimensions

194

AMPLIFIED PERSPECTIVE A Different Point of View 216 196

DEVICES TO SHOW DEPTH Size 198 Overlapping 200 Vertical Location 202 Aerial Perspective 204 Plan, Elevation, Perspective 206 Linear Perspective 208 One-Point Perspective 210 Two-Point Perspective 212 Multipoint Perspective 214

MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVE A Pictorial Device 218 ISOMETRIC PROJECTION A Spatial Illusion 220 OPEN FORM/CLOSED FORM The Concept of Enclosure 222 TRANSPARENCY Equivocal Space

224

CONCLUSION Complexity and Subtlety

226

CHAPTER

ILLUSION OF MOTION INTRODUCTION Stillness and Arrested Action 230 ANTICIPATED MOTION Seeing and Feeling Impending Action 232

228

WAYS TO SUGGEST MOTION Figure Repeated, Figure Cropped 234 Blurred Outlines and Fast Shapes 236 Multiple Image 238 OPTICAL MOVEMENT Afterimage and Eye Movement 240

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

VALUE

242 VALUE AND SPACE Using Value to Suggest Space

INTRODUCTION Light and Dark 244 VALUE PATTERN Variations in Light and Dark VALUE AS EMPHASIS Creating a Focal Point

TECHNIQUES An Overview

246

250

252

248

CHAPTER

COLOR

254 COLOR AND BALANCE Achieving Balance within Asymmetrical Composition

INTRODUCTION Color Theory 256 COLOR CHARACTERISTICS Color Perception 258

COLOR AND SPACE Color’s Spatial Properties

PROPERTIES OF COLOR Hue and the Three Dimensions of Color Perception 260 Value 262 Intensity/Complementary Colors 264

COOL/WARM COLORS Identifying Color with the Senses 270 COLOR AS EMPHASIS Color Dominance 272

276

COLOR SCHEMES Monochromatic/Analogous 278 Complementary/Triadic 280

PALETTES Mixing Light and Mixing Pigments VISUAL COLOR MIXING Techniques That Suggest Light

274

COLOR DISCORD AND VIBRATING COLORS Unexpected Combinations 282 266

268

COLOR USES Local, Optical, Arbitrary

284

EMOTIONAL COLOR Color Evokes a Response

286

COLOR SYMBOLISM Conceptual Qualities of Color 288

Part 3

THREE-DIMENSIONAL DESIGN CHAPTER

3D DESIGN INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION TO THREEDIMENSIONAL DESIGN Organizing Form 294 Design Defined 296

292

LOOKING Attentive Observation 298 Similarities and Differences 300 Connections 302

CONTENTS

TOUCH Tactile Sensation

LEARNING Becoming Informed and Aware

304

310

CONTEXT A Shaping Force 306 Site Specific 308

CHAPTER

IDEAS AND APPROACHES

SIMPLICITY Reductive Sensibility

INTRODUCTION Research 314 Process 316

DETAIL Close Attention 322

TRANSFORMATION Transcending Physicality

338

MEANING AND VALUE An Interpretive Act 340 324

SOURCES Generating Creative Energy 342 Nature 344 Geometry and Mathematics 346 Culture 348

VARIATION AND DEFORMATION Altering Form 326 THINKING IN SERIES Focused Investigation

334

SKETCHING, MODEL MAKING, AND PROTOTYPES Ideation 336

PROCESS The Vessel 318 Nature 320 TOOLS Extending Capability

312

328

WORLDVIEW Belief Systems 350 Modernism 352 Postmodernism 354

CONCEPTUAL STRATEGIES The Idea Becomes a Machine That Makes the Art 330 PLAY, INVENTION, PROBLEM SOLVING Discovery 332

CHAPTER

3D DESIGN ELEMENTS

2D TO 3D The Relationship of the Planar to the Dimensional 368

INTRODUCTION Form 358 FORM The Cube

360

MASS AND SPACE The Art of the Hole and the Lump LINE A Point Set in Motion

356

362

LIGHT Chromatic Luminosity

364

PLANE The Two-Dimensional Element

SURFACE QUALITIES Texture 370 Color 372

366

374

TIME AND MOTION Kinetic Structure 376

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

3D DESIGN PRINCIPLES

378

INTRODUCTION Organization 380

SYMMETRY Correspondence across a Divide

UNITY Gestalt

ASYMMETRY Dynamic Form

382

UNITY AND VARIETY Dynamic Partnership REPETITION Visual and Structural Modularity 388 PATTERN Ordered Repetition RHYTHM Fluid Form

384

HARMONY Unity, Balance, Order

402

386

PROXIMITY An Organizational Tool

404

EMPHASIS Contrast 406 390

PROPORTION Ratio 408

392

ILLUSION OF MOTION Origin and Implementation BALANCE Actual and Implied

400

SCALE Comparative Size 410 The Miniature 412 Monumental 414

394

396

CHAPTER

MATERIAL INTRODUCTION Material Carries Meaning

416

418

NEW MATERIALS Technological Development SUSTAINABILITY Reuse and Green Design

WORKABILITY Ease of Use 420

424

426

MATERIAL Bamboo 422

CHAPTER

STRUCTURE INTRODUCTION Structural Principles

430

STRUCTURAL ECONOMY Efficient Form 432 TENSION AND COMPRESSION Physical Forces 434

428 JOINERY Structural Connection

436

TRANSFORMERS Collapsible and Expandable Structure 438

398

xii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

FUNCTION

440 STYLE Signature and Typology

INTRODUCTION Utility 442 UTILITY Design and Art Compared Art 446 Form and Function 448

450

444

CHAPTER

FIGURATION INTRODUCTION Representation

452 ILLUSION Camouflage 456 Art and Architecture

454

458

CHAPTER

FORMING AND FABRICATION

460

INTRODUCTION Making 462

HYBRID FORM Blurring Boundaries

BASIC FORMING Additive 464 Subtractive 466 Constructive 468

INDUSTRIAL METHODS The Machine Aesthetic 478 COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN The Future Is Here 480

THE FOUND OBJECT The Readymade 470 The Altered Readymade and Bricolage 472 BRIDGING ART AND LIFE Art and Everyday Experience

GLOSSARY

REPLICATION TECHNOLOGIES Basic and Traditional 482 New Approaches 484

474

486

BIBLIOGRAPHY

491

PHOTOGRAPHIC SOURCES INDEX

476

493

497

PREFACE Design Basics: 2D and 3D offers a comprehensive introduction to design across a wide spectrum of media and practices. The original Design Basics (now in its eighth edition) presents the transcendent elements and principals of design as we find them in a universe of examples from drawing to architecture, human made objects, and nature. From these sources ideas are extrapolated for application with a primarily two-dimensional emphasis. It is fair to say that design and composition are nearly interchangeable terms in this case. When we talk of a painting’s design we are talking about composition. Similarly, when we compose, we design. Entering into a discussion of the three-dimensional realm is by its very nature a move from the abstract, the cerebral, and the optical into the world of objects, spaces, materials, and the tactile. So, then the “3D” text makes a leap into the physical world we occupy and with that the messiness of materials and processes involved in making things. A wise guy (probably a painter) once said that “sculpture is something you back into while looking at a painting.” This crack is a low brow version of the old duality that sets intellect or imagination against craft or process. We think you will discover in this expanded offering of Design Basics a synthesis of these imagined polarities. The creative nature of art and design requires a “both/and” view of the world in place of an “either/or” world view. Josef Albers once said that for the artist, one plus one creates something greater than two. We hope you find that phenomenon in the joint edition of these two texts.

FLEXIBILITY Get the resources you need the way you want … Lauer/Pentak, Design Basics, 8e 978-0-495-91577-5

Roth/Pentak, Design Basics: 3D 978-0-495-91578-2

Pentak/Roth, Color Basics 978-0-534-61389-1

RESOURCES Art CourseMate brings design concepts to life with interactive learning, study tools, and an ebook. The interactive ebook allows students to take notes, highlight, and search, and links directly to the interactive foundations tutorials for review.

Stephen Pentak Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University Richard Roth Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University

ArtStudio provides a secure, password-protected online image and video upload and grading program that enables you to critique students’ assignments as well as facilitating student peer-review, allowing students to see and respond to the work of others in an interactive, non-judgmental environment. ArtStudio includes pre-built assignments and grading rubrics in core topic areas, which you can choose to use or modify—or, you can build entirely new assignments.

PART

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

CHAPTER

DESIGN PROCESS

CHAPTER

UNITY 26

CHAPTER

EMPHASIS AND FOCAL POINT

CHAPTER

SCALE AND PROPORTION 68

CHAPTER

BALANCE 86

CHAPTER

RHYTHM 110

Bruce Eric Kaplan The Cartoon Bank: A New Yorker Magazine Company

CHAPTER

DESIGN PROCESS

INTRODUCTION Design Defined

LOOKING 4

Sources: Artifacts

PROCEDURES

LOOKING

Steps in the Process

THINKING Getting Started

Sources: History and Culture

DOING 8

Thinking with Materials

THINKING

DOING

Form and Content

THINKING

Doing and Redoing

CRITIQUE

Form and Function

Constructive Criticism

LOOKING Sources: Nature

3 Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

INTRODUCTION

DESIGN DEFINED

Visual Organization

What do you think of when you hear the word design? Do you associate design with fashion, graphics, furniture, or automotive style? Design has a more universal meaning than the commercial applications that might first come to mind. A dictionary definition uses the synonym plan: To design indeed means to plan, to organize. Design is inherent in the full range of art disciplines from painting and drawing to sculpture, photography, and timebased media such as film, video, computer graphics, and animation. It is integral to crafts such as ceramics, textiles, and glass. Architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning all apply visual design principles. The list could go on. Virtually the entire realm of two- and three-dimensional human production involves design, whether consciously applied, well executed, or ill considered.

Design is essentially the opposite of chance. In ordinary conversation, when we say “it happened by design,” we mean something was planned—it did not occur just by accident. People in all occupations plan, but the artist or designer plans the arrangement of elements to form a visual pattern. Depending on the field, these elements will vary—from painted symbols to written words to scenic flats to bowls to furniture to windows and doors. But the result is always a visual organization. Art, like other careers and occupations, is concerned with seeking answers to problems. Art, however, seeks visual solutions in what is often called the design process. The poster shown in A is an excellent example of a visual solution. How the letters are arranged is an essential part of communicating the idea. Two other posters offer a comparison

John Kuchera. It’s Time to Get Organized. 1986. Poster. Art Director and Designer, Hutchins/Y&R.

Steve Mehalo. Make Jobs Not War. Poster design. Copyright: free art for public use. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

and contrast of how text can be organized to create a visual message from what could be a merely verbal message. Make Jobs Not War (B) is composed to communicate a simple and unambiguous statement. “War” is given a special focus through the color red, but the message is primarily verbal, not visual. In C red is again used for emphasis, but in this case the design of the text is more critical to the creation of a visual statement. The red that brings forward the word “war” from the text “what is it good for?” appears to have been crudely brushed on with drips and rough edges accentuating a violent urgency. This stands in contrast to the graceful formality of the text in black. This contrast conveys the message via a visual solution. If we recall the message in C, it will be because we will recall how the elements are organized.

Creative Problem Solving The arts are called creative fields because there are no predetermined correct answers to the problems. Infinite variations in individual interpretations and applications are possible. Problems in art vary in specifics and complexity. Independent painters or sculptors usually create their own “problems” or avenues they wish to explore. The artist can choose as wide or narrow a scope as he or she wishes. The architect or graphic and industrial designer is usually given a problem, often with very specific options and clearly defined limitations. Students in art classes are often in this “problem-solving” category—they execute a series of assignments devised by the instructor that require rather specific solutions. However, all art or visual problems are similar in that a creative solution is desired. The creative aspect of art also includes the often-heard phrase “there are no rules in art.” This is true. In solving problems visually, there is no list of strict or absolute dos and don’ts to follow. Given the varied objectives of visual art throughout the ages, definite laws are impossible. However, “no rules” may seem to imply that all designs are equally valid and visually successful. This is not true. Artistic practices and criteria have been developed from successful works, of which an artist or designer

DESIGN PROCESS

should be aware. Thus, guidelines (not rules) exist that usually will assist in the creation of successful designs. These guidelines certainly do not mean the artist is limited to any specific solution.

Form and Content Defined Discussions of art often distinguish between two aspects, form and content. Form is the purely visual aspect, the manipulation of the various elements and principles of design. Content implies the subject matter, story, or information that the artwork seeks to communicate to the viewer. Content is what artists want to say; form is how they say it. The poster in C can be appreciated for a successful relationship between form and content. Sometimes the aim of a work of art or design is purely aesthetic. Take, for example, adornment such as jewelry where the only “problem” is one of creating visual pleasure. However, even art and design of a decorative nature have the potential to reveal new ways of seeing and communicate a point of view. Art is and always has been a means of visual communication.

Marty Neumeier. War: What is it Good For? Poster design. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

PROCEDURES

STEPS IN THE PROCESS We have all heard the cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is true. There is no way to calculate how much each of us has learned through pictures. Communication has always been an essential role for art. Indeed, before letters were invented, written communication consisted of simple pictorial symbols. Today, pictures can function as a sort of international language. A picture can be understood when written words may be unintelligible to the foreigner or the illiterate. We do not need to understand German to grasp immediately that the message of the poster in A is pain, suffering, and torture.

Art as Communication In art, as in communication, the artist or designer is saying something to the viewer. Here the successful solution not only is visually compelling but also communicates an idea. Any of the elements of art can be used in communication. Purely abstract lines, color, and shapes can very effectively express ideas or feelings. Many times communication is achieved through symbols, pictorial images that suggest to the viewer the theme or message. The ingenuity of creative imagination exercised in selecting these images can be important in the finished work’s success.

Countless pictures demonstrate that words are not necessary for communication. We can see that in two examples that suggest the idea of balance. In the photograph Balanced Rock (B) no words are needed to communicate the idea. In C we read the word, but the concept is conveyed visually. The uppercase E provides a visual balance to the capital B, and the dropped A is used as a visual fulcrum. As in A the concept comes across independent of language. So we are led to wonder how these artists arrived at their conclusions. Both B and C are good ideas, but how were they generated? We can appreciate that the process of trial and error would differ between working with rocks and text! Examples on the coming pages will demystify the work behind the results we admire in accomplished artworks.

The Creative Process These successful design solutions are due, of course, to good ideas. Students often wonder, “How do I get an idea?” Almost everyone shares this dilemma from time to time. Even the professional artist can stare at an empty canvas, the successful writer at a blank page. An idea in art can take many forms, varying from a specific visual effect to an intellectual communication of a definite message. Ideas encompass both content and form.

Stop Torture. 1985. Poster for Amnesty International. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

It is doubtful that anyone can truly explain why or how an answer to something we’ve been puzzling over appears out of the blue. Our ideas can occur when we are in the shower, mowing the lawn, or in countless other seemingly unlikely situations. But we need not be concerned here with sudden solutions. They will continue to occur, but what happens when we have a deadline? What can we consciously do to stimulate the creative process? What sort of activities can promote the likelihood that a solution to a problem will present itself? The media and the message can vary dramatically, but a process of development can transcend the differences. We suggest three very simple activities with very simple names:

DESIGN PROCESS

Thinking Looking Doing These activities are not sequential steps and certainly are not independent procedures. They overlap and may be performed almost simultaneously or by jumping back and forth from one to another. One thing is certain however: a moment of sudden insight (like the idea in the shower) rarely occurs without an investment of energy into the problem. Louis Pasteur said that “chance favors the prepared mind,” and the painter Chuck Close tells it like it is: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us get to work.”

Andy Goldsworthy. Balanced Rock (Misty, Langdale, Cumbria, May 1977). Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature.

The layout of the letters matches the word’s meaning to convey the idea.

THINKING

GETTING STARTED The well-known French artist Georges Braque wrote in his Cahiers (notebooks) that “one must not think up a picture.” His point is valid; a painting is often a long process that should not be forced or created by formulas to order. However, each day countless designers must indeed “think up” solutions to design problems. Thinking is an essential part of this solution. When confronted by a problem in any aspect of life, the usual first step is to think about it. Thinking is applicable also to art and visual problems. It is involved in all aspects of the creative process. Every step in creating a design involves choices, and the selections are determined by thinking. Chance or accident is also an element in art. But art cannot be created mindlessly, although some art movements have attempted to eliminate rational thought as a factor in creating art and to stress intuitive or subconscious thought. Even then it is thinking that decides whether the spontaneously created result is worthwhile or acceptable. To say that thinking is somehow outside the artistic process is truly illogical.

“Having a talent isn’t worth much unless you know what to do with it.” Poster for the School of Visual Arts. 1978.

Claes Oldenburg. Proposal for a Colossal Monument in Downtown New York City: Sharpened Pencil Stub with Broken-off Tip of the Woolworth Building. 1993. Etching with aquatint, 2' 81⁄2" × 1' 10". Collection of Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

DESIGN PROCESS

Thinking about the Problem

Thinking about the Solution

Knowing what you are doing must precede your doing it. So thinking starts with understanding the problem at hand:

Thinking can be especially important in art that has a specific theme or message. How can the concept be communicated in visual terms? A first step is to think logically of which images or pictures could represent this theme and to list them or, better yet, sketch them quickly, because a visual answer is what you’re seeking. Let’s take a specific example: What could visually represent the idea of art or design? Some obvious symbols appear in the designs on these pages, and you will easily think of more. You might expand the idea by discussing it with others. They may offer suggestions you have not considered. Professional designers often consult reports from market surveys that reveal the ideas of vast numbers of people. Sketch your ideas to see immediately the visual potential. At this point you do not necessarily decide on one idea. But it’s better to narrow a broad list to a few ideas worthy of development. Choosing a visual image is only the first step. How will you use your choice? Three examples shown here all start with a pencil, but take that to unique and memorable conclusions:

Precisely what is to be achieved? (What specific visual or intellectual effect is desired?) Are there visual stylistic requirements (illustrative, abstract, nonobjective, and so on)? What physical limitations (size, color, media, and so on) are imposed? When is the solution needed? These questions may all seem self-evident, but effort spent on solutions outside the range of these specifications will not be productive. So-called failures can occur simply because the problem was not fully understood at the very beginning.

Tom Friedman. Untitled. 1992. Pencil shaving, 1' 111⁄2" × 11⁄2" × 11⁄2", from an edition of two.

A fragment of a pencil becomes the subject of a monumental sculpture. (A) Wasted talent is symbolized by a distorted and useless pencil. (B) A carefully sharpened pencil becomes a spiraling ribbon demonstrating art’s ability to transform our understanding of form. (C) These designs are imaginative and eye-catching. The image was just the first step. How that image or form was used provided the unique and successful solution.

Thinking about the Audience Selecting a particular symbol may depend on limitations of size, medium, color, and so on. Even thinking of future viewers may provide an influence. To whom is this visual message addressed? An enormous pencil fragment as a piece of sculpture might serve as a monument to the legions of “pencil pushers” in an office complex. The same sculpture located at an art school could pay tribute to the humblest of art-making tools. The ribbon of pencil shaving (C) may not engage an audience as a symbol so much as a simple but extraordinary fact.

THINKING

FORM AND CONTENT

Selecting Form

What will be presented, and how will it be presented? The thinking stage of the design process is often a contest to define this relationship of form and content. The contest may play itself out in additions and subtractions as a painting is revised or in the drafts and sketches of an evolving design concept. The solution may be found intuitively or may be influenced by cultural values, previous art, or the expectations of clients.

The form an artist or designer selects is brought to an elemental simplicity in the challenge of designing icons or pictograms for signs, buttons, and web or desktop applications. For these purposes the image must be as simple and unambiguous as possible. The examples shown in C communicate a number of activities associated with a picnic area in a park and do so in a playful manner. Beneath the fun appearance though we can recognize that simple shapes such as circles and ovals predominate, and that the number of elements are as few as possible to communicate with an image and no text.

Selecting Content Raymond Loewy’s revised logo for the Greyhound Bus Company is an example of content being clearly communicated by the appropriate image or form. The existing logo in 1933 (A) looked fat to Loewy, and the chief executive at Greyhound agreed. His revised version (B) (based on a thoroughbred greyhound) conveys the concept of speed, and the company adopted the new logo.

Raymond Loewy. Original logo for Greyhound Bus Co.

Raymond Loewy. Redesigned logo, 1933.

CHAPTER 1

DESIGN PROCESS

Form and content issues would certainly be easier to summarize in a monocultural society. Specific symbols may lose meaning when they cross national, ethnic, or religious borders. The Navigational Chart from the Marshall Islands shown in D communicated currents and navigational landmarks to the island people who knew how to read this. For the rest of us it is a mysterious web of bamboo lines and shells marking a number of points. We may infer a meaning from an impression that the construction is not an arbitrary arrangement, but without more information the visual clues would not communicate to us. We can only guess how successfully the signs in C would communicate to the islanders who used the navigational map. Given these obstacles to understanding, it is a powerful testimony to the meaning inherent in form when artworks do communicate successfully across time and distance. Raymond Loewy’s design solution conveys speed and grace with an image that can be understood by many generations and many cultures.

Chris Rooney. Picnic Icons. From Blackcoffee Design Inc., editor, 1,000 Icons, Symbols, and Pictograms: Visual Communication for Every Language (1000 Series) (Beverly, Mass.: Rockport Publishers, 2009).

Navigational Chart. Micronesian, Marshall Islands, Late 19th–early 20th century. Findspot: Marshall Islands. Bamboo, cowrie shells, and twine, 66 × 63 cm (2' 2" × 2' 13⁄16"). Chart consisting of thin bamboo rods, tied together into roughly square form, with diagonally-oriented elements and cowrie shells at some intersections. The bamboo elements represent currents; the cowries represent land masses. On view in the Richard B. Carter Gallery (Oceanic Art), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Governor Carlton Skinner and Solange Skinner, 2002. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

THINKING

FORM AND FUNCTION The seaplane shown in A shares a similarity of form to the whale shown in B. We can probably assume that the designers of the seaplane did not copy the form of this whale; however, both the plane and whale are streamlined for easy movement through the water. In each case the form follows function. When we say that form follows function, we say that purpose defines the look and shape of an object, and that efficiency is obvious. This relationship is often easiest to see and acknowledge in utilitarian design, such as the furniture design of the American Shaker movement. The interior presented in C reveals a simple, straightforward attitude toward furniture and space

design. All the furnishings are functional and free from extraneous decoration. The ladder back of the chair exhibits a second utility when the chair is hung on the wall. Everything in this space communicates the Shaker value of simplicity. The meandering bookshelf and curved furniture shown in D are also functional but in a playful and surprising way. The forms are not dictated by a strict form-follows-function design approach. The design solution is simple but the forms express a sense of visual delight and humor as well. This may seem whimsical in contrast to the austerity of Shaker design but in fact both offer a satisfying economy and unadorned clarity.

Grumman HU–16 Albatross, post-WWII “utility and rescue amphibian.” Bill Gunston, consultant editor, The Encyclopedia of World Air Power (London: Aerospace Publishing Limited, 1980), p. 165.

Pygmy Right Whale (Caperea marginata), Southern Hemisphere, 18'–211⁄2' (5.5–6.5 m). From Mark Cawardine and Martin Camm, Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1995), p. 48. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

DESIGN PROCESS

Ron Arad. "Restless" Exhibition. The Barbican Centre, London, England. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

LOOKING

SOURCES: NATURE

Source versus Subject

Looking is probably the primary education of any artist. This process includes studying both the natural world and human artifacts. Observing nature reveals the elegant adaptations of plants and animals to their environment. The structures of nature, from beehives to birds’ wings, offer models for efficient design and beautiful art.

Sources in nature are clearly identifiable in the works of some artists, while less obvious in the works of others—perhaps revealed only when we see drawings or preparatory work. In any case a distinction should be made between source and subject. The source is a stimulus for an image or idea. For example, Arthur Dove’s oil painting (A) is titled Tree Composition, but the source of this image is significantly abstracted and the subject of the painting is apparently a spiral form and energy that Dove saw in the tree.

Arthur Dove. Tree Composition. 1937. Oil on canvas, 1' 31⁄4" x 1' 9". Edward W. Root Bequest (57.136). Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, New York.

Georgia O’Keeffe. Shell No. 1. 1928. Oil on canvas, overall: 17.8 × 17.8 cm (7" × 7"), framed: 20.3 × 20.3 × 3.3 cm (8" × 8" × 15⁄16"). Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

DESIGN PROCESS

Leonardo da Vinci. Studies of Flowers. c.1509–1511. Drawings, Watercolours and Prints. The Royal Collection. London.

Leonardo da Vinci. Study of Flowing Water. c. 1509–1511. The Royal Collection, London.

Georgia O’Keefe’s painting of a shell (B) is a more realistic depiction of its source or model in the natural world, but clearly she too was interested in the spiral, and in this way her painting has a kinship to that of Arthur Dove (her friend and colleague). The two sketchbook drawings by Leonardo (C and D) show how the artist found similar spiral patterns in the way a plant grows and the turbulence of water. Drawing is an artist’s means for active looking and learning from the natural world. Leonardo drew upon these observations in both his paintings and machine designs. The plant appears in the painting Virgin of the Rocks, and the study of water turbulence was relevant to his ideas on bridge design. For Leonardo “design” was relevant to both painting and engineering. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

LOOKING

SOURCES: ARTIFACTS We expect artists and designers to be visually sensitive people who see things in the world that others might overlook and who look with special interest at the history of art and design. Studying art, architecture, craft, and design from all periods, regions, and cultures introduces you to a wealth of visual creations, better equipping you to discover your own solutions. The painter Sean Scully has long been interested in the arrangements of walls and windows and the light that falls on these surfaces. In fact, he often photographs these subjects. This informs our understanding of the installation of his paintings shown in A. What is Scully looking at when he looks at these architectural structures? Evidently he sees a rich world of color

and light and surprising arrangements of rectangles and stripes that challenge him to compose subtle but complex compositions . . . inspired from a seemingly neutral or ordinary source. This process of looking is extended in the photograph by a Dartmouth College student shown in B. This photo is a response to Scully’s paintings and is one of a series of “stripes” found in the campus environment. For better or worse we do not create our design solutions in an information vacuum. We have the benefit of an abundance of visual information coming at us through various media, from books to television, websites, and films. On the plus side, we are treated to images one would previously have had to travel to see.

Sean Scully. Installation View. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

Dartmouth College student Lauren Orr. 2008. Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

CHAPTER 1

On the minus side, it is easy to overlook that we are often seeing a limited (or altered) aspect of the original artwork in a reproduction. The influence of reproduced images is enriching but potentially superficial. Artists and designers will often travel and study influences firsthand for a deeper understanding of their influences.

DESIGN PROCESS

Nancy Crow is an artist who mines a rich treasure of cultural influences and creates unique works that are not simply copies gleaned from other cultures. Her travels and research connect her work to artifacts such as Mexican masks (C). The impact can be seen in her quilt shown in D.

Nancy Crow. Mexican Tiger Masks. From the Collection of Nancy Crow.

Nancy Crow. Mexican Wheels II. 1988. Quilt, 7' 6" × 7' 6". From the Collection of Nancy Crow. Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

LOOKING

Jean-Léon Gérôme. The Duel after the Masquerade. 1857–1859. Oil on canvas, 1' 33⁄8" × 1' 103⁄16" (39.1 × 56.3 cm).

SOURCES: HISTORY AND CULTURE Visual Training and Retraining The art of looking is not entirely innocent. Long before the training in seeing we get in art and design classes, we are trained by our exposure to mass media. Television, film, Internet, and print images provide examples that can influence our self-image and our personal relationships. The distinction between “news” and “docudrama” is often a blurry one, and viewers are often absorbed into the “reality” of a movie. At times it seems that visual training demands a retraining of looking on slower, more conscious terms. “Look again” and “see the relationships” are often heard in a beginning drawing class. Part of this looking process involves examining works of art and considering the images of mass media that shape our culture. Many artists actively address these issues in their art by using familiar images or “quoting” past artworks. Although this may seem like an esoteric exercise to the beginning student, an awareness of the power of familiar images is fundamental to understanding visual communication.

Pablo Picasso. Harlequin. Paris, late 1915. Oil on canvas, 6' 1⁄4" × 3' 53⁄8" (183.5 × 105.1 cm).

CHAPTER 1

Two paintings separated by a century in time have a common “character” in the Harlequin. The Harlequin pattern can be seen in both A and B, but the visual language of these two paintings is in stark contrast. Picasso references earlier artwork even as he constructs a radically different composition. We will engage both of these images throughout the chapters of this book as we compare and contrast their attributes. Certain so-called high art images manage to become commonly known, or vernacular, through frequent reproduction. In the case of a painting like Washington Crossing the Delaware, the image is almost as universally recognized as a religious icon once was. There is a long tradition of artists paying homage to the masters, and we can understand how an artist might study this or other paintings in an attempt to learn techniques. However, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware (C), by the African American artist Robert Colescott, strikes a different relationship to the well-known painting we recognize as a source. Colescott plays with the familiarity of this patriotic image and startles us with a presentation of negative black stereotypes. One American stereotype is laid on top of another, leading the viewer to confront preconceptions about both. In contrast to the previous fine art examples, the example shown in D comes from the world of commercial art. The evolving image of “Betty Crocker” reveals how this icon was visualized at different times. This then reflects where the illustrator looked for a visual model of “American female.” Looking, then, can be influenced by commercial and societal forces, which are as real an aspect of our lives as the elements of nature.

1936

1955

1965

DESIGN PROCESS

1980

1986

Robert Colescott. George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware. 1975. Acrylic on canvas, 4' 6" × 9'. Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York.

Looking is a complex blend of conscious searching and visual recollections. This searching includes looking at art, nature, and the vernacular images from the world around us, as well as doing formal research into new or unfamiliar subjects. What we hope to find are the elements that shape our own visual language.

1968

J 1972

1996

Betty Crocker through the years. Courtesy General Mills (Canada).

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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller, without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who, as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.

FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER” (Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley, some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing, but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature, from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,

or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity. Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say? The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both “off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the craving for tobacco in the tropics. Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to

an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and lemon-juice. Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment, that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question. Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit. My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari; consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had

bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding, consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us, seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten years to come. Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch: Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9 × 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care. How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his mutilated finger-tips.

Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough. The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface, however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day such a fire is a grand sight. Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed. Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush, and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the

western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men. It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process

may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe— not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more, between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them— cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes, perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground. This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the secondary bush. After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact, receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains, where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were accustomed to rule. But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and

lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible, impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and come back to his starting point. The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush. According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast, to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however, correct. The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau, instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks and springs of the low country. “The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little. He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a stillborn child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which

was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In course of time, the couple had many more children, and called themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams, for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest wateringplace; then their children would thrive and escape illness.” The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing? Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short, woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood, ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia, Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably) would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.

The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys. Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent. This knowledge is crystallized in the ancestral warning against settling in the valleys and near the great waters, the dwelling-places of disease and death. At the same time, for security against the hostile Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted that every settlement must be not less than a certain distance from the southern edge of the plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the present day. It is not such a bad one, and certainly they are both safer and more comfortable than the Makua, the recent intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain, especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the

most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain. The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might. It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of “Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have

two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise, come in for a blowing-up. The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala, shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos. Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde bush:—