Personal adornment was the earliest motive that led primitive man to
cultivate other arts than those which were necessary to his existence.
Just as soon as he had killed such wild animals as were dangerous, or
were wanted for food, he probably set about carving some kind of design
on his weapons. After a while, when he found more time, he went straight
away to fashioning ornaments for his own person. If you should go to the
Museum of Natural History in New York city, where the rude implements of
men who lived many thousands of years ago are to be found, you will see
many such early ornaments. Some of these ornaments are of the very
roughest and coarsest kind, and would not be considered either pretty or
becoming to-day. Early man took a small stone, and with infinite trouble
bored a hole through it with a flint; then he strung it on a shred of
sinew, and wore it around his neck. He was probably very selfish about
this simple ornament, and it is quite likely that many years passed
before he made any such beads for his wife, or allowed her to wear them.
Gradually, however, man's artistic tastes were awakened, and he first
cut the sides of the soft stones, then polished them, though many
thousands of years passed before he learned how to engrave on hard
stones. Gem-engraving is so old, however, that it is difficult to give
it a date. You will find very often in collections a hard stone, which
has something engraved on it, belonging to a very ancient period; but
the material was fashioned into some form or other by people who had
lived many centuries before. Cameo-cutting came after gem-engraving, and
those who are learned in such matters tell us that there were cameos
made as early as 162 years before Christ.
Now what is a cameo? It may be a portrait, or a group of figures, or any
design, cut on a hard material, where the work executed in relief, or
the part which stands out, is of a different color from the ground. In
order, then, to make a cameo you must have some hard substance composed
of different layers. Such stones are called banded stones. There are
many minerals, such as the onyx, the carnelian, or sard, where there are
two layers of the same substance one on top of the other, but of
different colors. The upper crust may be pure white or a pale
fawn-color, and the lower layer red, or olive, or black. Then the
contrast is very handsome. In order to get the materials on which
cameos were to be engraved, the Greeks and Romans travelled a great
distance, even as far as India. It is believed that cameo-cutting was at
its greatest state of perfection in the second century of the Christian
era, when the Roman lapidaries, as workers in precious stones are
called, carried on their work.
[Illustration]
But a cameo need not be made of stone, for some of the finest that have
come down to us were fashioned by the Romans by cutting layers of glass
of different colors. It may seem strange to young readers to be told
that although to-day we are very perfect in glass-making, there are a
great many things the Romans could have taught us in this art. Now the
reason why they were so skilled in glass manufacture was because they
used glass as a substitute for porcelain, which was not then invented.
The illustration which accompanies this article represents a very fine
cameo designed by a very great English artist, whose name was John
Flaxman. This cameo, which was cast, was made of white and blue
porcelain, and was probably intended as a decoration for one of those
beautiful urns which Wedgwood, the famous potter, manufactured in
England almost a hundred years ago.
To-day a great many cameos are made, but not out of hard stones. The
shell of the conch, found in Florida and the West Indies, is the
material used. The white surface is cut into the figure and left. The
under layer of the shell, or the ground, which is of a brownish hue when
polished, gives that contrast which a cameo should have. We do not take
as much trouble to make a cameo as did the ancients. They cut the stone
with tiny drills, the points of which are believed to have been
diamonds. The shell cameo being much softer, can be scraped or cut with
small chisels. Of the old cameos there are two famous ones, one cut on
an agate, the other on an onyx. Nothing in modern art is as fine, and
for the one on the onyx, which is known as the Vienna gem, as much as
12,000 gold ducats was paid by the Emperor Rudolph in the sixteenth
century. By the study of ancient cameos a great deal is learned, for
they show us the actual pictures of the dress and costumes of people who
lived more than 1800 years ago. But more than that: on some of these
cameos we have the exact likenesses of great personages, who as Roman
Emperors once ruled the world. In ancient times cameos were used, just
as they are to-day, as ornaments, only the Greeks and Romans, men and
women, wore them set in gold on their shoulders, as they held together
the folds of their flowing draperies.
In the United States there are quite a number of cameo-makers, who cut
good likenesses on shells; but the great art which existed in the time
of Augustus has passed away.