Ornamental art

“ The student will then notice, how many illustrations of plants are near enough to the originals to be unmistakable, but that the grace of the plants has evaporated. As soon as he is sufficiently advanced to study with advantage the best examples of ornamental art, he will find out the difficulties the great ornamentalists have overcome in applying the beauties of nature to works of art ”

“ Other examples occur in the cathedrals at Ely, Wells, and Winchester. Wherever met with in ornamental art, the leaves and berries are the parts selected: to the best of our knowledge the flowers have never, in any instance, been introduced, no doubt from the fact of the minuteness and delicacy of each individual blossom, and its habit of growing in clusters, which, though extremely beautiful in nature, are, from their intricacy of detail, unsuited to the purposes of the ornamentist. ”

“ While the natural world, including leaves, flowers, animals, etc., is the greatest source of ornament, it is generally the opinion of the best authorities, derived from the study of the best styles and by a consideration of the principles of fitness and propriety which underlie the entire physical and moral world, that natural forms in ornamental and decorative art should not be literally copied or imitated. ”

“ It cannot of course be called new, few things can be in this world; but its persistent application, from illumination to stone-carving, will perhaps in time stamp it with a traditional character. The foliage is more like sea-weed than anything else, but it also has a faint resemblance to the acanthus, the ox-eye, and the wild poppy (Fig. 159) . We have no fixed principles of ornamental art; even ornamentalists themselves disagree as to what is good, and what is bad, so that nothing lives long enough to become national ornament. How can we hope to vie with the ornamental{128}
Fig. ”

“ Ornamental design has subsided because no one asks for, cares for, or encourages, ornament. It needs only to be in the hands of an artist—not necessarily a Holbein, but just a Rhodian potter, a Persian carpet weaver, a mediæval carver, or a nameless glazier—to be worthy of its modest place in art. ”

“ Similarly, though the plant in its natural growth is often exceedingly spiny, it is, in ornamental art, represented as almost or entirely without this characteristic feature, as there would be a great practical difficulty, in any kind of relief-work at least, in the satisfactory introduction of forms so minute and fragile, yet requiring so high a relief. ”

“ Realistic decoration was the earliest form of all art, as we find it in the etchings on the bones drawn by the prehistoric cave-dwellers; but ornamental design or pattern drawing is a kind of invention which implies the orderly decoration of architectural forms and other objects, and is generally applied to such objects with the view of adding some enrichment that shall make them more pleasing to the sight. ”

“ The object of this little work is not so much to enter into any detailed history of the progress of ornamental art, which may well become a separate and intricate study, as to smooth down the difficult path of the beginner, to unravel for him apparent mysteries in the art, to give him examples of practical designs to imitate from, suitable to his skill ”

“ To know and appreciate the best ornament should be an aim set forth in any scheme of general education. This knowledge and appreciation can be obtained by studying the application of the laws and principles of ornamental art as exemplified in the works of masters, and also by endeavoring to apply these principles in designs of our own creation. ”

“ The terra cotta goods, comprising water-bottles, ornamental flower-pots and stands, table-jugs, spill-cases, tobacco-jars, and an infinite variety of other articles, are of a high degree of excellence, both in body, in form, in colour, and in style of ornamentation. In colour it is of a deep, rich, full red, and is remarkably close, compact, hard, and durable in texture. The ornamentation consists of embossed borders of more than average relief; printed groups of Etruscan figures, borders, groups of flowers, &c.; rich enamelling in various colours; and dead and burnished gilding. ”

“ Prominent among the subjects shown by the reliefs, serving the purposes of mural decoration, is the so-called tree of life, a symbol not adequately explained, a plant form woven in ribbons and anthemions to an ornamental play of lines, before which stand sacrificing figures or winged genii with eagle-heads, holding in the one hand a basket, in the other a species of pine-cone, or in the one a lotos-flower or a scourge, and in the other a gazelle or a small lion. ”

“ It is curious that these wonderful forms should not have been employed more largely in the decorative work of any people. With the exception of the singularly waved and bossed foliage seen in the stone carving and metal-work of the later years of the Decorated period of Gothic, and which may possibly have been originally suggested by the Fucus vesiculosus, one of our commonest shore weeds, we know of no instance of their introduction into ornamental{ix} art. ”

“ In addition to these, there are the primitive arts of man—the ceramic art, spinning, and weaving. In the former, especially, an appreciation of artistic form and decoration by ornament is developed. The ornament becomes a kind of symbolical written language, the eventual deciphering of which appears possible in view of the latest discoveries concerning the ornamental symbolism of the primitive races of the present day. Discoveries of dwellings prove an advanced knowledge of primitive architecture ”

“ The question now before us—"What ornament is fit and right for a garden?"—of itself implies a tendency to err in the direction of ornament. We see that on the face of it the transposition of the simple of Nature into the subtle of Art has its dangers. ”

“ Nevertheless, there are some most exquisite and marvellous specimens of flowers, foliage, and grape-vines, and miracles of stone-work twined about arches, as if the material had been as soft as wax in the cunning sculptor’s hands,—the leaves being represented with all their veins, so that you would almost think it petrified Nature, for which he sought to steal the praise of Art. ”

“ Much of this work is flabby or wire-drawn, and often omits the highest beauty of the plants it uses, but even when the beauty of the plant is not left out, the ornament is infinitely below the highest flights of former art, in which the artist had absorbed the graces of floral growth and had properly applied them. The highest ornament, by its abstraction, is closely allied to architectural art, while all its higher achievements are in conjunction with architecture ”

“ Is not the flower the queen of ornaments, the inspiration of all races and ages, the very soul of artistic decoration? Have not the hands of genius contrived to employ the most durable as well as the most fragile material to express this delicate beauty in Greek and Gothic capitals, in the stone lacework of cathedrals, the fabrics of gold and silk, brocades, tapestries, wrought iron-work, old bindings? Is the splendor of stained-glass windows aught else than the splendor of a mass of beautiful flowers? ”

“ We have our choice, either in mathematical forms and combination of forms, such as mediæval architects might have applied, or else we may throw along it wreaths and branches of foliage, peopled with insect life, or enlivened by birds and animals. A succession of simple oak-branches or laurel-leaves, or the shoots of any other common plants, faithfully imitated, and cut into mimic life, from the inanimate stone, would form an ornament of the most effective kind, and would constitute a work of art, being an intelligent and poetical interpretation of natural beauty. ”

“ The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric masks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have been wrought by the hand of the sculptor on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. ”

“ With these people, the highest class of decoration consisted of designs in color. This topic is fully discussed in a subsequent section.
Origin of ornament.—It is probable that before pottery came into use the decorative art had been cultivated in other fields, and we shall need to look both to nature and to antecedent arts for the originals of many decorative ideas.
From a remote period man has been able to appreciate beauty. ”

“ To the young student I may say that he can never become an artist until he has mastered the fundamental principles of his art; and that nothing can deserve the name of ornament that is not both{18} appropriate and beautiful, and has been evolved from nature by the mind of man. I would suggest to the young artist that the flora of the world is not confined to the lotus, the honeysuckle, and the acanthus; that if accident caused the original choice of these plants, it was the infinite pains bestowed on their treatment that caused their persistence. ”

“ Though from its inconspicuous character the sorrel may very readily be passed over, it will, we think, be found to repay the attention of the ornamentist, since the lightness and grace of its growth, its brilliant colour, and the rich form of the leaf, are all characteristics that should render it valuable to those engaged in decorative art. ”

“ The primitive designer enriched his work with flowers, striving to preserve the quickly fading natural decoration by an imperishable imitation. Many of the bands of ornament customary in antiquity may be considered as rows or wreaths of leaves and flowers, although often they do not betray their derivation at first sight, because of the original imperfect representation of nature, the subsequent strict conventionalization, and final degeneracy into formalism. ”

“ It is the principle or requirement, of geometric base in interior design which, coupled with our natural delight in yielding or growing forms, has maintained through all the long history of decoration what is called conventionalised flower design. We find this in every form or method of decorative art, from embroidery to sculpture, from the Lotus of Egypt to the Rose of England, and although it results in a sort of crucifixion of the natural beauty of the flower, in the hands of great designers it has become an authoritative style of art. ”

“ But it is one thing to have a longing, and another to be able to bring plants, leaves, and flowers into the domain of high art. The early Gothic sculptors did give a certain crispness, and in some cases even a monumental air to their carved flora, and sometimes they got that mysterious look of infinite complexity that is found in nature, and they had invention to a marvellous degree. From the sculptors working on the spot, and being able to see each figure and piece of ornament in its place, they never missed their effect. ”

“ The objects in nature that give us the most unalloyed pleasure—birds and flowers—are those that from all time have served as the materials for decorative design, and therefore have been moulded into the traditional patterns which have descended to us from the earliest times. ”

“ Ornament is the means by which Beauty or Significance is imparted to Utility. It is either Symbolical or Aesthetic. Symbolic ornament consists of elements or forms chosen for the sake of their significance—Aesthetic ornament consists of forms or elements chosen for their Beauty alone, or their power of appealing to the senses.
Of the historic styles of ornament, the Egyptian, Assyrian, Byzantine, Scandinavian, Persian, Indian, Gothic, Polynesian, and much of the Chinese and Japanese are symbolical, having elements and ornamental details chosen for their significance ”

“ Always, in studying a Gothic tapestry, we find flowers. The flowers of nature, they are, a simple nature at that, and never to be thought of in the same day as the gorgeous, expansive, proud flowers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century decoration. Those splendid later blossoms flaunt their richness with assured swagger and demand of man his homage, quite forgetting it is the flower’s best part to give. ”

“ In the shape which an object intended for ornament should assume, or in the style of its decoration, there is, as we have seen, no absolute rule. Individual taste is paramount, since ornaments are intended mainly to administer to the pleasure of the possessor, but one rule may be considered universal in regard to the decoration. If the object be a vase intended to brighten a house, then its ornamentation should never be of such an order that its greatest and best effect is perceived when it stands alone. ”

“ Conventional ornament is the adaptation of natural forms to ornamental and technical requirements, and is seen in its greatest beauty in the frank treatment by the Indians and Persians of their flora and fauna for the decorative enrichment of their textile fabrics, pottery, and jewellery.
Inventive ornament is that which consists of elements not derived from any natural source ”

“ There is no other handiwork that offers such enjoyment, to those possessed of a sense of the beautiful, as the different methods of wood decoration. While the study and practice requisite in difficult etching, and the decorative embellishment of useful articles with stylish ornamentation, 155makes one an acknowledged artist, so through the medium of sprinkle work, with the ever new and beautiful effects to be produced by the aid of pressed leaves and flowers, or by the simple method of painting bouquets and landscapes upon wood, there is endless scope for the taste of the amateur. ”