Pattern

“ That every line in a pattern should have its due growth, and be traceable to its beginning, this, which you have doubtless heard before, is undoubtedly essential to the finest pattern work; equally so is it that no stem should be so far from its parent stock as to look weak or wavering. Mutual support and unceasing progress distinguish real and natural order from its mockery, pedantic tyranny.
Every one who has practised the designing of patterns knows the necessity for covering the ground equably and richly. ”

“ But later, when perhaps we’re laid on the rack for a space and can see the pattern as a whole, we realize how the apparently aimless movements each had their part to play in the finished pattern of beauty that the weaver had intended. ”

“ If any one has in his lifetime invented a pattern, he has done something truly remarkable, and as rare as is a really original thought on any subject. Patterns are commonly, like men, the result of many centuries of long descent from ancestors of remote antiquity. ”

“ Now that we have schools of design, and more accessible specimens of art, the direction is given without the aids—“Make a new pattern,” and the artist sits down with nothing before him but pencil and paper—unless, indeed, he finds aids for himself in wild flowers, and other such instructors in beauty of form and color. By degrees, the different parts of the pattern shape themselves out, and combine—the centre groups with the ends, and the ends grow out into the sides with a natural and graceful transition. ”

“ It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.—Now hear the verses. ”

“ Following this thought of the oneness of art, we find that the picture, the plan, and the pattern are alike in the sense that each is a group of synthetically related spaces. Abstract design is, as it were, the primer of painting, in which principles of Composition appear in a clear and definite form. In the picture they are not so obvious, being found in complex interrelations and concealed under detail. ”

“ In making a pattern the first thing to be decided upon is some main idea, the detail that is to carry it out must then be considered. This latter may be of various types, such as flowers, foliage, figures, animals, geometrical forms, interlacing strapwork, quatrefoils, &c., &c.; perhaps several of these motifs may be combined together in the same design. ”

“ Emphasis is on the overall effect of pattern, not on its items. The continuous forked-and-angled design, the combinations of hourglass figures, of spaced rhomboids or hexagons, even the simpler fishbone pattern—all have this total-field approach, with relative indifference to figure elements that got squeezed, stretched, or distorted. ”

“ To produce the curved pattern I show you, nothing more is necessary than to bend the tin pattern on a block of the right shape, and we now get a pattern which would puzzle a good many pattern-makers of the old style. ”

“ The decorative designer will sometimes want to emphasize forms with the utmost force and realism at his command, as in some crisp bit of carving or emphatic pattern, to give point and relief in his scheme of quantities. ”

“ The discovery of the one in the many, the immediate apprehension Page 348 of the fluent tracing of a pattern, a form, or a structure, is intrinsically delightful. The pattern of a tapestry design is as striking and suggestive as the colors themselves. ”

“ Any pattern or design which shows prominently any set pattern, or spots which suggest a sum of multiplication, or which, in the half-light of night or early morning, might be likely to fix themselves upon the tired brain, suggesting all kinds of weird forms, are especially to be avoided. The design should be of such a description that, saving as regards colour, it should offer no specially marked pattern. ”

“ In fact, all these theories are of little use as formulæ of interpretation, for we must study carefully each trait-complex before a conclusion as to its origin can be reached. Their true functions are to define the different ways in which cultural similarities have been observed to come about.
The intensive analytic study of single trait-complexes has developed the pattern theory. [8] The conception is that in certain phases of culture each social unit develops a style, or pattern, for its traits and that borrowed traits will be worked over to make them conform to this pattern. ”

“ PATTERN, a model, that which serves as an original from which similar objects may be made, or as an example or specimen; in particular an artistic design serving as a sample or model, hence the arrangement or grouping of lines, figures, &c., which make up such a design. ”

“ The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.
I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind,—that dim sub-pattern,—but now I am quite sure it is a woman.
By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. ”

“ This design, this composition, this pattern, whether it be of a story as a whole or of a sentence or a phrase, is as essential to a piece of writing as is the design or composition to a picture. It satisfies the emotional need of the child which is as essential in real education as is the intellectual. ”

“ Conventionalism in the representation of the human figure has thus gone further than the mere inclusion of the cross or the rhomb motive, by working in with the original design a derivative or new pattern which fills up all the surrounding spaces. ”

“ The purpose to which the work is to be put usually decides the ground material, besides governing pattern, stitches, and everything else. A background is chosen, as a rule, to show to advantage and preserve what is to be placed upon it, though sometimes it is the other way about, and the pattern is planned to suit an already existing ground. ”

“ Though it is true that the highest art, pictorial and sculptural, is always struggling towards naturalism, the art of decoration is, by its nature, constantly tending to conventionalism. Patterns, if not absolutely geometrical or naturalistic, must be classed under this principle. Let us examine what is meant by a conventional pattern. ”

“ The pattern is planned on and about these strengthening ties, and where necessary receiving support from them. An ingenious worker will soon devise ways of refilling the spaces by all kinds of interesting patterns, which can be geometrical or floral, or any kinds of objects that can be attractively represented in conventional fashion, such as figures, birds, insects, ships in full sail, or anything else. ”

“ Here it is sufficient to recall4 that the absolutely necessary technique of weaving in all its various forms of interlacing, plaiting, netting, embroidering, etc., implies order, uniformity, and symmetry. The chance introduction of a thread or withe of a different color, brings out at once an ordered pattern in the result; the crowding together or pressing apart of elements, a different alternation of the woof, a change in the order of intersection, all introduce changes by the natural necessities of construction which have the effect of purpose. ”

“ When a number of drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they resemble one another; the general character of the pattern will run through them all; the most singular and odd will be those which are most wide of it ”

“ "Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern,—it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that, Myrtle, one stitch at a time, taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery. ”

“ Whereas a pattern developed by the student by slow degrees, through a series of designs, each slightly different from the one before it, will, if eccentricities are avoided, probably have life and individual interest. ”

“ The phases of the naturalistic patterns are constantly recurring. Art is always tending to realism, in the laudable effort to reach the motive without the shackles of rules. Each phase has fallen a prey to symbolism, to conventionalism, or to mannerism, which last symptom marks the decline and fall of art. We shall find these phases everywhere in the design of patterns.
Naturalism has always striven, by simple repetition, to reduce to patterns the forms of flowers, fruits, animals, birds, insects, reptiles, and other natural objects. ”

“ Let us then understand at once that change or variety is as much a necessity to the human heart and brain in buildings as in books; that there is no merit, though there is some occasional use, in monotony; and that we must no more expect to derive either pleasure or profit from an architecture whose ornaments are of one pattern, and whose pillars are of one proportion, than we should out of a universe in which the clouds were all of one shape, and the trees all of one size. ”

“ When checks or large patterns are to be formed this is most essential, but in smaller patterns it can in a great measure be remedied by letting the various textures follow each other, so that if one tightens a little another will make a corresponding slackness, and all together will balance each other. ”

“ Patterns I walk down the garden paths, And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden-paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, I too am a rare Pattern. As I wander down The garden paths. ”

“ From this it is clear that a large number of patterns can be shown to be natural developments from a realistic representation of an actual object, and not to be a mental creation on the part of the artist. ”

“ In blouse making, too, you can use a block pattern to good advantage. If you have a good foundation pattern of a plain waist, it will speed up your work in copying various styles. See to it that your foundation pattern is a good fitting one, that it is cut high in the neck and with a regulation armhole.
Copy your foundation pattern in a stiff paper without seams or hem allowance. You can make any variation when you are copying your styles. Hem allowances and seams are apt to be confusing. ”

“ God’s pattern, not man’s pattern, is the command we find running through all the scriptures, and the Bible is a book dealing with the science of the mind. ”

“ The next lesson that you take up is skirts. Here you will have more practice in working with a block pattern and copying different styles. You will find, too, that you can apply some of the blouse information to skirt, or in in fact, any garment. The adding of tucks and pleats is the same whether it is blouses, skirts or dresses on which you are working.
The principle of adding fullness, too, applies to all patterns.
If you have studied BLOUSES carefully and understand each step in the lesson you will find the lessons to come easy to understand and apply. ”

“ Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry. ”

“ I here assume, what is agreed on by most writers, that beauty of form—so far as it is independent of sensuous pleasure on the one hand, and pleasures of association and suggestion on the other, is resolvable into the presence of a certain order among manifold details, which order is commonly spoken of as unity in variety. With respect, first of all, to the way in which the element of variety and contrast presents itself in visible form, a word or two will suffice. ”

“ Ill patterns are sure to be follow'd more than good rules; ”

“ In drawing or design we may seek particular qualities in line and form either of representation or of ornament. We may desire to dwell upon particular beauties either of object or subject. Say, in drawing from a cast or from natural form of any kind, we desire to dwell upon beauty of line or quality of surface. ”

“ The method of study should be a combination of analysis with synthetic reproduction. Taking any instance of Order, whether in Nature or in some work of Art, the first thing to do is to consider its terms,—its positions, its lines, its areas, its measure and space-relations, its tones and tone-relations,—bringing every element to separate and exact definition. The next thing to do is to note every occurrence of Harmony, of Balance, of Rhythm,—every connection making for consistency, unity, Order. ”

“ Studies, for instance, made with a view to arrangements of line only—to get the characteristic and beautiful lines of a figure, a momentary attitude, the lines of a flower, or a landscape: studies with a view, solely, to the understanding of structure and form, or again, with the object of seizing the broad relations of light and shade, or tone and colour—all are necessary to a complete artistic education of the eye. ”

“ We would alter the shape designed by its Maker, and would twist it into the form approved of by the passing fashion of the hour. We would substitute for the beauty and symmetry of Nature, our own fantastic ideas of form. ”

“ But when we come to unformulated nature—to the vast world of complex forms, ever changing their aspect, full of life and movement, trees, flowers, woods and waters, birds, beasts, fishes, the human form—the problem how to represent any of these forms, to express and characterize them by means of so abstract a method as line-drawing, seems at first difficult enough. ”

“ In his philosophy, form plays the most important part. Form is the significant feature of both objective existence and subjective thought. Matter and energy only denote reality, but form characterizes quality. Science traces form, and the nature of all things, the human character included, is constituted by form. ”

“ Taking the factors just named as the direct factor, and contrasting them with the less directly associated elements as the indirect factor, I should say that the former decidedly outweighs the latter in what we call beauty of form. Every beautiful form will, I think, be found to owe its charm in the main either to the specially pleasurable character of its elements (ocular or tactual) , or to the presence of a large number of distinct aspects of variety and unity. ”