Square
plan
Diamond
circles 09. Plav
Hexagon plan
CSquares set x plan
squiarellan
angle-wise)
Reversed "Scale"ory/
Circles on Diamond
Plan
The anatomy of pattern
Lewis Foreman Day
VANDENS | Tracery Patterns
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polo
Lewis F. Dan 1836











1





(Plate 1.


TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.
THE
ANATOMY of PATTERN.
BY
LEWIS F. DAY,
\
AUTHOR OF 'SOME PRINCIPLES OF EVERY-DAY ART,'
'THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT,' 'THE APPLICA-
TION OF ORNAMENT,' 'NATURE IN ORNAMENT,' ETC.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED (SIXTH THOUSAND),
WITH THIRTY-FIVE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
B. T. BATSFORD, 94 HIGH HOLBORN.
1894.


,? %. % %,



41
PREFACE TO THE THIRD
EDITION.
There is not much more to say by way
of preface to a third edition than has been
said already on the publication of the first
and second—much less indeed; for when a
book reaches its fifth thousand it may be
supposed to justify itself, and to stand no
longer in need of excuse.
It can do no harm, however, to state once
more the aim of these Text books of Orna-
mental Design.
Throughout the series I have assumed no
particular knowledge on the part of the
student, but only that he is a student, that he
wants to know, and that what he wants to
know is what I would have liked some one
to tell me when I was a beginner.
No pains of mine, of course, will save him
the pains of study; but it would be hard if
a man's experience during a quarter of a
century could benefit none but himself; and
here, in as few words as possible, is the sum
of my experience—for what that may be
worth at second hand.
13 Mecklenburg Square, London, W.C.
March 13th, 1892.
(RECAP)
P^Jt 620092
/





DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF PLATES.
1. THE CONSTRUCTION OF GOTHIC TRACERY PATTERNS—
Showing the square, diamond, hexagon, circular, or
other plan on which elaborate tracery is built.
2. the square—Checks and other diapers built on cross-
lines.
3. THE LATTICE AND THE DIAMOND—Plaids, zigzags,
&c., built on cross-lines.
4. frets, &c.—Showing their construction on a network
of cross-lines.
5. all-over pattern—Showing the cross-lines upon
which it is planned.
6. the triangle—Diapers of star, hexagon, and lozenge
shapes, built up on the lines of the equilateral triangle,
7. the triangle—Diapers composed of the equilateral
triangle and its compounds.
8. the hexagon—Honeycomb and other diapers based
upon the hexagon and its compound.
9. THE OCTAGON—Simple octagon diapers and the lines
of their construction.
10. arab lattice pattern—Dissected, and their anatomy
laid bare.
11. curvilinear patterns—Showing the construction
of the wave, the ogee, the net, &c.
i


List of Plates.
xi
25. map—Showing three plans, on either of which the same
simple pattern may be produced.
26. various drop-patterns—Showing the effect of the
drop according to its length, &c.
27. diagonal damask pattern—Showing its construc-
tion on the diamond, which is not apparent.
27А. diagram—How to prove a drop design.
28. Arab tile and lattice patterns—Showing the
simple means by which intricacy is produced.
29. design—Exemplifying the intentional confusion of
forms.
30. wall-paper design—Showing a "drop" in the
ornamental scroll, whilst the grotesque creatures in-
troduced follow the lines of the square block.
31. Persian textile—Showing the lines of the double
square on which the pattern is constructed, as distinct
from the lines it takes.
32. foliated scroll—A design made on square lines, yet
assuming an ogee shape.
33. Italian silk—Showing ogee, hexagon, or diamond
plan.
34. SET pattern—Explanatory of economy in weaving.
315. damask—On the plan of waved upright lines, crossed
by horizontal bands of rosettes.


THE
ANATOMY OF PATTERN.
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
The dictionary scarcely helps us to a defini-
tion of the word pattern, in the somewhat
technical sense in which it is used by the
designer.
Inasmuch as a pattern signifies a "speci-
men," one might argue that repetition is im-
plied in ornamental pattern. But inasmuch
as any "shape or model for imitation" is
quite as strictly speaking a pattern, one
cannot exactly define pattern as repeating
ornament.
Nevertheless, pattern mostly comes of re-
petition. Many a pattern bears on the very
face of it the evidence that it grew directly
out of the necessity of repetition.
It is more than probable that some me-
chanical necessity gave rise to all geometric
в


2 The Anatomy of Pattern.
pattern; certainly it is impossible to plait,
net, knit, weave, or otherwise mechanically
make, without producing pattern. It may be
infinitesimally small, as in weaving, where
the warp and weft are often invisible to the
naked eye; but it is there; and all that re-
mains for us to do is, to efface it as far as we
can, or to make the best of it.
Out of the determination to make the best
of it has grown much of the most beautiful
pattern-work. To neglect this source of in-
spiration, therefore, to say nothing of the
attempt to suppress it, would seem to be
wasteful of opportunity to the very last
degree.
So certainly will the repetition of parts
result in some sort of pattern, that one may
say, wherever there is ordered repetition there
is pattern. Take any form you please, and
repeat it at regular intervals, and you have,
whether you want it or no, a pattern, as
surely as the recurrence of sounds will pro-
duce rhythm or cadence.
The distribution of the parts need not even
be regular. The wave marks on the sand,
the veins of marble, the grain of wood, the
crystallisation of the breath upon the window-


Introductory. 3
panes, the curls of the hair, the very features
of the human face—resolve themselves into
pattern. So distinctly is this last the case,
that the ornamentist finds himself con-
tinually devising, malgri lui, patterns that
remind one of faces. There is even room for
speculation whether it may not have been
with a view to escaping this danger, or
anticipating it rather, that the designer first
took to the deliberate use of those masks and
grotesque heads, which form so prominent a
feature in certain styles of ornament.
The popular idea of the process of orna-
mental design is, that the artist has only to
let his hand crawl over a piece of paper, and,
like a spider, spin out the fancies that may
crowd his fertile imagination. Indeed, there
is scope in design for all his fancy; but he
is no Zeus, that ornament should spring,
Athena-like, full-grown from his brain.
Ornament is constructed, patiently (I will
not say laboriously, for the artist loves the
labour), patiently built up on lines inevitable
to its consistency—lines so simple, that to the
expert it is not difficult to lay bare its very
skeleton; and just as the physiologist divides
the animal world, according to anatomy, into
B 2


4 The A natomy of Pattern.
families and classes, so the ornamentist is able
to classify all pattern-work according to its
structure. Like the scientist, he is able even
to show the affinity between groups to all first
appearances dissimilar; and, indeed, to point
out how few are the varieties of skeleton upon
which all this variety of effect is framed.
Before enumerating those varieties, let us
suppose for a moment a man to imagine (and
this is by no means an imaginary case) that
he will make to himself a repeating pattern
without regard to its logical construction—as
though in his domain there should be no
skeletons. That would be, from my point of
view, a profoundly foolish thing to do; but,
more than that, it is impossible. He may
design a unit in which there is no repetition,
and no formality; but the moment he repeats
that unit, the very order of its repetition
proves to be, if I may call it so, the cupboard
in which the skeleton will be found.
It might be imagined that by designing in
some such haphazard fashion as I have just
supposed, the artist would secure to his design
a freedom of line, an absence of formality, not
read;.ly to be obtained by adopting the more
syst« matic method. But this is not by any


6 The Anatomy of Pattern.
lines, which thus asserted themselves. It
was much more likely, the result of not
working upon definite lines at all. A designer
who knew the A B C of his business, would
make sure of lines not in themselves offensive;
he would counteract a tendency to stripes in
one direction by features directing the atten-
tion otherwards; and he would so clothe any
doubtful line that there would be no fear of
its unduly asserting itself, as in its naked-
ness it might. He foresees the danger (it is a
danger even to the most experienced) and he
is fore-armed against it. The mighty man
of valour who disdains to be trammelled by
principles, or any such encumbrance, is with-
out defence against contingencies practically
certain to arrive. It is only by a miracle, or
a fluke, that he can escape failure. The over-
whelming odds are, that the petty considera-
tions he has despised will be quite enough to
wreck any venture he has dared in defiance
of them.
Since, then, it is practically inevitable that
there shall be definite lines in ornamental
design—seeing that if you don't arrange for
them they arrange themselves—it is the merest
common sense to lay down those lines to begin


Introductory. 7
with, and, in fact, to make them the skeleton
or framework upon which you build up your
pattern.
You will see, when they are laid bare for
you, that these skeletons are after all very
few.


8 The Anatomy of Pattern.
II.
PATTERN DISSECTION.
Repeated pattern may be classified ac-
cording to its structure, I said.
First in order of obviousness comes the
stripe. It comes also very early in order of
invention: the loom must from the begin-
ning have suggested the stripe-pattern, which
practically grows out of it.
The stripe, however, carries us only a very
short distance in the direction of design. For
as soon as you make any break in the re-
peated line, the recurrence of that break gives
other lines in the cross direction.
Suppose a series of horizontal bands broken
at equal intervals by a series of rosettes. It
is clear, that if the rosettes fall one under the
other, they give upright lines; or if they are
shifted you get diagonal cross lines. If the
line itself is broken, as in the case of a series
of waved lines, or, still more plainly, in a


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io The Anatomy of Pattern.
which, for the sake of clearness, I will call
the diamond. This plays a very important
part in the next order of patterns, at which,
however, we have not yet arrived. Various
plaids, diamond patterns, and other develop-
ments of the lattice are exemplified in Plate 3.
In the case of a regular network of cross-
lines there is no particular reason why they
should always be filled in alternately a la
chess-board. They may just as well be
grouped in twos, threes, fives, and so on, re-
solving themselves into patterns of great
variety and even of intricacy, as may be
seen in Plate 2.
This theory, however, must not be pressed
too hard, or you may squeeze something very
like a false idea out of it. It might be
contended that all patterns are formed on
the square, or all patterns, at least, that can
be woven, the threads forming the squares on
which the design is laid. This is obviously
absurd. The only patterns which can fairly
be described as built on the square are
those in which the artist (consciously or
not) worked upon square lines. The actual
squares apparent in a coarsely-woven scroll,
or in the old-fashioned sampler, belong, not








Pattern Dissection. 11
to the pattern, but to its translation into a
textile fabric.
If instead of the chess-board we take the
lines of the lattice, and work upon them, we
get, without departing from those lines (only
intermitting them) a wonderful range of inter-
lacements and the like; some of them of ex-
ceeding intricacy, as in the case of the "fret."
A number of these are shown on Plate 4.
There seems no limit to the ever-increasing
range of pattern-work thus disclosed, all built
upon the same constructional scaffolding.
From the intermission of the lines results
a kind of spot pattern, more or less free,
which might be mistaken for a distinct order
of design. But it is only a variety.
In a certain sense it matters little whether
a design is constructed on geometric lines, or
only arranged so that it falls within them.
The skeleton, when you come to dissect the
two, is the same in either case. Our theory of
construction, therefore, applies quite as much
to sprigs, spots, and all so-called free patterns,
as to those in which the constructional lines
actually occur as lines. You have not done
away with construction when you have suc-
ceeded in keeping the scaffolding out of


12 The Anatomy of Pattern.
sight. Again, the use of the broken line in-
stead of the straight, or of the curved (which
we shall have to consider more particularly
further on), makes no difference except in
effect. The skeleton is the same, though
you show no lines at all, as in the "all
over" pattern on Plate 5, which is planned
on the parallelogram given by lattice lines.
So far we have had to do only with the
simplest of all possible schemes, in which at
most two series of lines intersect one another.
The introduction of a third series of cross
lines constitutes a new departure, and a most
important one.
Cross the square lattice by a series of
diagonal lines bisecting the right angles—cut-
ting the squares in half, that is to say—and we
have a new form to work upon, the triangle.
If instead of the square lattice, one starts
with a lattice of diamond shape, a third
series of cross lines bisecting the angles of
the diamond produces equally a diaper
of triangles.
And if the diamonds of the lattice be of a
certain proportion—if, that is to say, the two
sharp angles be together equal to one of
the blunter angles, you have only to bisect


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Pattern Dissection.
13
the blunt angle of the diamonds by this
third series of cross lines to arrive at the
equilateral triangle, which of all triangles is
far away the most useful in design.
By merely grouping the equilateral triangles,
as in Plate 6, we get the hexagon (a group
of six triangles), the star (a group of twelve),
and other shapes, such as that on Plate 7,
which is made up of seven triangles (i. e. three
diamonds and a triangle); or that on Plate 8,
which is composed of eighteen triangles (i. e.
three hexagons.)
A glance at the three Plates 6, 7, 8, will
show how immensely the designer's scope is
now widened.
We have already the basis of all that in-
finity of geometric pattern which we find
in Byzantine mosaic, and in the Moresque
tile-work derived from it.
It will be seen that the hexagon, the star,
and other compound shapes, themselves form
exactly-fitting diapers.
By the use of a fourth series of cross lines
another new shape is evolved. Returning
once again to the square lattice, if we cross
it diagonally both ways, cross it by itself,
that is, so that each square is cut up into


14 The Anatomy of Pattern.
four, we get out of those lines the octagon
(Plate 9); but not an equal-sided octagon;
that is, built on a cross lattice of different
proportions.
The octagon, however, is not a unit which
will of itself form a diaper, as the hexagon
will. It is only in connection with a square,
diamond, or other four-sided figure, that it
will "repeat." Place side by side a series of
octagons, and there will appear four-sided gaps
between (Plate 9). Nevertheless, this new
series of lines gives us new varieties of radi-
ated pattern: witness once more the elaborate
interlacings of the Arabs; all of which, even
the most magnificent, are closely related to
the pattern so familiar in the seat of a
common cane-bottomed chair.
It is possible to carry the principle of radia-
tion further still. You may, for example, cross
this more elaborate lattice by a lattice like
itself; but you get by that means rather
intricacy than variety—especially when the
intersecting lines are in part interrupted. In
certain Arab patterns, where this ultra-elabora-
tion of lines is employed, it appears almost
as if a new principle had been introduced
(Plate 10); but upon analysis the designs





I
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à


'Plate 10.





Pattern Dissection.
15
resolve themselves into the elements with
which we have already had to deal—so few
are the plans upon which pattern is con-
structed. Already we have come to the end
of the straight-lined family.
Why, it may be asked, can you not make a
diaper on other lines, on the lines of the
pentagon for example? Well, you may put
together so many pentagons—and a very re-
spectable diaper they form—especially if you
further enrich the ,
However, I had only to dissect it, to discover
that it was our old friend the diamond in
disguise; but so artfully made up as at first
sight to deceive. There it is. It consists of
pentagons with
five-pointed stars.
Not long since I
came upon just
such a diaper,
which, for a mo-
ment, promised
to upset all my
neatly arranged
theories on the
subject of pat-
tern anatomy.

Pentagon diaper and its skeleton.


16 The Anatomy of Pattern.
pentagons put side by side, the interstices
between them ingeniously filled with stars
and triangles, much as the pentagons them-
selves are filled—so that one does not readily
distinguish the main divisions. It wants no
telling that shapes of any kind may be put
together to form a pattern; but that does not
alter the fact that the lines on which they are
arranged, or into which they fall, must be
those I have already laid down; which are
indeed the base of all possible pattern.
For further variety in design, we must resort
to the use of the circle. The circle itself has,
indeed, to be arranged on one or other of the
foregoing plans. It must be struck, that is to
say, from centres corresponding to the points
of intersection of lines, such as have already
been described. In so far it is only one of the
innumerable arbitrary shapes that may be so
arranged. But the circle is so important a
feature in itself, it so entirely alters the
scope of geometric pattern, that it deserves
to be considered apart. One cannot lightly
pass over the element of curvilinear design
in ornament.
Whether or not the idea of flowing patterns
originated in the circle, is of no great conse-


^late 11.


1
I
*



(Plate 12














20 The Anatomy of Pattern.
by a very different road, we reach always, in
this maze of pattern-work, the same point,
which is, the limited variety of skeleton on
which pattern is built.
From the combination of straight lines with
curved (Plates 12 and 13) result all manner
of new diaper forms; which, however, present
nothing very new in the way of skeleton.
You might start a scroll pattern,
such as that given in Plate 17 (a type
common -in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries), on the lines either
of the hexagon or of the ogee, or of
a mixture of curved and straight
lines which I may call the broken
ogee; and in the end it would not
be very clear which of them you had
taken for a groundwork; or even
whether you had not founded your
design upon the diamond—such close
kindred do those various skeletons betray.
I have dwelt at some length upon rudi-
mentary diaper forms, for reasons quite apart
from anything intrinsically interesting or
beautiful in them, although they may be both
the one and the other. More especially is this
likely if tender colours be employed to soften





f?late. 16.





Pattern Dissection.
23
ogee, or of waved lines, or simply of the pro-
cess of netting.
On Plate 16 are shown six different ways
in which one and the same simple star
pattern may be arrived at.
1. By the juxtaposition of stars and the
addition of cross-lines.
2. By the juxtaposition of diamonds and
the addition of cross-lines.
3. By the juxtaposition of right-angled
diamonds, each occupied by a star.
4. By the interlacing of two series of
octagons, and the addition of cross-lines.
5. By the crossing of two series of zigzag
lines, and the addition of cross-lines.
6. By the crossing of two series of diamonds
or lozenges, and the addition of cross-lines.
And this does not by any means exhaust
the number of ways in which the same
result might have been reached.
To take another instance, of a very dif-
ferent kind, you know how common it is to
see a waved line with leaves alternating on
each side of it. This appears on the face of it, a
quite mechanical and arbitrary arrangement;
but you have only to note how, in nature,
the alternate leaves on a slender stem, pull








26 The Anatomy of Pattern.
though the printer make use of the roller
instead of the block, the conditions of design
remain unaltered; for the roller is, for all
practical purposes of design, only a block
bent round in the shape of a cylinder.
¿.ven the bookbinder of earlier days,
who was comparatively free to do what he
liked in the way of "tooling," was led,
whether by instinct or by his tools, to adopt
a rectangular repeat, as in Plate 18; in
which also is exemplified what may be done
in the way of reversing, and again reversing,
the unit of design—so as with comparatively
little drawing to produce the effect of an
extensive pattern.
We have, ordinarily, to reconsider the pos-
sible lines of pattern construction in their rela-
tion to the rectangular figure, that being the
repeat determined for us by the conditions of
nearly all modern manufacture.
The base of our operations is, then, usually
a parallelogram.
Furthermore, this parallelogram is in all
cases restricted in size, and in most cases of
more or less arbitrary proportions.
For example—in the case of wall-paper
printing, it is practically determined for us


Plate. 19

O.f. HU, PMOTO-UTHO.«.FU««IV*L «T HOL1OBH.I C





30 The Anatomy of Pattern.
To return to the subject—the upshot of it
is, that the designer has habitually to shape
his design according to a rectangular plan,
and that of limited, if not fixed, dimensions.
It becomes, then, a very serious question
with him how far he can avail himself of any
other basis.
The student might with advantage set
himself to tabulate the possibilities in the way
of adapting the various units of repeat to
repetition, within the square. It would then
be seen that, though all things are possible,
there are schemes the artist would like to
adopt, which, in order to be brought into the
repeat permitted, would need to be worked
out upon so small a scale as to become quite
too insignificant for use.
One instance of this it may be worth while
to give.
Suppose a square block of 21 inches, and
you wish to adapt a hexagonal design to
it. Only those who have tried the experi-
ment have any notion how small the hexa-
gons would come. If you made your hexa-
gons io£ inches wide, so as to get two in
width, they would not come true in the
length ; they would be too long. If you made


Practical Pattern Planning. 31
them true, they would
not fill the square,
but only a space of
21 inches by about
18. Three and a half
hexagons in the width
would work, but only
as a "drop" pattern:
that would give hexa-
gons of six inches
across. In order to
occupy the square with
true hexagons repeating
without a " drop," they
would need to be re-
duced to half that size;
that is to say, there
would have to be seven
hexagons to the width,
measuring each only
three inches across.
It will be seen at
once, in this instance,
how very strictly the
artist is bound by
considerations which
scarcely occur to the


32 The Anatomy of Pattern.
uninitiated, considerations which have always
had a great deal to do with the design of
pattern-work. Fashion has had her say in
the matter, too, no doubt—it is a wicked way
she has; but though certain lines have been
generally adopted at certain periods and in
certain countries, I think it will invariably be
found that there was some technical or prac-
tical reason for their adoption in the first
instance.
Out of the conditions of weaving came,
for example, the adoption of upright patterns
and cross colouring (as in the silks of
Byzantine, Sicilian, and early Italian design),
as well as the turning over of the design on
the two sides of an upright stem, or purely
imaginary central line; examples of which
are shown in Plates 20 and 21, the one
taken from an old Sicilian silk, the other
from a coarse woollen fabric of the 15th
century.
In Plate 22 may further be seen what
great influence material may exercise upon
pattern. There was a whole class of pat-
terns of this kind schemed in the 15th and
16th centuries, with the obvious purpose
of disturbing as little as possible of the


fplate 21.








Practical Pattern Planning. 33
rich pile of the velvet for which they were
designed.*
The turning over of the pattern is essen-
tially a weaver's device. In a pattern similarly
planned for printing there is no occasion for
that same rigid symmetry of the two sides.
On the contrary, it is desirable rather to
introduce some variations, such as occur in
the design on Plate 23.
* See 'The Application of Ornament,' page 44.
D


34 The Anatomy of Pattern.
IV.
THE "DROP" PATTERN.
The most useful skeleton to work upon, all
things considered, is the diamond. For it is
on the basis of the diamond that "drop"
patterns are most readily designed.
The "drop " is a device by means of which
the designer is enabled, without reducing the
scale of his work, to minimise the danger of
unforeseen horizontal stripes in his design, a
danger which is imminent when the repeats
occur always side by side on the same level.
The printer's block, we will say, is a square;
or the roller is its equivalent; or the cards
take that form. In the printed or woven
strip, whether paper, cretonne, silk, or what
not, the end of one repeat must tally with
the beginning of the next, in order that the
pattern may be continuous throughout the
piece. Equally of course the design must
be so schemed that the right side of one








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38 The Anatomy of Pattern.
and make with them the diamond; or, if you
disposed them differently, you might produce
the oblique shape ; which last would amount
to the same thing as though you had cut
off only two corners and transposed them
(Diagram page 45).
Nevertheless, it makes practically all the
difference in the world which plan you adopt.
Your design must be influenced to a very
considerable degree by the shape you set
yourself to fill. It would never occur to you,
for instance, to stretch a festoon, or wreath,
across a width of space you did not see before
you. So it may be fairly said, that such
extension of the design beyond the width of
the material, is the direct result of working
on the lines of the diamond: whilst you are
designing within the lines of the square, you
have naturally no impulse to go beyond its
limits.
In designing for tiles and such like, where
the material is not continuous, the conditions
are somewhat different, and the possibilities
accordingly. Where the unit of design can
conveniently be turned round, or half-way
round, or three-quarters of the way, the
scope of the designer is increased — in four



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The "Drop " Pattern. 39
repeats of a six-inch tile he can get, for
example, a design which includes a circle
12 inches in diameter. So again, the book-
binder, with a comparatively limited set of
tools, has very considerable scope in design;
but even then the lines he can work upon are
always the same—although more of them
may be open to him than to another.


40 The Anatomy of Pattern.
V.
SKELETON PLANS.
The designer finds it ordinarily more con-
venient to design at once upon the diamond
lines, because their simplicity enables him
better to keep in view the effect of his pat-
tern in its repeated form than any other
lines (there are others) on which the "drop"
can be worked.
Even though one may have no intention of
taking advantage of the full width of a block,
it may still be found convenient to design
within the diamond, if only in order to
economise design: and, mind you, economy
is an absolute necessity of the case. But for
economic reasons there would be no weaving,
printing, stamping, and so on; we should
confine ourselves to embroidery, tapestry,
painting, and other work of our own hands.
If you begin by dividing the width of
2i inches into two, and make your pattern a
"drop," 2i inches long by ioj wide, it is the
same as though you had worked upon a





Skeleton Plans. 41
diamond 21 inches from point to point, as
may be seen at B in Plate 26; although, as I
said before, the same pattern would probably
not have suggested itself to you in either case.
Designing on the diamond such a pattern as
the last-mentioned might very likely occur to
one; on the lines of the dropped parallelo-
gram, more likely such a one as B on
Plate 19.
Again, if you divide the width of 21 inches
into three (A, Plate 26) and on those lines
set out a diamond pattern 21 inches long
by 14 inches wide, so that the block contains
one unit and a half in the width, this will
work as a drop, to fall one-half its depth.
It is clear that the half diamond on
the one side of the block (A) and the two
quarter diamonds on the other
side (a a) must together form a
complete unit, and the two half
diamonds (B B) another, or the
block would not work. With
that proviso, the diamonds need
not all be filled alike—that is to say, the three
diamonds (A B C) comprised in the repeat
may be variously filled.
If you still divide your 21 inches into three


42 The Anatomy of Pattern.
and institute a series of stripes or panels of
seven inches wide, each of which drops at the
same interval (whatever it may be), it is likely
to result in a diagonal stripe more or less pro-
nounced; which might, of course, equally
have been designed upon diagonal lines.
(D, Plate 26.)
If of the three stripes only one were
dropped, the design would also hang as a
drop, revealing very likely a zigzag line on
the principle already laid down. (C, Plate 26.)
Further explanation of the ways in which
a given space may be subdivided (what is
said of the supposed 21 inches applies
equally to any given parallelogram) would be
superfluous. Enough has been said to show
how by such subdivision the utmost variety
of scale may be obtained.
Although, however you start, you come
back always to the same few schemes; and
although in any case your pattern might, as
I said, equally have been designed upon
other lines, working on those lines it never
would have occurred to you.
The diagonal stripe pattern on Plate 27
resolves itself into a diamond repeat, but it is
tolerably certain that the designer did notwork





aplate 27a

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Plate 29.

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46 The Anatomy of Pattern.
simple patterns on Plates 1, 10, and 28 are
at first sight very puzzling.
Again, the lines may be interrupted so that
you lose the thread of the design. Or, further,
two or more schemes of ornament may be, so
to speak, interwoven, the one asserting itself
here, the other there, so that neither thread of
idea is too conspicuous. The effect of this
is to be seen in Plate 29, a drop pattern,
in which the attention is diverted from
the formal lines of the scroll by a con-
ventional growth of much freer character over-
running it.
Furthermore, features may be introduced
of such importance in the design that the
eye is drawn to them, and fails to perceive the
connecting lines between.
In Plate 30 the strongly marked bird-
forms counteract to some extent the simple
ogee or diamond lines on which the pattern is
set out. In fact, the birds emphasise the
actual repeat of the block, just as the scroll
reveals the real construction of the design;
and out of the two contrasting schemes arises
a certain confusion, which is of some artistic
account in design.
Obviously, however, the most effective way
of disguising the skeleton is to clothe it, as


?1ate31.














Appropriate Pattern. 49
Oriental ornament is due. So also with us, the
proportions of the square tile have resulted
in a distinctly characteristic form of ornament.
I do not pretend to say whether the turning
over of the design which prevails in early
silks, was suggested by the fact that such
turning over could be so readily done in
weaving; but it looks, at all events, as though
the Sicilians, and, in fact, weavers generally,
until comparatively recent times, adopted that
plan of design, because by means of it they
could without more ado double the scale of
their pattern.
In the Renaissance silk, figured on Plate 33,
and in all such turned-over designs planned
upon the diamond, hexagon, or ogee, one-
half the labour of designing and card-cutting
is saved. Naturally, the nineteenth century
manufacturer has not been slow to adopt a
plan so obviously economical. It has been
said, that the idea of reversing a pattern
owes its origin to the circumstance that you
may double a sheet of paper, and so, with one
action, cut out the two sides of it. If that
is not so, it well might be—except that, pro-
bably, reversed patterns were common long
before paper was. Very possibly it is derived
E



91ate35.
.Jf1
V.J





Appropriate Pattern. 51
old piece of many-coloured silk damask to
see the changes of the shuttle very plainly
marked. The aim of the designer is usually to
disguise them more or less in his pattern. But
in the early days of silk weaving the unso-
phisticated artist had no fear of a horizontal
line. In such a pattern as the Sicilian silk in
Plate 20, he would boldly make the various
bands of animals in various colours. He
would sometimes even carry bands of colour
straight across the animals, regardless of their
shape. And the effect of this rough-and-
ready proceeding, in the silk itself, certainly
justifies him.*
In early examples of weaving both the
turning over of the pattern, and the banded
arrangement of the colour are very frequent;
indeed, so much so, as to form quite marked
features in the design of the eleventh and fol-
lowing centuries, whether Sicilian or Italian.
(It was from Sicily, you know, that the art of
weaving was introduced into Italy.)
Designers would be the more ready to
adopt, and to adhere to, the plan suggested
by the loom, in that the horizontal line, due to
* 'The Application of Ornament,' Plate 20.


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