. TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. THE PLANNING of ORNAMENT. LEWIS Ff^DAY, i AUTHOR OF 'EVERY-DAY ART,' 'THE ANATOMY OF I'ATTERN,' ETC. ILLUSTRATED. LONDON: B. T. BATSFORD, 52, HIGH HOLBORN. i887. I ; I TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. By LEWIS F. DAY. II. THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT. TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. By LEWIS F. DAY. Now Ready, i. THE ANATOMY OF PATTERN. Illustrated with 35 Plates. ii. THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT. Illustrated with 38 Plates. in. IN PREPARATION. This third volume of the Series will treat of Ornamental Design in its Relation to Materials, Tools, and the Process of its Execution. PREFACE. The- second of a series of Text Books stands scarcely in need of preface. The aim and scope, as well as the origin, of this series was duly set forth in 'The Anatomy of Pattern.' What was there said applies for the most part to the present volume. It was not possible in this case to make the plates speak quite so plainly for them- selves as in the former handbook; but I have made a point of referring to them specifically at every turn, at the risk even of tiresome iteration. They are arranged strictly in the order in which mention is made of them, and placed as near as possible to the allusion to them in the text. The fact that on the publication of 'The Anatomy of Pattern,' I was invited by the Department of Science and Art to deliver a short course of lectures on the subject at y ry JUL -8 1908 22998? vi Preface. South Kensington, leads me to hope that these Text Books are likely to fulfil the educa- tional purpose I had in view in undertaking them. Lewis F. Day. i3, Mecklenburg Square, London, W.C. November lotk, i887. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE I.—Introductory i II.—The Use of the Border 3 III. —Within the Border i6 IV. —Some Alternatives in Design 27 V.—On the Filling of the Circle and other Shapes 37 VI.—Order and Accident 45 List of Plates. xi 27. DOOR decoration—In which the larger panel is broken up, to bring it more into scale with the smaller panels. 28. carved dado—With square panel shapes within the panels. 29. design—In which the borders are interrupted. 1 30. door—In which the disproportion of the panels is recti- fied by borders supplementary to the mouldings. 3i. PANEL—Where the borders round a central medallion interrupt the borders of the panel itself. 32. subdivisions—Each with its own ornamental filling. 33. panel—Eccentrically cut in two. 34. broken surface—Japanese diaper without repeat. 35. stencilled roof decoration — Designed in cross bands to correct the parallel lines of the joists. 36. diagrams—Explanatory of the subdivision of the circle. 37. old glass — Showing interlacing or overlaying of shapes. 38. panels—Jointly symmetrical. 2 The Planning of Ornament. proceed, the better; and if it can be shown (as it can) that these are, comparatively speaking, few and simple, so much the easier will it be for him to make up his mind promptly and determinedly which of them he will in any given case adopt. The shape of the actual space to be filled will oftentimes determine for him, more or less, the distribution of his design. That is to say, it may very likely render certain schemes altogether unavailable, and perhaps even limit his choice to a single plan; but at his very freest he is limited, in the nature of things, to certain methods of procedure presently to be defined. Plainly it would be out of the question to discuss at length the relation of every possible plan to every possible shape. I purpose, therefore, to take the simple parallelogram (which may stand for panel, page, floor, ceiling, carpet, curtain, wall, window, door, facade, no matter what), and to show the possibilities with regard to the distribution of ornament over its surface. It will then remain only to explain how the same princi- ples apply, no matter what the shape to be filled. 4 The Planning of Ornament. use be in itself of some intrinsic interest. It is distinctly not desirable to mar the surface of beautiful wood or richly varied marble with added ornament. And, for example, with the cabinet maker it resolves itself pretty generally (unless he should once in a while mean to indulge in ultra lavish enrichment), into a question of whether he shall enrich his panels or the mouldings bordering them. The proportion of a border is of more importance to a scheme of design than might be supposed. It makes all the difference whether it is simple or elaborate in character. A very deep rich border has such an entirely different effect from a moderately simple one, that it looks something like a different treat- ment altogether. Compare Plates 2, 3, and 4, and see what a different part the border plays in each. The ornament on Plate 2 might appropriately enrich a page of text: that on Plate 4 requires obviously some more substantial filling. The strength of the border goes for something as well as its depth. Borders may easily be so schemed (and should be so schemed) as to give panels of proportions calculated to allow of the decora- tion proposed for them. If, for instance, a ^Plate 2 C.r KtU, 'MOTO-UITHO. •.(.UHMIVAl f 1 HOLIMKE.I- fPlate 3 91 ate 4. J Akerman Photo litb London The Use of the Border. 5 panel is to be filled with a diaper, arrange- ment should be made, as in Plate 5, for the "repeat" of the pattern within it. If it is to contain a figure or a figure subject, it should be of a proportion and size not too difficult to occupy with a figure or figure subject. In the case of an isolated panel, this is perhaps of less importance—the artist ought to be equal to the occasion—but in the case of a series of panels to be treated in accord, the problem is made infinitely more difficult when they are of all manner of shapes and sizes. It is no easy matter to scheme even the simplest ornament into panels of such widely different shapes and sizes as occur in the section of a staircase on Plate 6. Awkward framing enough, it may be said; but it is with such framing that the decorator has only too frequently to deal. Again in Plate 7 the necessity of accommodating one's ornament to shapes so unequal as the panels of the door, has obviously to a considerable extent controlled the design. But for those small upper panels, it would never have occurred to one to break up the longer panels in that way. 6 The Planning of Ornament. There is a salon in the palace at Fontaine- bleau in which the proportions of the panel- ling prove to be due almost entirely to the painter, who has brought the larger panels into scale with the smaller by means of a series of borders within the actual mouldings. It is much less trouble of course for the joiner, when he has an awkward space to panel, to determine the width of the stiles, and let the panels come as they may. But a very little consideration on his part would save the decorator, who comes after him, an infinity of pains. And though it may be the business of the decorator to get over difficul- ties of the sort, his work is not so easy that there is any occasion to put difficulties in his way. The stiles which frame a panel may be con- sidered as its border; the mouldings again, are so many borders within borders. A border which is made up of many lines really constitutes a series of borders one within the other. The use of border within border as a deliberate scheme of ornament is common enough, as was the case in certain tooled bookbindings of the seventeenth cen- tury, one of which is represented on Plate 8. (Plate 6 fP1ate 7 The Use of the Border. 7 You may even add border to border until the whole field is occupied. It is not altogether uncommon in Renaissance cabinet-work to find the panel encroached upon by border after border of mouldings until it dwindles practi- cally to nothing. The obvious and simple thing to do with a border is to keep it of one uniform and equal width. But such equality of width is by no means essential. You may see in mediaeval illuminations the effect, more or less satisfac- tory, of emphasising two sides of the page. Nor need the border necessarily be continued all round the space at all. Curtains have often a border on two sides only, and some- times only on one, marking what one may call the lips of the hangings. You may look upon the architrave of a door as a border on three sides of it only. And in the same way a mantelpiece partly frames the fire-grate, the fender completing the scheme. A certain reasonableness is the most complete justifica- tion of such partial bordering. Every frame is a border. No matter how irregular the shape of it may be, a frame's a frame "for a' that." It may take the archi- tectural form of cornice, pilasters, and dado, 8 The Planning of Ornament. or it may be arched; and in either case the architectural members are but unequal borders. All this applies, it need scarcely be said, not only to an architectural picture frame, but to architecture itself, and to whatever may be framed. Something like a new departure occurs when the border, so to speak, invades the field or centre of the panel, as it very often does in French Renaissance work, sometimes to such an extent that little or no further decoration of the field is necessary. There is an indication of such trespass in Plate 9, where the "swag" and corner ornaments, which belong to the border, cut boldly across the face of the panel. In some of the inter- lacing strap work of the Henri II. period (the French equivalent to our Elizabethan ornament), you cannot always clearly tell where the border begins and ends, or even whether a border was intended at all. It looks sometimes as if the designer had started with the notion of a border, but had allowed it so to encroach upon the field, or the field upon it, that in the end it is not at all clearly recognisable as such. An example of the kind occurs in Plate i0. You may Ti ate 10. Or t LIA . PHOTO-LITHO, B,rURHIVAL ST HO Li 0 UH, E . O cplate 11 *P»OtO-Timt" by Junes Alcerm»n io The Planning of Ornament. well able to take care of itself. In the case of a panel in which the enrichment only partially occupies the ground, it is often advisable to introduce a subsidiary border, losing itself behind such more prominent enrichment. One appreciates the freak of the Japanese as a relief from the monotony of absolutely formal disposition; but it is not a thing to indulge in very freely. It is refreshing to see that a man is not afraid of infringing occasionally upon the margin—on sufficient grounds; but the licence needs always to be justified by some excuse other than the artist's impatience of order. We have to be on our guard against a certain spirit of anarchy which appears to have taken posses- sion of so many a modern artist. There is a class (one cannot call it properly a school) which will repudiate, not only all the laws of art, but the need of all law whatsoever. Urgent need there may be of reform in our ideas of art, perhaps even of revolution; but sobriety recognises in the artistic anarchist only the enemy of art. There is no peculiar sanctity implied in a margin, that it should be held inviolate; but 9!ate 15. M,I O The Use of the Border. i3 they who least like formal lines are bound to adopt it; although they are perpetually re- belling against its formality, and doing their best to break it up, as in the case of the encroaching and interrupted borders already mentioned. The very naivest way of getting over the difficulty—it is a difficulty, there is no denying —is by, so to speak, snipping a piece or two out of the panel, and carrying the border round the incisions, so as to get a more or less irre- gular central space instead of the four-square parallelogram. In the Certosa near Florence, there are some windows by Giovanni da Udine (the border of one of them is illustrated on Plate i6), in which he has deliberately snipped pieces (a) out of the space to be filled, and left them as so many gaps in the design. We can forgive this kind of thing once in a way; but it stands very much in need of justifi- cation. Where a gap has some meaning it is different. In the case where there is a square block or patera occupying the corner, as you sometimes see in seventeenth century wood-panelling (and on Plates i6 and i7), u f?late 17 The Use of the Border. i5 the margin, diffusing itself, and giving a less definite central shape. But it is not so much the design of the border that we are considering at present as the place of the border in design—on which point enough for the present has been said. i6 The Planning of Ornament. III. Within the Border. Though you abandon all idea of bordering, and elect to place, as you well may, some arbitrary shape within the parallelogram, the space round about that shape may indeed be considered as an irregular border to the same. If, for example, you plant in the centre of the space a medallion, and round that medallion sketch a cartouche, after the manner of Jost Amman in Plate i8, the cartouche and the rest of it,may be called the frame or border of the medallion; and, again, the ground beyond the edge of the ornament may be taken to be the margin or border to that. But it is going rather out of the way to look at Amman's design in that light. In the example chosen for illustration we have arbitrary shapes, one within the other; byt one might just as well have two or more such independent shapes. Nothing is easier lan to take a simple field, and to spot about 18 The Planning of Ornament. The central feature need not, of course, be a frame of any kind; it may be a figure, a spray of flowers or ornament, a vignette, a spot, a spray—as free as painter's heart could wish. Or, just as in the case of the closely- packed border, whose shape was marked without the aid of boundary lines, so any central sprig of ornament or foliage may be so densely massed within a square, circle, quatrefoil, or other imaginary form, as to assume a quite regular outline. Such group- ing of the ornament is shown very plainly in Plate 20, where the circular shape is emphatically pronounced without the aid of any enclosing line. You see the same thing very commonly in Indian art. A number of sprays, or other features, free or formal, group themselves into a sort of diaper. Such diaper should naturally have some reference to the space it fills, or it will appear less than trivial. The design on Plate 5 forms a panel, Plates 2i and 34 are only bits of diaper work. Whether the com- ponent units of such a decoration be all alike, or of various design, is a question independent of the lines of their distribution. The variety in Plate 22 is at all events amusing. One Wate 21. C r nUi rKOTp-UTKO. B.rURHIVM S* HOHJHN: Within the Border. i9 does not readily grasp all that is in it. There is always something to find out; which is just what there would not be in a simple and orderly geometric pattern of the European type. A mere series of bands or stripes across the field (vertical, horizontal, diagonal, waved, or in whatever direction), is an obviously simple way of getting over the ground, about which not much further need be said. As the filling of a panel, such a treatment as that shown on Plate 23 is not very adequate. Rightly employed it forms, however, a very fit and proper method of decoration: for the slight enrichment of a vase, from which it is taken, nothing could well be more apropos than this banded scheme of ornament. Such filling as a scroll or anything of the kind may be quite freely drawn, as on Plates i2 and 24, or disposed symmetrically in rela- tion to an imaginary central line or spinal cord, as in Plates ir, i4, i7, &c. ; or it may radiate from the centre, as it naturally would in a ceiling, pavement, carpet, or other object demanding an all-round treatment. Radia- tion of the design occurs in Plates 3 and i0. The scroll work, or what not, might equally C 2 20 The Planning of Ornament. proceed from two ends of the panel, as in Plate 8, or from the sides, or from both sides and ends, either symmetrically or at irregular intervals; or it might spring from the corner or corners, as in the lower half of Plate 9. The treatment from the corners is, again, adapted to, and often adopted in, ceiling decoration. In principle it is very right indeed; but in practice it is not invariably all that decorator could desire. The "line and corner" tune, as it may be called, has been harped upon until one is chronically sick of it, even when it is played in time—which is not always the case. A corner-wise treatment is seen to advan- tage when it has been suggested by use, as in the metal garniture of old book bindings, and in the clamps of coffers such as German smiths of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries elaborated with such workmanlike pride. In the tooled binding of the Henri II. period, given on Plate i0, the corner is very carefully taken into consideration, such consideration being very possibly a survival from the times when the corners were habitually protected by metal-work. You see also in book covers f?1a,te 24 DOOT\S; ofolcf i Uriels itjcom-plefe or 2 2 The Planning of Ornament. front of the box is not enough for the dragon on Plate 26. Yet you will observe that there is a certain consideration for ornamental pro- priety in the disposition, for example, of the creature's claws. There also, the artist, in his very different fashion, chooses to consider the whole object his field, and not just the portion of it.he sees before him. There is a certain logic in his licence, too; but the more restrained manner of the mediaeval workman is, in proportion to its restraint; the more to be preferred. Where the design—scroll, foliage, or what- ever it may be—bears no relation at all to the shape or space it occupies, like the diapers on Plates 2i and 34, it ceases to be surface design, and is merely a means of breaking the surface. It is only as a background that such hap-hazard distribution of forms has any meaning. But then a good deal of decorative design pretends to be no more than back- ground. A very satisfactory and effective result is sometimes reached where the artist starts, as it seems, with the idea of a diaper, more or 1 less geometrical, and, as he approaches the centre of the panel, gathers together the Within the Border. 23 pattern, so to speak, into points of emphasis. You see this in the Roman pavement repre- sented on Plate 3. That is a case in which the design was unmistakably set out first of all in geometric divisions, certain of which divisions were afterwards grouped together to give point to the pattern. If you analyse any of the old Jacobean ceiling designs, or the Italian originals on which they are but variations, you will find that many of them may be resolved into very simple diapers, on a rather large scale, adapted to the space they fill, and emphasised here and there by figure subjects or other special filling of some of the more prominent geometric compartments. The difference between the method of design employed in Plate 3, and the plan adopted in the kind of design shown on Plate i0 is, that in these last the central shapes appear rather to have suggested the corresponding interlace- ments than the interlacements to have led up to them. But even* in such a case it seems desirable that the artist should have in his mind from the beginning some kind of idea of geometric construction. The longer he can manage to keep that geometric notion in his 24 The Planning of Ornament. mind, without putting it on paper, the more freely he can go to work. That same faculty of holding a design, so to speak, in solution in the mind, is most invaluable to the designer. A notion is so much more manageable in its fluid state. Once an idea is allowed to crystallise into definite form, it is no easy matter to modify it Should the space to be decorated be very considerable in extent, it is often necessary to cut it up into sections, otherwise than by merely marking off a border. A wall, for example, is divided into cornice, frieze, wall space, dado, and so on. Some such sub- divisional process may be adopted in the case of a smaller panel, with a view to modi- fying its proportions, for any reason, as in the centre panel of the door on Plate 27. Or the space may be divided vertically into panels, of equal or unequal width. A building in several stories is an instance of the one kind of division, a colonnade of the other. If the subdividing lines take both direc- tions, the result is a scheme of panelling, such as was commonly adopted in the domestic wainscoting of some centuries ago. 9'ate 2 7 ffl r -; :i m i! 1;1 1 11 ^ 1 ! 1 w • ! II1 1 ;I HI C r KILL, fH0T0-LHHO.a.rU«mVftL S' HOLiOHN.K 1 Within the Border. 25 Further, by the introduction of cross-lines at various angles, or of curved lines, we arrive, by a different road, at panelling of more com- plicate character, and at something like the interlaced patterns to which reference has already been made, or like the setting out of Plate 32. It is clear that these various ways and means may be associated; and under the complex conditions of the times, they usually are more or less " highly mixed." Thus one may, as I have said, begin with a border, and then treat the space within it in any of the ways already described; one may divide a wall horizontally into two, with a diaper or frieze at the top, and panelling below; or into three, with frieze, wall, and dado, either one of which may again be broken up, like the dado on Plate 28 ; where the up- right panels into which it is divided are broken by small contrasting inner panels of flat carving. One may plant upon the field any independent feature, frame, shield, tablet, or such like, and then fill in the background without regard to it, as though a portion of the design were lost behind it. As many as three, or more, plans may be associated. For 26 The Planning of Ornament. example, one might, as on Plate 29, stretch across a title-page a tablet, then introduce a border disappearing behind it, and the spaces enclosed between the border and the top and bottom of the tablet one might treat again either as one interrupted panel or as two independent parts. The fact, however, that they are both, as it were, on one plane in the design, seems to require that they should both be treated in much the same way. The possibilities opened out by this associ- tion of various plans, are obvious. Some Alternatives in Design. 27 IV. Some Alternatives in Design. The use of the border is not, of course, con- fined to the outer edge of the main space to be filled. Every sub-section of the design may be provided with its own border, as you see in the case of panelling, where each separate panel has its own border of mouldings. Plate 3 shows two panels only of the design emphasised by independent borders within the outer frame. On Plates 7 and 30, the mouldings round the door panels are supple- mented by additional painted borders. A central feature, such as the medallion on Plate 3i, may have its border or borders, interlacing with, intercepting, or intercepted by, the borders which mark the space or panel itself. A surface, once subdivided, as already described, two separate courses are open to the artist. The one is to accept each com- partment as a separate panel, designing his 28 The Planning of Ornament. . ornament into it; in the manner shown on Plate 32. The other, which is no less reason- able, is to make his ornament continuous throughout; allowing it, that is to say, to cross the dividing lines or to interlace with them; more in the manner of Plate i0. Again, the two plans may be combined, certain prominent parts being reserved for individual treatment, and the subsidiary spaces only being linked together by the forms of the ornament, as though in Plate 32 the pattern had been allowed to meander through the lesser panels, the central diamond only being reserved for the grotesque head. Which of these plans may be the better to adopt is a question of some nicety, not always easily to be decided. What rational ques- tion is? In proportion to the importance of the framing lines, it becomes dangerous to overstep them. Who ventures nothing runs no risk of failure; but neither will he achieve any great success in art. And then there is the charm of danger. Soldiers, sports- men, and mountaineers, are not the only class of persons privileged to run a risk. It is a luxury we may all indulge in on occasion —were it not so, art would be no congenial 30 The Planning of Ornament. of the unpardonable sin, the sin of disobedience to the conditions of design. An actually hap-hazard or eccentric scheme of composition, such as a Japanese will some- times affect, is hardly in contradiction to what I have laid down. When a Japanese artist cuts a panel quaintly into two, after the manner of Plate 33, and treats each part of it as seems good to his queer mind, he is only doing what the Greek did when he cut off a portion of his wall space, and treated it as a frieze; though he does it more energetically, not to say spasmodically, and with less appreciation of grace. So, again, when the said Japanese strews buds and blossoms about a box top, and breaks up the ground between with conven- tional, though very accidental, lines of crackle, as on Plate 34, or when he crams all manner of geometric diapers into a panel, as on Plate 22, he is only doing in a more eccentric manner what the European artist does, with greater regard for symmetry, when he disposes his sprigs or what not on a geometric basis. If only he arrive at balance, which he almost invariably does (so little is his instinct, in this respect likely to err), there is no occasion to Some Alternatives in Design. 31 cry out against him. We, on our part, are perhaps too much disposed to design as though there were no possible distinction between symmetry and balance, between bulk and value—as though the little leaden weight did not balance the heaped-up pound of fruit, or feathers in the scale. Design apparently quite unrestrained, such as the men of the Renaissance habitually indulged in, proves very often, upon exami- nation, to be constructed upon one or other of the systems I have described. Sometimes, indeed, the system of construction is very frankly indicated, though not precisely de- fined—the confession, that is to say, is full enough to ensure absolution for any offence there may be against strict order. On Plate i there is blotted in a panel of ornament somewhat on the lines of Androuet du Cerceau, in which the central feature is an echo of the medallion treatment, whilst certain vertical and horizontal lines recall, however vaguely, the notion of a border. Such reminiscences of severely constructional lines give additional charm, as it seems to me, to design otherwise fanciful, and even fantastic in character. It is as though a man said in Some Alternatives in Design. 33 to shorten. There is a case in point given on Plate 35, where the disproportionate, though constructionally very proper, length of the panels of a roof is mitigated by the band-wise arrangement of the stencilled ornament. A similar system was found by the Greeks to be the most satisfactory way of dealing with draperies. Their pet idea of decorating a full skirt seems to have been by means of so many parallel patterns. You have only to refer to the terra-cottas at the British Museum to see both of these uses illustrated, often in a single vase. What one would do, then, is not the same thing as what might be done. The possi- bility, as distinguished from the expediency, of distribution, is in all cases much the same. But there must necessarily be some correspon- dence between detail and its distribution. For all that, there is no cut and dried rule as to the association of this kind of detail with that kind of distribution, or vice versd. It does not even follow that the descrip- tion of detail usually found in connection with a certain order of composition is the only detail appropriate to it. The connection of the one with the other is evidence only of D 34 The Planning of Ornament. their conformity, not at all of the incongru- ity of other combinations. It is just possible to fry without bread-crumbs. Is it not chiefly laziness (where it is not a suspicion of our own incompetence) which tempts us to adopt bodily what has already been found to suc- ceed? There are so many people in the world to whom it comes easier to take what there is than to give what is theirs. A design is in harmony, not when it is strictly according to Greek or Gothic prece- dent, but when the parts all fit. Suppose, for instance, the lines in a compo- sition lead up to some prominent feature, that feature must be of sufficient interest to justify the attention it attracts. There are positions so prominent they almost demand figure design properly to occupy them. Such central features as those in Plates I, i8, and 3i are bound in consistency to be of more importance than their surroundings. I don't mean to say that an heraldic shield like that on Plate 18 is essentially of pro- foundest interest; but in the eyes of its owner at least it is worthy of all prominence. In like manner also, if it is proposed to introduce the figure, or anything of that On the Filling of the Circle, &c. 3 7 V. On the Filling of the Circle and other Shapes. Having discussed so far the various lines on which ornament may be distributed over a simple panel or parallelogram, I propose now to show how the same principles apply to the covering of all manner of shapes. Evidently it makes little difference at all, and in principle none whatever, whether it is four sides of a figure we have to deal with, or three, or five, or how many. In either case you proceed in the same way; you work from the centre or from the sides, as best may suit; you divide your space into regular or irregular compartments, on the systems already ex- plained ; you overlay one feature with another, or interweave this with that; you interrupt a border, or encroach upon a field, according to the circumstances of the case; and so on, just as though it were a square shape you were dealing with. 38 The Planning of Ornament. In the case of anything like an awkward shape, you have even an opportunity of correcting it, by introducing into it some pro- minent regular figure, which, if you insist upon it, will occupy attention, whilst the irregular surrounding space will go only for margin or border; just as in the case of the regular panel you had the option of discounting its severity through the agency of any irregular feature it seemed good to you to insert. The management of the circular shape, and of the irregular forms of vases, seems to present a more serious difficulty; but it is more apparent than real. The simple treatment of a vase is (i) ac- cording to its elevation, as may be seen in any striped Venetian glass, or (2) according to its plan, as exemplified in the rude earthen- ware of every period. The glass-blower falls, in fact, as naturally into the one scheme of lines as the thrower or turner into the other. A third way is to cross the shape diago- nally, which gives the appearance of twisting, to be seen very often in silversmith's work. Two or more of these systems may be asso- ciated; and they often are; as in so many a 40 The Planning of Ornament. discretion which is reputed to be its better part. What is said with reference to the vase shape applies equally to balusters, columns, and cylindrical shapes generally. When we come to the circular shape, as of coins, plates, medallions and so on, its decoration involves new forms rather than new principles. The circle is most naturally divided either into rays or into rings. In the one case the radiating lines may be said to answer to the division of a rectangular space by vertical lines; in the other the rings would answer to the horizontal lines dividing a panel. A reference to Plate 36 will make this more clear. Imagine a series of upright lines (A) to re- present the folding of a sheet of paper. You have only to gather the folds together at one end, after the manner of a fan (B), and you have the system of radiation: Repeat the fan shapes side by side, and you soon arrive at a circle divided into rays (C). Again, in the case of a series of horizontal bands (D), you have only to suppose them elastic enough to be bent, and you have a series of concentric arcs (E), so many slices, (Plate 36. o r Mil, rHOTO-uiHo.a.ruKKivM. «■ hoi»o«h,b.c Order and Accident. 45 VI. Order and Accident. Entirely apart from the question of the skeleton of a design, is the consideration as to whether it shall be looked at primarily from the point of view of line or of mass. In any satisfactorily completed scheme, lines and masses must alike have been taken into account; but the artist must begin with one or the other; and the result will probably be influenced by the one or other consideration which was uppermost in his mind. Which of the two it may happen to be, is more often a matter of temperament than of choice with him. The primary consideration, whether of line or mass, will always lead the designer, though perhaps unconsciously, to adopt a plan accord- ingly. That is to say, the preference for mass will lead him to attack his panel resolutely, planting shapes upon it, which it will be his business afterwards to connect by means of 48 The Planning of Ornament. one scheme, by another, is the merest make- shift for design. The apparently "accidental" treatment, when it is at all successful, is not quite so much a matter of accident after all. You will find invariably, if you inquire into it, that there has been no disregard of the laws of composition, but only the omission of some accustomed ceremonial. To take what might seem a flagrant instance of the disregard of an obvious rule of art:—an artist like Boulle would sometimes boldly treat the doors of a cabinet as one panel, notwithstanding their actual separation by a pilaster between them. However wicked this may be in theory, his practice proved it to be not so unsatisfactory. And for this reason—that the upright inter- vening space was, as a matter of fact, very carefully taken into account in the design. He only goes a step further than the obviously permissible treatment shown in the double panel on Plate 38, where the two one- sided panels are jointly symmetrical. Boulle chose to make a constructive feature less em- phatic than its position would have suggested to most of us it should be. But he did not really ignore it. Very far from it. Had he ^Plate 38 I r KILL. PK«TO-UTIW.«.rU««IV*L f MLIlm.I C Order and Accident. 49 disregarded the construction, the error would have been very perceptible. If he succeeded at all in satisfying the eye, it is because he did with great deliberation and judgment what might easily be mistaken by the inex- perienced for an inconsiderate thing. Giants can afford to be daring. It is when dangerous liberties are taken by the novice, without forethought and without discrimination, that they become offensive. When there is no offence in the lapse from what we had thought a wise rule, be sure it was designed, and designed with more than ordinary skill. It is only a master that can reconcile us to something which, until he did it, we did not think could properly be done. There is nothing careless or casual in the art of design—not even in the little art of orna- ment. E PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.