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REESE LIBRARY
j UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Class
\
TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.
BY LEWIS F. DAY.
II.
THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT.
MR. LEWIS F. DAY'S
TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN,
Price Three-and-Sixpence each, Crown Svo, bound in Cloth.
SOME PRINCIPLES OF EVERY-DAY ART:
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS ON THE ARTS NOT FINE.
In great part re -written from ' Every -Day Art,'
and containing nearly all the original Illustra-
tions ; forming a Prefatory Volume to the Series.
THE ANATOMY OF PATTERN.
Second Edition, revised,
With Thirty-six full page Illustrations.
THE PLANNING OF ORNAMENT.
Second Edition, revised.
With Forty-one full page Illustrations.
THE APPLICATION OF ORNAMENT.
Second Edition, revised.
With Forty- two full page Illustrations.
Thick Crown Svo, Cloth Gilt. Price 1 2 s. 6d.
NATURE IN ORNAMENT.
With a Hundred and Twenty-three Plates,
and a Hundred and Ninety-two Illustrations
in the text.
UNIVERSITY
TEXT BOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.
THE
PLANNING OF ORNAMENT.
BY
LEWIS F. DAY,
AUTHOR OF 'SOME PRINCIPLES OF EVERY-DAY ART,' 'THE
ANATOMY OF PATTERN,' 'THE APPLICATION OF ORNAMENT,' ETC.
SECOND EDITION, REVISED,
WITH ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
B. T. BATSFORD, 52, HIGH HOLBORN
1890.
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
were duly set forth in 'The Anatomy of
Pattern.' What was there said applies for
the most part to the present volume.
A new edition gives me the opportunity of
revising both the text and illustrations, and
of adding some new plates.
It is encouraging to find that the demand
for the Text Books is not exhausted with
the first issue, and that they appear to be
fulfilling the purpose I had in view in under-
taking them.
LEWIS F. DAY.
13, Mecklenburg Square, London, W.C.
September 2isl, 1890.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY i
II. THE USE OF THE BORDER 3
III. WITHIN THE BORDER .. .. 16
IV. SOME ALTERNATIVES IN DESIGN 27
V. ON THE FILLING OF THE CIRCLE AND OTHER
SHAPES 37
VI. ORDER AND ACCIDENT .. ., 45
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF PLATES.
1. PANEL AFTER THE MANNER OF DU CERCEAU Order
in apparent disorder.
2. BORDER IN THE MANNER OF FLOTNER Example of
comparatively important frame.
3. ROMAN PAVEMENT In which is shown the development
of a geometric diaper into a more important scheme of
ornament.
4. GREEK BORDER Instance of simple and very formal
treatment.
5. DIAPERS Schemed to fit panels.
6. PAINTED DOOR Showing the influence of the propor-
tions of the panels upon the design of the decoration.
7. BOOK COVER OF xvn CENTURY Illustrating the use of
border within border,
8. PANEL Invaded by ornament springing from the border.
9. INTERLACED HENRI II. BOOK COVER In which a
border line is suggested.
10. PANEL In which the border is inseparable from the
filling.
11. PANEL In which the filling breaks over the border, in
the Japanese manner.
x List of Plates.
12. PANEL In which the border is invaded by the field.
13. INLAY, AFTER BOULE In which the border, so to speak,
loses itself.
14. FREE DESIGN Which by the orderly arrangement of the
parts constitutes itself a border.
15. BROKEN BORDERS Showing various ways of breaking
them.
16. INLAID PANEL Showing a break in the border, and
the suspension of the principal ornamental feature.
17. CARTOUCHE, AFTER JOST AMMAN A very free treat-
ment of the frame.
1 8. PANEL With medallion, &c.
19. PATTERN In which the detail is grouped so as to give
medallion shapes not otherwise marked.
20. DIAPER Not schemed with reference to the panel it fills.
21. PANEL IN NIELLO With geometric diapers disposed in
eccentric Japanese fashion.
22. BANDS Their application to a cylindrical shape.
23. DOOR PANELS Treated from the ends.
24. BOOK COVER Treated from the corners.
25. DOORS One-sided scheme accounted for by the position
of lock plates.
26. PART OF CABINET In which the construction has sug-
gested the scheme of ornament.
27. LACQUER BOX In which the artist takes the whole
object for his field.
List of Plates. xi
28. CABINET DOOR Jacobean panelling.
29. CARVED DADO With square panel shapes within the
panels.
30. DESIGN In which the borders are interrupted.
31. DOOR In which the disproportion of the panels is recti-
fied by borders supplementary to the mouldings.
32. PANEL Where the borders round a. central medallion
interrupt the borders of the panel itself.
33. SUBDIVISIONS Each with its own ornamental filling.
34. PANEL Eccentrically cut in two.
35. BROKEN SURFACE Japanese diaper without repeat.
36. STENCILLED ROOF DECORATION Designed in cross
bands to correct the parallel lines of the joists.
37. VASES Illustrating lines on which they may be decorated.
38. DIAGRAMS Explanatory of the subdivision of the circle.
39. CIRCLES Illustrating lines on which they may be deco-
rated.
40. BOOK COVER One ornamental feature designed to
disappear behind another.
41. PANELS Jointly symmetrical.
THE
PLANNING OF ORNAMENT.
I.
INTRODUCTORY.
" The Anatomy of Pattern" concerned itself
with the lines on which repeated pattern
is built. It is proposed in this second text-
book of the series to discuss the order in
which ornament not necessarily recurring
may be distributed. And it will not be diffi-
cult to show that, illimitable as those lines
may at first sight appear to be, they too allow
themselves to be classed pretty definitely ;
and, moreover, that the classes are not by any
means so numerous as might be supposed.
The first step in design, or rather the
preliminary to all design, is to determine the
lines on which it shall be distributed to plan
it, that is to say.
The more clearly the designer realises to
himself the lines on which it is open to him to
B
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 a man 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,
fagade, 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 prin-
ciples apply, whatever the shape to be
filled,
The Use of the Border.
II.
THE USE OF THE BORDER.
Given a panel to be filled, how is this to
be done ?
There are two very obvious ways of going
to work, either of which, to the sophisticated
modern at all events, seems equally natural.
You may start as well from the centre as from
the edge of it. That is to say, you may boldly
attack the centre and let your design spread
outwards to the margin ; or you may begin
with a border and creep cautiously inwards.
When once the border is defined, the space
within remains to be treated. Theoretically,
indeed, you have only reduced the area over
which your composition is to be distributed.
But practically that is not quite so ; more
especially if the border be of any importance
For a border may be of such interest that
nothing further is needed, and the centre of
the panel is best undisturbed by ornament.
Especially may this be so if the material in
B 2
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
KILL HT-UTHO.,rUW4IVAl ST WOUOKM I
91 ate
<Plate 4
Ptotolnh London
The Use of the Border. 5
panel is to be filled with a diaper, arrange-
ment should be made for the " repeat " of the
pattern within it. It is quite clear that the
Arab diaper spread over the panels in Plate 5
was devised expressly with that object. Again
in Plate 6 the necessity of accommodating
one's ornament to shapes so unequal as the
panels of the door, has obviously to a con-
siderable extent controlled the design. But
for those small upper panels, it would never
have occurred to one to break up the longer
panels just so.
Panels or other spaces which are to contain
figures or figure subjects should be of a pro-
portion and size not too difficult to occupy in
that way.
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 sim-
plest ornament into panels of such awkward
and widely different shapes and sizes as the
decorator has only too frequently to deal with.
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 /.
<Pla1e 6
H^late 7
. RCU, rMOTO-UTHO.e.rUHNIVAL ST HOt.lOHM,C.O.
Plate 8
FURNIVAt f * HOLBORN.L '
The Use of the Border. 7
You may even add border to border (as was
sometimes done) until the whole field is
occupied. It is not altogether uncommon in
Renaissance cabinet-work to find the panel en-
croached upon by border after border of mould-
ings until it dwindles practically 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 8,
where the " swag " and corner ornaments,
which belong to the border, cut deliberately
across the face of the panel. In some of the
interlacing 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 9. You may
Plate )
C F KtLL , PHOTO-U7HO, fc.FURNIVAL ST I
-TIT" by J.n,r, Alc.rm.n
91 at e 11
"PMOTO-TIMT" ty Ji
The Use of the Border. 9
see the idea of a border here ; but you
cannot be quite so certain that the designer
intended it.
Nearly allied to this is another variety of
border, also devised so as to be quite in-
separable from the filling ; in which, in fact,
frame and filling are so ingeniously mixed up
that but for the emphasis of colour, the effect
would be confused. There is an instance of
this in Plate 10, where the scroll, whilst to
some extent acknowledging the boundary
line, invades, and indeed entirely occupies,
the border. In such a case there is at all
events no fear of the exceeding preciseness
which is one of the dangers to beware of in
border design.
It is interesting to notice the difference
between the last-mentioned method and the
practice of the Japanese, who will, in the most
unhesitating manner, allow the panel pattern,
whatever it may be, to break over the margin
or border, as the impulse may prompt. It is
a proceeding which may or may not result in
confusion, according to the relative strength of
the border and the pattern that cuts across it.
In Plate 1 1 the border pattern is so subdued
that the more important floral growth is very
I o 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 some sort of subsidiary
border, losing itself behind such more pro-
minent 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
<Wate 13.
The Use of the Border. 1 1
the very idea of ornament implies order. And
the artist cannot afford to be forgetful of
order, even when he allows his border to
overgrow the field, or his filling pattern to
extend beyond the frame.
There was a fashion in vogue in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries borrowed
probably from the East according to which
the border is invaded rather by the field or
ground than by the pattern on it ; where the
field, in fact, seems to eat into the border.
It is usually, as you may observe in Plate 12,
rather a symmetrical mouthful that it takes.
A border may be lost in a sort of confusion
with the panel it began by pretending to
enclose. No one ever managed that more
cleverly than Boulle, a panel of whose design
is given in Plate 13. There is considerable
ingenuity in the way in which the pattern is
made to appear alternately light on dark and
dark on light, without actually confining such
alternation within strict border lines, as on
Plate 1 6. But a border remains a border,
however undefined. Boundaries may be un-
derstood rather than expressed. Yet that
makes no difference as to the lines upon which
a design is constructed. You may discard the
1 2 The Planning of Ornament.
very idea of formality ; you may determine
that you will have none of it; that you will
merely sketch upon your page such and such
marginal forms, natural or ornamental ; but if
you dispose them in anything like an orderly
manner, you arrive at something which comes
as clearly under the category of border treat-
ment as though it had been enclosed by hard
and fast boundary lines. The winged heads
and boys and ribands on Plate 14 form, after
all, a border.
Every margin or marginal line is in its
degree a border. The white margin of this
printed page borders the type. In Indian and
other Oriental work you often see the orna-
mental details so closely packed as to define
the border-shape even without actual boun-
dary lines. And the Germans of the sixteenth
century (Jost Amman, for example) sometimes
did with very different details just the same
thing. The looser borders of the looser times
of Louis XIV., XV., XVI., do everything they
can to hide the lines of their construction ;
but you may take it as a sign of artistic
demoralisation to be afraid of a straight line.
Hogarth, who preached "the line of beauty,"
was not exactly an apostle of the beautiful.
Arbitrary
p 1J5 or J cr by Gi ov^.1-) i? i .
l,PNOTO-ilTMO..FUnilVAL 8T HOUOM,t.O.
(Plate 16
PHOTO-UTMO.e.FURNIVAL ST HOU
The Use of the Border. 1 3
So great is the use of the border, that even
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 15),
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
1 4 The Planning of Ornament.
wood-panelling (and on Plates 15 and 16),
that seems to account for the break in the
border. It is as though the border went out
of its way in order to escape the patera.
Nor is there any objection to the doubling
of the border round an imaginary line (b
on Plate 15); by which means the same
end of irregularity is arrived at without the
brutality of da Udine's method. The Italians
of the Cinque Cento resorted freely to the
foregoing plans in their schemes of ceiling
decoration to wit ; and with marvellously
beautiful results. Perhaps, however, they
were rather too ready, certainly the artists
of the later Renaissance were too ready to
adopt any device which would enable them to
depart from the simple panel form. In not a
few instances, the further they went from it
the worse it fared with them.
A separate treatise might be written upon
the construction of the border itself. It may
be continuous or broken, and broken at all
manner of intervals, and in all manner of
ways. It may flow, or grow. It may be
symmetrical or absolutely free. The outer or
the inner edge may be accentuated, or both,
or neither. It may spread outwards from
The Use of the Border. 15
a well-defined central feature or inwards from
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.
1 6 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
design a cartouche, after the manner of Jost
Amman in Plate 17, the cartouche and its
accessories 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 shapes, fitted one to the other; but one
might just as well have two or more indepen-
dent and unconnected shapes. Nothing is
easier than to take a simple field, and to spot
'Plate 18.
(Plate 19.
Within the Border. 1 7
about upon it any shapes you please. That is
one way, not a very ornamental way, but one
way, of occupying the space.
When you proceed to connect such shapes
in any way, you bring in another principle of
design which, however, will be more con-
veniently approached from the other side,
when we come (as we presently shall) to the
discussion of the lines enclosing various shapes
and subdivisions.
Abandoning all thought of border, or sup-
posing a border already in existence, you
may, as I said, plant any independent shape,
medallion, shield, cartouche, tablet, what you
will, within it. This form may be left, as it
were, floating in space, or it may be sup-
ported by ornament ; which ornament may
literally seem to hold it up ; or, if you will,
the ornament may appear to be suspended
from it, as was most frequently the case with
the festoons and garlands of the later Re-
naissance. Instances of such support and
suspension are given in Plates 16, 17, 18.
Finally, the ornament may be unconnected
with the central shape, and comparatively
independent of it, as a powdering or sprig-
diaper would be.
C
1 8 The Planning of Ornament.
The central feature need not, of course, in-
clude 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 19, 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 interlacings on
Plate 5 form panels, Plates 20 and 35 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 21 is at all events amusing. Had
Tlale
OTQ-LITHO.S.FUHNIVAL STHOL0N,t
c ?1ate 21.
Aieimati Phofo-litti Loud
?late 22,
Within the Border. 19
there been evidence of order within this dis-
order, of any plan on which the various
diapers were put together, one would have
welcomed it as a relief from obvious geometry.
The merely accidental patchwork is perhaps
condonable once in a way. It is instanced
here as a freak of Japanese perversity, not as
a model of design. But it has its charm : one
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 22 is not very adequate.
Rightly employed it forms, however, a very
fit and proper method of decoration : for the
slight enrichment of a vase or cylinder 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
C 2
2O The Planning of Ornament.
II and 25, or disposed symmetrically in rela-
tion to an imaginary central line or spinal
cord, as in Plates 10, 13, 16, &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. Some-
thing like radiation of the design occurs in
Plates 3 and 9.
The scroll work, or what not, may equally
proceed from two ends of the panel, as in
Plate 23, or from the sides, or from both
sides and ends, either symmetrically or at
irregular intervals ; or it may spring from
the corner or corners, as in Plate 24.
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 pretty well 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
<P1ate 24.
Akermaii.Photo-'lith. London
Within the Border. 2 1
smiths of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
elaborated with workmanlike pride. In the
tooled binding of the Henri II. period,
given on Plate 9, 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. There is an instance of this
on Plate 40. You see also in book covers
of all times instances of a treatment where
the design is manifestly " to be continued in
our next," the side unseen being necessary
to its symmetrical completeness.
Further examples of the same thing occur
in the mediaeval cabinet doors given in
Plate 25.
The need of clasps, hinges, and so forth,
no doubt gave the hint of such a manner,
which, in spite of the one-sided forms it gives,
is wholly satisfactory in effect We do not
sufficiently realise how readily the mind
makes good what the eye does not see in
design ; assuming, that is to say, a certain
workmanlike reasonableness in it. In Plate
26 (which is only one half of a cabinet) the
design is in a very noticeable degree the
outcome of the constructional idea. The
2 2 The Planning of Ornament.
artist relied greatly upon the locks and hinges
for his effect
It is worth while to compare the above-
mentioned scheme, in which the symmetry is
suggested rather than expressed, with the free
and easy way in which the Japanese lacquer-
worker will overrun the limits of a box top or
cabinet front, and trail his ornament over all
or any of its sides indiscriminately. The
front of the box is not enough for the dragon
on Plate 27. 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 especially as it appears to be
good manners in Japan minutely to examine
your neighbour's nicknacks ; 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
<Pla.te2*>.
?late26.
Within the Border. 23
on Plates 20 and 35, 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
less geometrical, and, as he approaches the
centre of the panel, gathers together the
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
24 The Planning of Ornament.
prominent geometric compartments. The
panelling of the Jacobean cupboard door on
Plate 28 resolves itself into just such a diaper,
to which the figure in the central octagon
gives point
The difference between the method of design
employed in Plate 3, and the plan adopted in
the kind of design shown on Plate 9 is, that
in this last the main 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
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
(Plate 28.
Within the Border. 25
merely marking off a border. A wall, for
example, is divided horizontally into cornice,
frieze, wall space, dado, and so on, or verti-
cally into arcading. Some such sub-divisional
process may be adopted in the case of a
smaller panel, with a view to modifying its
proportions.
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.
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 (see once more Plate 28),
and at something like the interlaced patterns
to which reference has already been made.
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
26 The Planning of Ornament.
dado, either one of which may again be broken
up. Thus the dado on Plate 29, itself one
division of a scheme, is again subdivided into
panels and each of these panels is further
broken up by a square of carving enclosed
within an irregular margin of plain wood.
Again 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
example, one may, as on Plate 30, 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 may 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-
ation of various plans, are obvious. ,'
91 ate 2 3.
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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 6 and 31, the
mouldings round the door panels are supple-
mented by additional painted borders.
A central feature, such as the medallion on
Plate 32, 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 33. 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 9. The
necessary thing is always to take the dividing
lines duly into account even when crossing
them.
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 33 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
31.
'Plate 32
<P1ate 33,
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Some Alternatives in Design. 29
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
pursuit for any one who is really alive. Only
a man should look before he leaps into
danger, weigh the odds before he wagers ;
" Erst wagen, dann wagen," is the pithy way
Count Moltke's motto puts it.
When the artist starts from the 'beginning,
and the scheme of design rests entirely in his
own hands, it is not so difficult to determine
just what is fit. The scheme develops itself.
But in the more frequent case, in which the
art of the ornamentist is only supplementary,
and he has to work, as he usually has, upon
lines already laid down for him, it is only
where those lines are worth preserving that
he is necessarily bound to preserve them
assuming, that is, that he can obliterate them.
This is heterodox, but none the less true. If
the lines existing are bad, and he can by his
design withdraw attention from them to lines
more reposeful to the eye, he is doing good
work. Only he should do nothing but what
he can make seem right. There must be no
appearance of awkwardness, no suspicion of
effort about it. It is a case in which success
30 The Planning of Ornament.
alone justifies the attack upon the situation.
To fail is to lay yourself open to the charge
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 34, and treats each part of
it as seems good to his queer mind, he is only
doing what the Pompeian decorator did when
he cut off a portion of his wall space, and
painted it as a dado ; though he does it more
energetically, not to say spasmodically, and
with less appreciation of proportion.
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 35, or when he crams all manner
of geometric diapers into a panel, as on
Plate 21, he is merely doing in a more eccen-
tric 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
: P1ate 34
Some Alternatives in Design. 31
almost invariably does (so little is his instinct
in this respect likely to err), there is no occasion
to 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 remi-
niscences of severely constructional divisions
give additional charm, as it seems to me, to
3 2 The Planning of Ornament.
design otherwise fanciful, and even fantastic
in character. It is as though a man said in
his design, almost in so many words : I claim
my freedom, but I have some lingering
respect for law and order.
Except on the very minutest scale, the
scope of subdivision possible with regard
to a space, is not affected by the amount
of ornament introduced, nor by its character.
No matter whether it be human or animal
figure that you employ, conventional or
natural foliage, scroll or growth, interlace-
ment, arabesque, or geometric pattern, the
possibilities in the way of distribution are the
same.
Naturally, however, certain lines of sub-
division will be found to accord with certain
kinds of treatment ; and so we find that, as a
matter of history, the Mohammedans adopted
certain lines of composition, the Greeks other
lines, and the Japanese quite others again, and
so on.
Furthermore, the lines one would instinc-
tively choose for different purposes would
themselves be different. One would scarcely
proceed to decorate a panel by merely cross-
ing it with bands of ornament (see Plate 22),
KftM., PHVTff-UVMO.ft.PVNNIVAl ** WOUOHH.
Some Alternatives in Design. 33
except perhaps in the case of some long strip
of a panel which it was absolutely necessary
to shorten. There is a case in point given on
Plate 36, 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
both with vases and 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 possible
ways of distribution are never all of them
alike expedient. There must, for example,
necessarily be some correspondence 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 versa.
It does not even follow that the description
of detail usually found in connection with a
certain order of composition is the only detail
D
34 The Planning of Ornament.
appropriate to it. The happy connection of
the one with the other is evidence only of
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 something of their own.
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,
17, and 32 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 17 is essentially of pro-
foundest interest ; but in the eyes of its
owner at least it is worthy of all prominence.
ii :: n :: 11 :: 11
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Some Alternatives in Design. 35
In like manner also, if it is proposed to
introduce the figure, or anything of that
importance, it is only natural to provide for it
in your scheme, whether in the shape of
medallion, frame, niche, or what not. The
gem of your design should have a setting
worthy of it.
Any feature, such as a tablet, medallion,
label, cartouche, shield, and so on, introduced
into a composition, should bear relation not
only to its surroundings, but to what it is to
enclose. This is a serious consideration very
often neglected. It is no uncommon thing to
see a shield introduced only to bear an inscrip-
tion, a circular medallion to frame a picture
which demands a rectangular outline, and all
manner of queerly proportioned shapes, which
by their very position call for decoration, whilst,
at the same time, it is almost impossible to
fill them satisfactorily.
Upon the same principle of fitness, a pre-
determination to adopt natural forms of
foliage would, artistically speaking, necessitate
the choice of a not too rigid skeleton for
it. Detail designed on a large scale would
call for equal breadth and simplicity in the
setting out.
D 2
36 The Planning of Ornament.
So with regard to the allotment of orna-
ment once the lines determined, the artist
must scheme his ornament accordingly.
Whether he elect to ornament every portion
of the surface, as the Orientals and the artists
of the Early Renaissance often do, or certain
selected parts only, like the Greeks, whether
he chose to decorate many parts or few, and
which parts, and how that is his affair. His
taste must be his guide in that ; and unless
he have some taste he had better not
attempt to design. This may sound like
discouragement ; but it is only kindness to
the beginner easily capable of discouragement
to make him aware at once of the difficulties
in his way. The lukewarm may as well be
warned off. Ornament is not one of those
easy things a man may take up for a liveli-
hood, pending fame as a painter. Success
in ornament implies devotion to it.
On the Filling of the Circle, &c. 3 7
V.
ON THE FILLING OF THE CIRCLE AND
OTHER SHAPES.
The various lines on which ornament may
be distributed over a simple panel or parallel-
ogram having been so far discussed, it remains
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,
much 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 figure of more regular outline, 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 by means 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
Vase I, Plate 37, or in any striped Venetian
glass, or (2) according to its plan, as exem-
plified in Vases 2, 3, 4, or in the rude
earthenware 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. (" The Application of Orna-
ment," Plate 8).
A third way is to cross the shape diago-
nally, which gives the appearance of twisting
r ?1ate 37.
"PHOTO -TiMT'Ity James Akerm
On the Filling of the Circle, &c. 39
to be seen in the bowl of vase, 3 a device
common enough in old silversmiths' work.
Two or more of these systems may be asso-
ciated ; and they often are ; as in so many a
German tankard of the fifteenth or sixteenth
century, where the bulbous bowl is beaten out
into the semblance of a melon, and the neck
and foot take the lines of the lathe. In
Vases 5 and 6 it is very noticeable how the
ornament is constructed on two series of
cross lines, the one series according to their
plan, the other according to their elevation.
Now the decoration of a vase lengthwise,
according to its elevation, corresponds to the
striping of a panel with vertical lines ; the
decoration bandwise, according to plan, cor-
responds to the striping of a panel with hori-
zontal lines ; and the twisted treatment
corresponds to a series of diagonal lines
crossing a panel
The way in which medallions, panels, and
other shapes may be incorporated with the
design of a vase is not different from that
already set forth. There is, however, this
difficulty, that any marked independent shape
is likely to interfere with the form of the vase,
or the form of the vase to distort it, which is
4o The Planning of Ornament.
the way with the landscape and picture medal-
lions so persistently misapplied to Sevres and
Dresden china. Not that it is impossible
to introduce such features with good effect;
only it needs to be done with judgment,,
which of all things is most rare. And, as it
happens, the difficulty has been more often
attacked with valour than with that 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 38 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
2 ^Vjf^vi*
F KILL. FMOTO-LITMO-8,FUrNIVL S T HOLIOnN.E
(TtJSlVEBSlTl
On the Filling of the Circle, &c. 41
have the system of radiation. Repeat the
fan shapes side by side, and you 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,
so to speak, out of a circle decorated ring-
wise (F). The identical target-like result may
be arrived at by the continuation of a series
of borders round the circle, one within the
other. That is only another way of reaching
the same point in design. As in the case of
pattern planning ("Anatomy of Pattern,"
pages 19 and 22), one comes by various lines
of thought to the same conclusion.
The crossing of the two schemes (G) is
much the same thing as a square lattice of
cross lines in a rectangular panel. The sub-
division of the circular space by lines of more
flowing character (H) would correspond to the
division of the panel by diagonal lines. And
if those lines were crossed (J), it would be
analogous to the division of the square by
cross lines into diamonds.
The spiral line, as applied to the decoration
of the circle (K), is equivalent to the fret or key
42 The Planning of Ornament.
pattern as applied to the square (L). These
analogies, I think, are plain enough. They
were suggested to me by Mr. Henri Mayeux's
"La Composition decorative" (A. Quantin,
Paris), to which the student may refer for
more ample illustration of the subject.
All manner of independent shapes may be
introduced into the decoration of the circle,
as into that of the panel. One may plant a
shield in the centre, and surround it with a
border, as in the central disc on Plate 39 :
one may associate any arbitrary form with
ringed or radiating lines. But should any such
shape form an important feature in the de-
sign, the situation is not so free from danger.
The limit is soon reached, that is to say,
within which lines or forms at once indepen-
dent and emphatic may judiciously be intro-
duced into a circular design. Anything which
counteracts the shape of the space you have
to fill needs to be accounted for. The two
rosettes at the top of Plate 39 are designed
on the safe lines of radiation ; in the two at
the bottom of the plate the design is based
in the one case on a vertical dividing line, in
the other on a horizontal.
The difficulty in dealing with forms con-
ITH0.8.FUKNIVAI S T HOLIORM,!
On the Filling of the Circle, &c. 43
tradictory one to another is, that you are apt
to leave interspaces of irregular shape, which
are not easily manageable ; as for instance, in
the inevitable spandril which occurs so fre-
quently in architecture. If a spandril happen
to be very large you can insert into it a more
symmetrical shape, which will hold its own ;
and if it be insignificantly small, you may
ignore it. You may (where it is of import-
ance enough to be accepted as an individual
panel) treat it as such, with figures, scrolls,
and so on. You may simply cover it with
an unimportant pattern in the nature of a
diaper, or leave it blank. These are the
extremes : the happy mean in spandril deco-
ration is not easy to find.
The spandril may be taken as typical of
all the many awkward shapes which come of
the intersection of curved lines by straight.
Ornamental design would be a very much
easier thing if we had only to consider the
lines of the ornament, without any regard to
the interspaces.
From the circle to the rosette, or cusped
circle, is so short a step, that the treatment
of such shapes goes almost without further
saying. The cusps seem almost to call for.
44 The Planning of Ornament.
acknowledgment by lines radiating towards
them. Indeed, if you simply carry a series
of borders, one within the other, round the
cusps, the points where they meet will give
of themselves radiating lines; just as in the
case of the vandyke or zigzag (" Anatomy
of Pattern," p. 9) it was shown that the
recurring points gave vertical cross lines.
The pentagon, hexagon, and other equal-
sided polygonal figures may be considered as
broken circles.
The triangle offers no new difficulty : it is
merely a case of three sides to deal with
instead of four.
A branched form may be resolved into
its elements. The Greek cross, for example,
may be regarded as an assemblage of five
squares ; the Latin cross as a group of as
many as you please, according to the length
of its arms, or as four parallelograms arranged
round a square.
An altogether exceptional space will be
pretty sure to indicate of itself the exceptional
lines on which it can best be decorated ; and
a capricious one may well be left to the caprice
of the artist.
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
46 The Planning of Ornament.
the subsidiary lines needful to the completion
of the scheme. On the other hand, a greater
partiality for line will induce him to have
recourse to a more orderly procedure ; will,
perhaps, even suggest a geometric ground-
work, which, however far he may depart from
the first lines, will materially help him in
securing the object he has most at heart.
If you start with certain arbitrary and
irregular forms, arbitrarily and irregularly
disposed, so many patches, as one may say,
on the panel, it is clearly not such a very easy
matter to connect them by any systematic lines
of ornament. If, on the contrary, you begin
with a system of orderly lines, these must
necessarily determine in some measure the
shape and distribution of any more prominent
features you may thereafter introduce into the
scheme.
For my own part (whilst I disbelieve
entirely in arriving at anything more than flat
mediocrity by the adoption of set rules of
proportion), I feel rather strongly that there
should be by rights a strict relation between
the parts of a design, however little it may
be obvious. If, for example, there is a space
to fill between border and central medallion
"PHOTO -TIHT'; tyj
Order and A ccident. 4 7
a diaper may be^ enough ; but the diaper
should be designed into its space. And even
if part of a design be permitted to disappear,
as it were, behind this feature or that, it should
be so schemed that no very material form is
mutilated in the process. Where an interrup-
tion occurs in a border the pattern should be
planned with a view to such interruption.
Even though you deliberately adopt a diaper,
say as background to a scroll, the character of
that diaper should be determined by the scroll,
notwithstanding that the lines of the one are
meant to contradict the lines of the other.
The cultivated artistic sense is by no means
satisfied with the casual employment of any
diaper.
Again, where one feature of the design is
overlaid by another, as frequently happens
in Early Gothic glass, the overlapping pat-
terns should be designed to overlap as they
always were. The spaces between one series
of medallions should suggest the outlines of
the subordinate medallions between, which
again should be shaped with a view to
any proposed interruption. In the book
cover on Plate 40 the tooled borders
disappear as it were behind the silver clasps
48 The Planning of Ornament.
and corners ; and one sees no harm in this,
because the tooling is so distinctly subor-
dinate to the silver mounting, indeed one
may say designed to supplement and connect
it. The careless overlaying of one pattern,
or of 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 41, where the two one-
. f Kill, PHOTO-UTWO.t.rUKKIVAl S
Order and A cciden t. 49
sided panels are jointly symmetrical. Boule
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
disregarded 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 inexperienced 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.
Where there is no offence in the lapse from
what we have been accustomed to think 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 ornament.
LONDON :
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES
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