The Principles of Ornament — A Closer Reading

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painted decorations. The embroidered or woven patterns on their dresses, shawls, and curtains, and the beautiful ornament on their vases, were mainly

designed on this system. The _frieze_ is a characteristic feature in Greek architecture; and if you take the band ornaments out of Greek work there is very little ornament left. Figs. 37, 42, 45, 49, 51, 52, 113,

114, and 115 are some of their favourite band patterns. Figs. 116 and 117 show some of the patterns on dresses taken from the Greek vases. The shawl (_peplum_) of Demeter on a vase at the British Museum has chariot races, winged cupids, animals, birds, and dolphins in the successive bands; the sacred shawls of Minerva at the Parthenon (_pepla_) are only known by description. One had the battle of the gods and giants woven or embroidered on it, and another was ornamented with the portraits of Antigonus and Demetrius Poliorcetes (Plutarch’s Demetrius).

Spotting at regular intervals was the favourite way of decorating the larger surface of dresses. The circular flower that usually formed the spot in Greek ornament was composed of a greater number of petals than the Roman, and is probably of Assyrian origin. (See Fig. 116.) Saracen work also affords good examples of horizontal band treatment. (See Figs. 118 and 119.)

_The third division_: perpendicular bands are not so common in decoration as the former class; they are mostly architectural in character, and usually form divisions between wall-spaces in the shape of panels in piers and pilasters. Triglyphs in friezes may even be classed in this division, and so may the soffits of arches in the Classic and Renaissance styles; the decoration of the soffits of beams and of ribs and groins in Gothic, though some purists say it gives a look of weakness to the arch. When the soffits of arches are wide in proportion to their height they may be panelled, and if narrow be treated like pilaster panels, the bottom of each side

being at the springing; the tops may nearly touch at the crown, or be separated by a circular panel. The decoration of pilaster panels in relief should be comparatively low, and although some of the minor details may almost sink into the ground, there should be nothing vague; the danger to be apprehended being a loss of architectural severity

in this supporting feature. The ornament on a pilaster must be symmetrically built with the strongest elements at the base and the lightest at the top. The best examples of this kind of decoration are Roman, Italian, and French Cinque-Cento work. The latter may be seen in the well-known pilasters of Louis XII. The artists of those times paid the same attention to pilaster decoration that the

Greeks did to horizontal band-work. Figs. 121, 122, and 123 show some examples of pilaster decoration. When the main ornamental effect is obtained, the next problem to be solved is to get the greatest possible variation in the planes of the carving, so that the ornament may not have the air of being cut out with a fret-saw, with the face slightly carved and pinned on. It is sometimes well to accentuate certain portions if care be taken to avoid spottiness; occasionally the main piece of ornament that has the greatest projection may be echoed up the pilaster with a sort of ebb and flow, only the greatest subsidiary projection should be less than the main one. Modern ornamentalists have insisted, that if animal forms are introduced they should be repeated, and rise in scale of importance as they get higher; but this method does not seem to have been adhered to by the Romans or Renaissance artists. In the latter we sometimes meet with cupids or children at the very base of the panel.

_The fourth division._--Ornament in panels, &c. Ceilings

have been treated in Chapter IV., and floors cannot have real panels, so upright rectangular panels may be taken first. Their simplest ornamentation is by moulding; if the mouldings have stopped ends, they are known as linen panels. When narrow and unmoulded they may be filled with symmetrical ornament

on either side of an upright stem, either purely floral (Figs. 148 and 120), or after the manner of pilaster panels, or the ornament may spring from vases at the bottom (Fig. 127), or they may have central medallions circular or oval, pateræ or bosses; and in cases where these narrow panels are in a long succession, each one may be varied, or the centres alone may be varied, if the size and weight of the centres be preserved; circular and oval panels in moulded frames should be avoided in woodwork on account of the chances of the mouldings splitting. In Saracenic and Moresque work the