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ANALYSIS OF ORNAMENT. 
 
ROMAN. 
 
ANALYSIS OF ORNAMENT. 
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLES 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY 
 OF ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 By RALPH N. WORNUM, 
 
 KEEPER AND SECRETARY, NATIONAL GALLERY. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1873. 
 
 [ The right of Translation is reserved.'] 
 

 
 LONDON’ t 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., 
 OTTY ROAD. 
 
PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. 
 
 The following Sketch is prepared chiefly as an introduc- 
 tory guide to aid in the adoption of some ready system in 
 the study of Ornament. Though illustrated ornamental 
 works exist in great profusion, they are generally on special 
 monuments and localities, or extending only over very 
 limited periods of time : and being, further, mostly of a 
 purely illustrative character, without analytical description 
 of the parts, they fail to impress on the mind of the Student 
 those elements which are the essential characteristics 
 of the works, and distinguish their style. These charac- 
 teristics, therefore, which are the very essence of the Art, 
 are to be apprehended only by difit of great labour in the 
 comparison of many costly publications, which, until lately, 
 have been generally inaccessible even to the metropolitan 
 student. But with access to such works, some systematic 
 general guide is absolutely indispensable to enable the 
 Student to acquire a sound apprehension of his subject, 
 with moderate labour, and within a moderate time. 
 
 The knowledge of ornamental styles is, doubtless, most 
 readily imparted in a course of lectures, in which, by 
 numerous illustrations on a large scale, including occa- 
 sionally the objects themselves, the peculiar features of 
 each style can be at once pointed out, and fixed on the 
 mind, through the facilities of immediate comparison. But 
 this compendious abstract of the course of Lectures on 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Ornamental Art, — delivered by me originally at Somerset 
 House ; and subsequently at Marlborough House, under the 
 direction of the Board of Trade Department of Science and 
 Art, — in the absence of a more complete report, may serve 
 in some measure as a substitute for the personal instructions 
 of a lecture, by pointing out its sources, and enabling the 
 Student to derive directly from the standard authorities in 
 the Library of the Department such information for himself. 
 The Student will find the most important works illustrating 
 the subject enumerated in the text, to which he must refer 
 for its complete illustration; but he will find the most 
 essential and characteristic elements of the styles, perhaps 
 adequately illustrated by the few engraved cuts contained in 
 the work, which have been chiefly executed from casts in 
 the collections of the Department, by the female students 
 of the Wood-engraving Class at Marlborough House. 
 
 The accompanying Sketch, however, is not published as 
 a report of the Lectures referred to : it is simply a concise 
 abstract of their substance, and is intended only as an 
 introductory aid for the Student, to enable him to make 
 profitable use of the works in the Library, in furtherance 
 of an earnest study of Ornamental Art A' 
 
 B. K W. 
 
 July, 1855. 
 
 * See the Account of the Library , &c., with a Catalogue of the principal 
 Works , classified for the use of the Visitors. By Ralph N. Wornum, Librarian. 
 London, 1855. The diagrams prepared by me for these lectures now form 
 part of the property of this Library. The Lectures were originally delivered 
 in the Government Schools of Design, both at Somerset House and in the 
 provincial schools in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in the years 1848, 
 1849, and 1850. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The history of art shows two great classes of ornamental 
 styles — the symbolic and the aesthetic ; that is, those which 
 appeal to our understandings, and those which appeal to 
 our feelings. We may term those styles symbolic in which 
 the ordinary elements have been chosen for the sake of 
 their significations, as symbols of something not necessarily 
 implied, and irrespective of their effect as works of art, or 
 arrangements of forms and colours. Those that are com- 
 posed of elements devised solely from principles of sym- 
 metry of form and harmony of colour, and exclusively for 
 their effect on our perception of the beautiful , without any 
 further extraneous or ulterior aim, may he termed aesthetic. 
 
 Style in ornament is analogous to hand in writing, and 
 this is its literal signification. As every individual has 
 some peculiarity in his mode of writing, so every age or 
 nation has been distinguished in its ornamental expression 
 by a certain individuality of taste, either original or bor- 
 rowed. It is the comprehension of these individual tastes, 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 ORNAMENT \ 
 
 characterizing various times and people, which must con- 
 stitute the most thorough education of the ornamental 
 designer. These expressions are interesting also to the 
 general student, as they exhibit an essential quality of the 
 social character of these different people, both in relation 
 to the arts and to general culture and religion. 
 
 In a review of these ornamental styles we shall find that 
 the elements of form are constant in all cases ; they are 
 but variously treated. This, in fact, must be so, if a style 
 be founded upon any principles at all; and those styles 
 which have carried with them the feelings of ages could 
 not be otherwise than based upon some fixed natural laws. 
 
 The elements of styles are of two kinds — pure and 
 absolute, and conventional and arbitrary ; or natural and 
 fanciful. 
 
 The investigation of the principles of ornamental art is 
 an inquiry into the nature and character of these elements : 
 how the effects of certain variations of form and colour 
 happen to be so universally appreciated that the varieties 
 of their arrangements have occupied all people from the 
 remotest times. 
 
 Universal efforts show a universal want ; and beauty of 
 effect and decoration are no more a luxury in a civilised 
 state of society than warmth and clothing are a luxury to 
 any state : the mind, as the body, makes everything neces- 
 sary that it is capable of permanently enjoying. Ornament 
 is one of the mind’s necessities, which it gratifies by means 
 of the eye ; and, in its strictest aesthetic sense, it has a 
 perfect analogy with music, which similarly gratifies the 
 mind, but by the means of a different organ — the ear. 
 
 So ornament has been discovered to be again an essential 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 3 
 
 element in commercial prosperity. This was not so at first, 
 because, in a less cultivated state, we are quite satisfied 
 with the gratification of our merely physical wants. But 
 in an advanced state, the more extensive wants of the mind 
 demand still more pressingly to be satisfied. Hence, orna- 
 ment is now as material an interest in a commercial com- 
 munity as even cotton itself, or, indeed, any raw material 
 of manufacture whatever. 
 
 Such being the case, it is highly important that we 
 should endeavour to comprehend its principles, in order 
 to its most effectual application. We should, therefore, in 
 the first place, study ornament, for its own sake, theoreti- 
 cally and scientifically, and not in that limited narrow sense 
 which would restrict it in one place as applied to cotton, in 
 another as to iron, and in a third as to clay, and so on. 
 
 There is most certainly but one road to efficiency for the 
 designer — for the weaver, for the printer, or for the 
 modeller. Their common object is a familiar mastery of 
 ornamental art, in order that they may apply it to the 
 utmost advantage to their respective pursuits. In early 
 stages of manufactures, it is mechanical fitness that is the 
 object of competition. As society advances, it is necessary 
 to combine elegance with fitness ; and those who cannot see 
 this must be content to send their wares to the ruder 
 markets of the world, and resign the great marts of com- 
 merce to men of superior taste and sounder judgment, who 
 deserve a higher reward. This is no new idea. Let us 
 take a lesson from the experience of past ages. The vari- 
 coloured glass of Egypt, the figured cups of Sidon, the 
 shawls of Miletus, the terra-cottas of Samos, the bronzes 
 of Corinth, did not command the markets of the ancient 
 
4 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 world either for their materials or for their mechanical 
 qualities; not because they were well blown, cleverly 
 chased, finely woven, ingeniously turned, or perfectly cast, 
 — these qualities they had only in common with the similar 
 wares of other nations, — but in the gratification of one of 
 the most refined necessities of the mind in an advanced 
 social state, they were pre-eminent — they were objects of 
 an elegant, cultivated taste. It is by this aesthetic cha- 
 racter alone, that manufacturers will ever establish that 
 substantial renown which will insure a lasting market in 
 the civilised world. 
 
 When, however, manufactures have attained a high 
 mechanical perfection, or have completely met the neces- 
 sities of the body, the energy that brought them to that 
 perfection must either stagnate or be continued in a higher 
 province — that of taste ; for there is a stage of cultivation 
 when the mind must revolt at a mere crude utility. So it 
 is a natural propensity to decorate or embellish whatever is 
 useful or agreeable to us. But just as there are mechanical 
 laws which regulate all our efforts in pure uses, so there 
 are laws of the mind which must regulate those sesthetical 
 efforts expressed in the attempt at decoration or orna- 
 mental design. 
 
 The production and application of ornament are distinct 
 processes, though they cannot be separated in applied 
 design. A proper distinction between a picture or a model 
 and an ornament is quite essential in the mind of the 
 designer ; for the mere power of imitation of natural 
 objects, and even their exact imitation, is perfectly com- 
 patible with the total ignorance of ornamental art. The 
 great art of the designer is in the selection and arrange- 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 5 
 
 mcnt of his materials, not in their execution. There is a 
 distinct study of ornament wholly independent of the merely 
 preliminary exercises of drawing, colouring, or modelling. 
 A designer might even produce a perfect arrangement of 
 forms and colours, and yet show the grossest stupidity in 
 its application. 
 
 There are two provinces of ornament — the flat and the 
 relieved. In the flat, we have a contrast of light and dark ; 
 in the relieved, a contrast of light and shade; in both, a 
 variety of effect for the pure gratification of the sense of 
 vision. Much is common to both ; but in the first case, a 
 play of line is the main feature, in the second, a play of 
 masses, and colour may be an auxiliary to either ; but it 
 acts with far greater power in the flat, as it is entirely 
 dependent upon light. 
 
 Ornament, therefore, is a system of contrasts: the object 
 of study is the order of contrasts. The individual orders 
 may vary to infinity, though the classes are limited, as 
 right-line or curved-line series, series of simple curves or 
 clustered curves, series of mere lines, or natural objects, 
 as flowers arranged in the orders of these different series. 
 For example, the common scroll is a series of spirals to the 
 right and left alternately ; the Boman scroll is the Acanthus 
 plant or brank-ursine, treated in this order of curved series. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Decoration or ornamentation, then, we may assume to be 
 divided into two great classes — the flat and the round , or 
 what may be otherwise described as painting and modelling . 
 
 That of painting , or the flat, is the far more extensive 
 class. It comprises, in the first place, all pictorial decora- 
 tion, — general costume, drapery, all printed or woven 
 fabrics, mosaic, inlaying, Boule- work, enamelling, and, 
 accordingly, many classes of furniture. The relieved, or 
 modelling , is limited to building purposes, hardware, certain 
 kinds of furniture, implements, and to jewellery. But 
 everything that is relieved is comprised also in the flat, in 
 one sense, inasmuch as it can be imitated in the flat : this 
 is however not a legitimate use of the flat, as it is really a 
 mere counterfeit of the round. 
 
 We may call these two classes, then, the flat and the 
 round . They have two qualities in common — shape and 
 contrast. The shape in both is given by the outline ; the 
 contrast, in the one by light and shade ; in the other, by 
 colour, or light and dark. There is no other means of 
 contrast in the flat but that of colour, or light and dark ; 
 for when an ornament in the flat is merely an imitation 
 of the round, it belongs strictly to the round: the 
 
 ¥ 
 
ORNAMENT. 7 
 
 contrast in the round is effected by light and shade. All 
 tracery — indeed, all figures, in the flat, arc mere light 
 and dark : whether the contrast be that of colours 
 or of black and white, whether 
 of a shadow with its ground or of 
 one form with another, the very 
 elemental principle of vision is con- 
 trast, and it must, of course, be the 
 basis of all ornamental art. 
 
 Then, if this view be correct, we 
 have but two great principals to 
 study — shape and contrast; or, in 
 all cases, aesthetically, an agreeable 
 variety of those effects which delight 
 the mind by means of the eye. This 
 is more important than would appear 
 at first ; for it shows, that whatever 
 other principle we may associate 
 with the ornamental principle, must 
 be kept secondary to effect , if we 
 are desirous of making a good design. Introduce what 
 symbols we will, or apply our designs how we will, they 
 must be made subject to the ruling principles of orna- 
 ment itself, or, however good the symbolism, our design 
 is a mere crudity in art. 
 
 This also illustrates the difference between a picture 
 and an ornament. The ornamental principal of symmetry 
 may be introduced into a picture, but it is far from being 
 essential to it; and when this principle is introduced, 
 which it often is, the picture really becomes an ornamental 
 design. This is the character of nearly all pictures in 
 
 Flat. 
 
8 
 
 ORNAMENT \ 
 
 the earlier epochs of art, and they were generally parts 
 of ornamental schemes. 
 
 Any picture, whatever the subject, which is composed 
 merely on principles of symmetry and contrast becomes an 
 ornament, and any ornamental design in which these two 
 principles have been made subservient to imitation or 
 natural arrangement has departed from the province of 
 ornament into that of the picture or the model, whichever 
 it may be. And in nearly all designs of this kind, applied 
 to useful purposes, you frustrate the very principle of 
 nature, upon which you found your theory, when you 
 represent a natural form in a natural manner, and yet 
 apply it to uses with which it has, in nature, no affinity 
 whatever. Therefore, however you may conform with 
 Nature in little matters, you certainly commit an outrage 
 upon her in great matters. 
 
 There is a class of ornament which has much increased 
 of late years in England, and, by way of distinction, we 
 may call it the naturalist school. The theory appears to 
 be, that as nature is beautiful, ornamental details derived 
 immediately from beautiful natural objects must insure a 
 beautiful design. This, however, can only be true where 
 the original uses of the details chosen have not been 
 obviously violated ; and one peculiar feature of this 
 school is, that it often substitutes the ornament itself for 
 the thing to be ornamented, as illustrated in the accom- 
 panying examples ; in which the natural objects are so 
 mismanaged as to be principals : flame proceeding from a 
 flower, a basket on an animal’s head to hold a liquid, 
 a bell made of leaves ! the elements chosen being so 
 opposed to the proposed uses of the objects ornamented, 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 9 
 
 as to make the designs simply aesthetic monstrosities, 
 ornamental abominations. 
 
 Ornament is essentially the accessory to, and not the 
 
 
 A Cup. 
 
 substitute of, the useful ; it is a decoration or adornment ; 
 it can have no independent existence practically. We 
 cannot look upon any mere ornament without instantly 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 10 
 
 associating it with something that it is fit, or is destined, 
 to adorn ; as a necklace, or a bracelet. Even a statuette 
 is not an ornament, unless you associate it with some 
 shelf or other object or support that it may be fit to adorn. 
 If we look upon it as a mere statue or portrait, it is purely 
 a work of fine art, not an ornament ; because it is then 
 principal, instead of being accessory, an absolute condition 
 of all ornament. Hence, every implement or article of 
 practical utility, as, for instance, a candlestick, that is 
 composed or built up of natural imitations exclusively 
 or as principals, however poetical the idea may be 
 supposed to be, is practically bad as a design. 
 
 There is a very great difference between ornamenting 
 a utensil with natural objects, and substituting these 
 natural objects for the utensil itself. In the latter case, 
 however true the details, the design is utterly false ; in 
 the former, you are in both respects true, and may be also 
 highly suggestive and instructive. Of course, there are 
 many natural objects which at once suggest certain uses ; 
 and we can never be wrong if we elaborate these into 
 such implements or vessels as their own very forms 
 or natures may have spontaneously presented to the 
 mind. 
 
 Every article of use has a certain size and character 
 defined for it by the very use it is destined for, and this 
 may never be disregarded by the designer ; it is, in fact, 
 the indispensable skeleton of his design, and has nothing 
 to do with ornament. But it is upon this skeleton that 
 the designer must bring all his ornamental knowledge to 
 bear ; and he is a poor designer if he can do nothing more 
 than imitate a few sticks and leaves, or other natural 
 
ORNAMENT \ 
 
 1 1 
 
 objects wherewith to decorate it : he must give it charac- 
 ter as well as beauty, and make it suggestive of something 
 more than a display of sprigs and flowers gathered from 
 the fields, or this would be mannerism indeed. 
 
 Natural floral ornament is one kind of ornament, and 
 a very beautiful kind ; but even an infinite variety of 
 floral detail, especially in the round, will have sesthetically 
 but very little variety of effect upon the mind. For this 
 purpose we must bring Art to the aid of Nature , or 
 work upon the principles illustrated by natural objects, 
 rather than imitate their individual appearances. 
 
 We should add an illustrative elaboration of the abstract 
 principles of beauty, to the mere representation of those 
 natural objects in which they may be most effectively 
 displayed : and this is the professed object of all tracery 
 or mere geometrical design. The beautiful Italian style, 
 known as the Trecento, is a fine example of this combina- 
 tion of natural and artificial forms, in its mixture of 
 conventional flowers and foliage with its tracery and 
 various geometrical designs. 
 
 It seems to be a law of nature, that every individual 
 thing shall be composed of two similar parts in its out- 
 ward appearance ; and as the internal arrangement is often 
 different, as in the animal creation, this similarity of 
 externals would appear an evidence of the design of 
 beauty. We find this similarity of parts more or less 
 decided according to the individuality of the object — from 
 the simplest crystal form to that of man. 
 
 And we find this remarkable similarity relaxed only 
 where its relaxation does not interfere with the beauty 
 of the object,— as in a tree, for instance : the two 
 
12 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 halves of a tree are not exactly symmetrical in their 
 branches, yet they are generally so. There is quite 
 as much symmetry in every tree as the eye can appre- 
 ciate. 
 
 It is so also with flowers : the calyx and petals of all 
 flowers are symmetrical; and this symmetry is the more 
 decided, inversely as the number of flowers on one stem : 
 plurality of members seems to do away with the special 
 symmetry of the individual member ; and where there are 
 several flowers from one root or on one stem, the deviation 
 from individual symmetry is always in favour of the 
 symmetry of the collective group or groups. Where 
 nature groups, it is the group that is the ornament, not 
 the individual ; and this is a law which must be observed 
 likewise in art ; as in all clusters, colonnades, or festoons, 
 the individuals of such designs may be arranged at random, 
 provided the cluster, colonnade, or festoon, be itself of 
 symmetrical proportions. 
 
 In endeavouring, therefore, to be symmetrical in our 
 designs, so far from being artificial or formal, we are 
 strictly following one of the grand principles of Nature. 
 
 This distinction between the symmetry of the parts and 
 the symmetry of the group or cluster, is very important. 
 Take man himself : he is a compound form, — a group of 
 trunk, limbs, and extremities. Whatever part of the 
 group is balanced by a similar member on the other side, 
 is without that symmetry which we are speaking of. The 
 arm is not symmetrical, because it is balanced by a similar 
 member on the other side ; but take the head, which has 
 not this plurality to disturb its symmetry, and we find 
 a perfect contrast of the two parts. I believe this to 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 13 
 
 be true of all natural groups ; and I believe this law of 
 symmetry to be so important, that there is no form or 
 combination of forms, whatever, that, when symmetrically 
 contrasted or repeated, cannot be made subservient to 
 beauty. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The whole grammar of ornament consists in contrast, 
 repetition, and series. A perfect contrast of form may 
 be defined as the two sides of a solid or section of the 
 solid, generated by the revolution of an outline around 
 a given axis ; as, for instance, a sphere is the solid 
 generated by the revolution of a semicircle around its 
 diameter. 
 
 Repetition and series are nearly identical. Series com- 
 prises repetition, and defines its order. Mouldings are 
 simple repetitions, right-lined or curved, as the case may 
 be. Perhaps the best illustration of the value of series is 
 the kaleidoscope. All the beautiful figures represented by 
 that instrument are repetitions in circular series ; and 
 often the rudest materials will generate extremely beauti- 
 ful effects. 
 
 And the elliptical, or any other regular series, sym- 
 metrically arranged, will be found nearly equally valuable 
 with the circular. 
 
 In no popular style of ornament have natural details 
 ever yet prevailed. The details of all great styles are 
 largely derived from nature, but for the most part con- 
 ventionally treated; and theory and experience seem to 
 show that this is the true system. 
 
ORNAMENT \ 
 
 i5 
 
 A plant is said to be conventionally treated, when the 
 natural order of its growth or development is disregarded. 
 Where the exact imitation of the details, and its own 
 order of development, are both observed, the treatment 
 is natural ; and an object so treated, independent of any 
 application, is only a picture or model, not an ornament : 
 to be an ornament, it must be applied as an accessory 
 decoration to something else. 
 
 In Egyptian, Greek, and Eoman ornament, it is ex- 
 tremely rare to find any natural treatment of the details : 
 that is, any mere imitation. The only examples I can 
 recall are the birds, reptiles, and animals occasionally 
 introduced in arabesques and scroll-work. The case is 
 the same with Byzantine and Saracenic art, and with the 
 great styles of Italy, especially the Trecento and the 
 Cinquecento, in which all the most perfect schemes are 
 purely conventional, or upon a strict geometrical basis, 
 whatever the treatment of the detail may be. 
 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti has introduced exact natural imita- 
 tions in his celebrated gates of the Baptistery of San 
 Giovanni at Florence ; but they are strictly accessory to 
 a general plan, and symmetrically arranged ; being neither 
 negligently nor naturally disposed. They are bound in 
 bunches or groups of various shapes and sizes, disposed 
 in harmony wdth the main compartments of the gates, of 
 which they are ornaments. And this is, perhaps, the 
 utmost extent to which decorations of this class can be 
 judiciously applied. But in Ghiberti’s case, as elsewhere, 
 the group is the ornament, and not the parts of which it 
 is composed. 
 
 ( 
 
 It is requisite that we should have a clear understand- 
 
1 6 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 ing of the difference between a natural and a conventional 
 or ornamental treatment of an object. A natural treat- 
 ment implies natural imitation and arrangement ; but an 
 ornamental treatment does not necessarily exclude imita- 
 tion in the parts ; as, for instance, a scroll may be 
 composed of strictly natural parts ; but as no plant would 
 grow in an exact spiral direction, the scroll form con- 
 stitutes the ornamental or conventional arrangement. As 
 in the following arrangement of a leaf, from an old French 
 example. 
 
 We may have, however, conventionalities of details as 
 well as conventionalities of arrangement. A leaf or a 
 flower, for instance, may be represented as it appears, 
 with all the local accidents of light and shade and colour : 
 this would be a strictly natural representation. And it 
 may be represented as a mere diagram, — that is, as we 
 know it to be, — without reference to its appearance; or 
 it may be treated as a mere shadow of itself, — as a 
 silhouette : the two latter would be conventional treat- 
 ments ; and it is such representations that we find almost 
 exclusively in Egyptian and Greek art ; as the Lotus 
 of the Egyptian tombs and temples, or the various foliage 
 of the terra-cotta vases of Greece. 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 >7 
 
 There can be no question that the motive of ornament 
 is not the presentation of natural images to the mind, 
 but the rendering the object ornamented as agreeable as 
 possible to it, and therefore the details of decoration 
 should have no independent character of their own, but 
 be kept purely subservient to beauty of effect. This 
 can hardly be done, or rather cannot be thoroughly done, 
 but by the adoption of conventional ornament — whether 
 flowers, foliage, or other natural forms : because as a 
 conventional or mere geo- 
 metrical form can really 
 have no individual associa- 
 tions, and yet at the same 
 time may present an ex- 
 tremely beautiful effect, the 
 whole of that effect is simply 
 auxiliary to the general 
 beauty of the object deco- 
 rated : the ornamentation 
 
 is purely accessory. The 
 designer must ever remem- 
 ber that the effect of the 
 whole should never be in- 
 terfered with by any partial 
 attraction of the details. 
 
 Every design is composed of plan and details — as in a 
 vase, the shape of the vase is the plan; whatever decora- 
 tions it may have are the details of the design, or their 
 enrichments, as medallion pictures or pieces of sculpture: 
 so with a candlestick, casket, and others. 
 
 In all cases where elaborate works of Fine Art are 
 
 D 
 
1 8 
 
 ORNAMENT \ 
 
 introduced as enrichments of an ornamental scheme — as 
 sculpture in the pediment of a Greek temple, or a picture 
 in the panel of a wall — it is only in the general form 
 and arrangement that they share in the ornamental effect ; 
 they are no longer ornaments when examined in detail, but 
 independent works of Fine Art. 
 
 The ordinary details or accessory decorations may be of 
 various kinds : they may cover the entire surface of the 
 plan, or only portions of it ; the covering of only portions 
 of a plan involves, of course, far higher ornamental prin- 
 ciples than the uniform covering the entire surface. De- 
 corations which are spread uniformly over a surface are 
 commonly called diapers — an expression supposed to be 
 derived from Ypres, the name of the Flemish town where 
 cloths so decorated were first or largely manufactured. 
 They are composed of a repetition or series of the same 
 ornament, in a vertical, horizontal, or a diagonal order. 
 This is the most popular class of design for cotton-prints, 
 
 and the unit of repetition is 
 generally small in these 
 cases; but it may be either 
 extremely simple, as a spot or 
 star, in one colour, or as com- 
 plicated and as rich as the 
 diapers of the Alhambra, from 
 which the mass of paper 
 diapers are derived. 
 
 Diapers are suited for flat 
 or round work of every class in manufactures or in mural 
 decoration. Units of repetition, or repeats of irregular 
 shapes, arranged diagonally, have the finest effects. A 
 
t 
 
 ORNAMENT. ig 
 
 diaper, however, may be an alternation of two or more 
 simple figures, just as it may be a constant repetition of 
 one compound figure ; for as it is in this case the 
 group that is repeated, the group of figures becomes the 
 pattern or unit of repetition. 
 
 Geometric diapers are infinite, and by a judicious variation 
 of colours may be made extremely beautiful. The majority 
 of ancient mosaics are diapers of this character, and they 
 are a good illustration of the carrying out of the principle 
 of fitness in design; for 
 these geometric mosaics are 
 nearly all floors, and they 
 emphatically express flat- 
 ness — an essential quality 
 for a floor. 
 
 The diaper, then, is a 
 uniform decoration of a 
 surface : another general 
 decoration analogous to it is a succession of stripes, 
 of any character, or of colonnades. The colonnade consists 
 of repetitions of continuous curves in the same direc- 
 tion: it is the favourite form of decoration for carpets, 
 papers, lace, curtains, and some other textile manu- 
 factures : it is generally a decorated or foliated serpentine, 
 and rarely a scroll — always a measured curved succes- 
 sion in vertical series. 
 
 All such superficial decoration is very simple : it is, in 
 fact, as the paper-stainers expressively term it, mere filling , 
 as it involves no scheming. You have but to design your 
 repeat or unit of repetition ; the rest is mere mechanical 
 expansion. 
 
20 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 To uniformly cover a surface is, however, but the be- 
 ginning of a designer’s labours: his great business is to 
 produce pleasing variety of surface, not only in the flat 
 but in the round; not only upon regular but upon irregular 
 surfaces. 
 
 The surface of a wall is of one kind ; the surface of a 
 sphere, a cylinder, or a cone, is of another. If we suppose 
 a cylinder to represent the skeleton of a candlestick, it will 
 not be sufficient to merely uniformly decorate the surface 
 of this cylinder, and call it an ornamental candlestick. We 
 must, in the first place, give the cylinder a shape which 
 shall correspond with its destined use ; we must so balance 
 the two ends that it will stand firmly upon one of them, 
 and then, by varying the surface or form, give it a pleasing 
 individuality of character consistent with its destination ; 
 and this is the process wherein the designer shows his 
 skill. The principles applicable to one article may be 
 quite the reverse of those applicable to another, and it is 
 the designer’s duty to suffer no mere ornamental predilec- 
 tions to interfere with the mechanical or practical excel- 
 lence of his design. These are constant conditions far 
 more important than those depending upon accidents of 
 machinery. They are conditions of use, and it is these 
 conditions by which a designer must primarily test his 
 designs. 
 
 Taking it for granted that the eye requires variety of 
 surface to gratify that faculty of the mind called taste, or 
 to excite those emotions which we term aesthetic , how is 
 this variety to be effected ? By dividing surfaces into 
 compartments, and by making some portions more promi- 
 nent than others, and thus produce that contrast which we 
 
ORNAMENT, \ 
 
 2 I 
 
 assumed at starting to be the element of all ornamental 
 effects. 
 
 These compartments are known as panels, borders, 
 cornice, frieze, basement or dado ; capital, shaft, base, 
 pedestal ; neck, body, foot, and so on ; all names desig- 
 nating the ornamental divisions of the general schemes of 
 objects ; though these things may not be ornamented, the 
 mere division of an object into such parts is done for the 
 sake of variety of effect, in obedience to one of the neces- 
 sities of the mind. 
 
 These various compartments are separated or made 
 prominent by mouldings : mouldings may be either mere 
 suits of concave and convex members, as in many Gothic 
 examples, or the concave series may be filled in with orna- 
 mental details. These may be plain or enriched mouldings ; 
 and, as boundaries of compartments, it is necessary that 
 they should be particularly distinct, and we accordingly 
 find that they are, in nearly all cases, the part of a design 
 which has been most elaborated : call them edges or call 
 them borders, the principle is the same throughout — 
 whether the moulding of a room or piece of cabinet-work, 
 the hem of a vest, the border of a shawl or handkerchief, 
 the edge of a salver, we have everywhere the one principle 
 of contrast in itself, and with its own ground. 
 
 As no border is introduced into a design for its own 
 sake, but only as a contribution to the general effect, that 
 is sure to be the best which is designed with a view to a 
 principle rather than for any speciality of detail of its own : 
 thus we find that a mere repeat, which shall contain an 
 elemental principle, is superior to a prominent succession 
 of elaborate and varied imitations, because special attrac- 
 
22 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 tion to secondary details is not a merit, but a capital defect 
 in a design. The border or moulding is the ornament, and 
 not the details of which it is composed. 
 
 The truth of this principle is proved by the practice of 
 all ages : we have not now to create Ornamental Art, but 
 to learn it ; it was established in all essentials long ago. 
 As a proof of this I would instance the most popular deco- 
 rations of the present day : we find that they are identical 
 with the favourites of nearly all ages, — from Pericles to 
 Pope Julius II., from Julius II. to the late King of Bavaria, 
 Ludwig I. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 We still use tlie forms, and, indeed, the very details, 
 adopted by the Greeks upwards of two thousand years ago. 
 Why is this ? Certainly not from their speciality of detail, 
 but rather because it would be, perhaps, impossible to 
 select others of a less decided individuality, which would 
 so well illustrate the great principles of ornament, — series 
 and contrast ; contrast of masses, and contrast or harmony 
 of lines. The details, however, will admit of every varia- 
 tion which will not disturb the order or arrangement on 
 which the ornament depends : you may change the details 
 to infinity, the ornament will remain the same so long as 
 the arrangement is not disturbed. And this alternation 
 is imperative if we wish to develop a rich and varied 
 School of Ornamental Art. 
 
 The ornaments I refer to are, — the zigzag, the fret, the 
 echinus, the astragal, the anthemions, the guilloche 
 varieties, and the scrolls. 
 
 In the zigzag we have the simplest varieties of lines we 
 can well conceive ; in the frets we have a more complicated 
 order of right-line series ; in the varieties of the guilloche 
 we have a similar simple series of curved lines or inter- 
 lacings. 
 
24 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 In the echinus, or what is commonly called the egg and 
 tongue , we have another character, a bold alternation of 
 light and shade ; and we have a similar result on a smaller 
 scale in the astragal : both belong essentially to the solid 
 or round . 
 
 Echinus and Astragal. Erechtheium. 
 
 In the scrolls we have a regular running series or 
 alternation of spirals, or any materials treated in that order 
 of curve : use among the Eomans has established an extra- 
 ordinary prestige for the acanthus, but any other materials 
 would answer the purpose. 
 
 In the anthemions we have a compound element, a suc- 
 cession or alternation of an harmonic group of curves, in a 
 conventional adaptation of floral forms, as the name anthe- 
 
 Anthemion. Apollo Epicurius. 
 
 mion itself implies. In Greek examples we have a smaller 
 and larger cluster alternated, sometimes reversed, some- 
 
ORNAMENT. 
 
 2 5 
 
 times enclosefd in a curve, and generally connected by a 
 band, by mere contact, or by some simple scroll. 
 
 Every example of an ornament must have an indi- 
 viduality of detail necessarily, but it is a great mistake 
 to adopt this detail as an essential part of the ornament ; 
 for example, no two Greek anthemions are alike, but 
 there are some few which contain a member a good deal 
 resembling the honeysuckle : the ornament is simple and 
 beautiful, but modern imitators overlooking its principle 
 have comprehended only the detail, assumed it to be an 
 imitation, and have called it the honeysuckle ornament. 
 Instead, therefore, of grasping the source of a thousand 
 ornaments equally beautiful, they have acquired but one, 
 and half the classical buildings of modern times are 
 covered with honeysuckles, bringing the whole art of 
 Greece into disgrace for its monotony and formality, while 
 there is scarcely a weed in England that might not with 
 equal skill have been substituted for the honeysuckle, 
 with perhaps equal effect, if only treated on the principle 
 of a succession or alternation of an harmonic group of 
 curves. 
 
 This is only one of the dilemmas that the designer must 
 fall into by allowing mere specific details to usurp the 
 place of the principles of ornament : his mind becomes 
 occupied by a few individual forms, the very idea of prin- 
 ciples is incomprehensible to him ; and he necessarily 
 remains a mere hack or imitator. 
 
 Where the mind views something more than the surface, 
 or where the eyes are auxiliary only to the mind, every 
 natural object may be suggestive of some new essential 
 form or combination of forms. The lotus, the lily, and 
 
 E 
 
26 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 the tulip, must be something more than flowers to the 
 designer, or his use of them is limited indeed ; each 
 suggests distinct forms as applicable to various useful 
 purposes. 
 
 All established styles of ornament are founded upon the 
 same principles : their differences, which I shall in the 
 following sketch endeavour to point out, are differences 
 only of the materials, the details of the several favourite 
 essential forms, which each more or less partially deve- 
 loped, some for one reason, some for another. The pecu- 
 liarity of Egyptian and Byzantine ornament is owing to 
 their prevailing symbolism, and certain details becoming 
 standards : the peculiarity of the Saracenic is of exactly 
 the opposite character, it scrupulously rejected everything 
 approaching an individuality of detail ; and accordingly 
 the principles of ornament are perhaps more clearly deve- 
 loped in this style than in any other, because the details 
 are so entirely subordinate. 
 
 We do not therefore admire the echinus and the astragal, 
 because they are derived from the horse-chestnut or the 
 huckle-bone, but because they are admirable details for 
 that prominent contrast of light and shade which is so 
 extremely valuable for edges or mouldings. It is the 
 same with the whole series of popular ornaments : not 
 one of them is beautiful because it represents any natural 
 object, but because it has been chosen to illustrate certain 
 symmetries or contrasts, by the very nature of vision 
 delightful to the mind, just as harmonies and melodies 
 delight it through another of its senses. I believe the 
 analogy between music and ornament to be perfect: one 
 is to the eye what the other is to the ear; and the day 
 
ORNAMENT . 
 
 2 7 
 
 is not far distant when this will be practically demon- 
 strated. 
 
 The principles of harmony, time or rhythm, and melody, 
 are well defined in music, and indisputable : many men of 
 many generations have devoted their entire lives to the 
 development of these principles, and they are known. In 
 ornament they are not known, and perhaps not recognised 
 even as unknown quantities, because as yet no man has 
 ever devoted himself to their elimination; though many 
 ancient and middle-age designers have evidently had a true 
 perception of them. 
 
 The first principle of ornament seems to be repetition. 
 The simplest character of this is a measured succession, in 
 series, of some one detail, as a moulding for instance : this 
 stage of ornament corresponds with melody in music, which 
 is a measured succession of diatonic sounds, the system in 
 both arising from the same source — rhythm — in music 
 called also time, in ornament proportion or symmetry : 
 proportion, or quantity, in both cases. 
 
 The second stage in music is harmony, or a combination 
 of simultaneous sounds or melodies ; it is also identical in 
 ornamental art ; every correct ornamental scheme is a 
 combination of series, or measured succession of forms, 
 and upon identical principles in music and ornament, 
 called in the first counterpart, in the other symmetrical 
 contrast. 
 
 Such a close analogy must convince us that ornament 
 consists in something more than a mere artistic elabora- 
 tion of either natural or conventional details, and that all 
 mechanical ingenuity must be kept strictly subservient 
 to theoretical principles of arrangement. The highest 
 
28 
 
 ORNAMENT. 
 
 mere imitative skill, employed on the most beautiful 
 natural materials, out of the strict province of so-called 
 fine art, will engender but mere fanciful vagaries, utterly 
 powerless on the eye as ornament, when compared with 
 even the crudest materials of the coarsest execution, if 
 only arranged in any order or combination of harmonic 
 progression. 
 
 A.F.F 
 
 Greek Terra Cotta. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLES. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE STYLES. 
 
 In a review of this kind, when we speak of the styles, 
 we can comprise only the broad distinctions of ornament 
 itself — the kinds or genera , not the mere specific varieties. 
 There are, of course, many varieties of nearly every great 
 style, but so long as the chief characteristics remain un- 
 changed, the style is the same. From this point of view, 
 therefore, the styles become comparatively few. We 
 shall find that nine will comprise the whole number of 
 the great characteristic developments which have had any 
 influence on European civilisation, namely, three ancient — 
 the Egyptian, the Greek, and the Roman ; three medieval 
 — the Byzantine, the Saracenic, and the Gothic; and 
 three modern — the Renaissance, the Cinquecento, and the 
 Louis Quatorze. 
 
 Several of these styles have their recognised varieties. 
 Of the Greek there are the Doric and the Alexandrian; 
 that is, the severe and the florid. Of the Byzantine, there 
 are the Romanesque, Lombard, and Norman varieties, &c. ; 
 and of the Renaissance, also, there are several varieties. 
 We speak of the Renaissance both as an epoch and as a 
 style. As an epoch, it comprises many styles or varieties, 
 
32 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLES. 
 
 — the Trecento, the Cinquecento, the Eenaissance (as a 
 style, with its sub -varieties), the Elizabethan, the Louis 
 XIV., the Louis XV., and the Eococo : the two last, 
 however, are mere debased varieties of the Louis XIV., 
 and they are decidedly the decay, not the revival, of art. 
 
 These various styles extend over a period of upwards of 
 three thousand five hundred years, of which two thousand 
 may be considered the ancient period, from the early 
 historic times to the third century of our era. About one 
 thousand years, from the third to the thirteenth century, 
 may be considered the Medieval period ; and the last five 
 centuries, from the thirteenth to the nineteenth, may be 
 considered the period of the Eenaissance ; or the modern 
 period. 
 
 Style is only another name for character. Every style, 
 as such, depends, of course, upon what is peculiar to it, 
 never on what it has in common with other styles. These 
 peculiarities are what we term characteristics — the features 
 by which it is distinguished. 
 
 Sometimes a style is merely a modification, or peculiar 
 elaboration, of the features of another style. It is then 
 only a variety or a derived style ; and such varieties are 
 common, especially in later times, the natural result of the 
 accumulation of materials. These varieties the student 
 will discover without aid, and, indeed, may invent at 
 pleasure, when he is once master of the essential charac- 
 teristics of the great historic styles. 
 
 As a matter of course, the earliest styles are the most 
 simple, and, perhaps, necessarily also the most original, as 
 each successive style has been gradually developed out of 
 its predecessor, — as, the Eoman from the Greek, the 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLES . 
 
 33 
 
 Bomanesque from the Boman, and so on, with more or 
 less affinity of character. 
 
 It does not follow, however, that an ornamental work 
 is in a certain style because it belongs to the period of that 
 style, for a style is defined not by its time or period, but 
 by the prevailing peculiarities or characteristics of that 
 period ; and it is not at all the case that every work of a 
 period possesses these peculiarities. It must be borne in 
 mind, therefore, that while a genuine example of a style 
 will always imply a certain time, a specimen of a certain 
 time will only as a general rule illustrate the correspond- 
 ing style. This is because no style is predetermined, but 
 is, in its details, in all cases, incidental, notwithstanding a 
 prevailing sentiment. 
 
 We will now then proceed to examine the nine great 
 historic styles, which appear to sufficiently illustrate the 
 history of ornament. The Egyptian, Greek, and Boman — 
 the ancient; the Byzantine, Saracenic, the Gothic — the 
 middle age ; and the Benaissance, Cinquecento, and Louis 
 Quatorze — the modern. 
 
 v 
 
THE ANCIENT STYLES. 
 
 EIGHT LECTURES.* 
 
 CHAPTEB YI. 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 The works mentioned under this head are not cited as the authorities for 
 the opinions given, as many of them were published some years after the 
 preparation of the lectures, and the views do not always agree : they 
 are referred to only as the most comprehensive or useful illustrated 
 works on the subject, and as thus best adapted to aid the student in 
 his labours. 
 
 Egypt. — Description de l’Egypte, ou Recueil des Observations et des 
 Recherches qui ont ete faites en Egypte pendant l’Expedition de l’Armee 
 Fra^aise. Publie par les ordres de sa Majeste l’Empereur Napoleon 
 le Grand. (The great work of the French Expedition, treating of the 
 Antiquities, Arts, Natural History, and Modern State of Egypt.) 
 23 vols. folio, atlas folio, and elephant. Paris, 1809, et seq. 
 
 * ANCIENT ART, 1848-49. 
 
 Syllabus. 
 
 Lecture I. — On the Decorative Art oe the Ancient Egyptians. 
 
 Early Establishment of Egyptian Art — about 1800 B.c. Its stationary and 
 purely ornamental character. Extensive remains still preserved on the 
 banks of the Nile, from Meroe to Alexandria, a distance of nearly 
 1200 miles. 
 
 Ipsambul, the Telamons. Essaboua, the Sphinx — Andro — Crio — and 
 Hieraco-Sphinx. Philoe. Edfou, the Egyptian Temple — the Propyla, 
 Obelisks, Mosaics, &c. Thebes, sumptuous Decoration of the Egyptian 
 Temples — their Columns and Capitals. The Tombs. Denderah, 
 Sakkara, the Arch. The Pyramids. Heliopolis. Egyptian style. 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 35 
 
 Porter, Sir R. Ker. — Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient 
 Babylonia, &c., during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. 2 vols. 
 
 4to. London, 1821. 
 
 Gait, F. C. — Antiquites de la Nubie, ou Monumens inedits des Bords du 
 Nil, situes entre la premiere et la seconde Cataracte, dessines et mesures 
 en 1819. Ouvrage faisant suite au grand ouvrage de la Commission 
 d’Egypte. Large folio. Paris, 1822. 
 
 Ram Raz. — Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus. With 48 plates. 4to. 
 London, 1834. 
 
 Rosellini, J. — The Monuments of Egypt and Nubia, arranged according 
 to their subjects, by the Tuscan Expedition to Egypt, under the direction 
 of Rosellini. 
 
 I Monumenti dell’ Egitto e della Nubia disegnati della spedizione 
 scientifico-litteraria Toscana in Egitto : distribuiti in ordine di 
 materie, interpretati ed illustrati dal Dottore Ippolito Rosellini. 
 
 (This great work is in three parts, folio, with separate text in octavo. 
 Tavole M. R. contains the Historical Monuments of the Kings, 
 Monumenti Storici , in 1 69 plates : Tavole M. C. contains the Civil 
 Monuments, Monumenti Civili , in 135 plates : Tavole M. D. C. the 
 Monuments of Religious Worship, Monumenti del Cidto, in 86 plates.) 
 3 vols. atlas folio, plates ; 9 vols. 8vo. text. Pisa, 1832-44. 
 
 Long, G. — The British Museum. — Egyptian Antiquities. 2 vols. 12mo. 
 London, 1846. 
 
 Lecture II. — Egypt : Ornamental Details. 
 
 Decorations of the Tombs. Painted Ceilings. Colours. Sunk-reliefs. 
 Ornamental Types — the Zigzag, Labyrinth, Wave-scroll, Lotus, Winged- 
 globe, Asp, and Cartouche. The Funerals. Manufactures — Furniture, 
 Pottery, &c., Variegated Glass, Armour, Linen and Cotton Fabrics, 
 Prints, Embroidered Stuffs. Ships, &c. Study of Ornament. 
 
 Lecture III. — Asia. 
 
 Egyptian and Asiatic Art characterised — Egyptian influence in Asia — 
 Judaea, Assyria, India. Nimroud Marbles. Persepolis — Cambyses, 
 Darius, Xerxes. The Ionian Greeks. General Similarity of Standard 
 Ornamental Types in Ancient Monuments, whether Egyptian, Asiatic, 
 or European. 
 
 Lecture IV. — Greece : Heroic Age of Greek Art. 
 
 Intercourse between Greece and Egypt. Greek Traditions. Legend of 
 Origin of Greek Art — Dibutades of Corinth. Development of Painting 
 — Skiagram, Polychrom, Monogram, and Monochrom — The Processes. 
 
 The Heroic Age of Greek Art, from about the 12th to the 8th century, b.c. 
 inclusive. Pelasgic Remains — Mycenae. Tomb of Agamemnon. The 
 Greek Colonies in Asia Minor and Magna Graecia. 
 
 Development of Art as evinced in the Homeric Poems — Ornamental 
 Armour, Toreutic Work, Embroidery, Woollen Fabrics of Miletus, 
 Corinth, and Carthage. Shawl or Pallium of Alcisthenes of Sybaris. 
 The Terra Cotta Vases. 
 
3 6 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT 
 
 Wilkinson, Sir J. G. — The Manners and Customs of the Ancient 
 Egyptians, including their Private Life, Government, Laws, Arts, 
 Manufactures, Religion, Agriculture, and Early History, derived from 
 a Comparison of the Paintings, Sculptures, and Monuments still existing, 
 with the Accounts of Ancient Authors. 3rd edition, 5 vols. 8vo. 
 London, 1847. 
 
 Du Camp, M. — Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, et Syrie. Dessins photo- 
 graphiques, recueillis pendant les annees 1849-50-51, et accompagnes 
 d’un texe explicatif. 125 photographs, small folio. Paris, 1852-53. 
 
 Batissier, L. — Histoire de l’Art Monumental dans l’Antiquite, et au 
 Moyen Age, suivie d’une Traite de la Peinture sur Yerre. Imp. 8vo. 
 Paris, 1845. 
 
 Layard, Dr. A. H. — The Monuments of Nineveh, from drawings made 
 on the spot ; illustrated in 100 plates. Eolio. London, 1849. 
 
 A second Series of the Monuments'of Nineveh, including bas- 
 
 reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib, and Bronzes from the ruins of 
 Nimroud, from drawings made on the spot during a Second Expedition 
 to Assyria. 71 plates, oblong folio. London, 1853. 
 
 Lecture V.— Greece : The Doric Period — Ornamental Elements. — 
 The Greek Orders. 
 
 The Doric, or first Historic Age, from the 8th century to the 5th inclusive ; 
 from Cypselus of Corinth, and Rhoecus of Samos, to Pericles or Phidias. 
 
 The Doric Temples — Samos, iEgina, Paestum, Athens. The Doric, the 
 Echinus Order — the Parthenon, 438 B.c., the Temple of Apollo 
 Epicurius. Ornamental Details, painted and cut — the Zigzag, Eret or 
 Labyrinth, Wave-scroll, Echinus, Astragal, Anthemion, or Palmette, 
 The Polychromy. 
 
 The Ionic — the Voluted Order, prevalence of the Curve ; the Yolute and 
 Guilloche or Speira — Chersiphron of Cnossus in Crete, 550 b.c. Temple 
 of Diana at Ephesus. 
 
 The Corinthian — the Acanthus Order. Callimachus of Corinth, about 
 400 b.c. 
 
 Greek and Egyptian Temple compared— the Pediment or Eagle, the Frieze 
 or Zophoros — Image-bearer, Caryatides, Canephorae. 
 
 Lecture VI. — Greece : Period of Alexander. Asiatic Influence — 
 
 The Decline. 
 
 Complete Establishment of Greek Art at the time of Alexander the Great, 
 336 b.c. The Three Styles at Athens — the Parthenon, 438 b.c. ; the 
 Erectheium, 409 B.c.; the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, 335 b.c. 
 
 The Mural Decorations — the Lesche at Delphi, the Poecile at Athens; 
 Polygnotus, Zeuxis, Apelles. 
 
 Statue Painting. Chryselephantine Sculpture — the Olympian Jupiter, 
 433 b.c. Phidias. 
 
 Elements of Greek Art conventional, and purely aesthetic — the Myths — 
 Sphinx, Chimaera, Griffin, Satyr, &c. — Orientalization of Greek taste — 
 Alexander, his Influence, his Funeral, 321 b.c. The Potteries of Samos, 
 Athens, and Etruria. 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 Fergusson, J. — Illustrations of the Eock-cut Temples of India. Fol. 
 London, 1834. 
 
 The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored ; an Essay on 
 
 Ancient Assyrian and Persian Architecture. 8vo. London, 1851. 
 
 Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan. 
 
 Folio. London, 1852. 
 
 The Illustrated Handbook of Architecture ; being a concise and 
 
 popular account of the different styles of architecture prevailing in all 
 ages, and in all countries. With 850 woodcuts. Folio. London, 1857. 
 Jones, 0. — The Grammar of Ornament. Drawn on Stone by F. Bedford. 
 Folio. London, 1856-8. 
 
 (On the styles generally.) 
 
 The earliest style of ornament of which we know anything 
 of material importance is the Egyptian, dating from about 
 1800 b.c., when it was already completely established ; 
 and this is literally a hieroglyphic style in its sentiments 
 and in its details ; both are derived from a priestly sym- 
 bolism. As a rule, the elements of Egyptian ornament 
 
 Lecture VII. — Rome : Florid Development of Greek Art under 
 
 the Romans. 
 
 The Spoliations of Greece. The Roman Triumphs. Collections. Marcellus, 
 214 b.c. The Greek Painted Earthenware and the Murrhine of the 
 East. General Concentration of Ancient Art Treasures in Rome. 
 
 Gradual Development of Roman Taste. Greek and Roman Orders and 
 Details compared. The Composite or Roman an aggregate of the 
 Echinus, Voluted, and Acanthus Orders of the Greeks. The Acanthus 
 and Scroll, chief characteristics of this period. Distinctions between 
 Greek and Roman Acanthus. The Arch. Magnificence of the Romans. 
 The Forum of Trajan. Apollodorus of Damascus. 
 
 Lecture VIII. — Roman Decoration : Final Decline. 
 
 The Three Tastes — Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. Discrimination of Style 
 — Accessory and Principal. Rapid Decline of Roman Art under the 
 Emperors — the Triumphal Arches. General florid and debased character 
 of the Ornamental Details of the Public Buildings of Rome. The 
 Roman House of the time of Augustus, general Scheme of Decoration. 
 The Golden House of Nero. The Colossus of Zenodorus. Extravagances 
 of the time of Nero condemned by Pliny as insanities. Censures of 
 Vitruvius on the Taste of his time. Pompeii, its destruction, 79 a.d., 
 re-discovery in 1748 A.D. ; its decorations, mosaics, &c. Roman Bronzes, 
 Armour, Devices on their Shields, Family Portraits, Funerals. 
 
3 « 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 have a particular meaning ; they are not often, if ever, 
 arbitrarily chosen for the sake of beauty of effect. The 
 style is accordingly, though abounding in materials, very 
 simple and limited in its arrangements, in comparison with 
 later styles, in which mere symbolism was superseded by 
 the pure aesthetic principles of art; that is, effect , not 
 meaning , being the object of the artist. Yet we cannot 
 but admire the ingenuity with which the Egyptian 
 
 Ruins at Thebes. 
 
 decorator, by a mere symmetrical arrangement, has con- 
 verted even the incomprehensible hieroglyphics into 
 pleasing and tasteful ornaments. A simple symmetrical 
 arrangement, however, is the limit of his artistic scheming, 
 and generally in the shape of a simple progression, whether 
 in a horizonal line or repeated on the principle of the 
 diaper, that is, row upon row, horizontally or diagonally. 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 39 
 
 The painted ceilings of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes 
 afford many good examples. 
 
 In one class of ornament Egypt is eminent, independent 
 of its skilful application of art to manufactures : it is 
 eminent in its complete adaptation of its own natural 
 productions in the development of a style peculiar to 
 itself, in its conventional treatment of local natural types, 
 as, for instance, the lotus or water-lily of the Kile, the 
 element of so many varieties of ornament. The Egyptian 
 details are not mere crude imitations of nature, but 
 natural objects, selected by symbolism, and fashioned 
 by symmetry into ornamental decorations. So that 
 
 we have here one great class of ornament, and the 
 earliest systematic efforts in design in the world’s history. 
 Many of the details of the Egyptians are still popular 
 ornaments, handed down by successive ages to our own 
 time. 
 
 When we consider the hierarchical vassalage of the 
 Egyptian artist, and that he was by birth, and not by 
 choice, in his profession ; as every man, by the law of 
 caste, was forced to pursue the occupation of his father, 
 in spite of his tastes or capabilities, we must admit that 
 he displays peculiar ability. In many respects, the art 
 was as thoroughly understood at Memphis or Thebes 
 three thousand years ago as it is at London or Paris this 
 day. The shapes of the Egyptian ewer and basin, and 
 other vessels for domestic purposes, are identical with 
 those of the most favourite patterns of the present time ; 
 and many Egyptian ornaments are still popular orna- 
 ments, and have been so through all times; as the fret 
 or labyrinth, wave-scroll, spiral, zigzag, water-lily, star, 
 
40 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 and palm. They had many others derived from the 
 vegetable productions of Egypt. 
 
 In the first place, Egyptian ornament admits of no 
 pictures of objects ; all are treated conventionally. Even 
 in the wall-paintings themselves, no object is fairly 
 painted as it actually appears; the best examples are 
 but intelligible representations — mere elevations or dia- 
 grams. 
 
 The arrangements are almost exclusively a mere sym- 
 metrical series or progression, and always of a very 
 simple order ; but precious stones and metals, and the 
 richest materials generally, seem to have been very 
 abundantly used. The frieze or broad-band is the com- 
 monest form of these decorations ; and the details are 
 generally some of the more important symbols, as the 
 lotus, or water-lily of the Nile, the type of its inunda- 
 tions, from which Egypt derives its fruitfulness, and 
 the zigzag, the type of water or the Nile itself. This 
 ancient signification of the zigzag is still preserved in 
 the present zodiac sign of the Water-carrier, or Aquarius. 
 The fret or labyrinth, another right-line series and im- 
 portant symbol, is of less frequent occurrence. 
 
 There is, however, one particular ornament which is 
 more common than all others in Egyptian decoration. 
 This is what is sometimes called the Scarabeeus or 
 beetle, or, rather, the Winged-globe ; it occurs of all 
 sizes and almost in all materials, and is a species of 
 talisman or invocation of good luck (Agathodeemon). 
 The globe is supposed to represent the sun, the wings 
 providence, and the two asps, one on each side of the 
 globe, dominion or monarchy ; the creative, protective, 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 4i 
 
 and distributive powers, implying order , the AWjuos', or 
 world, of the Greeks. 
 
 We almost invariably find this ornament placed over 
 doors, windows, and in passages, and sometimes of an 
 enormous size, extending thirty feet or more. It is also 
 frequent in costume, and on the mummy-cases. There 
 are several other winged figures found in Egyptian 
 friezes, natural and conventional, as the vulture with 
 the tau and ostrich feather, the hawk, the winged asp, 
 and the human winged figure, corresponding apparently 
 to those described in the works of the Jews. 
 
 The sphinx, a remarkable object in Egyptian art, does 
 not come under the category of the winged creatures. 
 In this it is distinguished from the Greek creation of 
 that name, which is always winged, and always female. 
 The Egyptian sphinx, on the other hand, is always 
 male. It is supposed to represent the combination of 
 physical and intellectual power, or the kings, as incarna- 
 tions of such attributes. They are also associated with 
 the special forms and attributes of the great Egyptian 
 deities, Osiris and Ammon, Nepli or Jupiter, and Phreli 
 or Helios : that is, we have the Man-sphinx, the Kam- 
 sphinx, and the Hawk-sphinx, or the lion’s body with the 
 head of the man, the ram, or the hawk, according to the 
 deity worshipped. These sphinxes were thus named by 
 the Greeks respectively the Andro-sphinx, the Crio-sphinx, 
 and the Hieraco-sphinx. The principal position of the 
 sphinx was on either side of the dromos, or path, leading 
 to the temple. 
 
 The swelling asp alone (the Cobra de capello) is also a 
 very characteristic ornament. We find entire friezes and 
 
 G 
 
42 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT 
 
 borders composed of a mere succession of these asps ; 
 and it is very common to find them arranged also in 
 symmetrical opposition, one on each side of the cartouche 
 or shield, enclosing the hieroglyphic name of a king, 
 haying the same signification of dominion, with a special 
 reference to the king or dynasty expressed by the hiero- 
 glyphic in the cartouche. 
 
 The most essential symbolic characteristics of an 
 Egyptian design, then, are these — the winged globe, the 
 lotus and the papyrus, the zigzag, the asp, and the 
 cartouche containing hieroglyphics. The lotus is, per- 
 haps, the most common. These we find mixed up with 
 many arbitrary or geometrical forms, as the fret, spiral 
 or wave-scroll, star, &c., and with any of the natural 
 productions of Egypt, conventionally treated, and in 
 simple symmetrical progression; every detail, probably, 
 having a symbolic meaning beyond its mere ornamental 
 service in the design. 
 
 The fret, perhaps, may be enumerated, among the 
 more important symbols, as the type of the labyrinth of 
 Lake Mcoris, with its twelve palaces and three thousand 
 chambers, indicating, in their turn, the twelve signs of 
 the zodiac, and the three thousand years of transmigra- 
 tions which the wandering soul is condemned to undergo. 
 The wave-scroll, also, may represent water in motion, or 
 the waves. Its name was derived from its form. Our 
 designation is but a translation of the Greek Cyma or 
 the Eoman Cymatium. Minor symbols, as among the 
 hieroglyphics, are found in endless variety in costume 
 and in ordinary decoration. For these, the student may 
 refer to the works of Rosellini and of Wilkinson. 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 43 
 
 Gaudy diapers and general gaiety of colour are like- 
 wise characteristic of Egyptian taste, but the colours 
 are generally limited to red, blue, yellow, and green, 
 though the Egyptians were acquainted with nearly all 
 other colours. I have mentioned a simple progression 
 or repetition as characteristic of the Egyptian style ; 
 and it is certainly very rarely that we find anything 
 more, yet, in the cluster of the Lotus, in the form of its 
 leaf, we have a very beautiful compound example, a 
 symmetrical arrangement of the flower in a circular, 
 or rather oval series, constituting the unit of the or- 
 dinary horizontal series.* And this ornament is import- 
 ant, as anticipating the anthemion or most popular floral 
 ornament of the Greeks, so common in architecture and 
 in the terra-cotta vases. The Egyptians, however, anti- 
 cipated the Greeks in something more than some ordinary 
 details. Their temples display a great diversity of 
 pillars, from the mere fluted columns of Beni Hassan 
 to the gorgeous varieties of Thebes, Philse, and Denderah. 
 
 'lemple at Denderah. 
 
 * It is found painted on a palanquin in a picture in the Tombs of the 
 Kings, and is not unlike a series of the hats of the God Nilus, with its 
 seven drooping lilies. 
 
44 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT 
 
 But although the Egyptians, except in the case of 
 the Isis capital, as well shown at Denderah, systematically 
 varied their pillars in the same colonnades, two alike with 
 their decorations complete never being placed together, 
 except as a pair of opposites, their varieties may be reduced 
 to three essential forms — the truncated lotus-bud, the 
 lotus-bell, and the Isis-head. Every capital is a variety 
 of one of these essential forms ; but the lotus or papyrus- 
 bell of the middle period is much the most common. The 
 abacus is, on all occasions, the width only of the pillar, 
 and invariably narrower than the capital, which is a 
 valuable feature, and very essential to the effect of 
 stability. The Egyptian pillars vary in their altitudes 
 from about four to nearly seven diameters, the longer 
 proportions being the most common. 
 
 Ruins at Philse. 
 
 The general massiveness of Egyptian architecture, 
 though when transported to other climates, it may appear 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 45 
 
 heavy, is particularly appropriate to the climate and 
 landscape of Egypt itself. 
 
 The various altitudes and horizontal masses of the 
 great divisions of an Egyptian temple, as still seen at 
 Philse and elsewhere breaking with their bold shadows 
 the dazzling undulating mass of light characterising the 
 general landscape, are calculated in the highest degree 
 to give delight and repose to the eye in their general 
 features, while the gay polychromic decorations of their 
 surfaces constitute a rich centre of attraction, modifying 
 the excessive brilliancy of the surrounding scene. 
 
 The Egyptian style of decoration was not without its 
 influence upon all people connected with Egypt ; on the 
 Jews, on the Greeks, and more especially on the Persians 
 after the plunder of Thebes by Cambyses, who, Diodorus 
 Siculus informs us, carried away a colony of Egyptian 
 artists back into Persia : and we still see the remains of 
 their influence in the whole basin of the Euphrates and on 
 the borders of the Persian Gulf, from Nineveh to Perse- 
 polis. The so-called Nineveh sculptures recently deposited 
 in the British Museum are identical in style with those of 
 Persepolis, the work of this Egyptian colony, according to 
 Diodorus, introduced by Cambyses in the latter part of the 
 sixth century before our era ; but the works were chiefly 
 carried out under the direction of his successors, Darius 
 and Xerxes. Independent of this tradition, there is con- 
 siderable evidence of Egyptian influence in the works 
 themselves. 'The winged figure of Cyrus at Mourgab or 
 Pasargadm has a decided Egyptian character, and the 
 head-dress appears to be that of the Egyptian God Malooli, 
 a son of Isis and Horus. The change in the general 
 
4 6 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT 
 
 character of the sculpture may be explaiued by the fact 
 that the Egyptians worked in Persia under the influence of 
 the Persian priesthood instead of their own. The subject 
 bull, which figures largely in the Persepolitan sculptures, 
 is explained as signifying the overthrow of the Assyrian 
 power by the Persian. The Persepolitan, like the Assyrian 
 sculptures, are inscribed with the arrow-headed characters. 
 
 The name of Sennacherib, who was murdered by his 
 own sons in 711, is the oldest name yet discovered in the 
 inscriptions; and as his achievements in Judaea, in 713, 
 are recorded, the oldest sculptures are since his time, or, at 
 the earliest, in the seventh century before our era. Un- 
 less much later works, they must, however, belong to 
 the seventh century before our era; but the ruins are 
 found in three distinct places — Khorsabad, Kouyunjik, 
 and Nimroud, apparently much too remote from each 
 other ever to have constituted a single city. The so- 
 called north-west palace, that of Mmroud, is supposed 
 to have been built by Mnus II. and Sardanapalus 
 (Esarhaddon) III. ; Kouyunjik, by an earlier Sardana- 
 palus. 
 
 The entire city was destroyed by Nabopolassar, the 
 father of Nebuchadnezzar, in 606, and the same king 
 destroyed Jerusalem in 588 ; he rebuilt Babylon, which 
 was, in its turn, destroyed by Cyrus in 538, b.c. 
 
 Darius Hystaspes, who succeeded Cambyses in 521, b.c., 
 had been with that king in Egypt, as one of his body- 
 guard, and he was apparently the real builder of Perse- 
 polis and of the palace of Susa. He is, perhaps, the 
 most distinguished of the Asiatic sovereigns for his 
 architectural undertakings. He carried on extensive 
 
ASSYRIAN. 
 
EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT . 
 
 47 
 
 works in Egypt, rebuilt the Temple of Jerusalem in 514, 
 and made himself a summer palace at Ecbataua. May 
 he not have extended his love of repairs as far also as 
 Nineveh ? The arrow-headed inscriptions are also at 
 Persepolis (it is a mode of writing persevered in to much 
 later times), and some of the singular figures at Nineveh 
 are found also on Darius’s own tomb at Nakshi Eustam. 
 The difference of dialect on the inscriptions would be 
 explained by their being written by different people, 
 without any necessity for the supposition of a difference 
 of time. The subject of a series of sculptures must set 
 a limit to their antiquity, but cannot otherwise fix their 
 time. However, as the assumed works of Nineveh 
 perished with the city nearly a century before the 
 execution of the works of Persepolis, these last cannot 
 have been copied from those of Nineveh, — in the time 
 of Darius a remote heap, probably, of unknown or for- 
 gotten ruins. 
 
 It is hazardous to venture an opinion upon the period 
 of works which, to all appearance, have their history 
 inscribed on them, because these inscriptions, when 
 interpreted, may prove a very authentic contradiction 
 to the opinion ventured; but according to our tests of 
 characteristics of style, the sculptures lately brought 
 from the neighbourhood of Ancient Nineveh (or Calah) 
 are certainly of the same school as those of Persepolis, 
 if not of the same time. 
 
 In Egypt, we found grandeur of proportion, simplicity 
 of parts, and splendour or costliness of material — gold, 
 silver, and ivory, precious stones, and colour — as the 
 great art characteristics. And we find throughout, that 
 
48 
 
 EGYPTIAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 the prevailing characteristic of Asiatic art, also, is 
 sumptuousness. It is equally displayed in the works of 
 the Tabernacle, in the Temple of Solomon, in the build- 
 ings of Semiramis and of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, 
 and in the palaces of the Persian kings. 
 
 Jewish ornament, like the Egyptian, appears to have 
 been purely representative. The only elements mentioned 
 in Scripture are the almond, the pomegranate, the palm- 
 tree, the lily or lotus, oxen, lions, and the cherubim. 
 The only example we possess of Jewish ornamental 
 work is the bas-relief of the candlestick of seven branches, 
 still partly preserved among the sculptures of the Arch 
 of Titus at Eome. Extending our view still farther 
 east, we find the most characteristic feature of Hindoo 
 art seems to be the fantastic; and though possessing 
 the same jewelled richness as the Egyptian, it wants its 
 simplicity and grandeur. Its most striking peculiarities 
 are its fantastic animal devices, and a profusion of minute 
 foliage. But I believe most Indian work to be modern 
 compared with Egyptian.* 
 
 It is not till we come to Greece that we find the 
 habitual introduction of forms for their own sake, or for 
 their aesthetic value or effect, purely as ornaments ; and 
 this is a very great step in art. 
 
 * On the rules and Proportions of Hindoo Architecture, see Earn Eaz. 
 
CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 Ionian Antiquities, published, with permission of the Society of Dillet- 
 tanti, by R. Chandler, M.A., N. Revett, architect, and W. Pars, painter. 
 Folio. London, 1769. 
 
 Paoli, P. A. — Ruins of Psestum. 
 
 Rovine della Citta di Pesto detta ancora Posidonia. Folio. Rome, 
 1784. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir W. — Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases, mostly 
 of Pure Greek workmanship, discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom 
 of the Two Sicilies, but chiefly in the neighbourhood of Naples, during 
 the course of the years 1789-90, now in the possession of Sir W. Hamilton ; 
 with remarks on each Vase by the Collector. 3 vols. large 4to. 
 Naples, 1791-95. 
 
 Stuart and Revett. — The Antiquities of Athens measured and delineated. 
 4 vols. folio. London, 1762-1816. 
 
 Supplement to the above by Cockerell, Kinnard, Donaldson, 
 
 Jenkins, and Railton. Folio. London, 1830. 
 
 British Museum. — A Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in 
 the British Museum, with engravings, chiefly from drawings by 
 H. Corbould. 10 vols. 4to. London, 1812, et seq. 
 
 De Quincy, Q. — Le Jupiter Olympien, ou l’Art de la Sculpture Antique 
 consideree sous un nouveau point de vue, &c. (The mode of constructing 
 the Chryselephantine works considered.) Folio. Paris, 1815. 
 
 Monuments et Ouvrages d’Art Antiques, restitues d’apres les 
 
 Descriptions des Ecrivains Grecs et Latins, et accompagnes de Disserta- 
 tions Archeologiques. (Attempted restorations in coloured plates of 
 Chryselephantine and other celebrated works of Ancient Art.) 2 vols. 4to. 
 Paris, 1829. 
 
 Millengen, J. — Ancient Unedited Monuments. Painted Greek Vases, 
 from collections in various countries, principally in Great Britain, 
 illustrated and explained. 4to. London, 1822. 
 
 H 
 
50 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 V ulliamy, L. — Examples of Ornamental Sculpture in Architecture. Drawn 
 from the Original of Bronze, Marble, and Terra Cotta, in Greece, 
 Asia Minor, and Italy, in the years 1818-19-20-21. 2nd edition, 4to. 
 London, n. d. 
 
 Bouillon and St. Victor. — The Ancient Marbles in the Louvre. 
 
 Musee des Antiques, dessine et grave par P. Bouillon, Peintre, avec 
 des Notices explicatives par J. B. de St. Victor. 3 vols. folio. 
 Paris, 1821-27. 
 
 Normand, C. — Nouveau Parallele des Ordres d’ Architecture des Grecs, des 
 Bomains, et des Auteurs modernes. Folio. Paris, 1828. 
 
 Micali, G. — Monuments illustrating the History of the Ancient People of 
 Italy. 
 
 Monumenti per servire alia Storia degli Antichi Popoli Italiani; 
 raccolti esposti, e pubblicati da Giuseppe Micali. Small folio. 
 Florence, 1832. Text, 4 vols. 8vo. 1832-44. 
 
 Penrose. — An Investigation of the Principles of Athenian Architecture, or 
 the results of a recent survey, conducted chiefly with reference to the 
 optical refinements exhibited in the construction of the ancient buildings 
 at Athens. Illustrated by numerous engravings. (Published by the 
 Society of Dillettanti.) Folio. London, 1851. 
 
 Hittorff, J. J. — On Greek Polychromy, or the Painting of Architecture. 
 
 Eestitution du Temple d’Empedocle a Selinonte, ou l’Architecture 
 Polychrome chez les Grecs. Text, 4to ; plates, atlas folio. 
 Paris, 1851. 
 
 Weitbrecht, C. — Ornamenten Zeichnungs-Schule. (Ornamental Drawing- 
 School for Artists, Manufacturers, and Workmen.) 100 plates. 
 2nd edition. Oblong folio. Stuttgart, 1852. 
 
 Botticher, Karl von.— The Art of the Greeks in its relation to the 
 Beautiful in Architecture, and in the Industrial Arts. 
 
 Die Tektonik der Hellenen. Text, 2 vols. 4to. ; atlas of plates, 2 vols. 
 folio. Potsdam, 1852-53. 
 
 Holz, F. W. — Details of the principal Greek Mouldings. 
 
 Details Greichischer Haupt-Gesimse zusammengestellt fiir die 
 mannigfachsten Anwendungen, in 40 blattern. 4to. Berlin, 1854. 
 
 Donaldson, T. L. — Architectura Numismatica, or Architectural Medals of 
 Classic Antiquity. Illustrated and explained by comparison with the 
 monuments and the description of ancient authors, and copious text. 
 Imp. 8vo. London, 1859. 
 
 The next great historic style we have to review is the 
 Greek. First we must speak of the Doric, or early 
 Greek, which comprises the Etruscan — evidently derived 
 
GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 5i 
 
 from it ; and we find no less a change in the general 
 character than in the details in this first European style, 
 when compared with the art of Egypt or of Asia. Art 
 becomes now for the first time purely aesthetic. 
 
 It is, in fact, to the substitution of the aesthetic 
 principle in the place of the symbolic, rather than to 
 
 tr.SWALLOV/. 
 
 Antefix of the Parthenon. 
 
 variety of element, that we have a new development of 
 taste in the art of the Greeks. It is this, also, which 
 constitutes its originality ; its technical processes were 
 perhaps, in the early stages, identical with the Egyptian. 
 With the great commerce and intimate intercourse which 
 were established between Greece and Egypt in the 
 
52 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 seventh century, and perhaps earlier, it is impossible 
 but that the Greeks were sufficiently acquainted with 
 all the arts of the Egyptians, and that very much was 
 learnt by them from the Egyptians, although, in the 
 great cities, the traditionary records or later versions of 
 records generally claim the art as indigenous and original. 
 The traditions, however, of less important localities, as 
 occasionally repeated by Pausanias, carry the whole 
 evidence to the other side of the question. The arts 
 of the Greeks appear to have been established much 
 earlier, or more extensively, in the islands, and espe- 
 cially at Samos, than in Greece itself. 
 
 The Doric age — the first historic age of Greek art — 
 comprises altogether a period of about four centuries 
 from the first historic records ; from Rhoecus of Samos 
 and Cypselus of Corinth, until Phidias and Pericles and 
 their immediate successors. The previous period, from 
 the traditions of the Trojan war, belongs rather to what 
 may be termed the heroic age. The style of this period 
 extended from the Western shores of Asia to the extreme 
 limits of Sicily, as shown in the many interesting Doric 
 ruins still preserved. The most important manufacture 
 of the period of which remains exist, was that of the 
 terra-cotta vases; and on these we find all the charac- 
 teristic ornaments of the distinctively Greek style of 
 decoration. We find on these vases exactly the same 
 ornaments, but necessarily modified in their treatment, 
 as those which distinguish the architectural monuments 
 of the time. 
 
 There are two classes of the painted Greek pottery, 
 the black and the yellow; that is, those which have 
 
GREEK 
 
 From Treasury or Tomb at Mycenae, Argolis. British Museum. 
 
 P. 52. 
 
 Erechtheium, Athens. British Museum. 
 

GREEK. 
 
 Athemion. Apollo Epicurius. British Museum. 
 
 Echinus and Astragal. Erechtheium. 
 
 R 53. 
 
 Example of Guilloche. 
 
GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 53 
 
 black figures and ornaments, the ground of the vase 
 being left the colour of the clay ; and those which have 
 the ground painted black, and the figures left the colour 
 of the clay. Of the black or former class there are two 
 varieties, the one painted only with animals, the other 
 with figures, &c. The earliest belong to the date of 
 about 600 b.c. ; the second may be generally reckoned 
 as a century later. Of the yellow vases there are three 
 varieties or sub -classes — the severe, the beautiful, and 
 the rich, so called from the various characters of their 
 decorations ; and these belong respectively to the general 
 dates 400, 300, and 200, b.c., when the manufacture 
 seems to have ceased. There are two other kinds of 
 vases which, in an ornamental view, may be considered 
 to commence and to terminate the series ; those that are 
 not painted, but are merely decorated with zigzags and 
 frets in a manner resembling wicker-work ; and those 
 which are painted with the complete encaustic picture 
 in all colours. The last are very rare, and belong to 
 the latest date, about 200 b.c. ; the first are even older 
 than the most ancient black vases, and may be considered 
 as belonging to the seventh century before our era. 
 
 The first ornaments which attract our notice on these 
 vases, of all periods, are those with which we have already 
 become familiar in Egyptian art — the zigzag, the wave- 
 scroll, and the labyrinth, or Greek fret. But perhaps the 
 most characteristic ornaments of the period are the 
 echinus, or horse-chestnut (egg and tongue), and the 
 anthemion, commonly known in its most simple form as 
 the honeysuckle or palmette, both of which it somewhat 
 resembles, as represented in the Doric antefixes. But 
 
54 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 the anthemion, or flower-ornament, is more than the 
 mere honeysuckle (or palm-branch, whatever it may be), 
 even when so applied : it is this flower-form alternated 
 with the lily or analogous form. This is the case with 
 every example, except a very few, upon the vases. 
 There is, however, no actual imitation whatever in Greek 
 ornamental art. Occasionally, also, in this period em- 
 blematic ornaments were used which referred to the 
 
 mysteries, sacrifices, funeral rites, and the games; but 
 
 instances are not frequent. At all events, such ornaments 
 do not belong to prominent characteristics of style. 
 
 The architectural features of the Greek are still more 
 distinctive than the ornamental in comparison with the 
 
 Egyptian. The flat, ponderous, sloping buildings of the 
 
 Egyptians are both beautiful and useful in the landscape 
 and climate of Egypt; and just as the rainless heat of 
 Egypt developed the massive flat roofs, so the rainy seasons 
 of Greece rendered the sloping roof necessary, the gable 
 of which the Greeks eventually developed into their beau- 
 tiful pediment. The pediment seems to have necessitated 
 another member in the entablature, the frieze; a feature 
 sesthetically more than mechanically necessary to diminish 
 the apparent weight of the pediment, to balance the parts, 
 and to strengthen, in effect, the entablature. The only 
 Greek example of a temple without a pediment — the Pan- 
 droseium at Athens — has no frieze in its entablature. 
 
 The distinctive ornament of the three Greek architec- 
 tural orders, as they are termed, is the capital. The 
 Doric capital consists of a round flat cushion, called the 
 echinus, and a large square abacus, the lower diameter of 
 the echinus being that of the pillar, its upper that of the 
 
GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 55 
 
 abacus. The cushion is called the echinus, from its being 
 invariably decorated (painted) with that ornament. As 
 this ornament is so constant, the Doric order may be 
 descriptively termed the echinus order ; and the echinus is 
 accordingly the principal ornament of the period. 
 
 Like the Egyptian, the Greek is distinguished for its 
 broad, flat surfaces. Even its curves are flat, of a para- 
 bolic character ; a development, perhaps, due to the prac- 
 tice of polychromic decoration. Everything was coloured ; 
 and high relief, as producing shadows, is antagonistic to 
 the display of colour. 
 
 In a general classification we may combine the Doric 
 and Alexandrian as one style, the Greek, unless we wish 
 to distinguish between early and late Greek ; and as they 
 really are distinct, it is proper to separate their charac- 
 teristics here ; but of course the second comprises the 
 first. 
 
 Of the early period, then, to recapitulate, the charac- 
 teristic features are — the echinus, the wave-scroll (some- 
 times called the Vitruvian scroll), the fret or labyrinth, 
 the zigzag, the anthemion, and occasionally the astragal ; 
 and the terra-cotta vases have given such a prestige to 
 black and tawny yellow, that their combination has become 
 a characteristic colouring — not, however, to the exclusion 
 of red, blue, yellow, green, or white. Purple and saffron 
 may likewise be said to be characteristic of this period, as 
 the favourite colours for male and female costume. 
 
 On the whole, foliage performs a very secondary part in 
 the ornamentation of this age. We have conventional 
 floriage more prominent; and we have comparatively a 
 great variety of geometrical forms and combinations in the 
 
56 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 diapers and their borders, found roughly indicated in the 
 dresses on the vases. 
 
 The second Greek period, which may be called the 
 Alexandrian, although Alexander does not strictly mark 
 it — for it may be said to begin with the Erechtheium at 
 Athens, 409 b.c. — enriched all these forms, and made some 
 more familiar, as the astragal or huckle-bone series ; and 
 it added to them the spiral ; the guilloche, or speira (plat) ; 
 the acanthus ; and, in a very simple development, the 
 ordinary scroll, consisting of a succession of spirals reversed 
 alternately. It further established the practice of carving 
 the ornaments, instead of merely painting them, as was the 
 prevailing custom in the Doric period. The Ionic capital 
 has now supplanted the Doric ; and the horns, or volutes, 
 are added to the echinus, the characteristic ornament of the 
 Doric capital. 
 
 The tirst of these two styles was magnificently displayed 
 by the Parthenon at Athens, 438 b.c. The second was 
 best exhibited in the Ionic temples of Asia Minor ; but it 
 is also very completely represented in the Erechtheium ; 
 and in a third order, the acanthus, called historically the 
 
GREEK ORNAMENT. 
 
 57 
 
 Corinthian order, in the choragic monument of Lysicrates 
 at Athens, 335 b.c. Both are well illustrated by the Elgin 
 Boom in the British Museum, where are specimens from 
 these and other Greek monuments. 
 
 The Ionic, or voluted echinus capital, is attributed to 
 Chersiphron of Cnossus, in Crete ; and though occurring 
 comparatively late in Greece, as even the Doric order 
 itself, it was established in Asia Minor as early as the 
 middle of the sixth century before our era, as the great 
 Ionic pillars of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus — one of 
 the seven wonders of the world — were executed at the 
 expense of Croesus, King of Lydia, who died 546 b.c. 
 
 The acanthus capital is called u Corinthian,” from its 
 reputed discovery by Callimachus of Corinth, who lived 
 about 400 b.c. 
 
 After the establishment of the Ionic order, in which the 
 volute is so prominent, we find the curved line, as the 
 element of the guilloches, more common, in some degree 
 supplanting the fret, or right-lined plat ; the curved-line 
 ornament being palpably more in harmony with the volute. 
 This is another example of that propriety of taste in Greek 
 art which is also illustrated in the common juxtaposition 
 of the astragal with the echinus. The ordinary scroll and 
 acanthus are kept subdued in Greek work in comparison 
 with the echinus, anthemion, and others ; and, in the sense 
 in which we use the term, they are much more characteristic 
 of Boman than of Greek art. 
 
 It is the same with the three great classic orders — all 
 three Greek by origin ; but the acanthus order was very 
 little used by the Greeks, while with the Bomans it was 
 the favourite. As regards style, therefore, it is more 
 
 i 
 
58 
 
 GREEK ORNAMENT \ 
 
 characteristic of the Eoman than the Greek. The 'only 
 Greek scroll worthy of the name is the very simple one of 
 the roof of the choragic monument of Lysicrates. 
 
 The most simple form of the scroll is of very rare 
 occurrence, even on the painted terra-cotta vases ; but it 
 is not uncommon on the ordinary red ware of the Bomans, 
 and in these examples it has preserved its Greek character. 
 There is always a great simplicity both in the details and 
 in the arrangement of the materials of Greek ornament: 
 it is generally the various elements arranged in simple 
 horizontal series, one row above the other. 
 
 Ancient Bronze Lamp, found in the Thames. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ROMAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 Piranesi, G. and F. — Greek and Roman Antiquities, Paintings, &c. 
 29 yols. fol. Paris, 1835-7. 
 
 Wood and Dawkins. — The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tedmor in the 
 
 < Desert. Folio. London, 1753. 
 
 The Ruins of Balbec, otherwise Heliopolis, in Coelosyria. Folio. 
 
 London, 1757. 
 
 Moreau, C. — Fragmens et Ornemens d’ Architecture, dessines a Rome 
 d’apres l’antique. Folio. Paris, 1800. 
 
 Tatham, C. H. — Etchings, representing the best Examples of Ancient 
 Ornamental Architecture, drawn from the originals in Rome, and other 
 parts of Italy, during the years 1794, 1795, and 1796. 3rd edition, 
 small folio. London, 1810. 
 
 Rome. — The most remarkable Buildings of Ancient Rome. 
 
 Raccolta delle piu insigni Fabbriche di Roma Antica e sue adjacenze. 
 Misurate Nuovamente e dichiarate dall’ Architetto Giuseppe 
 Valadier, illustrate con osseryazioni antiquarie da Filippo Aurelio 
 Yisconti, ed incise da Yincenzo Feoli. Folio. Roma, 1810-22. 
 
 Wilkins, W. — The Civil Architecture of Yitruvius, comprising those 
 Books of the Author which relate to the Public and Private Edifices of 
 the Ancients. Illustrated by numerous engravings. With an Intro- 
 duction, containing an Historical Yiew of the Rise and Progress of 
 Architecture among the Greeks. Folio. London, 1812. 
 
 Mazois, F. — Les Ruines de Pompei, dessinees et mesurees par F. Mazois, 
 pendant les annees 1809, 1810, 1811. 
 
 Ouvrage continue par M. Gau, precede d’une notice sur F. Mazois 
 par M. Le Chevalier Artaud, et de l’explication de la grande 
 Mosaique decouverte a Pompei en 1831, par M. Quatremere de 
 Quincy. Le texte de la quatrieme partie a ete redige par M. Barre , 
 4 vols. folio. Paris, 1812-38. 
 
6o 
 
 ROMAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 Taylor and Cresy. — The Architectural Antiquities of Rome. 2 yols. 
 folio. London, 1821. 
 
 Gell and Gandy. — Pompeiana : the Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments 
 of Pompeii. 4 yols. imperial 8vo. London, 1824-32. 
 
 Canina, L. — Ancient Architecture, explained by its Monuments : Greek, 
 
 Roman, &c. L’Architettura antica descritta e demonstrata coi 
 Monumenti. Text, 9 yols. 8vo. Plates, 4 vols. folio. Roma, 
 1834-46. 
 
 Albertolli, Eerd. — Friezes from the Forum of Trajan, with others in 
 Rome, and various other cities. 
 
 Fregi troyati negli scavi del Foro Trajano, con altri esistenti in Roma 
 ed in diverse altre citta ; disegnati e misurati sul luogo da Ferdi- 
 nando Albertolli. Folio. Milan, 1838. 
 
 Zahn, W. — The most beautiful Ornaments and most remarkable Paintings 
 of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabise, &c., from original drawings made 
 on the spot. 
 
 Die schonsten Ornamente und merkwiirdigsten Gemalde aus Pompeii, 
 Herkulanum, und Stabise, nebst einigen Grundrissen und Ansichten, 
 nach den an Ort und Stelle gemachten Originalzeichnungen, yon 
 Wilhelm Zahn. Folio. Berlin, 1829-54, et seq. 
 
 Ornaments of all Classic Art Epochs, represented from the 
 
 originals in their proper colours. 
 
 Ornamente aller KLassischen Kunst Epochen nach den originalen 
 ih ihren eigenthiimlichen farben dargestellt. Oblong folio. 
 Berlin, 1849. 
 
 Wieseler, F. — Theatres, &c., of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 Theatergeb'aude und Denkmaler des Buhnenwesens bei den.Griechen 
 und Romern. 4to. Gottingen, 1851. 
 
 "We come now to tlie third and last ancient style, the 
 Eoman. In this, however, we have simply an enlarge- 
 ment or enrichment of the florid Greek. It did not add 
 a single important element to the Greek, but elaborated 
 the established elements with every possible variety of 
 effect, and with all the exuberance and richness of which 
 they are capable, developing some into comparatively 
 colossal proportions. It was, therefore, original only in 
 its treatment of the Greek materials. Eoman art is 
 accordingly still Greek art ; and it is more than probable 
 
ROMAN. 
 
 ’• <50. Cornice of Pedestal, Trajan’s Column, ltomc. 
 

ROMAN. 
 
 Echinus and Astragal. Pantheon, Rome. 
 
 T. 61 
 
 Jupiter Stator, Rome. 
 
ROMAN. 
 
 Olive Acanthus. Mars Ultor, Rome. 
 
 P. 61 
 
 Nest of Scroll. Ancient Panel, Florence. 
 
ROMAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 6 
 
 that nearly all the great artists employed by the Romans 
 were Greeks, not only in the provinces, as at Petra, 
 Palmyra, Baalbec, or at Athens (Temple of Jupiter), Pola, 
 and Spalatro, but at Rome itself, where the most magni- 
 ficent Forum, that of Trajan, was the work of a Greek. 
 
 However, though not original, Roman ornament has its 
 peculiar characteristics, as well as every other style. The 
 chief of these is its uniform magnificence. The most simple 
 Greek ornament becomes, under Roman treatment, if not a 
 magnificent, at least an elaborate decoration. In fact, the 
 most florid Greek example, as the choragic monument of 
 Lysicrates for instance, becomes a very simple design in 
 comparison with only an ordinary Roman specimen. 
 
 The architectural orders, though preserved in nearly 
 their pure Greek form also, have not escaped this enrich- 
 ment ; and the composite, the only distinct Roman order, 
 comprises, as its name literally implies, all the three Greek 
 orders at once — the echinus, the voluted, and the acanthus 
 orders. 
 
 It is perhaps incorrect to say that there is no new ele- 
 ment in Roman ornament. I believe the shell, which in 
 after times became so very prominent, is first found in the 
 modillion of the arch of Titus at Rome. The arch, too, is 
 a Roman feature : where the Greeks were in the habit of 
 using the horizontal entablature, the Romans very often 
 have employed the arch. The Roman acanthus likewise 
 has a character of its own. The Greeks used the Acanthus 
 spinosus, or narrow prickly acanthus ; the Romans the 
 Acanthus mollis, or soft acanthus, — the brank-ursine of 
 our islands. But the Romaft acanthus, for capitals, is 
 commonly composed of conventional clusters of olive- 
 
62 
 
 ROMAN ORNAMENT. 
 
 leaves ; a modification arising out of the necessity for 
 strong effect in the massive lofty temples of the Romans : 
 but this peculiar conventional leaf does not occur otherwise 
 than on the capitals. 
 
 There is, further, this dis- 
 tinction between the two 
 styles, that the most rarely 
 used elements among the 
 Greeks are the most charac- 
 teristic of the Roman decora- 
 tions ; namely, the scroll 
 and the acanthus ; — indeed, 
 every form which will admit 
 
 Eosette of Scroll. Forum of Trajan. of ft ft habitually enriched 
 
 with an acanthus clothing or foliations. The acanthus, in 
 every form except in the capitals, is so peculiarly Roman, 
 that its appearance in an ornamental work is good pre- 
 sumptive evidence of its belonging to the Roman 
 period, — or at earliest about a century subsequent 
 to Alexander. The difference of the two leaves used, 
 however, will effectually prevent misconception on this 
 point. The same may be said of the scroll, in anything 
 like an elaborate development: it is peculiarly Roman, 
 and it is seldom without the acanthus foliations. Roman 
 buildings are uniformly more massive than Greek, as 
 well as bolder in their details : their curves are much 
 fuller, — the Romans using the circular, where the Greeks 
 generally used the elliptical. Some Roman examples of 
 the echinus, from this fulness of curve, are especially bold 
 and magnificent in effect.* They are occasionally also 
 remarkable for their deep under-cutting. 
 
ROMAN. 
 
 Ancient Pilaster, Rome. 
 
ROMAN. 
 
ROMAN. 
 
 Frieze, Forum of Trajan. 
 
ROMAN ORNAMENT. 63 
 
 The free introduction of monsters and animals is likewise 
 a characteristic of Greek and Roman ornament, — as the 
 sphinx, the triton, the griffin, and others : they occur, 
 however, much more abundantly in the Roman. The most 
 splendid Roman ornamental specimens are those which 
 have been dug up among the ruins of the Eorum of Trajan, 
 of the early part of the second century of our era. They 
 are the work of a Greek, — Apollodorus of Damascus, — 
 who carried out many great works for the Emperor 
 Trajan. 
 
 Chimera. 
 
CHAPTEB IX. 
 
 THE DECLINE OE ANCIENT ART. 
 
 We have hitherto looked at only the bright side of this 
 period : we must not overlook those features which more 
 especially constitute it a period of decline. In the first 
 place, quantity generally supplanted quality; and in the 
 second, this quantity was applied in most cases without 
 taste or propriety. This is illustrated by most of the great 
 works of the period ; and by none better than the triumphal 
 arches, which are exclusively ornamental works. 
 
 A few remarks will suffice to show how the Boman, with 
 its abundance of materials, was still a period of decline. 
 It was the use that was made of these materials. Style 
 and system may be looked upon as synonymous terms in 
 ornamental art. Besides the ornaments themselves, we 
 must have some system of applying them. And if the 
 prominent and characteristic members of certain established 
 styles are promiscuously thrown together, the principal 
 features of one style applied as secondary to subordinate 
 features of another, the value of all is diminished, and the 
 general effect has but its vagueness to characterise it. 
 
 The same ornamental types may be used in the develop- 
 ment of new styles, — distinction of style depending not 
 so much on the types themselves, as on the mode of using 
 them. 
 
THE DECLINE OF ANCIENT ART . 
 
 65 
 
 But in the development of any particular historic style 
 of ornament, we are strictly limited to the elements belong- 
 ing to that style; and in combining styles, the various 
 members belonging to the same style should preserve their 
 relative degree of importance. 
 
 The general decorations of the Boman period, and espe- 
 cially those of Pompeii, exhibit an utter disregard of these 
 observances ; and thus all distinctions of style, and conse- 
 quent peculiarities of character, are lost. 
 
 The tastes of the three ancient styles, — Egyptian, Greek, 
 and Boman, — are very distinct. The Egyptian is symbolic, 
 rich, and severe, at the same time; the Greek is severe 
 and beautiful ; and the Boman, rich and beautiful, — at 
 least in its good examples. 
 
 Greek taste steadily progressed until about the time of 
 Alexander : from this period, richness and abundance of 
 ornament gradually supplanted the chaster principles of 
 design. The conquest of Asia introduced a taste for orna- 
 mental display, which, ending in pure ostentation, resulted 
 in the utter annihilation of taste, and of art itself, under 
 the luxurious example of the Boman Emperors. The 
 Greeks themselves, however, were always lovers of splen- 
 dour. Their painted and chryselephantine (gold and ivory) 
 sculpture could hardly be surpassed in magnificence : their 
 personal costume, as Sybaris evinces, was of the richest 
 character ; and the splendour of their temples was only 
 characteristic of their mural decoration generally. 
 
 This splendour was carried out by the Bomans on a 
 still greater scale, until a boundless luxury established an 
 indiscriminate extravagance of ornamental detail. Marcus 
 Ludius, in the time of Augustus, became very celebrated 
 
 K 
 
66 
 
 THE DECLINE OF ANCIENT ART. 
 
 for his landscape decorations, which were illustrated with 
 figures actively employed in occupations suited to the 
 scenes ; which kind of painting became universal after his 
 time, and in the first century of our era was established 
 that extraordinary style which we have still preserved at 
 Pompeii, but which the Roman writers themselves were 
 as far from approving as the best critics of modern times. 
 Vitruvius, at a still earlier time, deplores the folly and 
 absurdity of the stucco-work of his day. “ What the 
 ancients,” he complains, u accomplished by art, we attempt 
 to effect by gaudy colouring. Expense is now substituted 
 for skill. Who, in former times, used vermilion, except 
 for physic? We now cover our walls with it.” Pliny 
 also complains of ostentation having completely supplanted 
 good taste in the decorations of his time : u A man now 
 cares nothing for art, provided he has his walls well 
 covered with purple, or dragon’s blood from India.” Vi- 
 truvius enumerates the various kinds of wall-painting in 
 use among the ancients. They first imitated coloured 
 marbles; these they afterwards divided into panels, and 
 enriched with ornamental frames and cornices ; then archi- 
 tectural decorations were added ; and finally were intro- 
 duced tragic, comic, and satyric scenes, and landscapes. 
 All eventually degenerated into the existing Pompeiian 
 extravagances. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the general extravagance of this 
 age, there were doubtless in Pome many examples of 
 beautiful decoration of a very high character. Even Pom- 
 peii, an unimportant provincial town, exhibits occasional 
 traces of a magnificent system of decoration. The painted 
 figures which we find in the centres of walls or panels, 
 
THE DECLINE OF ANCIENT ART 
 
 67 
 
 strongly relieved by their dark or coloured grounds, are 
 sometimes extremely beautiful in their conception, though 
 of inferior execution; and some examples of scrolls and 
 arabesques (the most characteristic form of these decora- 
 tions), likewise upon dark grounds, are, in a few instances, 
 
 Ruins at Baalbec. 
 
 of a gorgeous character of colour, and chaste in their 
 curves. And the mosaic and tesselated pavements dis- 
 covered in Pompeii, however inappropriate in their appli- 
 cation to floors, are examples of an exuberance of ornament 
 to which few, if any, modern palaces can offer a parallel ; 
 as, for instance, the great mosaic, measuring about twenty 
 
68 
 
 THE DECLINE OF ANCIENT ART . 
 
 feet by ten, representing the battle between Darius and 
 Alexander at Issus, discovered in the so-called House del 
 Fauno, in 1831. It is one of the most important relics of 
 ancient art, and shows that though the laws of perspective 
 are generally grossly disregarded in the architectural deco- 
 rations, it was not from the ignorance of their existence ; 
 for in this work, however careless the mechanical execu- 
 tion may be, perspective is appreciated, and the fore- 
 shortening of the figure and the horse is even skilfully 
 expressed. It is a work, in composition, general attitude 
 of the figures and horses, and for treatment of costume, in 
 every way worthy of a great master ; and the picture or 
 composition itself evidently belongs to a period long 
 anterior to the execution of the mosaic, in which we most 
 probably have an example of the higher school of painting 
 of the Greeks, and possibly a coarse copy of the great 
 battle-piece of the victory of Alexander over Darius, men- 
 tioned by Pliny, by which Philoxenus of Eretria had ren- 
 dered his name celebrated. 
 
MEDIEVAL STYLES. 
 
 FOUR LECTURES.* 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 Cotman AND Turner. — Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, by J. S. 
 Cotman ; accompanied by historical and descriptive notices by Dawson 
 Turner. 2 vols. folio. London, 1822. 
 
 Munter, F. — Early Christian Symbolism. Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstel- 
 lungen der alten Christen. 4to. Altona, 1825. 
 
 Bunsen, C. C. J. — The Basilicas of Christian Rome, in illustration of the 
 Idea and History of Church Architecture. 
 
 Die Basiliken des Christlichen Roms nach ihrem zusammenhange 
 mit Idee und Geschichte der Kirchenbaukunst. 4to. Munich, 1848. 
 (To serve as Text to the Illustrated Work of Gutensohn and Knapp. 
 
 Folio. Munich, 1822 — 27.) 
 
 * MEDIEVAL ART, 1849. 
 
 Syllabus. 
 
 Lecture I. — On Early Christian and Byzantine Art. 
 
 The so-called Dark Ages, from the Fourth to the Thirteenth Century. 
 General Decay of Ancient Art. The Destructions. Constantinople or 
 Byzantium. Establishment of Christianity. Symbolism. Prohibition 
 of Images — Early Symbols — the Monogram — the Fish {IxOvs) — Vesica 
 Piscis. The Lily. The Catacombs. Images of Christ. The Nimbus or 
 Glory. Trefoil — Quatrefoil, &c. Ancient Basilicas. Tribune. Apsis. 
 Mosaics. Modes of Benediction — Distinction between Greek and Latin 
 form. Monasteries of Mount Athos. The Image Controversy between 
 the Pope and the Emperor of the East. The Iconoclasts. Sanction of 
 Images by the Council of Nice, a.d. 787. 
 
 Ornamental Types — Cross — Dome — Circle. St. Sophia of Constantinople, 
 a.d. 562. San Vitale of Ravenna, St. Mark’s of Venice. Symbolism 
 pervading all Designs — Examples — The Byzantine Leaf — Runic Tracery 
 — Embroidery. Illumination of MSS. Religious Cycles. 
 
70 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 Heideloff, C. — Collection of Architectural Ornaments of the Middle Ages 
 in the Byzantine and Gothic Styles. 4 vols. 4to. Nuremberg. 
 
 Knight, H. Gally. — The Normans in Sicily, being a Sequel to “An 
 Architectural Tour in Normandy.” 8vo. London, 1838. 
 
 The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, from the Time of 
 
 Constantine to the fifteenth Century; with an Introduction and Text. 
 2 vols. folio. London, 1842-44. 
 
 Saracenic and Norman Kemains, to illustrate “ The Normans in 
 
 Sicily.” Folio. London, n. d. 
 
 Messina. — Boof of the Cathedral of Messina. 
 
 Charpente de la Cathedrale de Messine, dessinee par M. Morey, gravee 
 et lithographiee par H. Boux, aine. Chromo -lithographic plates. 
 Folio. Paris, 1841. 
 
 Quast, A. F. Yon. — Old Christian Buildings of Bavenna. 
 
 Die Alt-christlichen Bauwerke yon Bavenna, vom fiinften bis zum 
 neunten Jahrhundert, Historisch geordnet und durch Abbildungen 
 erlaiitert yon Al. F. Yon Quast. Small folio. Berlin, 1842. 
 Didron, M. — Iconographie Chretienne. Histoire de Dieu. 4to. Paris, 1843. 
 
 Handbook of Christian Iconography. 
 
 Manuel d’lconographie Chretienne, Grecque et Latine, avec une 
 Introduction et des Notes. Traduit du MS. Byzantin, “ Le Guide 
 de la Peinture,” par le Dr. Paul Durand. Boyal 8vo. Paris, 1845. 
 Osten, F. — Les Monuments de la Lombardie depuis le YII e Siecle jusqu’au 
 XIY e . Folio. Darmstadt and Paris, 1847, et seq. 
 
 Lecture II. — On Bomanesque and Saracenic Art. 
 
 The Bomanesque. Wide-spread Influence of Byzantine Ornament. 
 Damascus. Oriental Manufactures. Saracenic Costume. Luxury of 
 the Caliphs of Bagdad. Tributes. 
 
 Egypt — Direct Byzantine Influence — The Mosques of Cairo — of Amrou, 
 a.d. 641 — of Touloun, A.D. 876 — and El Azar (the Brilliant), A. D. 981. 
 The Pointed Arch. Saracenic Ornaments nearly identical with Byzantine. 
 Polychromic Decorations. 
 
 Sicily — Palermo — La Ziza, the Zigzag, 1050 — Byzantine Mosaics and Glass 
 Tesselations. 
 
 Spain — Palace of Abdu-r-rhaman III., near Cordova. The Alhambra 
 (the Bed Castle), its decorations — tracery — diapers — inscriptions. 
 General Character of Saracenic Ornament. Tapestries. 
 
 Lecture III. — On the Siculo-Norman and the Early Pointed Style. 
 Palermo — the Cappella Palatina, the Martorana. Greek, Saracenic, and 
 Latin Elements. Bevival of Symbolism — Cefalu, 1132. Monreale. 
 Messina, Byzantine Mosaics, and Glass Tesselations. The Pointed Arch 
 introduced into Sicily by the Saracens in the ninth century — into 
 England by the Normans in the twelfth. 
 
 The Saxon or early Norman Bomanesque — the Bound Norman or Zigzag 
 style — the Pointed Norman, or Transition (Plantagenet). Yariety of 
 Norman Ornaments — the Zigzag, the Billet, the Tooth, &c. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 V 
 
 Wyatt, M. D. — Specimens of the Geometrical Mosaic of the Middle Ages ; 
 with a brief Historical Notice of the Art, founded on Papers read before 
 the Eoyal Institute of British Architects, the Boyal Society of Arts, and 
 the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Small folio. 
 London, 1848. 
 
 Chalmers of Auldbar. — The ancient sculptured Monuments of the County 
 of Angus, including those at Meigle in Perthshire, and one at Fordoun 
 in the Mearns. With an additional plate and explanatory text. 
 (Privately printed and presented to the Bannatyne Club.) Large folio. 
 Edinburgh, 1848. 
 
 Perret, L. — The Catacombs of Eome. Catacombes de Eome ; Architec- 
 ture, Peintures Murales, Inscriptions, Figures, et Symbols des Pierres 
 sepulcrales, Yerres graves sur fond d’or, Lampes, Yases, Anneaux, 
 Instruments, &c., des Cimetieres des premiers Chretiens. 5 vols. folio. 
 Paris, 1852, et seq. 
 
 (Published by the French Government, under the direction of a 
 Commission of the Institute of France.) 
 
 Caumont, De. — Archseological ABC Book. 
 
 Abecedaire, ou Eudiment d’Archeologie. Ouvrage approuve par 
 l’lnstitut des Provinces de France. (Ornamental styles, civil and 
 military architecture, &c.) 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1851-53. 
 
 Inkersley, T. — An Inquiry into the Chronological Succession of the Styles 
 of Eomanesque and Pointed Architecture in France ; with Notices of 
 some of the principal Buildings on which it is founded. 8vo. London, 1850. 
 
 Stained Glass — Methods of Glass Painting — Mosaic — Mosaic-stain — and 
 the Pure and Mixed Enamel — Mosaic Enamel. 
 
 Mosaic method described by Theophilus, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 Design, hatched and smeared on Pot Metal, in Enamel Brown — the 
 Grozing Iron. Ornaments, chiefly from the Manuscripts — of a Byzan- 
 tine or Norman character — Tan- coloured Flesh — Simple and Medallion 
 Windows — Foliage and Quarry Patterns, plain and reticulated. 
 
 Lecture IY. — Oh Gothic Ornament — Decorated Pointed. 
 
 The vertically of Gothic as contrasted with the horizontal Eomanesque. 
 The Five Arches of English Architecture — the Eound, the Pointed, the 
 Ogee, the Four-centred, and the Flat. 
 
 Seven Styles of English Ecclesiastical Architecture, from Edward the 
 Confessor (1066) to Edward YI., about five centuries — the Saxon (early 
 Norman Eomanesque) — Eound Norman (Zigzag) — Pointed Norman 
 (Transition) — Early English Gothic (introduction of the Mullion and 
 Tracery) — Decorated — Perpendicular (Lancastrian) — and Tudor. Average 
 duration of each style about seventy years. Characteristics. Geometrical 
 character of Gothic Art. Snow Crystals. Tracery — Soffit and Chamfer 
 Cusping, The Trefoil Leaf — the Crocket — the Finial — the Gargoyle. 
 The Tudor Flower. Manufactures. 
 
7 2 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 Ruskin, J. — The Stones of Venice. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1851. 
 
 Examples of the Architecture of Venice, selected and drawn to 
 
 measurement from the edifices. Folio. London, 1851. 
 
 Verneilh, F. De. — L’ Architecture Byzantine en France. (Saint-Front 
 de Perigueux, et les Eglises a coupoles de l’Aquitaine.) 4to. Paris, 1852. 
 
 Runge, L. — Contributions towards the Knowledge of the Brick Architecture 
 of Italy. 
 
 Beitrage zur Kentniss der Backstein Architectur Italiens. 2 yols. 
 folio. Berlin, 1852-53. 
 
 Blavignac, J. D. — Histoire de V Architecture sacree du quatrieme au 
 dixieme Siecle, dans les anciens eveches de Geneve, Lausanne, et Sion. 
 8vo. text; atlas, ob. folio. Paris, 1853. 
 
 Quast, F. Von. — The Romanesque Cathedrals of the Middle Rhine, at 
 Mayence, Speier, and Worms, critically and historically examined. 
 
 Die Romanischen Dome des Mittelrheins zu Mainz, Speier, Worms. 
 Kritisch untersucht und historisch festgestellt, durch F. Von Quast. 
 8vo. plates. Berlin, 1853. 
 
 Kreutz, G. et L. — La Basilica di San Marco, in Venezia, esposta ne’ suoi 
 Mosaici, e nelle sue Sculture, con illustrazione. Folio. Venice, 1843. 
 
 The Secondary Mosaics of the Basilica of St. Mark, Venice. 
 
 Mosaici Secondarii non compresi negli speccati geometrici, ma che 
 completano con essi tutto l’lnterno della Basilica di San Marco. 
 4to. Venice, 1854. 
 
 Salzenberg, W. — Old Christian Architectural Monuments of Constanti- 
 nople, from the Fifth to the Twelfth Century. St. Sophia. 
 
 Alt-Christliche Baudenkmale yon Constantinopel vom V. bis XII. 
 jahrhundert. Auf befehl seiner majestat des Konigs auf-genommen 
 und historisch erlautert yon W. Salzenberg. Im anhange des 
 Silentiarius Paulus beschreibung der Heiligen Sophia und des 
 Ambon. Metrisch ubersetzt und mit anmerkungen versehen von 
 Dr. C. W. Kortum. Herausgegeben von dem Konigl. Ministerium 
 fur Handel Gewerbe und offentliche arbeiten. Folio. Berlin, 1854. 
 (Published by the Prussian Government, Ministry for Commerce, Trade, 
 and Public Works.) 
 
 Nesfield, W. E. — Specimens of Medieval Architecture, from sketches 
 made in France and Italy. 4to. London, 1860. 
 
 Stained Glass — Mosaic-stain — fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — Pot Metal, 
 Stained and Coated Glass — Abrasion. Ornaments — Simple and Medallion 
 Windows — Canopied Figures — White Flesh — Yellow Hair. Quarry, 
 Diaper, Flower, Damask, and White or Grisailles patterns, in Enamel 
 Brown. 
 
 Enamel and Mosaic Enamel, or Pure and Mixed Enamel, from the sixteenth 
 century — Ordinary Enamel Colours on White and Coloured Glass 
 (Pot Metal). Canopied Figures, Historic and Heraldic Designs — Floral, 
 Geometric, Renaissance, and Cinquecento Ornament. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 73 
 
 Bock, F. — Les Tresors sacres de Cologne. Objets d’Art du Moyen Age. 
 8vo. Paris, 1860. 
 
 Tymms and Wyatt. — The Art of Illuminating, as practised in Europe from 
 the earliest times. Illustrated by borders, initial letters, and alphabets, 
 selected and chromob'thographed by W. R. Tymms. With an Essay and 
 Instructions by M. Digby Wyatt. Imp. 8vo. London, 1860. 
 
 We may now turn to the Middle-Age styles, which, in 
 contradistinction to the ancient, — the heathen , — may be 
 termed Christian art. 
 
 The peculiar views of the early Christians in matters of 
 art had, before the establishment of Christianity by the 
 State, no material influence upon society, though the Pagan 
 idolatries found many bold and vigorous opponents long 
 before the time of Constantine. During the first and 
 second centuries, Christian works of art were limited to 
 symbols, and were then never applied as decorations, but 
 as exhortations to faith and piety. And all Christian 
 decoration rests upon this foundation, — the same spirit of 
 symbolism prevailing throughout, until the return to the 
 heathen principle of beauty (to the aesthetic) in the period 
 of the Renaissance. 
 
 The early symbols were the monogram of Christ : the 
 lily ; the cross ; the serpent ; the fish ; the aureole, or 
 Vesica piscis , representing the acrostic symbol, the fish, 
 from the common Greek word for fish, containing 
 
 the initials of the following sentence : ’I Xpiaros Qeov 
 Y to? Sa»T)7p, — Jesus Christ, of God the Son, the Saviour ; 
 and the circle, or nimbus , the glory of the head, as the Vesica 
 is of the entire body. These are very important elements 
 in Christian decoration, — especially the nimbus, which is 
 the element of the trefoil and quatrefoil, so common in 
 
 L 
 
74 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 Byzantine and Gothic art, — the first having reference to 
 the Trinity, the second to the four Evangelists, as the 
 testimony of Christ, and to the cross ; at the extremities 
 of which we often find four circles, besides the circle in 
 the centre, which signifies the Lord. 
 
 Thus, figures or combinations of three, four, and five 
 
 circles are common in me- 
 dieval art, and have all 
 sacred significations. Many 
 crosses are composed nearly 
 exclusively of the five cir- 
 cles as principals, or are 
 prominently decorated with 
 them. A cross of this 
 
 character is not uncom- 
 mon, either with the circle 
 or nimbus in the centre, and 
 four other circles or nimbi 
 at the extremities, or com- 
 posed simply of five cir- 
 cles arranged in the form 
 of the cross, — the centre 
 circle, or nimbus , having 
 reference to the Lord, and 
 the other four to the Evan- 
 gelists. Occasionally the 
 symbolic images of the 
 Evangelists, — the angel, 
 the lion, the ox, and the eagle, — are represented within 
 these circles. 
 
 These symbolic images of the Evangelists are frequently 
 
 From a Gold Fibula. 
 
 Old Leather Case. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 75 
 
 applied as the principal decoration of a facade, and are 
 constantly met with under the arches of doorways, on either 
 side of the vesica , which is found circumscribing the image 
 of Christ, with his right hand raised in the attitude of 
 benediction. 
 
 The hand, in the attitude of benediction, is another 
 characteristic element in early Christian and medieval 
 works of art. There is a distinction between the Greek 
 and the Latin form, — the Greek symbolising Jesus Christ, 
 expressing his Greek monogram, IC. XC., (JesouC XristoC), 
 by placing the thumb on the third finger, and slightly 
 curving the second and fourth : the Latin displaying the 
 thumb and the first and second fingers only extended, and 
 thus symbolising the Trinity. The Boman prelate blesses 
 in the name of the Trinity ; the Greek, in the name of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Without some knowledge of these essential points, the 
 Byzantine decorations are quite unintelligible ; for their 
 early designers would appear to have avoided rather than 
 sought beauty in all these peculiar forms : the principle 
 is exactly the same as that by which 
 Egyptian art was regulated. The Lily, 
 too (the fleur-de-lis), the emblem of the 
 Virgin and of purity, is as common in 
 Christian decoration as the lotus is in 
 that of Egypt. It is the symbol which 
 was eventually elaborated into the most 
 characteristic foliage of Byzantine and Bomanesque art, 
 still well illustrated in work of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, — and especially in the old iron- work of that 
 time. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT , . 
 
 Conspicuous in their foliage, also, is a peculiarly formal 
 and sharp version, if I may so call it, of the Greek 
 acanthus-leaf, somewhat resembling the ordinary thistle, 
 or holly-leaf. 
 
 Why the beautiful and accomplished styles of the 
 ancients, then, were discarded for such comparatively 
 crude elements of ornament, needs no other explanation 
 than the simple statement that they were Pagan. 
 
 blades being significant, — became eventually a very pro- 
 minent feature in Byzantine decoration ; and under the 
 same modifications the anthernion, and every other ancient 
 ornament, was gradually adopted, after a systematic ex- 
 clusion of about four or five centuries. But the most 
 characteristic of all the ordinary Byzantine ornamental 
 
 Architrave, St. Denis. 
 
 Paganism, however, con- 
 sisted solely in forms, not 
 in colours, and therefore, 
 in respect of colour, there 
 never was any restriction 
 in Byzantine art. The 
 forms of the ancients, too, 
 as Pagan’sm itself gradu- 
 ally disappeared, were 
 slowly admit' ed among the 
 elements of Christian deco- 
 ration ; and the scroll, un- 
 der certain symbolic modifi- 
 cations,— the foliar' ions ter- 
 minating in lilies or leaves 
 of three, four, and five 
 blades, the number of the 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 77 
 
 details, is that conventional foliage and scroll-work just 
 described. 
 
 The very exclusive prejudices of the early Byzantines 
 once overcome, a most comprehensive style of decoration 
 was rapidly developed, notwithstanding they never at- 
 tained that purity of detail which characterises the works 
 of the Greeks. Still, so great was their ingenuity, that 
 they made, from their crudest symbols even, very beautiful 
 and attractive designs. 
 
 An important feature always to be observed in the 
 works of the Byzantines is, that all their imitations of 
 natural forms were invariably conventional : so far they 
 have preserved the ancient custom throughout. It is 
 the same even with animals and with the human figure : 
 every saint had his prescribed colours, proportions, and 
 symbols. 
 
 This Byzantine system of decoration was fully matured, 
 and is still shown in perfection in the rich mosaics of 
 St. Sophia at Constantinople, completed by the Emperor 
 Justinian 562 a.d.* 
 
 The beauty and effect of Byzantine designs is, however, 
 as often owing to their materials as to the fashion of the 
 ornaments themselves; and this is the case with nearly 
 all early middle-age art; as it was with the Egyptians, 
 and must perhaps always be in every style which depends 
 for its individuality of character chiefly upon its sym- 
 bolism: for symbols are not chosen for their beauty , but 
 for their meaning. 
 
 * Some beautiful specimens have been lately published in the work of 
 Salzenberg, on Constantinople, undertaken under the auspices of the 
 Prussian Government. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 78 
 
 We shall find that the most beautiful Byzantine designs 
 are those in which the symbolism is unobtrusive, or 
 even wholly disguised : not absent, for that is very 
 rarely, if ever, the case. A design which contained no 
 trace of symbolism could hardly be a genuine Byzantine 
 example. Generally speaking, but especially in eccle- 
 siastical decoration, — whether metal-work, stone-work, 
 wood-carving, glass- staining, or mosaic, the symbols, in 
 some form or other, are paramount, being mixed only 
 
 with geometrical forms. Many By- 
 zantine capitals may appear to con- 
 tradict this ; but on examination it 
 will be found that the apparently 
 floral forms are combinations only 
 of the conventional types derived 
 from the symbols ; as vesicas, circles, 
 lilies, and many others. The very 
 tracery is sometimes composed of serpents ; and ser- 
 pents are not an uncommon ornament for a capital. 
 
 The serpent figures largely in Byzantine art, as the 
 instrument of the Fall, and one type of the Bedemption. 
 The cross planted on the serpent is found sculptured on 
 Mount Athos ; and the cross, surrounded by the so-called 
 Bunic knot, is only a Scandinavian version of the original 
 Byzantine image, — the crushed snake curling round the 
 stem of the avenging cross. The cross, with two scrolls 
 at the foot of it, typifying the snake, is another of its 
 modifications, and a very common Byzantine ornament. 
 The ordinary northern crosses, so conspicuous for their 
 interlaced ornaments and grotesque monsters, appear to 
 be purely modifications of this idea. Some good examples 
 

 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
BYZANTINE. 
 
 Iron Hinge, Notre Dame, Paris. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 79 
 
 may be seen in Chalmers’ Sculptured Monuments of 
 Angus. 
 
 The leading forms of Byzantine architecture are like- 
 wise due to the same influence — the cross, the circle, and 
 the dome, pervade everywhere. The dome has its own 
 reference to the vault of heaven, whose living glories 
 were generally represented on the spherical roof of the 
 apse at the end of the Greek Basilicas. This representa- 
 tion is known in the Greek Church as the holy liturgy, 
 or the glorification of Christ, and it often illustrates the 
 dome itself in the centre of the cross. This is the reason 
 that the cross and the dome are so characteristic of early 
 Christian or Byzantine architecture, and indeed of Boman- 
 esque architecture generally. 
 
 Some of the principal Byzantine or Bomanesque 
 churches are developments of the symbol of the five 
 circles or glories : they are placed in the form of a cross, 
 and are surmounted by domes corresponding in size and 
 situation to the circles represented in the pavement below. 
 St. Mark’s at Yenice is a conspicuous example of this 
 symbolic architecture. 
 
 This species of architecture, with the dome and round 
 arch, is termed Bomanesque, as derived immediately from 
 that which prevailed throughout the Boman Empire at 
 that time when from heathen it became Christian : some 
 of its classical types are the Pantheon, the Colosseum, 
 and the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro. Though not 
 Boman absolutely, it is derived from the Boman ; it is 
 debased Boman — Romanesque : it is a general term which 
 distinguishes the round-arch species from the Saracenic 
 and Gothic, which are pointed-arch species. The pre- 
 
8o 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 servation of the dome and arch, however, was probably 
 due rather to the symbolic value of those figures among 
 the Byzantine Greeks than to the mere historic example 
 of the Bomans. 
 
 The chief varieties of the Bomanesque are — the 
 Byzantine, the Lombard, and the Norman.* Both the 
 Lombard and the Norman may, in a technical point of 
 view, be considered mere modifications or varieties of 
 the Byzantine ; certainly few examples of the Bomanesque 
 out of Italy were not derived, directly or indirectly, from 
 Constantinople, or Byzantium, as it was previously called. 
 The style extended to this country as far north as York 
 and Hexham : it is still the standard type in Bussia ; and 
 it is the exclusive model of the whole system of architec- 
 ture of the Mohammedans, from Benares to Cadiz, from 
 Cairo to Damascus. Indeed the Byzantine was so widely 
 spread, and so thoroughly identified with all middle-age 
 art, that its influence did not entirely cease until the 
 establishment of the Benaissance in the fifteenth century : 
 both the Saracenic and the Gothic proceeded from the 
 Byzantine. 
 
 The Greek missionaries carried its influence into the 
 extreme north; and while the artists of Syria were 
 accommodating their style to Mohammedan exclusiveness 
 in the south, in the colder regions of Europe the mysteries 
 of Mount Athos were freely mixed up with the fables of 
 Scandinavian mythology. 
 
 The Scandinavian soldiers, also, of the imperial body- 
 guard, made the talismans of Christian mythology almost 
 
 * See these styles beautifully illustrated in Osten’s “Buildings of 
 Lombardy.” 
 
BYZANTINE. 
 
 Capital. Moissac, France. 
 
 P.80. 
 
 Capital. Germany. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
BYZANTINE-ROMANESQUE. 
 
BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 81 
 
 as familiar in their native homes as the gods of their 
 forefathers. The same mixture became as common even- 
 tually on the portals of Lombardy. 
 
 There is this difference between the Byzantine and the 
 Lombard and Norman varieties, that the symbolism is 
 mere matter of habit in the two latter, and generally, 
 perhaps, though rudely preserved in many forms, is dis- 
 regarded in their spirit; that is, in mere ornamental 
 details, such as the zigzag, dog’s-tooth, nail-head, star, 
 chain, and a host of others : but the symbolic figures 
 and other religious decorations mean exactly what they 
 express. 
 
 As the peculiarly Norman style, such as it is best 
 known in this country, was originally developed in Sicily, 
 it contains, of course, many Saracenic features, of which 
 the pointed arch and the zigzag are the most prominent ; 
 for the Norman, though originally a simple Bomanesque 
 style, eventually adopted in the twelfth century the 
 pointed arch of the Mohammedans.* This style is well 
 developed in the Cathedral of Cefalu in Sicily, built 
 by King Boger in 1132. 
 
 The terms Byzantine and Bomanesque have been used 
 above as almost synonymous. They are so as regards 
 their architectural features; the Byzantine being only a 
 variety of the Bomanesque. In the later centuries they 
 may be considered the same in all respects ; but in the 
 earlier centuries there is an ornamental distinction : the 
 more strictly Bomanesque, or Latin, being a simple 
 debasement of Boman art ; the Byzantine, or Greek, 
 being this art combined with the symbolic elements 
 
 * GaUy Knight, “ Saracenic and Norman Remains in Sicily.” 
 
 M 
 
8z 
 
 BYZANTINE ORNAMENT. 
 
 introduced by the new Christian religion, comprising a 
 peculiar symbolic version also of the old Boman acanthus 
 foliage. The wider signification of the Romanesque , how- 
 ever, is the earlier Christian round arch developments, 
 in contradistinction to the Gothic, or later pointed arch 
 varieties of the North. If any style can be distinguished 
 with the exclusive title of Christian Architecture , it is 
 the Byzantine, of which St. Sophia, at Constantinople, is 
 a magnificent type. 
 
 Byzantine Frieze, from a Church at Bonn. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 Murphy, J. C. — The Arabian Antiquities of Spain; representing in 100 
 engravings the Principal Remains of the Architecture, Sculpture, 
 Paintings, and Mosaics of the Spanish Arabs, from Drawings made on 
 the spot. Large folio. London, 1816. 
 
 Coste, P. — Architecture Arabe, ou Monumens du Kaire, mesures et dessines 
 de 1817 a 1826. Folio. Paris, 1837 — 39. 
 
 Knight, H. Gally. — The Normans in Sicily; being a sequel to “An 
 Architectural Tour in Normandy.” 8vo. London, 1838. 
 
 Saracenic and Norman Remains, to illustrate “ The Normans in 
 
 Sicily.” Folio. London, n. d. 
 
 De Prangey, G. — Essai sur PArchitecture des Arabes et des Mores en 
 Espagne, en Sicile, et en Barbarie. Royal 8vo. Paris, 1841. 
 
 Jones and Goury. — Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the 
 Alhambra. From Drawings taken on the spot in 1834 by the late 
 M. Jules Goury, and in 1834 and 1837 by Owen Jones. With a 
 complete Translation of the Arabic Inscriptions, and an Historical 
 Notice of the Kings of Granada from the Conquest of that city by the 
 Arabs to the Expulsion of the Moors, by M. Pasqual de Gayangos. 
 Folio. London, 1842. 
 
 Hessemer. — Saracenic and Old Italian Building Decorations. 
 
 Arabische und Alt-Italienische Bau-verzierungen. 120 chromo- 
 lithographs. 2nd edition, folio. Berlin, 1853. 
 
 Bisson, M. — Choix d’Ornements Arabes de P Alhambra, offrant dans leur 
 ensemble une synthese de Pornementation Mauresque en Espagne au 
 XIII 6 Siecle. Reproduits en photographe. 4to. Paris, 1853. 
 
SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 Cairo. 
 
 We will now consider the second medieval style — the 
 Saracenic. Its principles are soon stated : the Arabs had 
 not art or artists of their own; they came from their 
 deserts, with no more taste or knowledge of such matters 
 than a mere love of finery could give them ; they could 
 not but be struck by the gorgeous display of such cities 
 as Damascus, which fell into their hands in 634 a.d. ; 
 new ambitions arose with their new power, and the 
 Byzantine artists were pressed into the service of the 
 Arabian caliphs and generals, and ordered to raise rich 
 mosques and palaces. Damascus, Cairo, and Cordova, 
 show the admirable ingenuity with which they accommo- 
 dated themselves to their new circumstances. The con- 
 ditions of the new Mohammedan law were stringent: in 
 endless designs in mosaic, marquetry, or in stucco, there 
 was to be no image of a living thing, vegetable or animal. 
 Such conditions led to a very individual style of decora- 
 tion : vegetable forms were now excluded for the first 
 
SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 85 
 
 time. However, by the seventh century, when the 
 works of the Saracens commenced, the Byzantine Greeks 
 were already sufficiently skilful to make light of such 
 exclusions, and the exertion of ingenuity which they 
 impelled gave rise to a more beautiful simply ornamental 
 style than perhaps any that had preceded it, for there was 
 no division of the artistic mind now between meaning 
 and effect; and although the religious cycles and other 
 symbolic figures which had hitherto engrossed so much 
 of the artist’s attention were excluded, the mere con- 
 ventional ornamental symbolism, the ordinary forms 
 borrowed from the classic periods, and geometrical sym- 
 metry, left an abundant field behind, which was further 
 enriched by the peculiarly Saracenic custom of elaborating 
 inscriptions into their designs. Mere curves and angles 
 or interlacings were now to bear the chief burden of a 
 design, but distinguished by a variety of colour; the 
 curves, however, very naturally fell into the standard 
 forms and floral shapes, and the lines and angles were 
 soon developed into a very characteristic species of 
 tracery or interlaced strap-work, very agreeably diversified 
 by the ornamental introduction of the inscriptions. And 
 although flowers were not palpably admitted, the great 
 mass of the minor details of Saracenic designs are com- 
 posed of flower forms disguised; the very inscriptions 
 are sometimes thus grouped as flowers : this is especially 
 the case in the later works of the Alhambra; still no 
 actual flower ever occurs, as the exclusion of all natural 
 images is the fundamental of the style in its purity. 
 
 The omission of the crescent in Saracenic or Moham- 
 medan work generally is worth notice. It now crowns 
 
86 
 
 SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 the great mosques of Constantinople, but it is not to be 
 found in any early work, and it appears to be itself 
 simply the trophy of the conquest of the Greek capital 
 of Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium, of which it was 
 the symbol, the town on one occasion having, accord- 
 ing to an old tradition, been preserved from a night 
 ambuscade by the timely appearance of the new moon ; 
 it occurs on old Byzantine coins. Constantinople was 
 not captured by the Turks until 1453. 
 
 One of the greatest works produced under these cir- 
 cumstances was the magnificent mosque of Touloun at 
 Cairo, a monument of the ninth century (876 a.d.), and 
 the recorded work of a Greek. The ornaments are in 
 stucco, and altogether offer the most characteristic example 
 of the combination of Byzantine and Saracenic elements. 
 With the Saracenic tracery and inscriptions, and other 
 peculiar forms, we have combined several of the most 
 popular ancient ornaments in their Byzantine garb, but 
 somewhat more than ordinarily modified, as the fret, 
 anthemion, the guilloche, the horns of plenty, and the 
 fieur-de-lis. 
 
 The more characteristic detail, that is, the original 
 Saracenic elements, the disguised conventional foliage 
 spoken of, is very beautifully elaborated in some of the 
 accessory works of this mosque. They became standards 
 to after ages ; for the details of the diaper-tiles of the 
 Alhambra, executed some five hundred years afterwards, 
 are in many respects nearly identical with these details of 
 the mosque of Touloun at Cairo. 
 
 In all these early Arabian buildings of Cairo we have 
 the pointed arch, which appears first, I believe, in the 
 
SARACENIC. 
 
 P. 86. 
 
 Alhambra Diaper. 
 
SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 87 
 
 great mosque of Amrou, a work of the seventh century 
 (G41 a.d) ; but the ogee, the crescent, and the scalloped 
 arches, are more characteristic, perhaps, of Saracenic 
 architecture generally, as the pointed arch has been 
 made familiar by a later style ; but the simple round 
 Eomanesque arch also occurs in the Moorish works of 
 Spain. This style became gradually richer as it advanced 
 westwards from Egypt to Sicily, and especially in Spain, 
 where the Alhambra, a work of the fourteenth century, 
 still remains to bear witness to its unparalleled richness of 
 detail. 
 
 There is not much pure Saracenic work in Sicily ; the 
 palace of La Ziza, at Palermo, is, perhaps, the only 
 example : there are, however, some magnificent Siculo- 
 Norman remains of the twelfth century at Palermo, 
 Monreale, Cefalu, and Messina, in which Greek or 
 Saracenic artists were engaged ; and the glass mosaics 
 in these places are among the finest specimens of their 
 class existing : they exhibit some exquisite examples of 
 tracery or interlacing. 
 
 The Saracenic was the period of gorgeous diapers, for 
 their habit of decorating the entire surfaces of their 
 apartments was peculiarly favourable to the development 
 of this class of design : the Alhambra displays almost 
 endless specimens, and all are in relief and enriched 
 with gold and colour, chiefly blue and red. Some give 
 the idea of being more endurable imitations of the rich 
 woollens of Cashmere, which the Arabs always made 
 great store of. The Genoa damasks, Arras tapestries, 
 and modern paper-hangings, are all imitations of these 
 Saracenic wall diapers. The very word “ Damask ” means 
 
88 
 
 SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 Damascus work. Damascus, however, was famous for 
 such fabrics before its conquest by the Arabs. It was 
 called Damesk, and was a place of repute even in the 
 time of Abraham. 
 
 Damascus is still famous for its textile fabrics in a 
 pure Saracenic taste, and it produces a great variety of 
 patterns in silk and in cotton, the designs of which are chiefly 
 stripes and inscriptions, good wishes or pious sentences.* 
 The Siculo-Norman, from which our round zigzag 
 
 (Ziza), and the pointed Nor- 
 man, are derived, is as much 
 a variety of the Saracenic 
 as of the Byzantine : it is 
 indeed a free combination 
 of the two styles ; for the 
 reserved mixture of the two 
 hitherto practised had its 
 Christian character restored 
 to it by the Normans, 
 through the introduction of 
 sacred figures, and a j)ro- 
 
 Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire. . . 
 
 mmence which they gave to 
 all the most palpable Christian symbols, more especially the 
 
 * This style has of late years found its way into our railway carriages : 
 worsted borders, in which the initials of the company are worked as an 
 ornamental pattern, right and left, and upside down, as in the Eastern 
 examples, are now common. The mock inscriptions on the borders of 
 rich robes, in early Italian pictures, are also derived from oriental models. 
 The richest stuffs were from the East, and were decorated with Arabic 
 inscriptions ; the old painters accordingly, when from a spirit of veneration 
 they dressed their saints in rich robes, were very particular in the elaboration 
 of their border decorations, which necessarily implied a robe of a costly 
 oriental fabric. There are several examples of such borders in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
SARACENIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 89 
 
 Cross, which never occurs in genuine Saracenic work. 
 This renders the Siculo-Norman a very complete style, and 
 it is displayed in great magnificence in the cathedral of 
 Messina. 
 
 The Alhambra does not exhibit that Byzantine charac- 
 ter in its details which we find in Sicily or in the 
 Mosques of Cairo : all the peculiar Arabian features are 
 preserved, but the scroll and anthemion, which are often 
 in very rich development on the monuments of Cairo, 
 can with difficulty be traced in the Alhambra. We 
 
 discover the scroll in some of the interlacings, and 
 there is a fan-shape which recalls the anthemion. 
 
 The artists of the Alhambra were probably exclusively 
 Saracenic. The beauty of this palace is in its general 
 richness of effect, in its endless combinations of columns, 
 arches, and gorgeous surfaces ; its gold and silver flowers, 
 and its intricate tracery, which all combine to give the 
 impression of extraordinary splendour as a whole, though 
 no particular part commands any special admiration. 
 
 House at Damascus. 
 
CHAPTEB XII. 
 
 GOTHIC OENAMENT. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 De Laboede, Le Comte Alexandee. — Les Monumens de la France, 
 classes chronologiquement, et consideres sous le Rapport des Faits 
 historiques et de l’Etude des Arts. 2 vols. folio. Paris, 1816-36. 
 
 Caetek, J. — The Ancient Architecture of England, including the Orders 
 during the British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman Eras; and under the 
 reigns of Henry III. and Edward III. Illustrated by 109 engravings. 
 A new and improved edition, with Notes and copious Indexes, by 
 John Britton. Polio. London, 1837. 
 
 Specimens of the Ancient Sculpture and Painting now remaining 
 
 in England, from the earliest period to the reign of Henry VIII. 
 Exhibited in 1 20 plates, drawn and etched by J. Carter. With Critical 
 and Historical Illustrations by Francis Douce, Richard Gough, John 
 Fenn, J. S. Hawkins, William Bray, and the Rev. J. Milner. A new 
 and improved edition, arranged in topographical order, and illustrated 
 with copious notes by Dawson Turner, Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, 
 John Britton, and others. Folio. London, 1838. 
 
 Beitton, J. — The Cathedral Antiquities of England. 5 vols. 4to. 
 London, 1836. 
 
 Pugin, A. W. — Specimens of Gothic Architecture, selected from various 
 Ancient Edifices in England, consisting of plans, elevations, sections, 
 and parts at large, &c. The literary part by J. E. Willson. 3 vols. 
 3rd edition, corrected and revised. 4to. London, 1821 — 50. 
 
 Popp, J., and Buleau, Th.— The Three Ages of Gothic Architecture. 
 
 Les Trois Ages de F Architecture Gothique, son origine, sa theorie, 
 demontres et represents par des Exemples choisis a Ratisbonne, &c. 
 Folio. Paris, 1841. 
 
 Boiseeee, S. — Histoire et Description de la Cathedrale de Cologne. Pour 
 servir de texte aux Vues, Plans, Coupes, et Details de l’Edifice. Nouvelle 
 edition refaite et augmentee. Plates, folio; text, 4to. Munich, 1842 — 43. 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 9i 
 
 Kallenbach, G. G. yon. — A Tabular History of German Medieval 
 Architecture. 
 
 Atlas zur Geschichte der Deutsch-Mittelalterlichen Baukunst, in 
 86 tafeln. Folio. Munich, 1847. 
 
 Brandon, R. and J. A. — An Analysis of Gothic Architecture, illustrated by 
 a series of upwards of seven hundred examples of Doorways, Windows, 
 &c., and accompanied with Remarks on the several details of an 
 Ecclesiastical Edifice. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1847. 
 
 Blackburne, E. L. — Sketches, Graphic, and Descriptive, for a History of 
 the Decorative Painting applied to English Architecture during the 
 Middle Ages. 4to. London, 1847. 
 
 Colling, J. K. — Gothic Ornaments, being a series of examples of enriched 
 Details and Accessories of the Architecture of Great Britain. Drawn 
 from existing authorities. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1850. 
 
 Lacroix and Sere. — The Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Manners and 
 Customs, Sciences, and Art, &c., with fac-simile illustrations. 
 
 Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, Histoire et Description des Moeurs 
 et Usages, du Commerce et de l’lndustrie, des Sciences, des Arts, 
 des Litteratures et des Beaux Arts en Europe. Direction litteraire 
 de M. Paul Lacroix. Direction artistique de M. Ferdinand Sere. 
 Dessins fac-similes par M. A. Rivaud. 5 vols. 4to. Paris, 1848 — 51. 
 
 Gailhabatjd, J. — On Architecture from the fifth to the sixteenth century, 
 and the Arts depending on it — Sculpture, Wall-Painting, Glass-Painting, 
 Mosaic, Ironwork, &c. 
 
 L’ Architecture du Y e au XVI e Siecle, et les Arts qui en dependent, 
 le Sculpture, la Peinture murale, la Peinture sur Verre, la Mosaique, 
 la Ferronnerie, &c., publies d’apres les travaux inedits des princi- 
 paux Architectes Fra^ais et Etrangers. 4to. Paris, 1851, et seq. 
 
 Becker and Hefner. — Works of Art and Utensils of the Middle Ages and 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 Kunstwerke und Gerathschaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. 
 By C. Becker and J. von Hefner. 2 vols. 4to. Frankfurt, 1852. 
 
 Stroobant, F. — Monumens d’ Architecture et de Sculpture en Belgique. 
 Texte par Felix Stappaerts. 4to. Bruxelles, 1852. 
 
 King, T. H. — Jewellery and Metal Work of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Orfevrerie et Ouvrages en Metal du Moyen Age. (Designed from 
 old examples.) Folio. Bruges, 1852, et seq. 
 
 Waring, J. B. — Architectural, Sculptural, and Picturesque Studies in 
 Burgos and its Neighbourhood. Folio. London, 1852. 
 
 Wickes, C. — Illustrations of the Spires and Towers of the Medieval 
 Churches of England. Preceded by some Observations on the Architec- 
 ture of the Middle Ages, and its Spire Growth. 2 vols. folio. London, 
 1853 — 55. 
 
 Dollman and Jobbins. — An Analysis of Ancient Domestic Architecture in 
 Great Britain. 4to. London, 1860. 
 
9 2 
 
 GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 The third and last great middle-age style was the Gothic. 
 Of this I can remark only as regards its general principles, 
 to fully explain all its subdivisions of style would occupy 
 much space. 
 
 It grew out of the Byzantine, and flourished chiefly 
 on the Bhine, in the north of France, and in England. 
 Salisbury Cathedral, a.d. 1221, the first great work of 
 the kind in this country, is a work of the French, but 
 in style it was a genuine Norman beginning. The 
 Gothic was developed in the thirteenth century, and 
 was perfected in the fourteenth ; its most characteristic 
 monument, perhaps, is Cologne Cathedral, which was 
 consecrated in the year 1322; in the fifteenth century 
 it rapidly declined, and it became quite extinct, in this 
 country at least, in the sixteenth ; a catastrophe doubt- 
 less involved by the Beformation. 
 
 England has had seven ecclesiastical styles, extending 
 over a space of about five hundred years only, from the 
 death of Edward the Confessor, 1066, to the death of 
 Queen Mary, 1558, when all ecclesiastical architecture 
 ceased ; and the Tudor was superseded by the Benais- 
 sance in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 The seven styles are, — 
 
 1. The Saxon, or simple round arch, Bomanesque. 
 
 2. The round Norman (zigzag style). 
 
 3. The pointed Norman, or transition (Henry II., or 
 first Plantagenet style). 
 
 4. The early English Gothic (Henry III., or second 
 Plantagenet style). 
 
 5. The decorated Gothic (the Edwards, the third 
 Plantagenet style). 
 
GOTHIC. 
 
 P. 92. 
 
 The Lynn Cup. c. 1400. 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT 
 
 93 
 
 6. The perpendicular Gothic (Henry VII., or Lan- 
 castrian). 
 
 7. The debased Perpendicular, or flat (Henry VIII., 
 or Tudor). 
 
 Thus during the period of the seven Edwards there were 
 seven styles, the duration of each of which was, on an 
 average, about seventy years (1066 — 1556), or about the 
 period of the personal influence of an individual by his 
 own direct efforts, and that of his school or followers 
 combined. The history of architecture shows a suc- 
 cession of changes in most countries, but in England 
 these changes have been singularly rapid and regular. 
 
 In this period of the development of the ecclesiastical 
 styles it is remarkable how little the notion of a style 
 existed, and how regardless the builders, or masons, of 
 one age were of the sentiment or aim of those of a 
 previous age. Few subjects show such perfect want of 
 accord as the building of our cathedrals. In every case 
 where a great ecclesiastical work has been suspended, 
 and renewed after intervals, those who have carried on 
 the enterprise have done so invariably utterly regard- 
 less of the character of the work already executed ; the 
 practice of the day exclusively defined the character of 
 the work, as if the practical education of the handi- 
 craftsman, his accidental skill, were the paramount 
 source of the whole scheme and system of ornamental 
 varieties ; each mason working out only such forms as 
 had occupied his time in the years of his apprentice- 
 ship. There are not many matters on which the English 
 people have been more deluded of late years than on the 
 subject of the nationality and the Christianity of Gothic 
 
94 
 
 GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 architecture. Gothic is of comparatively very late de- 
 velopment, and endured at most in this country for 
 about three centuries ; it is by no means English in 
 its origin, and so far from having any determinate unity 
 in its character, it displays, as already shown, a con- 
 tinued succession of changes. Its religious elements 
 are Byzantine. As regards Christianity of style, the 
 most Christian architecture is literally that of the Mo- 
 hammedan mosques, which owe their forms to the early 
 Christian symbolism, as developed by the Byzantine 
 Greeks. 
 
 Three only of the above styles, the fourth, fifth, and 
 sixth, are what can be strictly termed Gothic : the two 
 first are round arch, and belong to the Byzantine or 
 Bomanesque varieties ; the third is the simple transition 
 from the round to the pointed styles ; and the seventh 
 is the transition back again from those styles in which 
 the arch is so prominent a feature, to the Benaissance 
 varieties, in which the arch becomes again round, and 
 loses its importance as a principal elementary feature 
 of style. 
 
 The general characteristics of the Gothic, as an archi- 
 tectural style, are these : — It is essentially pointed or 
 vertical in its tendency, and in its detail is geometrical — 
 in its window-tracery, in its openings, in its clusters of 
 shafts and bases, and in its suits of mouldings — but it 
 is only geometrical in its construction, or in its form, 
 not in its spirit or motive. 
 
 All the symbolic elements of the Byzantine are con- 
 tinued in the Gothic ; but the pointed arch is substituted 
 for the round. There is a close traditional connection in 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 95 
 
 all the ordinary details, though the virulence of the 
 image controversy, and other differences, between the 
 Greek and Latin Churches, doubtless had some influence 
 in the development of a change of style; for we find 
 that where the Greek Church has prevailed there has 
 been, until very recently, no essential change whatever 
 in ecclesiastical architecture. It is unquestionable, how- 
 ever, that climate has had something to do also with 
 the peculiar development of the Gothic ; it has flourished 
 only in cold regions subject to much rain and snow, and 
 a Gothic church frequently looks very like a fortification 
 against the weather, with its high-pitched roof, solid 
 buttresses, and narrow doors and windows. As I have 
 already explained, the pointed arch, one of the charac- 
 teristics of the Gothic, is not peculiar to it; it had 
 already existed five hundred years in Egypt, and is the 
 common form of the Siculo-Norman arch. 
 
 The Gothic is chiefly distinguished from the Byzantine 
 and the Latin Bomanesque varieties, by the universal 
 absence of the dome, and the substitution of the pointed 
 for the round arch. The union of the belfry with the 
 church is not peculiar to the Gothic, though in the great 
 Bomanesque examples they are distinct, as at Venice 
 and Pisa; they are also distinct at Florence, and many 
 other Italian towns ; nor are the towers in the place of 
 the domes peculiar to the Gothic, they are common in 
 the Norman Bomanesque in Sicily, in Germany, and in 
 this country, as at Ely, Peterborough, and elsewhere. 
 The spire is the pointed roof of the tower, and both 
 doubtless originally owed their development as much to 
 use as to ornament : in thinly-populated and only half- 
 
 
g6 
 
 GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 cleared countries, such as England was in the middle 
 ages, a tower or spire was a landmark performing other 
 useful services besides that of simply indicating the 
 locality of the church, or securing the proper elevation 
 of its bells. 
 
 The transition added the spire to the old tower of 
 the Bomanesque and Norman, and it is a common feature 
 of the Gothic; while the square abacus and the heavy 
 cushion capitals of these styles, with their simple incised 
 ornaments, are converted, in the transition, to the round 
 abacus and the bell-shaped capital, decorated with 
 raised foliage, and eventually elaborated into infinite 
 variety in the Gothic styles. 
 
 Ornamentally the Gothic is the geometrical and pointed 
 element elaborated to its utmost, its only peculiarities 
 are its combinations of details ; at first the conventional 
 and the geometrical prevailing, and afterwards these 
 combined with the elaboration of natural objects in its 
 decoration. The Byzantines never did this, their orna- 
 ments were purely conventional ; while in the finest 
 Gothic specimens we find not only the traditional con- 
 ventional ornaments, but in the decorated period also 
 elaborate imitations of the plants and flowers growing 
 in the neighbourhood of the work. This is a great 
 feature ; but still the most striking feature of all Gothic 
 work is the wonderful elaboration of its geometric tracery 
 — vesicas, trefoils, quatrefoils, cinquefoils, and an infinity 
 of geometric varieties besides. The tracery is so para- 
 mount a characteristic that the three English varieties, 
 the Early English, the Decorated, and the Perpendicular, 
 are distinguished almost exclusively by this feature; it 
 

 GOTHIC. 
 
 Spandril, Stone Chnrch, Kent. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

GOTHIC. 
 
 Crocket, Lincoln. 
 
 Tooth Ornament, Stone Church, Kent. 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 97 
 
 is tlie same with the French flamboyant — the flame 
 style, from the waving lines of its tracery. The tracery, 
 indeed, establishes the fact of a style being Gothic or 
 not, for the Byzantine contains only the symbolic folia- 
 tions ; so the pointed style called “Transition” is not 
 Gothic, because it has no tracery. 
 
 The first Gothic in this country is the Early English, 
 in which we have the first development of geometrical 
 window-tracery ; mullions instead of piers ; windows of 
 several lights ; flying buttresses, crocheted pinnacles, com- 
 plicated mouldings, the columns clustered, and the capitals 
 generally round ; an extensive application of foliage, with 
 the trefoil leaf, commonly called the Early-English leaf, as 
 the most characteristic ornament. It is sometimes as formal 
 as a clover leaf, at other times very irregularly formed, 
 but always with a fulness or ronndness of the parts, as 
 contrasted with the somewhat similar, but flat or even 
 hollow Byzantine or Norman foliage, of which it is a 
 variation. 
 
 The so-called tooth, or dog’s-tooth, the most character- 
 
 From the Temple Church. 
 
 0 
 
98 
 
 GOTHIC ORNAMENT 
 
 istic ornamental detail of the previous pointed style, the 
 Transition, occurs comparatively rarely in the Early 
 English, and in the early specimens only, and con- 
 siderably varied in detail. This ornament was probably 
 in its original form a simple vesica cross, but being 
 contracted to fill hollows was developed into its ordinary 
 character, so common in early Plantagenet, or Transition 
 work. 
 
 Upon the Early English succeeded the Decorated, chiefly 
 characterised by a more magnificent development of the 
 leading elements of the Early English, more especially the 
 tracery ; but it has its own features — the ogee arch, and 
 the pinnacled canopied recesses of the buttresses, and other 
 parts, producing a prominence of diagonal lines. The 
 so-called ball-flower, and the common serpentine vine- 
 scroll, are the most characteristic details of this period. 
 There is also more nature, or imitation, in the details than 
 in any other of the Gothic varieties. 
 
 In the third variety, the Perpendicular, the new features 
 are the horizontal line, the panellings, and the substitution 
 of perpendicular for flowing tracery. And the execution 
 of the ornamental details is very conventional. The most 
 prominent bar of the tracery is the mullion itself, so that 
 the prevalent panelling of the style is also prominent in 
 the window tracery, composed of mullion upon mullion, or 
 mullion and supermullion, being separated by a horizontal 
 bar, termed a transom. This divides the lights into vertical 
 panes or panels, and the same panelling (of which fan- 
 tracery is also an example) is spread over every surface of 
 the buildings of this period, developing that style which I 
 have termed Lancastrian, commonly known as the Perpen- 
 
GOTHIC. 
 
 Pedestal, Henry VII. ’s Chapel. 
 
 T. 98. 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT . 
 
 99 
 
 dicular : it is the great style of the fifteenth century in 
 this country. 
 
 The natural freedom of the details occasionally displayed 
 in the Decorated, is now lost in a formal conventionality in 
 the Perpendicular ; which displays an execution of these 
 parts much more analogous to German work, and the 
 original Byzantine elements from which Gothic forms 
 generally were indirectly derived. The crockets also of 
 perpendicular work are, like the foliage, very formal, 
 exhibiting a square cruciform arrangement in the details 
 of the leaves, and a uniform character, more analogous to 
 sea-weed than ordinary leaves, in the foliage generally. 
 
 The Tudor is scarcely a Gothic ; the art in it returns 
 to what it was in the Roman- 
 esque, and again becomes 
 horizontal. Its great features 
 are the flat arch, the square 
 dripstone, and the rectangular 
 spandril, a necessary deve- 
 lopment of the square drip- 
 stone over the arch. The 
 running ornament known as 
 the Tudor flower, and con- 
 spicuous, because almost alone, 
 in buildings of this cha- 
 racter, is a remnant of the old Byzantine. Its name of 
 Tudor-flower is appropriate only in the sense that it is 
 almost the only medieval ornament preserved in that style : 
 the original type of this ornament is the old Byzantine alter- 
 nation of the lily and the cross, common as the decoration 
 of a crown, and for edges or borders of many other kinds. 
 
 All Saints, Fearing, Essex. 
 
100 
 
 GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 There are five orders of arches which distinguish these 
 several ecclesiastical styles generally, namely — the round, 
 the pointed, the ogee, the four-centred, and the flat : the 
 pointed itself comprising three varieties — the lancet, the 
 pointed, and the drop arch ; in the first the pitch being 
 greater than the span, in the second equal to it, and in the 
 last less. 
 
 In ornamental art generally, then, as in architecture, it 
 is geometrical tracery which will stamp a design with a 
 Gothic character : decorate it with natural flowers only, it 
 will still be Gothic ; it would be necessarily made much 
 more characteristic by the introduction of some of the 
 historic ornaments of the period, — as the Tudor-flower, 
 fleur-de-lis, crocket-leaf, trefoil or Early English leaf, 
 vine-scroll, or any other of the more familiar ornaments 
 of the slyle. As, however, the Gothic is a style which 
 has flourished exclusively in cold countries, its ornaments 
 of a natural class to be characteristic should be from such 
 plants as are native to Gothic latitudes ; tropical plants 
 would be inconsistent. Throughout we should prefer the 
 wild plants of the north to the more exuberant flowers of 
 the south. All exotics, in fact, that are not symbols, 
 should be unconditionally excluded. The characteristic 
 Norman ornaments are not admissible in the Gothic, with 
 the exception of the tooth, and that is peculiarly ren- 
 dered. 
 
 Classical ornaments, likewise, are of course excluded; 
 even the scroll occurs only in the Gothic as a serpentine. 
 Gothic ornaments independent of the tracery are nearly 
 exclusively fruit, flowers, or leaves ; and as a general rule, 
 their execution is extremely rude. 
 
GOTHIC ORNAMENT. 
 
 ioi 
 
 Sucli is a rough outline of the course of ornamental art 
 
 among the most prominent people of medieval history, for 
 
 * 
 
 a period of more than a thousand years. We have seen 
 that all varieties, however individual in character, are 
 intimately connected with those which preceded them ; an 
 advantage once gained was not allowed to be lost ; and the 
 remarkable transition from the Byzantine to the Saracenic, 
 so totally different in spirit and in detail, yet both deve- 
 loped by the same artists, shows that it is not from a 
 persevering manual routine that variety and beauty are to 
 be derived, but from the active intelligence of the con- 
 trolling mind. 
 
 Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. 
 
THE 
 
 MODERN OR RENAISSANCE STYLES. 
 
 FOUR LECTURES.* 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 JuvarrA. Cay. D. F. — Collection of Shields, from the Originals in Rome. 
 
 Raccolta di Targhe fatte da’ Professori primari in Roma, disegnate, 
 ed intagliate dal Cav. D. Filippo Juvarra. (Renaissance Sculpture.) 
 4to. Rome, 1722. 
 
 Baltard. — Paris et ses Monumens, mesures, dessines, et graves, avec des 
 Descriptions historiques par le Citoyen Amaury Duval: Louvre, St. 
 Cloud, Fontainebleau, Chateau d’Ecouen, &c. 2 vols. large folio. 
 
 Paris, 1803-5. 
 
 Willemin, N. X. — Monuments Francais inedits pour servir a l’Histoire des 
 Arts, depuis le VI® Siecle jusqu’au commencement du XVII e . Choix 
 de Costumes civils et militaires, d’Armes, Armures, Instruments de 
 Musique, Meubles de toute espece, et de Decorations interieures et 
 exterieures des Maisons. Dessines, graves, et colories d’apres les 
 originaux. Classes chronologiquement et accompagnes d’un texte 
 historique et descriptif, par Andre Pottier. 6 vols. small folio. Paris, 
 1806-39. 
 
 * ON THE ORNAMENT OF THE RENAISSANCE, 1849-50. 
 
 Syllabus. 
 
 Lecture I. — Introduction— The Trecento. 
 
 The Renaissance (Rinascimento), or Revival. Definition — Varieties. The 
 Trecento (1300) dates from about the Venetian Conquest of Constanti- 
 nople, 1204 a.d. Interlacings and delicate Scroll-work of Conventional 
 Foliage. Byzantine, in its original elements; a mixture of Venetian 
 and Siculo-Norman Ornament. 
 
 The great Artists, the great Decorators — Maestro Lapo, Arnolfo di Lapo, 
 Giunta Pisano, Niccola Pisano, Giotto, Orcagna, Brunelleschi, Alberti. 
 Revival of the Round Arch and the Classical Orders. 
 
THE MODERN OR RENAISSANCE STYLES. 
 
 103 
 
 Sommerard, A. Du. — Les Arts au Moyen Age. (Collection of the Hotel de 
 Clugny.) Text, 0 yols. 8vo.; plates, 6 yols. folio. Paris, 1836-46. 
 Lacroix and Sere. — The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Manners and 
 Customs, Sciences and Arts, &c.; with fac-simile illustrations. 
 
 Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, Histoire et Description des Mceurs 
 et Usages du Commerce et de l’lndustrie, des Sciences, des Arts, 
 des Litteratures, et des Beaux Arts en Europe. Direction litteraire 
 de M. Paul Lacroix. Direction artistique de M. Ferdinand Sere. 
 Dessins fac-similes par M. A. Riyaud. 5 vols. 4to. Paris, 1848-51. 
 Becker and Hefner. — Works of Art and Utensils of the Middle Ages and 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 Kunstwerke und Gerathschaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. 
 By C. Becker and J. yon Hefner. Many coloured plates, 2 vols. 
 4to. Frankfort, 1852. 
 
 Russian Empire. — Ecclesiastical, Imperial, and other Antiquities of the 
 Russian Empire. Published by Supreme Command. (Russian text.) 
 Produced under the direction of an Imperial Commission. By S. 
 Stroganov, M. Zagoskin, J. Snegirev, and A. Th. Yeltman. Division 1. 
 Ecclesiastical Antiquities ; 2. Imperial Insignia, Dresses, &c. ; 3. Arms 
 and Armour ; 4. Costume, Pictures, and Portraits ; 5. Furniture, 
 Jewellery, &c. ; 6. Architecture and Decoration. Text, 6 vols. 4to. ; 
 plates, 6 vols. Folio. St. Petersburg, 1852. 
 
 Durelli, G. and F. — The Charter House of Pavia. 
 
 La Certosa di Pavia descritta ed illustrata con tavole incise dai fratelli 
 Gaetano e Francesco Durelli. 62 plates. Folio. Milan, 1853. 
 Berain, Jean. — Collection of Ornamental Designs. Mural Chimneypieces, 
 and other Decorations, Cinquecento, Renaissance, and Louis Quatorze. 
 137 plates, engraved by Daigremont, Scotin, and others. Folio. Paris, 
 c. 1670—1700. 
 
 Lecture II. — The Renaissance — The Quattrocento. 
 
 The Quattrocentro (1400). Tradition superseded by Selection. Natural 
 Imitations in the Details, and the symmetrical Arabesques from Ancient 
 Sculpture, added to the elements of the previous style, with occasional 
 Cartouches, or scrolled Shield-work. Lucca della Robbia — Enamelled 
 Pottery. Andrea Pisano. Iron and Bronze-work — The Gates of the 
 Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence. Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1403-52. 
 Niello-Work. Tommaso Finiguerra. Metal-plate engraving, 1452. 
 The Renaissance as an Epoch and as a Style. 
 
 Lecture III. — The Cinquecento. 
 
 The Cinquecento (1500), the predominant Italian style of the Sixteenth 
 Century, the ultimate goal of the Renaissance. A perfect restoration of 
 Classical Ornament of the Roman period, to the exclusion of all alien 
 forms, with an especial elaboration of the Arabesques and Scrolls, and 
 grotesque combinations of Vegetable and Animal Forms: a purely 
 aesthetic, or sensuous development of Ornament. 
 
io4 THE MODERN OR RENAISSANCE S TELES. 
 
 Berain, Chauveau, and Le Moine. — Decorations of the Apollo Gallery, 
 Louyre, &c. 
 
 Ornemens de Peinture et de Sculpture, qui sont dans la Galerie 
 d’ Apollon, au Chateau du Louvre, et dans le grand Appartement 
 du Roy au Palais des Tuileries. Dessinez et gravez par les Sieurs 
 Berain, Chauveau, et Le Moine. (Pine Examples of the Renais- 
 sance and the Louis Quatorze.) Folio. Paris, 1710. 
 
 Lepautre. — Collection de plus belles Compositions de Lepautre. Folio. 
 Paris, 1854. 
 
 Versailles. — Souvenir d’une Promenade a Versailles. Vues Interieures. 
 Folio. Paris, 1843. 
 
 Palmer, 0. F. — The History and Illustrations of a House in the Eliza- 
 bethan Style of Architecture, the property of John Danby Palmer, Esq., 
 and situated in the borough town of Great Yarmouth and Norfolk. The 
 drawings and engravings by H. Shaw, F.S. A. Small folio. London, 1838. 
 
 Petit, V. — Chateaux de la Vallee de la Loire des XV e , XVI e , et commence- 
 ment du XVII e siecles. Folio. Paris, 1857, et seq. 
 
 Pfnor et Ramee. — Chateaux de la Renaissance. Monographie du Chateau 
 de Heidelberg. Folio. Paris, 1857. 
 
 Berty, A. — La Renaissance Monumentale en France. Specimens de 
 composition et d’ornementation architectoniques empruntes aux edifices 
 construits depuis le regne de Charles VIII, jusqu’a celui de Louis XIV. 
 4to. Paris, 1858. 
 
 Richardson, C. J. — Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and 
 James I., from accurate Drawings and Measurements taken from existing 
 Specimens. Folio. London, 1840. 
 
 Studies from Old English Mansions, their Furniture, Gold and 
 
 Silver Plate, &c. 5 vols. small folio. London, 1841-48. 
 
 The Vatican. Bramante. Raphael. Julio Romano. Oil and Fresco. 
 Venice. The Lombardi. Benvenuto Cellini. Alessandro Vittoria. 
 Majolica- ware. Bernard Palissy. Illustrated Books. Copyright in 
 Designs. General Education of the Decorator. 
 
 Lecture IV. — The Elizabethan — The Louis Quatorze. 
 
 The Elizabethan, the English version of the Renaissance, a partial elabora- 
 tion of the Tracery or Strap-work, and the Cartouches or scrolled Shield- 
 work of that style. Examples from Old English Mansions. Palladio. 
 Inigo Jones. Sir Christopher Wren. Grinling Gibbons. 
 
 The Louis Quatorze (1643 — 1715), of Italian Origin. The Scroll and Shell 
 chief characteristics. General Debasement of Classical Ornament ; mere 
 play of Light and Shade ; Decorations in the Flat superseded by Stucco, 
 and Colour by Gold. Versailles. 
 
 The Louis Quinze (1715 — 74). Disregard of Symmetry. The Rococo, the 
 Coquillage; all flat surfaces in ornamental details antagonistic to the 
 Louis Quatorze varieties. General Debasement of Ornament. Total 
 want of Individuality of Design. Munich, a new Revival — Ludwig I. 
 Gaertner and Klenze. 
 
THE MODERN OR RENAISSANCE STYLES. 
 
 105 
 
 Nash, J. — The Mansions of England in the Olden Time. 4 vols. folio. 
 London, 1839 — 49. 
 
 Waring and Macqtjoid. — Examples of Architectural Art in Italy and 
 Spain, chiefly of the 13th and 16th centuries. Folio. London, 1850. 
 Waring, J. B. — Art-Treasures of the United Kingdom ; consisting of 
 Examples selected from the Manchester Art-Treasures Exhibition, 1857. 
 With descriptive Essays by Owen Jones, M. Digby Wyatt, A. W. Franks, 
 J. C. Robinson, George Scharf, jun., and J. B. Waring. 4to. London, 1857. 
 
 Tim Arts connected with Architecture, illustrated by examples in 
 
 Central Italy, from the 13th to the 15th century. Folio. London, 1858. 
 Worntjm, R. N. — Catalogue of Ornamental Casts, in the possession of the 
 Department of Science and Art. Third Division: Renaissance Styles. 
 With Illustrations on Wood, engraved by the Female Students of the 
 Wood-Engraving Class. Published by Authority. 8vo. London, 1854. 
 
 Marble Panel, Santa Maria de’ Miracoli, Venice, by Tullio Lombardi, c. 1500. 
 
 The term Renaissance is used in a double sense : in a 
 general sense implying the revival of art, and specially 
 signifying a peculiar style of ornament, that is, implying 
 both an epoch and a style. The original idea of the 
 Rinascimento , or re-birth, which is the literal meaning 
 of the term, was purely architectural ; the restoration of 
 classical ornament did not immediately follow the restora- 
 tion of the classical orders, though this was the eventual 
 result. This is an important consideration, for unless we 
 
 p 
 
io6 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL. 
 
 bear constantly in mind that the original revival was 
 simply that of the classical orders of architecture in the 
 place of the middle-age styles, the apparent inconsistencies 
 we shall meet with in the ornamental details of the Benais- 
 sance will be liable to confuse us. The Benaissance styles, 
 therefore, are only those styles of ornament which were 
 associated with the gradual revival of the ancient art of 
 Greece and Borne, which was not really accomplished 
 until the sixteenth century, in that finished style the 
 Cinquecento. 
 
 The course of ancient and modern art has been much the 
 same ; both commenced in the symbolic, and ended in the 
 sensuous. The essence of all middle-age art was symbolism, 
 and the transition from the symbolism to the unalloyed 
 principles of beauty is the great feature of the revival : art 
 was wholly separated from religion in the Benaissance, but 
 this transition was only gradually developed. 
 
 It was in Italy that these new styles were almost neces- 
 sarily developed. Two distinct schools were flourishing 
 there in the twelfth century : the pure Byzantine at Yenice, 
 and the Siculo -Borman in the south, containing all the 
 Saracenic elements, not excluding even the inscriptions. 
 From these and the introduction of natural forms wholly 
 irrespective of symbolism arose a new style composed 
 almost exclusively of foliage and tracery. 
 
 This change was due to the gradually growing influence 
 of the Saracenic, not as an absolute style, but as affording 
 new elements of beauty, especially its varied and intricate 
 interlacings, which were so very prominent for a while 
 as to constitute the chief characteristic of a new style, the 
 first step of the transition from middle-age to modern art ; 
 
THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL. 107 
 
 known from its mean time, about the year 1300, as the 
 Trecento . 
 
 The new life and activity displayed by Italy at this 
 period was in some degree owing to the Crusades, and 
 more especially to the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 
 the year 1204, which displayed many treasures of ancient 
 art to the Yenetians, whose taste was already sufficiently 
 cultivated to appreciate their value ; and four ancient 
 bronze horses, a Christian trophy of this Yenetian crusade, 
 still adorn the fa 9 ade of St. Mark’s. 
 
 Yenice, already rich in Byzantine works, appears to 
 have taken the lead also in the dawning revival of classical 
 art; and the Yenetians seem likewise to have contributed 
 more than any others to its most finished development, the 
 Cinquecento. The Yenetians and the Italians generally, 
 controlled by no trammels of tradition, added their own 
 beginnings of natural imitations, to Christian or to Pagan 
 elements indiscriminately ; the prestige of a thousand 
 years was broken ; the classical forms prevailed, and the 
 Quattrocento , the first great style of’ the Eenaissance, was 
 established. From this time, the fifteenth century, we 
 have done with all Christian forms and elements in Italy, 
 in the ordinary details of ornamental art. 
 
 The first of these modern innovations is the transition 
 style, the Trecento ; which may be considered a negative 
 style, as its peculiarity consists in its exclusion of certain 
 hitherto common ornamental elements. 
 
 The great features of this style are its intricate tracery 
 6r interlacings, and delicate scroll-work of conventional 
 foliage, the style being but a slight remove from a com- 
 bination of the Byzantine and Saracenic, the symbolism of 
 
io8 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL. 
 
 Gate of Baptistery, Florence. 
 
 character of its ornamental details. 
 
 both being equally excluded; 
 the foliage and floriage, how- 
 ever, are not exclusively con- 
 ventional, and it comprises 
 a fair rendering of the clas- 
 sical orders, with the resto- 
 ration of the round arch. 
 Niccola Pisano, Andrea 
 Taffi, Giotto, and their con- 
 temporaries, were the great 
 masters of this style, and the 
 Church of San Francesco at 
 Assisi and the Cathedral of 
 Florence are fine examples 
 of it. 
 
 In the Quattrocento, the 
 next style, we have a far 
 more positive revival. Lo- 
 renzo Ghiberti may, perhaps, 
 be instanced as its great ex- 
 ponent or representative in 
 ornamental art. Filippo 
 Calendario and Antonio Bic- 
 cio, called Briosco, contem- 
 porary with Ghiberti, are 
 likewise important names 
 of this period: they were 
 engaged on the new Ducal 
 Palace at Yenice, which is 
 most comprehensive in the 
 
THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL. 
 
 109 
 
 The bronze gates of the Baptistery of San Giovanni, 
 by Ghiberti (1425-52), exhibit one feature of this 
 style in perfection — the prominence of simple natural 
 imitations, which now nearly entirely supersede the 
 conventional representations of previous times. Nature 
 no longer supplied mere suggestions, but afforded 
 directly exact models of imitation, whether fruit, flowers, 
 birds, or animals, all disposed simply with a view to 
 the picturesque or ornamental. The selection of the 
 details might still have some typical signification, but 
 this had no influence in the manner of their execution, 
 which was as purely imitative as their arrangement was 
 ornamental. 
 
 In this style, also, we have the first appearance of car- 
 touches or scrolled shield work, which became so very 
 prominent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 One of the oldest examples I can refer to is the shield 
 containing the Lion of St. Mark, on the Watergate of the 
 Ducal Palace at Yenice, perhaps the work of Briosco, in 
 the middle of the fifteenth century ; it suggests the idea 
 of the imitation of a sealed parchment, or a MS. illumina- 
 tion. 
 
 This kind of decoration certainly seems in some way 
 connected with heraldry — many of its forms are palpably 
 mere armorial shields, which became very common in 
 architectural decoration of a later period, and the fact 
 of such forms being afterwards used as mere elements 
 of ornament does not in any way invalidate such an 
 origin. 
 
 There are none of these forms on the gates of Ghiberti ; 
 but it abounds with medallions containing portraits, which 
 
10 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL . 
 
 perform a similar service in the design as the shields in 
 other examples. 
 
 Another feature of this Quattrocento style — or what 
 is more especially the Italian Benaissance, as dis- 
 tinct from the Cinquecento — is the introduction, for 
 the first time, of the grotesque arabesque, after the 
 ancient models of Borne and Pompeii : in fact, the 
 style of decoration is now of a very complicated 
 character, though not confused, for we still have the 
 Trecento interlacings very largely used as borders, and 
 the scroll, from the petty serpentine character of the 
 previous style, appears with all the fulness of the 
 Boman arabesque, but not yet very prominently intro- 
 duced. 
 
 Although in the Quattrocento the religious symbolism 
 was excluded generally (not absolutely) from the orna- 
 mental details, the religious sentiment was by no means 
 absent from the Quattrocento art itself ; on the contrary, 
 the Quottrocento is essentially a religious style, but the 
 religious sentiment was transferred from a secondary to a 
 primary object in the design : we have the actual repre- 
 sentation instead of the mere symbol. As, for instance, in 
 the second pair of Ghiberti gates — the history of Moses is 
 the principal subject of illustration of these gates — the 
 ornaments are but the decorations to the several panels ; 
 so it is in all other great schemes, of which the Certosa of 
 Pavia offers many examples. There is little decoration 
 but what is merely auxiliary to some religious design. It 
 was not so in the Cinquecento ; the figures and subjects 
 themselves are a mere part — and often a secondary one — 
 of the ornamental scheme, and the religious element com- 
 
THE RENAISSANCE OR REVIVAL. in 
 
 paratively disappears. We speak of the Eenaissance as an 
 Epoch and as a Style, but the only true or literal revival 
 is the Cinquecento ; the other varieties contain too many 
 original and extraneous elements to he considered an his- 
 torical revival. 
 
CHAPTEB XIV. 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE AS A STYLE. 
 
 The capricious style, the so-called Eenaissance of the 
 sixteenth century, which was in such good repute with the 
 jewellers, was far more conspicuous for its cartouches (its 
 scrolled shield- work) and tracery than for the more natural 
 or the more classical elements of the style ; the beauties 
 of nature and the standard ornaments of antiquity could 
 not vie, in the general taste, with either the attraction of 
 novelty or the charm of indiscriminate variety, especially 
 with the example of such names as Primaticcio, Holbein, 
 and Benvenuto Cellini, as its advocates ; hut in as far as 
 art and manipulation again attained the ascendency over 
 symbolism it also was a revival, by reasserting the aesthetic 
 principle. 
 
RENAISSANCE. 
 
 Carved Door Panels, from the Chateau d’Anet ; now at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris ; 
 
 c. 1548. 
 
 P. 112. 
 
THE RENAISSANCE . 
 
 ill 
 
 This third modern style or variety, to which the name 
 of Renaissance by habit more particularly belongs, is 
 essentially a style of varieties, especially in jewellery and 
 in works in relief : it was very general also out of Italy, 
 and especially in France, where it was introduced about 
 the time of Francis I. ; and it is still so great a favourite 
 with the French, that French and Renaissance are nearly 
 identical terms. This 
 style is, however, 
 made up chiefly of 
 elements foreign to 
 classical taste, and the 
 essence of the Cin- 
 quecento is its rejec- 
 tion of these elements ; 
 but before proceeding 
 to the consideration of 
 the latter we will con- 
 sider what is specially 
 signified by the Re- 
 naissance as a style. 
 
 It is the style of 
 Benvenuto Cellini. It is also remarkably developed in the 
 remains of the Chateau d’Anet, near Dreux, in France 
 (about 1548), and other buildings of that time, and it is 
 indeed sometimes designated the Henry II. style. 
 
 The mixture of various elements is one of the essentials 
 of this style ; these elements are, the classical ornaments ; 
 conventional and natural flowers and foliage — the former 
 often of a pure Saracenic character ; man and animals, 
 natural and grotesque ; cartouches, or pierced and scrolled 
 
 Q 
 
 Carved Door Panel from the Chateau d’Anet, now at 
 the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. 
 
THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 iH 
 
 shields, as above, in great prominence; tracery, indepen- 
 dent and developed from the scrolls of the cartouches ; and 
 jewel forms. The whole history of art does not afford a 
 parallel mixture of elements. It was popular in the Low 
 Countries at the same time : the Bourse at Antwerp (1531) 
 is one of its earliest examples. 
 
 Our own Elizabethan is a partial elaboration of the same 
 style, probably introduced into this country from the Low 
 Countries, the only difference being that the Elizabethan, 
 like that of Henry II. of France, exhibits a very striking 
 preponderance of strap-and-shield-work ; but this was a 
 gradual result, and what we now term the Elizabethan was 
 not thoroughly developed until the time of James I., when 
 the pierced shields even outbalanced the strap-work. The 
 pure Elizabethan is much nearer allied to the continental 
 styles of the time — classical ornaments, but rude in detail, 
 occasional scroll and arabesque work, and the tracery or 
 strap-work, holding a much more prominent place than 
 the pierced and scrolled shields. For the want of better 
 information these two features are sufficient to date a 
 building — the tracery or strap -work, without the shield- 
 work, will indicate the time of Elizabeth; the predomi- 
 nance of shield- work that of James I., as at Wollaton and 
 Yarmouth, Elizabethan ; Crewe Hall and Canonbury House, 
 Islington, of the time of James. In Crewe Hall, an early 
 work, and attributed to Inigo Jones, the shield-work is not 
 very prominent. 
 
 Such are four varieties of the revival, distinct from its 
 perfect form, the Cinquecento. A design containing all 
 the elements of this period is properly called Benaissance. 
 If a design contain only the tracery and foliage of the 
 
ELIZABETHAN. 
 
 P. 114. 
 
 From the old Guard Chamber, Westminster, c. 1600. 
 
 
ELIZABETHAN. 
 
 Ceiling, Loseley House, Surrey. 
 
 P. 1.5. 
 
 Carved Stone, Doorway, Crewe Hall, Cheshire. 
 
THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 115 
 
 period it would be more properly called Trecento ; if it 
 contain, besides these, elaborate natural imitations, fes- 
 toons, scroll-work, and occasional symmetrical arabesques, 
 it is of the Quattrocento, the Italian Eenaissance of the 
 fifteenth century ; and if it display a decided prominence 
 
 In the “Ancient Parlour,” Holland House. 
 
 of strap-work and shield-work it is Elizabethan. In all 
 these styles the evidence of their Byzantine and Saracenic 
 origin is constantly preserved — in the tracery, in the 
 scroll-work and foliage, in the rendering of classical orna- 
 ments; and in the earlier varieties, in the shape of the 
 
1 16 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE. 
 
 panels containing religions illustrations, which even to the 
 close of the Quattrocento are of pure Byzantine shapes, as 
 they abound in the manuscripts. 
 
 The Benaissance is, therefore, something more approxi- 
 mate to a combination of previous styles than a revival of 
 any in particular. It is the first example of selection that 
 we find, and it is a style that was developed solely on 
 aesthetic principles, from a love of the forms and harmonies 
 themselves, as varieties of effect or arrangements of beauty, 
 not because they had any particular signification, or from 
 any superstitious attachment to them as ancestral heir- 
 looms. The decorators of the Benaissance were, in fact, 
 the first artists in ornamental art since the classic periods ; 
 they suffered no limits or restrictions but those of har- 
 mony or beauty, according to their own perception of the 
 beautiful. 
 
P. 116. 
 
 ELIZABETHAN. North Entrance, AVollaton. 
 
 GOTHIC. Place House, Cornwall. 
 

CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CINQUEOENTO. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE. 
 
 Pistolesi, E. — The Vatican described and illustrated. 
 
 II Vaticano descritto ed illustrato. 8 yols. folio. Rome, 1829 — 38. 
 Raphael. — The Arabesques of the Vatican. Oblong folio, 32 plates, n. d. 
 
 Loggie di Rafaele nel Vaticano. Drawn by Camporesi, and 
 
 engraved by Volpato and others. 61 plates. Atlas folio. Roma, 1772 — 76. 
 Suys et Hattdebotjrt. — Palais Massimi a Rome. Plans, coupes, elevations, 
 profils, voutes, plafonds, &c. des deux Palais Massimi, dessines et publies 
 par F. T. Suys et L. P. Haudebourt. Folio. Paris, n. d. 
 
 Bettoni, N. — Tombs and Monuments of Italy. 
 
 Le Tombe ed i Monumenti illustri d’ltalia. 2 vols. 4to. Milan, 
 1822—23. 
 
 Magazzari, G. — The most select Ornaments of Bologna. 
 
 Raccolta de’ piu scelti Ornati sparsi per la citta di Bologna. Ob. 4to. 
 Bologna, 1827. 
 
 Antonelli, G. — A Collection of the best Venetian Ornaments. 
 
 Collezione de’ Migliori Ornamenti antichi, sparsi nella citta di Venezia. 
 Ob. 4to. Venice, 1831. 
 
 Diedo e Zanotto. — Sepulchral Monuments of Venice. 
 
 Novanta Monumenti cospicui di Venezia illustrati dal Cav. Antonio 
 Diedo e da Francesco Zanotto. Folio. Milan, 1839. 
 
 Cicognara, L. — The most remarkable Buildings and Monuments of Venice. 
 Le Fabbriche e i Monumenti cospicui di Venezia ; illustrati da 
 Leopoldo Cicognara, da Antonio Diedo, e da Giannantonio Selva. 
 Con notabili aggiunte e note. 2nd edition, 2 vols. large folio. 
 Venice, 1840. 
 
 Letarotjilly, P. — Edifices of Modern Rome, with Details. 
 
 Edifices de Rome Moderne, ou Recueil des Palais, Maisons, Eglises, 
 Couvents, et autres Monuments publics et particuliers les plus 
 
i8 
 
 THE CINQZJECENTO. 
 
 remarquables de la Ville de Borne. 3 vols. folio, text 2 yols. 4to. 
 Paris, 1840, et seq. 
 
 Tosi and Becchio. — Altars, Tabernacles, and Sepulchral Monuments of 
 the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, existing at Eome. Folio. 
 Lagny, 1843. 
 
 Bergamo, Stef ano da. — Wood Carvings from the Choir of the Monastery 
 of San Pietro at Perugia, 1535 ; said to be from designs by Eaphael. 
 
 Gli Ornati del Coro della Chiesa di S. Pietro dei Monaci Cassinesi 
 di Perugia, intagliati in Legno da Stefano da Bergamo sopra i 
 disegni di Eaffaello Santi da Urbino, ora per la’ prima volta tutti 
 raccolti incisi a contorno e pubblicati. Folio. Eome, 1845. 
 
 Grttner, L. — Specimens of Ornamental Art, selected from the best Models 
 of the Classical Epochs. Illustrated with 80 plates, with descriptive 
 text, by Emil Braun. By Authority. Folio. London, 1850. 
 
 Fresco Decorations and Stuccoes of Churches and Palaces in 
 
 Italy, during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, with Descriptions 
 by Lewis Gruner, K.A. New edition, largely augmented by numerous 
 plates, plain and coloured. Folio. London, 1854. 
 
 Lo Scaffale : or Presses in the Sacristy of the Church of Sta. Maria 
 
 delle Grazie at Milan. Illustrations of the painted decoration by 
 Bernardino Luini. Folio. London, 1859. 
 
 Louvre. — Le Napoleonium. Monographie du Louvre et des Tuileries 
 reunis, avec une notice historique et archeologique. Folio. Paris, 1856. 
 
 Contant ET Filippi. — Parallele des principaux Theatres modernes de 
 l’Europe. Folio. Paris, 1859, et seq. 
 
 Calliat, Y. — Parallele des Maisons de Paris. Nouvelle periode de 1850 
 a 1860. Folio. Paris, 1860. 
 
 We may now proceed to the consideration of the Cinque- 
 cento, which as an art development is the most perfect 
 of all the modern styles. The term Cinquecento does 
 not imply simply sixteenth-century art, but the most 
 prominent style of the sixteenth century; and it is the 
 real goal of the Renaissance, to which all the efforts of 
 the fifteenth century tended. The varieties we have 
 just been examining are but its wanderings by the way, 
 for want of sufficiently conspicuous landmarks. It was 
 only after a great accumulation of materials that it was 
 
CINQUECENTO. 
 
CINQUECENTO. 
 
 From the Facade of Santa Maria de’ Miracoli, Brescia, c. 1530. 
 
 r. no. 
 
THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 19 
 
 possible to appreciate thoroughly the spirit of the ancient 
 arabesques. 
 
 These came at last out of the excavations of ancient 
 
 monuments at Eome and elsewhere at the close of the 
 
 * 
 
 fifteenth century — the new revival was developed chiefly 
 by the sculptors of the North, and the painters of Central 
 Italy. The true spirit of ancient art was only now 
 thoroughly comprehended, and all extraneous elements 
 were successively excluded ; but with such capacities 
 as those of Eaphael, Julio Eomano, the Lombardi, 
 Bramante, or Michelangelo, applied to extricate it from 
 its long entombment, no wonder that it started suddenly 
 into new life, and grew even into a more splendid 
 development than it had ever known, perhaps, in its 
 most gorgeous Eoman period. 
 
 However, it would be unjust towards the great quattro- 
 cento masters to give all the credit of this accomplished 
 style of art to even such names as Eaphael, Julio 
 Eomano, or Bramante. 
 
 The efforts of these masters were at first little or no 
 improvement upon the works of their immediate prede- 
 cessors, the great quattrocentisti , such as Baccio Pintelli, 
 Pietro Perugino, Francia, Bernardino Luini, and Pin- 
 turicchio — the two last scarcely inferior to Julio Eomano 
 himself, the prince of decorators ; and the Lombardi, 
 Agostino Busti, Andrea Sansovino, and other sculptors 
 of the north of Italy, may claim, perhaps, equal rank in 
 their art. 
 
 The principal monuments of the Cinquecento in paint- 
 ing are the Vatican Loggie, the Villa Madama at Eome, 
 and the ducal palaces at Mantua : the churches of Venice, 
 
I 20 
 
 THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 Verona, and Brescia, afford the best examples of Sculpture. 
 The Loggie of Baphael are the arcade of the second story 
 of the Court of San Damaso ; they were executed about 
 1515, by Julio Bomano, Gian Francesco Penni, and 
 Giovanni da Udine ; Ihe last painted the birds and animals, 
 the abundance of which is a very striking feature in the 
 Vatican arabesques. 
 
 These arabesques of Eaphael, or, as they were originally 
 called grotesques , from being chiefly discovered in the 
 ancient grottoes, are said to have been directly suggested 
 by some ancient remains in the Baths of Titus. They 
 appear to have given a great impetus to this style of 
 decoration, for they are the first of their kind on an 
 extensive scale ; and, even in their character, they differ 
 very widely from the quattrocento arabesques, which 
 were derived chiefly from ancient sculpture and from 
 the MSS., and are very much more formal in their 
 arrangements and detail. 
 
 However, though the arabesques themselves are of 
 the cinquecento character, in the exuberance and beauty 
 of the curves and foliations, the entire decorations of the 
 pilasters are far from being of pure style. 
 
 In establishing a style from examples, made with only 
 a general regard to its most prominent characteristics, 
 there is, of course, much to reject before we have a 
 characteristic illustration of the style; and the Christian 
 symbols, and other arbitrary forms, which we occasionally 
 find in Baphael’s arabesques, must be scrupulously ex- 
 cluded, or the Cinquecento becomes merged into the 
 mixed Benaissance, which led to it, and the distinction 
 of style is lost. 
 
CINQUE CENTO. 
 
 J 7. S-wniW- 
 
 .W-. (kilc 
 
 From Carved Oak Panels in the Louvre, Paris, c. 1520. 
 
 P. 121. 
 
 From a Marble Fountain in the Louvre, Paris. Italian. " 1508. 
 
THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 121 
 
 The Vatican pilasters, like the designs of Luini and 
 Pinturicchio, are of a transition character. The Villa 
 Madama at Borne, and the Ducal Palaces at Mantua, 
 display designs of equal variety of effect, with a greater 
 unity of character in the details. They are the work 
 of Giovanni da Udine and Julio Bomano, the same artists 
 who executed those of the Vatican Loggie, but in these 
 later works many of the licences in the Vatican arabesques 
 have been in a great measure avoided. They are of a 
 more unmixed classical character ; the scrolls are par- 
 ticularly fine. 
 
 Some of the Vatican compositions, from their mechanical 
 absurdities, are ludicrous and offensive, while the more 
 extravagant designs in the later works are the most 
 fanciful; and, indeed, the grotesque is perhaps the most 
 prominent feature of the cinquecento arabesque. 
 
 The designer, like the poet, has his licence with regard 
 to possibilities or probabilities. A mere natural im- 
 probability, where natural imitation is in no degree 
 essential, is the privilege of the fancy; but mechanical 
 disproportions and impossibilities, violations of the most 
 palpable laws of gravity, cannot be otherwise than 
 offensive. Nothing can bring them within the range 
 of good taste, as they are essentially obnoxious to aesthetic 
 sensibility, which is the truest test of propriety in art, the 
 effect being analogous to a discord in music. We may be 
 extremely grotesque or fanciful without being ridiculous. 
 
 There need be no limit to our chimeras, for nature is 
 not their test ; but if we combine monsters in our scrolls, 
 or place animals upon the tendrils of plants, we should 
 at least proportion them in size to the strength of the 
 
 R 
 
122 
 
 THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 tendril upon which they are placed. This is not observed 
 in many of the Vatican arabesques, and it is occasionally 
 disregarded, also, in the later works of Mantua ; yet 
 these are, in other respects, the standard types of the 
 cinquecento arabesques, as developed in painting. 
 
 It was this same fault of painful disproportion which 
 Pliny and Vitruvius found with the arabesques of 
 Pompeii, which display anomalies not so much as 
 approached by even the worst specimens of modern 
 times. Natural foliage teaches us that the greater the 
 burden the thicker the stem ; the gradual diminishing 
 of the stem as its burden decreases, is one of the essential 
 beauties of foliage. And this law is admirably observed 
 in nearly all the best examples of the Cinquecento, espe- 
 cially in the sculpture ; but there are otherwise good 
 specimens in which it is not observed. It is necessarily 
 a condition peculiar to arabesque scroll-work ; for in a 
 continuous scroll we do not require this variation of 
 thickness, as it is a mere ornamental repetition, every 
 portion in itself being complete; and as it is indetermi- 
 nate, no portion of the curve has more to do than another. 
 This is an essential difference ; in the arabesque curves 
 the scroll or spiral is always completed ; it is a determi- 
 nate figure, and its elegance or lightness will depend 
 upon the relative proportions of the stem. 
 
 This arabesque scroll-work is the most prominent 
 feature of the Cinquecento ; and with this it combines 
 in its elements every other feature of classical art, with 
 the unlimited choice of natural and conventional imita- 
 tions from the entire animal and vegetable kingdoms, 
 both arbitrarily disposed and combined. 
 
CINQUECENTO. 
 
 T. 122 
 
 Erom the Monument to Louis XII., St. Denis, near Paris, c. 1520. 
 
THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 1 2 3 * 
 
 Another of its features is its beautiful variations of 
 
 ancient standard ornaments, as the 
 anthemion especially, of which there 
 are some admirable Cinquecento ex- 
 amples. 
 
 The guilloche or plat, the fret, 
 and the acanthus scroll are likewise 
 favourites, and occur in many varie- 
 ties. The Cinquecento appears, in- 
 deed, to be the special province of 
 the curve in its infinite play of 
 arabesque; but in all its develop- 
 ments it is in the form of some 
 natural object or artificial combina- 
 tion. The cartouches and strap- 
 work wholly disappear from the 
 best examples. In all the extensive 
 works in sculpture of the north of 
 Italy, from about 1480 until 1550, 
 such forms are extremely rare ; and 
 in defining the Cinquecento as a 
 style, their exclusion becomes an 
 essential condition. Absolute works 
 of art, such as vases, and imple- 
 ments and instruments of all kinds, 
 are prominent elements of the cin- 
 quecento arabesque ; but cartouches 
 and strapwork as unauthorised by 
 ancient practice, are necessarily ex- 
 cluded from the style as a pre- 
 sumed ancient revival. 
 
 
 Curved Wood. Chateau de Gaillon, 
 France, c. 1505. 
 
.124 
 
 THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 It is, however, in sculpture, perhaps, that we must 
 look for the purest examples of this style, as regards the 
 mere elaboration of form; and among the cinquecento 
 sculptors none paid more attention to ornament than 
 the Lombardi of Venice and Agostino Bnsti of Milan. 
 Venice abounds with the works of the Lombardi, of 
 whom Tullio is prominently distinguished. His monu- 
 mental bas-reliefs have, perhaps, never been surpassed 
 for their exquisite spirit and delicacy of execution: 
 and even in their details they are unsurpassed by the 
 • best examples of antiquity. Sometimes they consist of 
 fine elaborations of the pure classic acanthus scroll ; at 
 others, and more commonly, of the standard arabesques, 
 with the interspersing of grotesque figures and animals, 
 and occasionally of simple curves, with ordinary natural 
 foliations, combining a strict imitation with a masterly 
 freedom of execution. 
 
 Another chief feature of the Cinquecento is the admir- 
 able play of colour in its arabesques and scrolls ; and 
 it is worthy of note, that the three secondary colours, 
 orange, green, and purple, perform the chief parts in 
 all the coloured decorations. Its great leading form, 
 the acanthus scroll or foliated spiral, is sometimes a 
 complete iris, with its beautiful variety of tints, as in 
 some of Julio Bomano’s decorations at Mantua. And 
 where we have but two colours, we have constantly 
 complements. 
 
 Indeed, the Cinquecento may be considered the cul- 
 minating style in ornamental art, as presenting the most 
 perfect forms and the most pleasing varieties, nature 
 and art vying with each other in their efforts to attract 
 
THE CINQ UE CENTO. 
 
 125 
 
 and gratify the eye. It appeals only to the sense of 
 beauty. All its efforts are directly made to attain the 
 most attractive effects, without any intent to lead the 
 mind to an ulterior end, as is the case with the Byzantine 
 and other symbolic styles. The cinquecento forms are 
 supposed to be symbols of beauty alone ; and it is a 
 remarkable concession to the ancients, that the moderns, 
 to attain this result, were compelled to recur to their 
 works ; and it is only now in the contemplation of this 
 consummate style, that the term Kenaissance becomes 
 quite intelligible. The Benaissance, or rebirth of orna- 
 ment, is accomplished in the Cinquecento; still the term 
 is not altogether ill appropriated to the earlier styles, 
 because these were really the stepping-stones to the 
 Cinquecento ; and, as already explained, in them, also, 
 the aesthetic was substituted for the symbolic. The 
 principles, therefore, were identical, though from imper- 
 fect apprehension, elements strange to the classical period 
 were generally admitted ; it was a revival of principle 
 though not of element. 
 
 The Cinquecento very generally pervaded manufactures 
 for a time in Trance as well as Italy, though for a much 
 shorter period than its great beauties and applicability 
 would seem to justify. The arms and armour, and the 
 pottery or majolica wares of the time afford some of the 
 finest examples of the style. 
 
 It was, however, not long successfully pursued : it 
 appears to be too exact in its details, and too compre- 
 hensive in its range of elements, for the ordinary grasp 
 of the decorator, whether from the kingdoms of nature 
 or the realms of art, poetry, and history ; every form 
 
THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 1 2 6 
 
 being excluded having neither wit nor beauty to recom- 
 mend it. It required too much from the designer’s 
 powers, for, besides a familiarity with the art of classic 
 antiquity, it exacted a considerable acquaintance with 
 the figure, as well as a mastery over the animal and 
 vegetable forms generally. 
 
 Accordingly, already in the sixteenth century, orna- 
 mental art fell back to what it was before that time ; 
 and from the middle of the sixteenth century, as illus- 
 trated by the works of Alessandro Vittoria, Xicola dei 
 
 Conti, Alfonso Alberghetti, and Benvenuto Cellini, we 
 again find the promiscuous mixture of forms of all kinds 
 with a prominence of the cartouche, as in the ordinary 
 Benaissance, which, from its far less definite character, 
 gave greater liberty to the artist, in accordance with his 
 own vague notions of variety, the attainment of which 
 seems now, and for a long period, to have usurped every 
 other purpose. 
 
 The Cinquecento is essentially an Italian style, though 
 in some few instances good examples are found out 
 
 of Italy, especially in France ; as the monument to 
 
 Louis XII. in the church of St. Denis, near Paris, and 
 several examples at Bouen, and at the Chateau de Gaillon, 
 Xormandy. These were, however, either carried out 
 by Italians, or directly from some Italian example. 
 
 The ordinary ornament of the Benaissance was at the 
 same time very common in the North and West, and 
 was evidently much spread by the little works with 
 ornamental marginal woodcuts published frequently in 
 the sixteenth century, and expressly for designers for 
 manufactures; as in the case of the edition of Alciati’s 
 
THE CINQUECENTO. 
 
 127 
 
 Emblems , publislicd at Lyons in 1551, of which there 
 is a copy in the Library of the Department. 
 
 Chimney-piece, Louvre. By Germain Pilon. 
 
CHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 THE LOUIS QUATOEZE. 
 
 For a century after the development of the Cinquecento, 
 there was little individuality in the practice of ornamental 
 art. Architecture itself was completely domineered by 
 a mere classical pedantry, rule and measure usurped the 
 place of expression. Towards the close of the seventeenth 
 century, however, a new style commenced to develop 
 itself (the Louis' Quatorze), essentially an ornamental 
 style, and differing very materially in principle from 
 nearly all that preceded it, its chief aim being effect by 
 a brilliant play of light and shade ; colour or mere beauty 
 of form in detail having no part in it whatever. This 
 style, like most others of modern times, arose in Italy ; 
 and we may, perhaps, look upon the Chiesa del Gesu, or 
 Jesus Church, at Eome, as its type or model. The 
 principal decorators of this church were Giacomo della 
 Porta, Pietro da Cortona, and Father Pozzi, author of 
 the well-known Jesuits’ perspective. 
 
 Of the vague character of the intermediate style, after 
 the decline of the Cinquecento, the various nautilus-shells 
 are good examples, something of the Eenaissance, Eliza- 
 bethan, and Louis Quatorze combined. 
 
 The great medium of the Louis Quatorze (1643-1715) 
 
THE LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 2 9 
 
 was gilt stucco-work, which, for a while, seems to have 
 almost wholly superseded decorative painting ; and this 
 absence of colour in the principal decorations of the 
 period seems to have led to its more striking characteristic, 
 — infinite play of light and shade. 
 
 Such being the aim of the style, exact symmetry in 
 the parts was no longer essential, and, accordingly, in 
 the Louis Quatorze varieties, we for the first time, occa- 
 sionally find symmetry systematically avoided. This 
 feature was gradually more and more elaborated, till it 
 became essential in the Louis Quinze, and ultimately 
 led to that debased yet popular style, the Eococo, in 
 which symmetry, either in the balance of the whole or 
 in the details of the parts, seems to have been quite out 
 of place. 
 
 Versailles is the great repertory of the Louis Quatorze; 
 but the whole was evidently intended to present a gor- 
 geous classical scheme of decoration. Foreign elements, 
 however, and foreign treatment, both found their place ; 
 and it is to these foreign features that the decorations 
 owe their individuality. They are the constant and 
 peculiar combination of the scroll and shell — the an- 
 themion treated as a shell, and a small scroll, sometimes 
 plain and sometimes clothed in acanthus foliations. All 
 the other elements of the style are classical, such as we 
 find them treated in the Cinquecento, with some slightly 
 modified new varieties. The fiddle-shape combination of 
 scrolls is, perhaps, a legacy of the ordinary Eenaissance. 
 
 The Louis Quinze (1715-74) does not much differ from 
 the Louis Quatorze in its elements ; but yet, from a 
 certain manner of treatment, must be considered as 
 
 s 
 
THE LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 * 3 ° 
 
 distinct in a discrimination of styles. It differs in this, 
 that the merely characteristic elements of the Louis 
 Quatorze became paramount in the Louis Quinze ; all 
 its details, instead of coming direct from the Cinquecento, 
 or Eenaissance, came immediately from the French 
 schemes of the preceding reign ; the diverging, therefore, 
 from the original types became ever wider. 
 
 In comparing good examples of these two styles, we 
 shall find that the broad acanthus foliations or featherings 
 of the scroll in the Louis Quatorze have become very 
 much elongated, approaching the flag or fleur-de-lis leaf 
 and the palm-branch in the Louis Quinze. 
 
 Perhaps the great feature of the later style, and that 
 to which it owes its bizarre character, as much as any 
 other, is its rejection of symmetry in its details, even 
 in the most central and prominent places ; a feature which 
 until now would have been considered a capital defect 
 in a design: such is the caprice of fashion. But as a 
 general play of light and shade was the chief aim of the 
 style, it was little injured by a want of symmetry in 
 details, always too indefinite for special attention. 
 
 The play of light and shade in sudden and varied 
 contrasts is so essential an element of the Louis Quatorze 
 styles, that they do not admit flat surfaces in any of 
 their ornamental details ; all are concave or convex, 
 perfectly smooth but never flat — even the anthemion in 
 these styles becomes a hollow shell. They thus contrast 
 very strongly with the Elizabethan, in which flat surfaces 
 in the details abound, as in its infinite strap work; even 
 in the cartouches, or pierced and scrolled shields, the 
 curved planes are flat. All such members in the Louis 
 

THE LOUIS QUATORZE . 
 
 3i 
 
 Quatorze styles would be channelled or moulded. This 
 constant varying of the surface gives every point of view 
 its high lights and brilliant contrasts ; and for this reason 
 stucco superseded decorations in the flat, and gold colour, 
 in all Louis Quatorze designs. 
 
 Still the Louis Quatorze is not altogether unfit for 
 decorations in the flat, but it is limited to designs on 
 a small scale, and colour is in these cases indispensable ; 
 this is exemplified in the metal marquetry of Boule, the 
 forms depending on their contrast with their ground ; 
 and by the designs of Watteau. 
 
 Watteau, in fact, reduced the Louis Quatorze to colour, 
 and brought it more generally within the province of 
 manufactures. He used the elements of the style for 
 the frames or boundaries of small panels, — pastoral or rural 
 scenes, which he surrounded by fantastical borders, of scrolls, 
 fruit, flowers, and foliage, birds, insects, and animals. 
 
 The spirit of these Louis Quatorze styles, and, perhaps, 
 more particularly the Louis Quinze, pervaded all manu- 
 factures, more or less, until the Eevolution, not only 
 in France but in many parts of Europe. Meissonier, 
 Claude Ballin, and Le Pautre, were each in their way 
 the most popular designers of their time. Even in Italy, 
 Bernini used the designs of Le Pautre for external and 
 internal decoration : he was the greatest master of the 
 Louis Quatorze in its adaptation to ornamental sculpture, 
 independent of architecture; his bravura of line was 
 remarkable, and all tending, by the constant alternation 
 of the round and hollow, or projecting and receding 
 shapes, to the one great aim of the style — a lively play 
 of light and shade. 
 
THE LOUIS QUATORZE. 
 
 *3 Z 
 
 The chief distinction between these two styles is the 
 want of symmetry in the Louis Quinze : it is in many 
 of its examples a mere and almost random dispersion of 
 the scroll and shell, mixed only with that peculiar crimp- 
 ing or shell-work, the coquillage. Still with these ele- 
 ments beautiful effects were produced, when only a slight 
 attention was bestowed upon the arrangement of the 
 masses; but when this last was neglected, the designs 
 became a mere mass of vagaries, of indescribable forms, 
 and the Eococo was displayed in the perfection of the 
 bizarre in ornament, and in which the thread of the 
 historic styles is at last completely run out. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 In this review of the ornamental devices of thirty-five 
 centuries, we have certainly had every variety of ex- 
 pression that the human mind is familiar with. I have 
 dwelt, of course, upon the leading styles only ; any other 
 course would have been impossible with an ordinary 
 degree of clearness. By converting mere varieties into 
 styles, we should so multiply the number of ornamental 
 expressions that the student would probably be so much 
 confused as to be unable to eliminate even the generic 
 varieties of ornamental art. Thus, I do not pretend, 
 in this review of the styles, to have explained more than 
 the great leading developments of ancient, middle-age, 
 and modern art. 
 
 In the early period, with the Egyptians, we found 
 symbolism, richness of material, with simplicity of ar- 
 rangement, and an artistic crudity, as the prominent 
 characteristics. In the second, or Greek period, we 
 have exclusively an aesthetic aim, with general beauty 
 of effect, and uniform excellence of detail throughout ; 
 everywhere displaying the highest artistic skill. In 
 the third, or Boman period, still with an aesthetic aim, 
 we have equal skill, with a taste for a more gorgeous 
 detail and more general magnificence. 
 
1 34 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In the Byzantine, — the first style of the second period, 
 — we go back to at first an almost exclusive symbolism, 
 which, however, in the course of a century or two, is 
 elaborated into a style of a very gorgeous general effect, — 
 combining the aesthetic with the symbolic, — partly owing 
 to richness of materials; but as prejudice was gradually 
 overcome, a comprehensive and beautiful style was 
 ultimately developed in the sixth century, but nearly 
 always displaying, perhaps, more skill in its general 
 effects than in its details. 
 
 The Saracenic is the same in principle, — a gorgeous general 
 effect, without any remarkable merit of detail : it is made 
 up of an infinite number of minute contrasts of light and 
 shade and colour, — something like a formal flower-garden, 
 wanting the simplicity and grandeur of natural scenery ; 
 but it is capable of very beautiful general effects on a small 
 scale. 
 
 In the Gothic, again, — the last of the middle-age styles, 
 — symbolism more than divides the field with art, and 
 induces much of that crudity of detail which must be the 
 inevitable result of a divided attention. The general 
 effects are often grand ; but the details are ill expressed, 
 and inferior. 
 
 In the Renaissance, — the herald of the modern styles, 
 and, like the classical styles, purely aesthetic, — we have, 
 at first, the natural vagaries of an unaccustomed freedom ; 
 which, however, eventually settled into a genuine revival 
 of the most finished style of antiquity, — the Cinquecento. 
 Then came the final decline, — mere love of display, gold 
 and glitter : such is the Louis Quatorze, — still, prodi- 
 giously clever in the means it took to accomplish its effects. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 i35 
 
 The Louis Quatorze is more general in its aim than any 
 style whatever : thus its details, provided they generated 
 sufficient contrasts of light and shade, were of no indi- 
 vidual consequence. Accordingly we find, after a little 
 time, that all detail is absolutely neglected, and with it all 
 study : and in the absurd Eococo, — the very natural result 
 of this general neglect, — we have designs made up of 
 details so without meaning and individuality, as to defy 
 description. They are Eococo ; we can come no nearer to 
 them ; and with this Eococo, the first term of existence, 
 the last of the nine lives of ornamental art expires. 
 
 This vast store of materials, taken in the mass, without 
 selection or order, is a mere chaos ; and so far from 
 creating variety, will, unless classified into schools or 
 styles, engender only a mere uniform repetition of 4 con- 
 fusion. 
 
 This is the view, then, with which we study the history 
 of art, — to discriminate and individualise the styles of the 
 various epochs ; and by thus developing distinct characters, 
 multiply to an equal extent our means of viewing nature, 
 and our powers, consequently of representation. The real 
 result of historical knowledge, therefore, is not the mere 
 copying of what has been done before, but the acquisition 
 of a power which not only supersedes all copying, but 
 which alone will insure the production of that variety of 
 ornamental design which, the simplest theory must make 
 manifest, is the ostensible effort of every designer. 
 
 Had the knowledge of styles been a little more dis- 
 seminated in the present day, we should not have found 
 the Louis XV., and the Eococo, as the prevailing English 
 tastes of the Great Exhibition of 1851. In fault of his- 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 i 3 6 
 
 torical knowledge, and its consequently enlarged views 
 of art, the designer has been reduced to merely copying 
 his neighbour : hence the still paramount importance in 
 this country of the last great historic style of France, — 
 the Louis XV., — in silver, in wood-carving, in carpets, 
 damasks,— even in lace, also, and in many other branches. 
 
 The great lesson we may learn from a study of the 
 characteristics of styles is, that our designs want indivi- 
 duality : they are too general, too much alike : we require 
 something more than mere sprigs and colonnades, or con- 
 ventional scrolls. We want both systems of detail and 
 systems of arrangement. A picture is not an ornament ; 
 but every flower, however simple, — and, indeed, every leaf, 
 — is capable of being converted into an ornament by the 
 mere* aid of repetition on a geometrical basis ; and 1 the same 
 forms may be beautifully varied by altering this basis ; and 
 again, by new judicious combinations of colour, applied to 
 the same geometric scheme. 
 
 We should work on the principles of construction of 
 natural objects, independent of their individualities of 
 development. The value of such a system in ornamental 
 design is incalculable: but it is only by a knowledge of 
 the characteristics of styles, — the standard types of all 
 ages, that even system will effect that variety and indi- 
 viduality of expression, which alone will secure a perma- 
 nent gratification or success. 
 
 The great success of the Greeks was not more than 
 commensurate with the strict adherence to principles of 
 beauty upon which even their slightest efforts depended. 
 The cheap manufactures of antiquity, as the ordinary 
 Greek terra- cottas, were cheap by reason of the nature of 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 1 3 7 
 
 their material, not from any neglect of care in their 
 manufacture. 
 
 The ancient prosperity of the Samians is a remarkable 
 instance of the great national benefit to be derived from 
 the judicious application of art to manufactures, and is 
 worthy the emulation of their modern British competitors. 
 The small island of Samos, by its potteries alone, carried 
 on an important trade with all the great cities of the Greek 
 and Boman empires, and thus was enabled to compete in 
 splendour and luxury with the greatest states of the 
 ancient world. Herodotus (iv. 152) speaks of the urn 
 paralleled fortune of a Samian merchant. It was the first 
 Greek state that attained celebrity in the arts. Its temple 
 of Juno, the famous Herceum , was perhaps the most cele- 
 brated art-repository of antiquity, and was itself a work of 
 extraordinary grandeur. The same Greek historian (iii. 60) 
 speaks of it as the largest temple he ever saw, though it 
 was constructed entirely of marble. The workers in metal 
 and the painters were equal in renown to the sculptors and 
 architects of Samos. All this magnificence was but the 
 fruit of its industrial ingenuity, its skilful ship -building, 
 its enterprising commerce, its matchless potteries. The 
 skill of its potters made the very soil they trod upon more 
 precious than gold. This earthenware of Samos carried 
 its commerce over every sea, to every port, until its mer- 
 chants became princes, and this small island-state was 
 conspicuous among the richest nations of the world. It 
 was this distinction, this political pre-eminence, which 
 excited the jealousy of its more powerful neighbours : and 
 with its freedom, its commerce and its prosperity declined 
 together. 
 
 T 
 
38 
 
 CONCLUSION . 
 
 The sun still shines on the fruitful valleys of Samos, and 
 it still abounds in the valuable clay of which its ancient 
 potteries were manufactured ; but its population has de- 
 clined into a mere scattered and rude peasantry : its potters 
 have departed ; the genial clay without the skilful hand to 
 fashion it is of little avail. 
 
 Such was Samos when it directed its energies to the 
 arts ; such is it now that all cultivation of art has ceased. 
 It was but the judicious application of art to industry that 
 made this small Levantine island once the illustrious rival 
 of great empires. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BI’ VIRTUE AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON. 
 

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