Grammar of Ornament
A Visual Reference of Form and Colour in Architecture and the Decorative Arts
By Owen Jones, Mandy GreenfieldPRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2016 The Ivy Press Limited
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-17206-4
Contents
Introduction,
Preface to Owen Jones's Original Folio Edition,
General Principles,
CHAPTER I Ornament of Savage Tribes,
CHAPTER II Egyptian Ornament,
CHAPTER III Assyrian and Persian Ornament,
CHAPTER IV Greek Ornament,
CHAPTER V Pompeian Ornament,
CHAPTER VI Roman Ornament,
CHAPTER VII Byzantine Ornament,
CHAPTER VIII Arabian Ornament,
CHAPTER IX Turkish Ornament,
CHAPTER X Moresque Ornament from the Alhambra,
CHAPTER XI Persian Ornament,
CHAPTER XII Indian Ornament,
CHAPTER XIII Hindoo Ornament,
CHAPTER XIV Chinese Ornament,
CHAPTER XV Celtic Ornament,
CHAPTER XVI Mediæval Ornament,
CHAPTER XVII Renaissance Ornament,
CHAPTER XVIII Elizabethan Ornament,
CHAPTER XIX Italian Ornament,
CHAPTER XX Leaves and Flowers from Nature,
Index to the Commentaries and Introduction,
Index to Owen Jones's Text,
Owen Jones: A Chronology,
CHAPTER 1Ornament of Savage Tribes
* * *
From the universal testimony of travellers it would appear, that there is scarcely a people, in however early a stage of civilisation, with whom the desire for ornament is not a strong instinct. The desire is absent in none, and it grows and increases with all in the ratio of their progress in civilisation. Man appears everywhere impressed with the beauties of Nature which surround him, and seeks to imitate to the extent of his power the works of the Creator.
Man's earliest ambition is to create. To this feeling must be ascribed the tattooing of the human face and body, resorted to by the savage to increase the expression by which he seeks to strike terror on his enemies or rivals, or to create what appears to him a new beauty. As we advance higher, from the decoration of the rude tent or wigwam to the sublime works of a Phidias and Praxiteles, the same feeling is everywhere apparent: the highest ambition is still to create, to stamp on this earth the impress of an individual mind.
From time to time a mind stronger than those around will impress itself on a generation, and carry with it a host of others of less power following in the same track, yet never so closely as to destroy the individual ambition to create; hence the cause of styles, and of the modification of styles. The efforts of a people in an early stage of civilisation are like those of children, though presenting a want of power, they possess a grace and naïveté rarely found in mid-age, and never in manhood's decline. It is equally so in the infancy of any art. Cimabue and Giotto have not the material charm of Raphael or the manly power of Michael Angelo, but surpass them both in grace and earnest truth. The very command of means leads to their abuse: when Art struggles, it succeeds; when revelling in its own successes, it as signally fails. The pleasure we receive in contemplating the rude attempts at ornament of the most savage tribes arises from our appreciation of a difficulty accomplished; we are at once charmed by the evidence of the intention, and surprised at the simple and ingenious process by which the result is obtained. In fact, what we seek in every work of Art, whether it be humble or pretentious, is the evidence of mind, — the evidence of that desire to create to which we have referred, and which all, feeling a natural instinct within them, are satisfied with when they find it developed in others. It is strange, but so it is, that this evidence of mind will be more readily found in the rude attempts at ornament of a savage tribe than in the innumerable productions of a highly-advanced civilisation. Individuality decreases in the ratio of the power of production. When Art is manufactured by combined effort, not originated by individual effort, we fail to recognise those true instincts which constitute its greatest charm.
Plate I. (see here). The ornaments on this Plate are from portions of clothing made chiefly from the bark of trees. Patterns No. 2 and 11 are from a dress brought by Mr. Oswald Brierly from Tongotabu, the principal of the Friendly Island group. It is made from thin sheets of the inner rind of the bark of a species of hibiscus, beaten out and united together so as to form one long parallelogram of cloth, which being wrapped many times round the body as a petticoat, and leaving the chest, arms, and shoulders bare, forms the only dress of the natives. Nothing, therefore, can be more primitive, and yet the arrangement of the pattern shows the most refined taste and skill. No.11 is the border on the edge of the cloth; with the same limited means of production, it would be difficult to improve upon it. The patterns are formed by small wooden stamps, and although the work is somewhat rude and irregular in execution, the intention is everywhere apparent; and we are at once struck with the skilful balancing of the masses, and the judicious correction of the tendency of the eye to run in any one direction by opposing to them lines having an opposite tendency.
When Mr. Brierly visited the island one woman was the designer of all the patterns in use there, and for every new pattern she designed she received as a reward a certain number of yards of cloth. The pattern No. 2, from the same place, is equally an admirable lesson in composition which we may derive from an artist of a savage tribe. Nothing can be more judicious than the general arrangement of the four squares and the four red spots. Without the red spots on the yellow ground there would have been a great want of repose in the general arrangement; without the red lines round the red spots to carry the red through the yellow, it would have been still imperfect. Had the small red triangles turned outwards instead of inwards, the repose of the pattern would again have been lost, and the effect produced on the eye would have been that of squinting; as it is, the eye is centred in each square, and centred in each group by the red spots around the centre square. The stamps which form the pattern are very simple, each triangle and each leaf being a single stamp: we thus see how readily the possession of a simple tool, even by the most uncultivated, if guided by an instinctive observation of the forms in which all the works of Nature are arranged, would lead to the creation of all the geometrical arrangements of form with which we are acquainted. On the upper left-hand corner of pattern No. 2, the eight-pointed star is formed by eight applications of the same tool; as also the black flower with sixteen pointing inwards and sixteen pointing outwards. The most complicated patterns of the Byzantine, Arabian, and Moresque mosaics would be generated by the same means. The secret of success in all ornament is the production of a broad general effect by the repetition of a few simple elements; variety should rather be sought in the arrangement of the several portions of a design, than in the multiplicity of varied forms.
The stamping of patterns on the coverings of the body, when either of skins of animals or materials such as this, would be the first stage towards ornament after the tattooing of the body by an analogous process. In both there would remain a greater variety and individuality than in subsequent processes, which would become more mechanical. The first notions of weaving, which would be given by the plaiting of straws or strips of bark, instead of using them as thin sheets, would have equally the same result of gradually forming the mind to an appreciation of a proper disposition of masses: the eye of the savage, accustomed only to look upon Nature's harmonies, would readily enter into the perception of the true balance both of form and colour; in point of fact, we find that it is so, that in savage ornament the true balance of both is always maintained.
After the formation of ornament by stamping and weaving, would naturally follow the desire of forming ornament in relief or carving. The weapons for defence or the chase would first attract attention. The most skilful and the bravest would desire to be distinguished from their fellows by the possession of weapons, not only more useful, but more beautiful. The shape best fitted for the purpose having been found by experience, the enriching of the surface by carving would naturally follow; and the eye, already accustomed to the geometrical forms produced by weaving, the hand would seek to imitate them by a similar repetition of cuts of the knife. The ornaments on Plate II. (see here) show this instinct very fully. They are executed with the utmost precision, and exhibit great taste and judgment in the distribution of the masses. Nos. 10 and 12 are interesting, as showing how much this taste and skill may exist in the formation of geometrical patterns, whilst those resulting from curved lines, and the human form more especially, remain in the very first stage.
The ornaments in the woodcuts above and overleaf show a far higher advance in the distribution of curved lines, the twisted rope forming the type as it naturally would be of all curved lines in ornament. The uniting of two strands for additional strength would early accustom the eye to the spiral line, and we always find this form side by side with geometrical patterns formed by the interlacing of equal lines in the ornament of every savage tribe, and retained in the more advanced art of every civilised nation.
The ornament of a savage tribe, being the result of a natural instinct, is necessarily always true to its purpose; whilst in much of the ornament of civilised nations, the first impulse which generated received forms being enfeebled by constant repetition, the ornament is oftentimes misapplied, and instead of first seeking the most convenient form and adding beauty, all beauty is destroyed, because all fitness, by superadding ornament to ill-contrived form. If we would return to a more healthy condition, we must even be as little children or as savages; we must get rid of the acquired and artificial, and return to and develope natural instincts.
The beautiful New Zealand paddle, Nos. 2 and 3, on Plate III. (see here), would rival works of the highest civilisation: there is not a line upon its surface misapplied. The general shape is most elegant, and the decoration everywhere the best adapted to develope the form. A modern manufacturer, with his stripes and plaids, would have continued the bands of rings around the handle across the blade. The New Zealander's instinct taught him better. He desired not only that his paddle should be strong, but should appear so, and his ornament is so disposed as to give an appearance of additional strength to what it would have had if the surface had remained undecorated. The centre band in the length of the blade is continued round on the other side, binding together the border on the edge, which itself fixes all the other bands. Had these bands run out like the centre one, they would have appeared to slip off. The centre one was the only one that could do so without disturbing the repose.
The swelling form of the handle where additional weight was required is most beautifully contrived, and the springing of the swell is well defined by the bolder pattern of the rings.
SAVAGE TRIBES
The Victorians were fascinated by the natives of Australasia, believing them to be "relic savages." The anthropologist Sir Baldwin Spencer (1860–1929) described them as "human beings that still remain on the cultural level of men of the Stone Age." Ideas of this kind were not seriously challenged until after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859. Jones's own views about the childlike quality of primitive culture were also colored by the romantic notion of the "noble savage," which was popularized by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78).
PLATE I
1 Cloth. Otaheite. United Service Museum.
2 Matting from Tongotabu, Friendly Islands.
3 Cloth. Otaheite. U.S.M.
4 Cloth. Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
5-8 Cloths. Sandwich Islands. British Museum.
9 Cloth. Otaheite. U.S.M.
10 Cloth made from Paper Mulberry, Feejee Islands. B.M.
11 Cloth Matting from Tongotabu, Friendly Islands.
12 Cloth. Sandwich Islands. B.M.
13 Cloth.
SAVAGE TRIBES
Initially two main forms of Oceanic art were publicized in the West. There were fabrics, decorated with repetitive, geometrical patterns; carvings, on the other hand, tended to feature flowing, curvilinear designs, which covered every available inch of space. These same, rhythmic patterns were also used for facial tattoos, and sometimes heads of this kind were mummified and preserved as cult objects. A few examples were brought to the West as curios, but, by and large, Europeans received a distorted image of Polynesian culture. Its finest artifacts were the spirited sculptures of ancestral gods, but most of these were destroyed by early Christian missionaries. Faint echoes of them can be seen here, in the stylized figures and heads that featured on ceremonial drums (Nos. 10, 12).
PLATE II
1 South America. United Service Museum.
2 South Sea Islands. U.S.M.
3 Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
4, 6 Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
5 Owhyhee. U.S.M.
7 Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
8, 20 Tahiti. Adze. U.S.M.
9 New Hebrides. Inlaid Shield. U.S.M.
10, 12 Friendly Islands. Drum. U.S.M.
11, 13 Tahiti. Adze. U.S.M.
14 Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
15, 17, 19 Sandwich Islands. U.S.M.
16, 18 New Zealand. U.S.M.
SAVAGE TRIBES
Most members of the British public still associated the South Seas with the voyages of Captain Cook (1728–79), even though he had been dead for more than 50 years. As a result, they regarded the war clubs and spears of the islanders with morbid curiosity. Every schoolchild would have known of Cook's account of Savage Island (now Niue), where the explorers were greeted with a hail of stones and spears. They would also have been familiar with the manner of Cook's death in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), where he was clubbed by a hostile group of natives.
PLATE III
1 New Zealand. Patoo-Patoo. United Services Museum.
2 Handle, full size of Fig. 3. U.S.M.
3 New Zealand. Paddle. U.S.M.
4 Owhyhee. Club. U.S.M.
5 Sandwich Islands. Club. U.S.M.
6 Tahiti. Adze. U.S.M.
7 South Sea Isles. War Club. U.S.M.
8 Feejee Islands. Club. U.S.M.
9 New Zealand. Pajee, or War Club. U.S.M.
CHAPTER 2Egyptian Ornament
* * *
The Architecture of Egypt has this peculiarity over all other styles, that the more ancient the monument the more perfect is the art. All the remains with which we are acquainted exhibit Egyptian Art in a state of decline. Monuments erected two thousand years before the Christian era are formed from the ruins of still more ancient and more perfect buildings. We are thus carried back to a period too remote from our time to enable us to discover any traces of its origin; and whilst we can trace in direct succession the Greek, the Roman, the Byzantine, with its offshoots, the Arabian, the Moresque, and the Gothic, from this great parent, we must believe the architecture of Egypt to be a pure original style, which arose with civilisation in Central Africa, passed through countless ages, to the culminating point of perfection and the state of decline in which we see it. Inferior as this state doubtless is to the unknown perfection of Egyptian Art, it is far beyond all that followed after; the Egyptians are inferior only to themselves. In all other styles we can trace a rapid ascent from infancy, founded on some bygone style, to a culminating point of perfection, when the foreign influence was modified or discarded, to a period of slow, lingering decline, feeding on its own elements. In the Egyptian we have no traces of infancy or of any foreign influence; and we must, therefore, believe that they went for inspiration direct from nature. This view is strengthened when we come to consider more especially the ornament of Egypt; the types are few and natural types, the representation is but slightly removed from the type. The later we descend in art, the more and more do we find original types receded from; till, in much ornament, such as the Arabian and Moresque, it is difficult to discover the original type from which the ornament has been by successive mental efforts developed.
The lotus and papyrus, growing on the banks of their river, symbolising the food for the body and mind; the feathers of rare birds, which were carried before the king as emblems of sovereignty; the palm-branch, with the twisted cord made from its stems; these are the few types which form the basis of that immense variety of ornament with which the Egyptians decorated the temples of their gods, the palaces of their kings, the covering of their persons, their articles of luxury or of more modest daily use, from the wooden spoon which fed them to the boat which carried their similarly adorned embalmed bodies across the Nile to their last home in the valley of the dead. Following these types as they did in a manner so nearly allied to their natural form, they could hardly fail to observe the same laws which the works of nature ever display; and we find, therefore, that Egyptian ornament, however conventionalised, is always true. We are never shocked by any misapplication or violation of a natural principle. On the other hand, they never, by a too servile imitation of the type, destroyed the consistency of the representation. A lotus carved in stone, forming a graceful termination to a column, or painted on the walls as an offering to their gods, was never such a one as might be plucked, but an architectural representation; in either case the best adapted for the purpose it had to fill, sufficiently resembling the type to call forth in the beholder the poetic idea which it was sought to supply, without shocking his feeling of consistency.
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