Line and Form (1900) Part 12

Flowers or figures would be capable of the same simple and abstract treatment; and almost any form in nature, reduced to its simplest elements of recurring line and ma.s.s, and rhythmically disposed, would give us distinct decorative motives.

[The Ornamental Aim]

It is quite open to the designer to select his lines and forms straight from nature, and, bearing in mind the necessity for selection of the best ornamental elements, for a certain simplification, and the rhythmical treatment before mentioned, it is good to do so, as the work is more likely to have a certain freshness than if some of the well-known historic forms of ornament are used again. We may, however, learn much from the ornamental use of these forms, and use similar forms as the boundaries of the shape of our pattern units and ma.s.ses.

It is good practice to take a typical shape such as the Persian radiating flower or pine-apple, and use it as the plan for quite a different structure in detail, taking some familiar English flower as our motive. The same with the Indian and Persian palmette type. It is also desirable, as before pointed out, to draw sprays within formal boundaries for ornamental use. By such methods we may not only learn to appreciate the ornamental value of such forms, but by such adaptation and re-combination produce new varieties of ornament (see p. 217[f116]).

[Ill.u.s.tration (f116): Floral Designs Upon Typical Inclosing Shapes of Indian and Persian Ornament.]

We may perceive how distinct are the two aims as between simple graphic drawing, or delineation, and what we call design, or conscious arrangements of line or form. While planes of relief, varied form and surface, values of light and shade, and accidental characteristics are rather the object with the graphic draughtsman, typical form and structure, and recurring line and ma.s.s, are sought for by the ornamentist. Both series of facts, or qualities, or characteristics, are in nature.

[Selection]

Judicious selection, however, is the test of artistic treatment; selection, that is, with a view to the aim and scope of the work. The truth of superficial appearance or accidental aspect is _one_ sort of truth: the truth of the actual constructive characteristics--be they of figure, flower, or landscape--is _another_. Both belong to the thing we see--to the object we are drawing; but we shall dwell upon one truth or set of truths rather than the other, in accordance with our particular artistic aim, though, whatever this may be, and in whatever direction it may lead us, we shall find that selection of some sort will be necessary.

In making studies, however pure and simple, the object of which is to discover facts and to learn mastery of form, our aim should be to get as much truth as we can, truth of structure as well as of aspect. But these (as far as we can make them) exhaustive studies should be accompanied or followed by a.n.a.lytical studies made from different points of view and for different purposes.

Studies, for instance, made with a view to arrangements of _line_ only--to get the characteristic and beautiful lines of a figure, a momentary att.i.tude, the lines of a flower, or a landscape: studies with a view, solely, to the understanding of structure and form, or again, with the object of seizing the broad relations of light and shade, or tone and colour--all are necessary to a complete artistic education of the eye.

[Accidents and Essentials]

If we are drawn as students rather towards the picturesque and graphic side of art, we shall probably look for accidents of line and form more than what I should call the essentials, or _typical_ line and form, which are the most valuable to the decorative designer.

In both directions some compact or compromise with nature is necessary in any really artistic re-presentation.

The painter and the sculptor often seek as _complete representation_ as possible, and what may be called complete representation is within the range of their resources. Yet unless some individual choice or feeling impresses the work of either kind it is not a _re-presentation_, but becomes an _imitation_, and therefore inartistic.

The decorative designer and ornamentist seek to _suggest_ rather than to _re-present_, though the decorator's suggestion of natural form, taking only enough to suit or express the particular ornamental purpose, must be considered also as a re-presentation. How much, or how little, he will take of actual nature must depend largely upon his resources, his object, and the limitations of his material--the conditions of his work in short; but his range may be as wide as from the flat silhouetted forms of stencils or simple inlays to the highly-wrought mural painting.

Design motive, individual conception and sentiment, apart from material, must, of course, always affect the question of the choice and degree of representation of nature. The painter will sometimes feel that he only wants to suggest forms, such as figures or buildings, half veiled in light and atmosphere, colours and forms in twilight, or half lost in luminous depths of shadow.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f117a): Dancing Figure with the Governing Lines of the Movement.]

[Ill.u.s.tration (f117b): Lines of Floral Growth and Structure: Lily and Rose.]

[The Outward Vision and Inner Vision]

The decorative designer will sometimes want to emphasize forms with the utmost force and realism at his command, as in some crisp bit of carving or emphatic pattern, to give point and relief in his scheme of quant.i.ties.

There is no hard-and-fast rule in art, only general principles, constantly varied in practice, from which all principles spring, and into which, if vital, they ought to be capable of being again resolved.

But a design once started upon some principle--some particular motive of line or form--then, in following this out, it will seem to develop almost a life or law of growth of its own, which as a matter of logical necessity will demand a particular treatment--a certain natural consistency or harmony--from its main features down to the smallest detail as a necessity of its existence.

We might further differentiate art as, on the one hand, the image of the _outward vision_, and, on the other, as the outcome or image of the _inner vision_.

The first kind would include all portraiture, by which I mean faithful portrayal or transcript whether of animate or inanimate nature; while the second would include all imaginative conceptions, decorative designs, and pattern inventions.

The outward vision obviously relies upon what the eye perceives in nature. Its virtue consists in the faithfulness and truth of its graphic record, in the penetrating force of observation of fact, and the representative power by which they are reproduced on paper or canvas, clay or marble.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f118a): 1 and 2, Mountain and Crag Sculpture: Coast Lines, Gulf of Nauplia.]

[Ill.u.s.tration (f118b): Lines of Movement in Water: Shallow Stream Over Sand.]

The image of the inner vision is also a record, but of a different order of fact. It may be often of unconscious impressions and memories which are retained and recur with all or more than the vividness of actuality--the tangible forms of external nature calling up answering, but not identical, images in the mind, like reflections in a mirror or in still water, which are similar but never the same as the objects they reflect.

But the inner vision is not bound by the appearances of the particular moment. It is the record of the sum of many moments, and retains the typical impress of mult.i.tudinous and successive impressions--like the composite photograph, where faces may be printed one over another until the result is a more typical image than any individual one taken separately.

The inner vision sees the results of time rather than the impressions of the moment. It sees _s.p.a.ce_ rather than landscape: race rather than men: spirits rather than mortals: types rather than individuals.

The inner vision hangs the mind's house with a mysterious tapestry of figurative thoughts, a rich and fantastic imagery, a world where the elements are personified, where every tree has its dryad, and where the wings of the winds actually brush the cheek.

The inner vision re-creates rather than represents, and its virtue consists in the vividness and beauty with which, in the language of line, form, and colour, these visions of the mind are recorded and presented to the outward eye.

There is often fusion here again between two different tendencies, habits of mind, or ways of regarding things. In all art the mind must work through the eye, whether its force appears in closeness of observation or in vivid imaginings. The very vividness of realization even of the most faithful portraiture is a testimony to mental powers.

The difference lies really in the _focus_ of the mental force; and, in any case, the language of line and form we use will neither be forcible or convincing, neither faithful to natural fact nor true to the imagination, without close and constant study of external form and of its structure as well as its aspect.

CHAPTER IX

Of the Adaptation of Line and Form in Design, in various materials and methods--Mural Decoration--Fresco-work of the Italian Painters--Modern Mural Work--Mural s.p.a.cing and pattern Plans--Scale--The Skirting--The Dado--Field of the Wall--The Frieze--Panelling--Tapestry--Textile Design--Persian Carpets-- Effect of Texture on Colour--Prints--Wall-paper--Stained Gla.s.s.

We have been considering hitherto the choice and use of line and form, and various methods of their representation in drawing, both from the point of view of the graphic draughtsman and that of the ornamental designer.

We now come to consider the subject solely from the latter standpoint (the point of view of ornamental design); and it will be useful to endeavour to trace the principles governing the selection of form and use of line as influenced by some of the different methods and conditions of craftsmanship, and as adapted to various decorative purposes.

[Mural Decoration]

The most important branch of decorative art may be said to be mural decoration, allied as it is with the fundamental constructive art of all--architecture, from which it obtains its determining conditions and natural limitations.

Its history in the past is one of splendour and dignity, and its record includes some of the finest art ever produced. The ancient Asiatic nations were well aware of its value not only as decoration but as a record.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f119): Giotto: "Chast.i.ty" (Lower Church, a.s.sisi).]

The palace and temple and tomb-walls of ancient Egypt, Persia, and a.s.syria vividly ill.u.s.trate the life and ideas of those peoples, while they conform to mural conditions. The painted council halls and churches of the Middle Ages fulfil the same purpose in a different spirit; but mural decoration in its richest, most imaginative and complete form was developed in Italy, from the time of Giotto, whose famous works at the Arena Chapel at Padua and a.s.sisi are well known, to the time of Michael Angelo, who in the sublime ceiling of the Sistine Chapel seemed to touch the extreme limits of mural work, and in fact might be said to have almost _defied_ them, painting mouldings in relief and in perspective to form the framework of pictures where figures on different scales are used. In the Sistine Chapel the series of earlier frescoes on the lower wall by Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Ghirlandajo, Pinturicchio, and other Florentine painters of the fifteenth century are really more strictly mural in feeling, and safer as guides in general treatment, than the work of the great master himself. They have much of the repose and richness as well as the quiet decorative effect of tapestry.

[Fresco-Work of Italian Painters]

The frescoes in the Palazzo Publico at Siena, Pinturicchio's work in the Piccolomini Chapel and the Appartimenti Borgia, the Campo Santo at Pisa and the Riccardi Chapel of Benozzo Gozzoli at Florence, may be mentioned as among the gems of mural painting.

[Modern Mural Work]

We have but little important mural painting in this country. Doubtless, from various traces discovered under Puritan whitewash, the walls of our mediaeval churches were painted as frequently as in continental countries, but so completely did artistic tradition and religious sentiment change after the Reformation that the opportunities have been few and the encouragement less for mural painting. An attempt to revive fresco-painting was made in our Houses of Parliament, and various scenes from our national history have been rendered with varying degrees of merit; but they have chiefly demonstrated the need of continuous practice in such work on the part of our painters and the absence of a true decorative instinct.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f120): Pinturicchio: Mural Painting (Piccolomini Chapel, Siena).]