Line and Form (1900) Part 6

[Contrast]

The consideration of quant.i.ties in form and design involves the question of _contrast_, which, indeed, can hardly be separated from it. There is the contrast of form and line, and the contrast of colour and plane. It is with the first kind we are dealing now.

Take the simplest linear border, such as the type common in Greek work.

We should easily weary of the continual repet.i.tion of such a form alone and una.s.sisted, but add a vertical with an alternative dark filling, and we get a certain richness and solidity which is a relief at once. Add another quant.i.ty, and we get the rich effect of the egg and tongue or egg and dart moulding.

A still simpler instance of the use of contrast, however, is the chequer, or the principle of equal alternation of dark and light ma.s.ses; but this touches colour contrast rather than form.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f062): Recurrence and Contrast in Border Motives.]

The love of contrast makes the Chinese porcelain-painter break the blue borders of his plates with small cartouche-like forms inclosing the light ground, varied with a spray or device of some light kind; or the diagonal, closely-filled field of his woven silk by broad discs or cartouches of another plane of ornament. But the love of sharp or very violent contrasts, more especially of form, may easily lead one astray and be destructive of ornamental effect. Like all decorative considerations, the artistic use of contrast depends much upon the particular case and the conditions of the work, and one cannot lay down any unvarying rules. There are agreeable and disagreeable contrasts, and their choice and use must depend upon the individual artist.

[Variation of Allied Forms]

The most beautiful kinds of design rather seem to depend upon the harmonious variation in a.s.sociation of similar or allied forms than on sharp contrasts.

In compositions of figures the a.s.sociation of the delicate curves and angles of the human form, and the lines of drapery, with the emphatic verticals and horizontals, the semicircles and rectangles of architectural form, for instance, are always delightful in competent hands; as also compositions of figure and landscape, with its possibilities of undulating line corrected by the severe horizon, or sea-line, and contrasted with the vertical lines of trees, stems, and the rich forms of foliage ma.s.ses.

For the same reasons both of correspondence and contrast, ma.s.ses of type or lettering of good form are admirable as foils to figure designs, in which commemorative monuments of all kinds and book designs afford abundant opportunities to the designer.

[Use Of Human Figure and Animal Forms]

In surface or textile decoration of all kinds nothing gives so much relief and vitality as the judicious use of animal forms and the human figure, although they are not much favoured at present. The forms of birds and animals, if designed in relation to the rest of the pattern, will give a pleasant variety of form and line, and in their forms and lines we find just those elements both of correspondence and contrast, in their relation to geometric or to floral design, which are so valuable.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f063a): Use of Inclosing Boundaries in Designing Animal Forms in Decorative Pattern.]

In order to combine such forms successfully, however, great care in designing is necessary; and a good sound principle to follow as a general guide is to make the boundaries of the bird or animal touch the limits of an imaginary inclosing form of some simple geometric or floral or leaf shape (see p. 104[f063a]). This would at once control the form and render it available in a pattern as a decorative ma.s.s or unit. The particular shape of the controlling form must, of course, depend upon the general character of the design, whether free and flowing or square and restricted, the nature of the repeat, the ultimate position of the work, and so on. A study of Gothic heraldry and the early Sicilian silk patterns would be very instructive in this connection, since it is rather the heraldic ideal than that of the natural history book which is decoratively appropriate. At the same time it is quite possible to combine ornamental treatment with a great deal of natural truth in structure and character.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f063b): Decorative s.p.a.cing of Figures Within Geometric Boundaries.]

Much the same principles apply to the treatment of the human figure as an element in ornament; they should be designed, whether singly or in groups, under the control of imaginary boundaries, and care must be taken that in line and ma.s.s they re-echo (or are re-echoed by) other lines which connect them with the rest of the design, if they occur as incidents in repeating wall-paper or hanging design, for instance. It is, however, quite possible to imagine a decorative effect produced by the use of figures alone (see p. 105[f063b]), with something very subsidiary in the way of connecting links of linear or floral pattern, much as figures were used by the ancient Greek vase-painters, beautifully distributed as ornament over the concave or convex surfaces of the vases and vessels of the potter, the forms of which, as all good decoration should do, they helped to express as well as to adorn.

CHAPTER V

Of the Influence of Controlling Lines, Boundaries, s.p.a.ces, and Plans in Designing--Origin of Geometric Decorative s.p.a.ces and Panels in Architecture--Value of Recurring Line--Tradition-- Extension--Adaptability--Geometric Structural Plans--Frieze and Field--Ceiling Decoration--Co-operative Relation.

The function of line considered from the point of view of its controlling influence as a boundary, or inclosure, of design, upon which I touched in the last chapter, is a very important one, and deserves most attentive study.

The usual problem a designer in the flat has to solve is to fill harmoniously a given s.p.a.ce or panel defined by a line--some simple geometric form--such as a square or a circle, a parallelogram, a diamond, a lunette.

[Influence of Controlling Lines, etc.]

Now it is possible to regard such s.p.a.ces or panels as more or less unrelated, and simply as the boundaries of an individual composition or picture of some kind. Yet even so considered a certain sense of geometric control would come in in the selection of our lines and ma.s.ses, both in regard to each other and in regard to the shape of the inclosing boundary. We seem to feel the need of some answering line or re-echo in the character of the composition to the shape of its boundary, to give it its distinctive reason for existence in that particular form--just as we should expect a sh.e.l.l-fish to conform to the shape of its sh.e.l.l. Such a re-echo or acknowledgment might be ever so slight, or might be quite emphatic and dominate as the leading motive, but for perfectly harmonious effect it must be there.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f064): Relation of Design to Boundary: Simple Linear Motives and Pattern Bases.]

A strictly simple and logical linear filling of such s.p.a.ces might be expressed in the most primitive way, as in the ill.u.s.tration on p.

109[f064].

By these means certain primitive types of ornament are evolved, such as the Greek volute and the Greek key or fret, the logical ornament of a logical people.

Such arrangements of line form simple linear patterns, and a decorative effect of surface is produced simply by their repet.i.tion, especially if the principle of alternation be observed. This principle may be expressed by taking, say, a series of squares or circles, and placing them either in a line as for a border arrangement, or for extension vertically and laterally over a surface, and filling only the alternate square or circle, leaving the alternate ones, or dropping them out altogether (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 111[f065]).

[Ill.u.s.tration (f065): Use of Intervals in Repeating the Same Ornamental Units.]

When we desire to go beyond such primitive linear ornaments, however, and introduce natural form, we should still be guided by the same principles, if we desire to produce a strictly decorative effect, while varying them in application to any extent.

It matters not what forms we deal with, floral, animal, human; directly we come to combine them in a design, to control them by a boundary, to inclose them in a s.p.a.ce, we shall feel this necessity of controlling line, which, however concealed, is yet essential to bring them into that harmonious relation which is the essence of all design (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 112[f066]).

[Ill.u.s.tration (f066): Designs of Floral, Human, and Animal Forms, Governed by Shape of Inclosing Boundary.]

We may take it as a general rule that the more purely ornamental the purpose of our design, and the more abstract in form it is, the more emphatically we may carry out the principle of correspondence of line between that of the inclosing boundary and that of the design itself; and, _vice versa_, as the design becomes more pictorial in its appeal and more complex and varied in its elements, the more we may combine the leading motive or principle of line with secondary ones, or with variations, since every fresh element, every new direction of line, every new form introduced, demands some kind of re-echo to bring it into relation with the other elements of the design, or parts of the composition, whatever may be its nature and purpose.

Now, if we seek further the meaning and origin of this necessity of the control of geometric lines and s.p.a.ces in design, I think we shall find it in the constructive necessities of architecture: for it is certainly from architecture that we derive those typical s.p.a.ces and panels the designer is so often called upon to fill.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f067): The Parthenon: Sketch to Show s.p.a.ces Used for Decorative Sculpture in Greek Architecture.]

[Origin of Geometric Decorative s.p.a.ces]

Lintel architecture--the Egyptian and the Greek--gave us the frieze, both continuous, as in that of the Cella of the Parthenon, or divided by triglyphs, which represented the ends of the beams of the primitive timber construction; and the interstices left between these determined the shape of the sculptured panel or slab inserted, and influenced the character of its ma.s.ses and the lines of its design, which was under the necessity of harmonizing with the whole building (see ill.u.s.tration, p.

114[f067]).

[Ill.u.s.tration (f068): Tower of the Winds Athens BC 50]

The same may be said of the pediments. The angle of the low-pitched roof left another interstice for the sculptor at each end of the building; and I have elsewhere* pointed out the influence of the inclosing s.p.a.ce and the angles of the pediment of the Parthenon upon the arrangement of the groups within it, and even upon the lines taken by some of the figures, especially the reclining figures near the acute angles.

[*] See "Bases of Design."

Certain lines become inseparably a.s.sociated with constructive expression, and are used to emphasize it, as the vertical flutings of the Doric column, by repeating the lines of the column itself, emphasize its constructive expression of supporting the weight of the horizontal lintels, the lines of which, repeated in the mouldings of the frieze and cornice, are a.s.sociated with level restfulness and secure repose.

As examples of design which, while meeting the structural necessities and acknowledging the control of s.p.a.ce and general conditions, as the form of the slabs upon which they are sculptured, yet expresses independent movement, the figures of the octagonal tower of the winds at Athens are interesting (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 115[f068]).

Quite a different feeling, corresponding to differences in conception and spirit in design, comes in with the Roman round _arch_ its allied forms of _spandril_ and _vault_, _lunette_ and _medallion_, presenting new s.p.a.ces for the surface designer, and new suggestions of ornamental line (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 117[f069]). It is noticeable how, with the round-arched architecture under Roman, Byzantine (see ill.u.s.tration, p.

118[f070]), and Renaissance forms, the scroll form of ornament developed, the reason being, I think, that it gave the necessary element of recurring line, whether used in the horizontal frieze in a.s.sociation with round arches, or in spandrils of vaults and arcades, and on marble mosaic pavements.

[Ill.u.s.tration (f069): Sketch of Part of the Arch of Constantine to Show s.p.a.ces for Decorative Sculpture in Roman Architecture.]

[Ill.u.s.tration (f070): Byzantine (Mosaic) Treatment of Architectural Structural Features: Apse, S. Vitale Ravenna.]

[Value of the Recurring Line]

The development of Gothic architecture, with its new constructive features and the greater variety of geometric s.p.a.ces, forms, and interstices which, as a consequence, were available for the designer of a.s.sociated ornament, whether carved work, mosaic, stained gla.s.s, or painting, naturally led to a corresponding variety in invention and decorative adaptation; and we may trace the same principle at work in other forms--I mean the principle of corresponding, counterbalancing, and recurring line--Gothic ornament being indeed generally an essential part of the structure, and architectural features being constantly repeated and utilized for their ornamental value, as in the case of canopies and tabernacle work.

We see, for instance, in the Decorated period the acute gable moulding over the arched recess, niche, doorway, or tomb, lightened and vivified by a floriated finial springing into vigorous curves from a vertical stem, forming an emphatic ogee outline which re-echoes the ogee line of the arch below, and is taken up in variations by the crockets carved upon the sides of the gable; and their spiral ascending lines lead the eye up to the finial which completes the composition. We may trace the same principle in the carved fillings of the subsidiary parts, such as the trefoiled panels, the secondary mouldings, and the cusps of the arches, which continue the line-motive or decorative harmony to the last point (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 120[f071]). The elegance and lightness of the pinnacles is increased in the same way, and further emphasized by the long vertical lines of the sunk panels upon their sides.