This 1910 edition has been carefully preserved and is presented on CD.
From the Preface:
It would be far beyond the limits of the powers of any one individual to attempt to gather together illustrations of the innumerable and ever-varying phases of Ornamental Art. It would be barely possible if undertaken by a Government, and even then it would be too voluminous to be generally useful. All, therefore, that I have proposed to myself in forming the collection which I have ventured to call the Grammar of Ornament, has been to select a few of the most prominent types in certain styles closely connected with each other, and in which certain general laws appeared to reign independently of the individual peculiarities of each. I have ventured to hope that, in thus bringing into immediate juxtaposition the many forms of beauty which every style of ornament presents, I might aid in arresting that unfortunate tendency of our time to be content with copying, whilst the fashion lasts, the forms peculiar to any bygone age, without attempting to ascertain, generally completely ignoring, the peculiar circumstances which rendered an ornament beautiful, because it was appropriate, and which, as expressive of other wants when thus transplanted, as entirely fails.
It is more than probable that the first result of sending forth to the world this collection will be seriously to increase this dangerous tendency, and that many will be content to borrow from the past those forms of beauty which have not already been used up ad nauseam. It has been my desire to arrest this tendency, and to awaken a higher ambition.
If the student will but endeavor to search out the thoughts which have been expressed in so many different languages, he may assuredly hope to find an ever-gushing fountain in place of a half-filled stagnant reservoir.
In the following chapters I have endeavoured to establish these main facts,--
First. That whenever any style of ornament commands universal admiration, it will always be found to be in accordance with the laws which regulate the distribution of form in nature.
Secondly. That however varied the manifestations in accordance with these laws, the leading ideas on which they are based are very few.
Thirdly. That the modifications and developments which have taken place from one style to another have been caused by a sudden throwing off of some fixed trammel, which set thought free for a time, till the new idea, like the old, became again fixed, to give birth in its turn to fresh inventions.
Lastly. I have endeavoured to show, in the twentieth chapter, that the future progress of Ornamental Art may be best secured by engrafting on the experience of the past the knowledge we may obtain by a return to Nature for fresh inspiration. To attempt to build up theories of art, or to form a style, independently of the past, would be an act of supreme folly. It would be at once to reject the experiences and accumulated knowledge of thousands of years. On the contrary, we should regard as our inheritance all the successful labours of the past, not blindly following them, but employing them simply as guides to find the true path.
In taking leave of the subject, and finally surrendering it to the judgment of the public, I am fully aware that the collection is very far from being complete; there are many gaps which each artist, however, may readily fill up for himself. My chief aim, to place side by side types of such styles as might best serve as landmarks and aids to the student in his onward path, has, I trust, been fulfilled.
Owen Jones.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES IN THE ARRANGEMENT OF FORM AND COLOUR, IN ARCHITECTURE AND THE DECORATIVE ARTS, WHICH ARE ADVOCATED THROUGHOUT THIS WORK.
Proposition 1: The Decorative Arts arise from, and should properly be attendant upon, architecture.
Proposition 2: Architecture is the material expression of the wants, the faculties, and the sentiments of the age in which it is created.
Style in architecture is the peculiar form that expression takes under the influence of climate and materials at command.
Proposition 3: Architecture, and all works of the Decorative Arts, should possess fitness, proportion, harmony; the result of all of which is repose.
Proposition 4: True beauty results from that repose which the mind feels when the eye, the intellect and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want.
Proposition 5: Construction should be decorated. Decoration should never be purposely constructed.
That which is beautiful is true; that which is true must be beautiful.
Proposition 6: Beauty of form is produced by lines growing out one from the other in gradual undulations: there are no excrescences; nothing could be removed and leave the design equally good or better.
Proposition 7: The general forms being first cared for, these should be subdivided and ornamented by general lines; the interstices may then be filled in with ornament, which may again be subdivided and enriched for closer inspection.
Proposition 8: All ornament should be based upon a geometrical construction.
Proposition 9: As in every perfect work of Architecture a true proportion will be found to reign between all the members which compose it, so throughout the Decorative Arts every assemblage of forms should be arranged on certain definite proportions; the whole and each particular member should be a multiple of some simple unit.
Those proportions will be the most beautiful which it will be most difficult for the eye to detect.
Thus the proportion of a double square, or 4 to 8, will be less beautiful than the more subtle ration of 5 to 8; 3 to 6, than 3 to 7; 3 to 9, than 3 to 8; 3 to 4, than 3 to 5.
Proposition 10: Harmony of form consists in the proper balancing, and contrast of, the straight, the angular, and the curved.
Proposition 11: In surface decoration, all lines should flow out of a parent stem. Every ornament, however distant, should be traced to its branch and root.—Oriental Practice.
Proposition 12: All junctions of curved lines with curved, or of curved with straight, should be tangential to each other.—Natural law. Oriental practice in accordance with it.
Proposition 13: Flowers, or other natural objects, should not be used as ornament, but conventional representations founded upon them, sufficiently suggestive to convey the intended image to the mind, without destroying the unity of the object they are employed to decorate.—Universally obeyed in the best periods of Art, equally violated when art declines.
Proposition 14: Colour is used to assist in the development of form, and to distinguish objects or parts of objects one from another.
Proposition 15: Colour is used to assist light and shade, helping the undulations of form by the proper distribution of the several colours
Proposition 16: These objects are best attained by the use of the primary colours on small surfaces and in small quantities, balanced and supported by the secondary and tertiary colours on the larger masses.
Proposition 17: The primary colours should be used on the upper portions of objects, the secondary and tertiary on the lower.
Proposition 18 (Field's Chromatic Equivalences): The primaries of equal intensities will harmonise or neutralize each other, the proportions of 3 yellow, 5 red, and 8 blue,—integrally as 16.
The secondaries, in the proportion of 8 orange, 13 purple, 11 green,— integrally as 32.
The tertiaries, citrine (compounded of orange and green), 19, russet (orange and purple), 21, olive (green and purple), 24,—integrally as 64.
It follows that—
Each secondary being a compound of two primaries, is neutralized by the remaining primary in the same proportions—thus, 8 of orange by 8 of blue, 11 of green by 5 of red, 13 or purple by 3 of yellow.
Each tertiary being a binary compound of two secondaries, is neutralised by the remaining secondary,
Proposition 19: The above supposes the colours to be used in their prismatic intensities, but each colour has a variety of tones when mixed with white, or of shade when mixed with grey or black.
When a full colour is contrasted with another of lower tone, the volume of the latter must be proportionally increased.
Proposition 20: Each colour has a variety of hues, obtained by admixture with other colours, in addition to white, grey, or black: thus we have of yellow,— orange-yellow on the one side, and lemon-yellow on the other; so of red,—scarlet-red, and crimson-red; and of each every variety of tone and shade.
When a primary tinged with another primary is contrasted with a secondary, the secondary must have a hue of the third primary.
Proposition 21: In using the primary colours on moulded surfaces, we should place blue, which retires, on the concave surfaces; yellow, which advances, on the convex; and red, the intermediate colour, on the undersides; separating the colours by white on the vertical planes.
When the proportions required by Proposition 5 cannot be obtained, we may procure the balance by a change in the colours themselves; thus if the surfaces to be coloured should give too much yellow, we should make the red more crimson and the blue more purple,—i.e. we should take the yellow out of them; so if the surfaces should give too much blue, we should make the yellow more orange and the red more scarlet.
Proposition 22: The various colours should be so blended that the objects coloured, when viewed at a distance, should present a neutralised bloom.
Proposition 23: No composition can be perfect in which any one of the three primary colours is wanting.
Proposition 24: When two colours of the same tone are juxtaposed, the light colour will appear lighter, and the dark colour darker.
Proposition 25: When two different colours are juxtaposed, they receive a double modification,—first, as to their tone (the light colour appearing lighter and the dark colour appearing darker); secondly, as to their hue, each will become tinged with the complementary colour of the other.
Proposition 26: Colour on white grounds appear darker; on black grounds, lighter.
Proposition 27: Black grounds suffer when opposed to colours which give a luminous complementary.
Proposition 28: Colours should never be allowed to impinge upon one each other.
Proposition 29: When ornaments in a colour are on a ground of a contrasting colour, the ornament should be separated from the ground by an edging of lighter colour,—as a red flower on a green ground should have an edging of lighter red.
Proposition 30: When ornaments in a colour are on a gold ground, the ornaments should be separated from the ground by an edging of a darker colour.
Proposition 31: Gold ornaments on any coloured ground should be outlined with black.
Proposition 32: Ornaments of any colour may be separated from grounds of any other colour by edgings of white, gold, or black.
Proposition 33: Ornaments in any colour, or in gold, may be used on white or black grounds, without outline or edging.
Proposition 34: In "self-tints," tones, or shades of the same colour, a light tint on a dark ground may be used without outline; but a dark ornament on a light ground required to be outlined with a still darker tint.
Proposition 35: Imitations, such as the graining of woods, and of the various coloured marbles, allowable only, when the employment of the thing imitated would not have been inconsistent.
Proposition 36: The principles discoverable in the works of the past belong to us; not so the results. It is taking the end for the means.
Proposition 37: No improvement can take place in the Art of the present generation until all classes, Artists, Manufacturers, and the Public, are better educated in Art, and the existence of general principles is more fully recognized.
Illustrations are presented in the following sections:
Ornament of Savage Tribes
Egyptian Ornament
Assyrian and Persian Ornament
Greek Ornament
Pompeian Ornament
Roman Ornament
Byzantine Ornament
Arabian Ornament
Turkish Ornament
Moresque Ornament from the Alhambra
Persian Ornament
Indian Ornament
Hindoo Ornament
Chinese Ornament
Celtic Ornament
Mediaeval Ornament
Renaissance Ornament
Elizabethan Ornament
Italian Ornament
Leaves and Flowers from Nature
Royalty Free Artwork
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