Art Ornamental Views

General Goods

III. Scope of Ornament. - The scope of ornamental art is almost boundless. It is applied to objects large and small, adapted to the most various uses, constructed of the most different materials. As the ornamentation is always to be subordinate to the object, considerations regarding size, use, position, material, etc., must govern it. An ornament that would be admirable applied to one object, might be detestable if applied to another. A design cannot be made without reference to its future application.

But in ornamental art the case is entirely different. As it is to be applied and consequently subordinated to something, and does not exist for itself, it would be impossible, except in very rare instances, to introduce in a design a natural object in a realistic manner and not violate some important law of its growth or the conditions of its well-being. For instance, to exactly repeat a certain rose, with all the accidents of its growth, many times in a carpet is not natural. Nature never repeats herself. Moreover, to tread on that which is supposed to suggest to us real roses is barbarous. It would really be outraging and distorting nature while pretending to be her faithful disciple and imitator.

The humanist-influenced Renaissance brought a renewed and self-conscious review of the classical past. On objects it expressed itself in dense and colorful decoration with a multitude of figural and ornamental motifs derived from antiquity. Figures in classical drapery with well-defined anatomy, subject matter from mythology or Roman history, allegory, and personifications provided a rich canon to draw from. Other ornament was derived mainly from architecture: elaborate moldings, meanders, scrolling vines, acanthus leaves, rosettes, egg-and-dart and beaded bands, gadrooning, and grotesques, named after the excavations of grottos (most notably the Domus Aurea) in Rome in the early sixteenth century.

Too decorativeehellip;Peter Wilson of Rote Design trained as a fine artist in the early/mid 1990s, a time when form was expected to follow function, and he can recall that a common criticism at the time was that his work was ls"too decorativeers". ld"It wasnsrs"t something that bothered me ondash; I didners"t draw the same connection between beauty and intellect. The idea that because my work was aesthetically pleasing or seductive meant that it could not have emotional resonance or an intellectual grounding, seemed nonsense to me, and still does,hrd" says Wilson with genuine conviction in his voice. uld"I feel that there has been a real return in recent years to styles that are artist-driven, rd" he adds. hld"Decorative and ornamental motifs have been evident for some time in fashion, interior design and advertising