III.
Having brought to a close all that is here necessary to say respecting the formation of these bodies, and the position they occupy in regard to scientific inquiry, we may now turn to a consideration of their capabilities to suggest new forms in decorative design, as applied to the industrial arts. Being ourselves desirous to promote the adoption of the appropriate as well as the simple beauty of truth in ornament, we will first inquire how far these figures are in accordance with those general principles of arrangement of form which in all ages and countries have constituted the truly beautiful in art.
These are summed up briefly in the propositions contained in the opening chapter of Mr. Owen Jones’s “Grammar of Ornament.” We extract the following:—
“Proposition 3.—As Architecture, so all works of the Decorative Arts should possess fitness, proportion, harmony, the result of all which is repose.
“Proposition 5.—Decoration should never be purposely constructed: that which is beautiful is true, that which is true is beautiful.
“Proposition 8.—All ornament should be based upon a geometrical construction.
“Proposition 9.—As in Architecture, so in 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 particular unit.
“Proposition 10.—Harmony of form consists in the proper balancing and contrast of the straight, the inclined, and the curved.”
Fig. 38.
Further on, from the same high authority, we receive as an axiom—“That there can be no perfect composition where either of the three primary elements is wanting—the straight, the inclined, and the curved, or where they are not so harmonized that the one preponderates over the other two.” In the crystals of snow we perceive these last conditions are implicitly fulfilled, inasmuch as they include the varieties, straight, angular, and curved, of which the angular has a decided preponderance.
Fig. 39.
With regard to the proportions of number on which these figures are based, we shall find them almost all deficient in the maintenance of a ratio, water crystallizing at an angle of 60°, a fact exemplified in the radial arms and the secondary and tertiary additions, which, always produced at the same angle, are characteristic of the greater number of these crystals. Thus they can be considered suggestive only of more complete designs—the centre, in fact, of a bordering or pattern-work, to be completed round them according to the intended application, and with due reference to those ratios of number which are found most acceptable in composition.
Fig. 40.
Founded upon a strictly geometric base, and a uniform repetition of a certain concordant irregularity of parts, bound together in one harmonious unity by the laws of circular composition, which serve to lend beauty to their constructive details, and constitute the archeus of the figure, we are impressed with a conviction of their truth and conformity to the natural principles of beauty.
The impulse created in their favour is thus subsequently confirmed on rational and acknowledged grounds of admiration. This is the more satisfactory that, belonging to no school of architecture or design, they may be considered as originating a new order of forms for the further supply or extension of those so long acknowledged and admired. We do not, however, consider that they will equally well assimilate with all or any of the orders of decorative art. It appears to us, according to the means placed at our disposal for arriving at a conclusion, that they are analogous in many respects to the numerous specimens of angular composition which belong to the mediæval period of Byzantine art.
Fig. 41.
It may not be altogether foreign to the subject briefly to consider the united power of geometric figures, in conjunction with colour, to produce the striking and beautiful effects which form so important a feature in Byzantine and Moresque mosaic (but particularly the former) specimens of art.
Fig. 42.
The base of Byzantine mosaic is principally the relation of the hexagon to the triangle, upon which base almost innumerable combinations have been constructed. These Byzantine mosaics are always extremely simple in structure, some being made up entirely of the triangle, others of stars either six or eight rayed, singly or enclosed in a hexagon or octagon placed at intervals, and united by the more simple figure of the triangle, which, arranged in groups, serve as connecting links from one to the other. The whole composition is rendered either sparkling or monotonous according to the employment of contrasted effects or a limited and uniform range of colour, and is admirably illustrative of how the uniformity of the geometric figure may be broken up and destroyed, its very character changed, indeed, according to the system of colouring adopted—an illustration still further confirmed by a study of the varied and evolved designs on a part of the encaustic pavement of the Byzantine Court at the Crystal Palace, which, described in shades of neutral tint throughout, upon a ground of the same colour, renders it difficult for the eye to detect any variation of pattern.
Fig. 43.
The specimens of Moresque mosaic with which we are acquainted differ somewhat in character from that which we have been considering. Based upon the square and its affinities, it is constructed mainly with reference to the ratios of eight, four, and twelve. It is less glittering in colour than the Byzantine, and attracts the eye more to masses than to fragments.
The figures of snow are nearly allied to the principles of these decorative styles of art, based as they are upon a system of angular geometry. We perceive, also, that the primitive base of the crystals is the leading figure of mosaic, founded, as most of it is, upon the hexagon and its combinations, though occasionally admitting, with great effect, the employment of the octagon. Thus they seem naturally suggestive of an extension of the forms common to mosaic, and may be the means of eliciting fresh combinations scarcely less beautiful than those transmitted to us from the past.
The fitness of mosaic for the purposes of decoration is evident, on the ground of its conformity to certain fixed principles of truth which scarcely permit of deviation. One of the oldest of the mechanical arts, originating in experimental combinations with cubes solid and transparent, subsequently improving as the science of geometry became more generally understood, it is now, in the hands of some of our most eminent manufacturers, not the least important among the industrial agents of the present day, as may be seen in the beautiful encaustic and painted tiles for pavements and decorative purposes generally, executed by Messrs. Minton & Co., of Stoke-upon-Trent.
One great fault of the decorative designs of the present day is the want of “appropriate” ornament to the purposes in view, and the mixture of schools or styles of art, which characterize so many of the patterns commonly produced for domestic and even higher applications—a mixture too often involving the entire destruction of truth, fitness, and proportion, the three essential elements of beauty. In the magnificent work on the “Principles of Ornament,” by Mr. Jones, we have an entire history of the past in architectural design, classified into schools, the origin and progress of each, either traced or traceable in connection with the period at which it flourished, and the people who gave it birth. We may therefore anticipate that the pure and beautiful so made known amongst us may exercise an important and beneficial influence on design, from its highest to its lowest applications.
We do not forget, however, that the art of mosaic, taking its rise beneath the sunny skies of Italy and Greece, and glittering even now on the walls and beneath the cloisters of the Byzantine churches of Italy and Sicily, and within the mosques and palaces of the East, accords rather with the genius of the South and the gorgeous taste of the East than with the less florid tone of more northern lands; and a thorough understanding of the conditions under which it so long assimilated with, and continued to constitute a dazzling feature in, the decoration of two, if not three, of the highest styles of architecture—the Moresque, Byzantine, and Arabian—is necessary to enable us to profit to the full by its capabilities as an industrial agent. Nor do we forget that the rise of mosaic (we are speaking of its conventional varieties) was accompanied by, or was rather the result of, the decline of art, when for a period a mechanical process usurped the place of higher efforts of design and fancy.
For the very reason, however, that the art and its imitations must be to a great extent mechanical, we could wish to see its range of utility still further extended. Not admitting of wide deviations from fixed principles, we would prefer to see it substituted for the large mass of nondescript patterns to which we have already made allusion. And our facilities are great for introducing it into more general use; for in the same way that the painter’s art has, with the utmost truthfulness of effect, reproduced for our study and admiration representations of the elaborate inlayings of marble and glass, with which the originals, centuries ago, were constructed, we may carry its imitation successfully into almost every branch of manufacture or decoration; and, whilst preserving the spirit of the combinations, unfettered by the constructive difficulties of the original work, we may engraft new figures, and originate new styles of pattern, perhaps available for a variety of applications.