now of universal use, both for floor and wall decoration, and have become general favourites for such purposes. A few suggestions, therefore, for the purpose of making them more artistic and pleasing will not be out of place.
The present patterns are almost entirely of a conventional kind, or according to strict geometric forms. The same pattern is repeated all over the surface, without variation, and however excellent the pattern may be, it is designed on the same principle as that of a printed wall paper.
The design just given puts all geometric forms aside, and introduces a free-hand treatment, allowing the pattern to be varied on every surface laid down.
Design for wall encaustic tile.
The first tile shows eight points in which the stem of the pattern (suppose that of a flower design) meets in them all. The second tile shows the stem; the third and fourth the flower pattern varied. One tile might have more flowers than leaves, another all leaves or buds, and as all the tiles would fall in their right places, they depend only on the care of the workmen who place them; the pattern might be varied according to the number of tiles of different pattern.
For wall linings a trellis work might be shown on the tile, having a blue ground; some tiles might be without either leaves, stems, or flowers, and the design would show a flowered trellis against the sky. The figure given on page 461 shows this.
These tiles are beginning to be used on columns. Some good examples are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum Galleries. In columns with trellis work a white marble ground with leaves and roses twined round it naturally, would look a great deal better than formal lines of stiff ornaments.
Some of our latest Gothic architects who were at the same time artists, did not trouble themselves to draw out according to rule the geometric lines for the foliation of their Gothic windows. They knew the principles thoroughly, but merely made the vertical lines correct, and then sketched in the foliation with a free hand. This gave an outline greatly superior to the usual stiff conventional forms. Some examples of this may be seen in one of the author’s books, now in the Fine Art Library of the South Kensington Museum, in which the free-hand designs (rubbings) are placed by the side of the same patterns drawn out geometrically.
The vignette shows foreign cut-wood patterns for roof ornament; the section the method of forming the zinc gutter.