Fig. 1.—Japanese decoration.
Fig. 2.—Japanese decoration altered.
To make an ornamental design, the units of the decoration must be arranged and brought into order; repetition and symmetry may not be required, but even distribution, order, and balance are indispensable. The whole too must not appear to be accidental but designed for the object, while No. 1 might have been made from a shadow cast on a window. The sketch at [Fig. 2] is an attempt to illustrate our notion of ornament by using the elements in [Fig. 1] evenly distributed, having at the same time a due regard to the boundary-lines of the panel.
Applied ornament is that which is specially designed and fitted for the position it occupies.
Independent ornaments are such things as shields, labels, medallions, &c., with or without enclosing frames; pateræ, festoons, and other loose ornamental objects, which may be attached to a surface, and may be used alone, or in combination with applied ornament ([Fig. 133]).
Numerous examples may be given of inappropriate ornament. As a rule, any kind of ornament that is not suited to the surface ornamented, or is falsely constructed, may be called inappropriate. For instance, if upright panels and pilasters were decorated with ornament running in oblique lines, or with a strongly-marked series of horizontal bands; or if a carpet pattern were designed to run in one particular direction; or, from an architectural point of view, if columns supporting nothing were used in decoration; if consoles or brackets were turned upside down; or if curved mouldings were decorated with frets; or panels were overloaded with mouldings; if forms, organic or otherwise, were used together, but out of scale with one another; or things were made to simulate what they are not; or there were a great excess of enrichment; each of these examples might be considered as inappropriate ornament.