plates and in painted decoration is of a very free character, but it only holds a secondary place, being generally found in combination with animal forms and grotesques. The utmost freedom in the curve and reflex curve may be allowed in the painted forms of the acanthus; this being logical enough when we consider that the greater part of the leafage is generated by the free play of the brush. (See [Fig. 159].) The arabesques of the Vatican, and the Italian cinque-cento ware, afford the best examples of this painted foliage. The acanthus was the parent of nearly all the subsequent styles of decorative foliage down to the Saracenic and late Romanesque, and its modifications have shown the difficulty of improving on the Classic type. We are advised by ornamentalists and writers on art to seek for a new leaf that might in time rival the acanthus in ornament. The advice may be good, and many have given their attention to it, but no lasting results have as yet been obtained. Of late years there is a kind of scroll-work much favoured by some ornamentalists. It cannot of course be called new, few things can be in this world; but its persistent application, from illumination to stone-carving, will perhaps in time stamp it with a traditional character. The foliage is more like sea-weed than anything else, but it also has a faint resemblance to the acanthus, the ox-eye, and the wild poppy ([Fig. 159]). We have no fixed principles of ornamental art; even ornamentalists themselves disagree as to what is good, and what is bad, so that nothing lives long enough to become national ornament. How can we hope to vie with the ornamental
Fig. 160.—Winter aspect of a pear tree, illustrating “balance” in nature.
art of Greece, when the artists disagree and the nation is indifferent; while the Greeks enjoyed unity of artistic thought, and gloried in the worship of the beautiful? To gain a fuller insight into the delicate varieties of the acanthus, the student is advised to carefully examine and draw the foliage in the pilasters of Louis XII.’s tomb. The late Alfred Stevens has done more than any one of late years to properly apply the acanthus. (See [Fig. 132].)
CHAPTER VIII
THE “symbolic” and “mnemonic” classes of ornament are large, and are interesting alike to the historian, the antiquary, and the student of art. It is not easy to draw the line between them, as the latter skirts the ground of the former so closely. Mnemonic ornament is that class which includes written characters, signs, hieroglyphics, and natural forms as aids to memory. The scenes, facts, or ideas so recalled may or may not be in relation to the thing decorated; e.g. we see texts from the Korân in Kufic and other characters, used to decorate the walls and gateways of mosques, and dresses, vases, candlesticks, and other articles of domestic use. Japanese ornament abounds in mnemonic characters with or without other forms. All writing came from the picture-writing of barbarous tribes; the symbols of these pictures were used on the one hand for letters, and on the other for ideas. In the decorative art of most nations, inscriptions can be found on their buildings, utensils, and articles of luxury; and as in the case of some illuminated manuscripts, it is not only difficult to know where the lettering ends, and the ornament begins, but whether the main end was not ornament rather than instruction. The art of illumination or decorative writing really begins when there is a desire to have the written matter presented in a beautiful form, and to those who could not read the illumination alone was of importance. In the hands of artists letters have often been arranged as a highly ornamental cipher. Monogram and cipher are almost synonymous terms; the former differs only from the latter in this respect, that a monogram may have different forms of the letters in different positions, and still have the same meaning, while a cipher cannot have more than one particular form or else it defeats its purpose, if used as a signet or as a trade-mark. The decorations found on the tombs, sarcophagi, and stone tablets, &c., of ancient Egypt are mnemonical in character, and this was the primary reason of their existence: they were sculptured on the granite slabs, to record the names and virtues of the deceased kings and persons of note, but at the same time they were made pleasing to the eye; the perfect balance and even distribution of these inscriptions render them highly decorative, and they become mnemonic ornament. (See [Fig. 162].) This diagram is the hieroglyphic inscription taken from the famous “Tablet of Four Hundred Years.” It is the third line of the twelve on this monument, and is thus translated: “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ra-user-ma, Sotep-en-ra, Son of Ra, Ramases Mer-amen, Chieftain enriching the lands with memorials of his name.” The inscription at [Fig. 163] occurs frequently in Japanese pottery; it represents the word “Jiu,” meaning longevity or everlasting life. The Japanese symbols of longevity are the following: the god of longevity, a very old man with a large head and merry countenance, holding a scroll in his hands, and accompanied by a crane, as an attribute, and sometimes by a stork or a sacred tortoise. The crane itself is a symbol of long life; the bamboo, the fir, and the plum together make a second; and the gourd is another. Religion has had, from the earliest period of man’s history, Art for its earthly handmaid, and nine-tenths of symbolic ornament pertains to religious ordinances and ceremonies. Nearly all the beginnings of art expressed religious thought by means of symbols; the picture writing of barbarians, the hieroglyphic or priestly compositions of the Egyptians on papyrus and granite, the Runic and Ogham inscriptions of the Northmen and ancient Celts, were alike endowed with an occult meaning, but they were symbols to the initiated only. A good example of symbolic ornament may be seen at [Fig. 164]. The winged globe so common in Egyptian art has been found sculptured on the lintels of temple doorways almost thirty feet in length. The globe is said to symbolize the sun, the outspread wings the overshadowing presence of Providence, and the asps dominion or the monarchy. The Scarab, or winged beetle ([Fig. 161]), is an emblem of the Creator or Maker. The disc or ball that it holds between its claws is said to represent the Sun, from which all life is derived. Another and more natural meaning attached to the disc is that it represents the ball containing the egg which the beetle usually rolls to a place of safety, where it is buried, and in course of time new life will spring from it. This emblem occurs as a central ornament in some Egyptian ceilings. Nearly all Egyptian ornament was symbolic. The canons or laws laid down by the Egyptian priests and chief scribes for the guidance of artists were for centuries unvarying; every ornament, including representations of the human figure, was drawn and sculptured by rule, and no one was allowed to alter the type under severe penalties. The blue Nymphea or lotus flower is pre-eminently characteristic of Egyptian ornament (see [Fig. 165]); it was sacred as the type of coming
