CHAPTER XX.
THE MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT.
§ I. We enter now on the second division of our subject. We have no more to do with heavy stones and hard lines; we are going to be happy: to look round in the world and discover (in a serious manner always, however, and under a sense of responsibility) what we like best in it, and to enjoy the same at our leisure: to gather it, examine it, fasten all we can of it into imperishable forms, and put it where we may see it for ever.
This is to decorate architecture.
§ II. There are, therefore, three steps in the process: first, to find out in a grave manner what we like best; secondly, to put as much of this as we can (which is little enough) into form; thirdly, to put this formed abstraction into a proper place.
And we have now, therefore, to make these three inquiries in succession: first, what we like, or what is the right material of ornament; then how we are to present it, or its right treatment; then, where we are to put it, or its right place. I think I can answer that first inquiry in this Chapter, the second inquiry in the next Chapter, and the third I shall answer in a more diffusive manner, by taking up in succession the several parts of architecture above distinguished, and rapidly noting the kind of ornament fittest for each.
§ III. I said in chapter II. § XIV., that all noble ornamentation was the expression of man’s delight in God’s work. This implied that there was an ignoble ornamentation, which was the expression of man’s delight in his own. There is such a school, chiefly degraded classic and Renaissance, in which the ornament is composed of imitations of tilings made by man. I think, before inquiring what we like best of God’s work, we had better get rid of all this imitation of man’s, and be quite sure we do not like that.
§ IV. We shall rapidly glance, then, at the material of decoration hence derived. And now I cannot, as I before have done respecting construction, convince the reader of one thing being wrong, and another right. I have confessed as much again and again; I am now only to make appeal to him, and cross-question him, whether he really does like things or not. If he likes the ornament on the base of the column of the Place Vendôme, composed of Wellington boots and laced frock coats, I cannot help it; I can only say I differ from him, and don’t like it. And if, therefore, I speak dictatorially, and say this is base, or degraded, or ugly, I mean, only that I believe men of the longest experience in the matter would either think it so, or would be prevented from thinking it so only by some morbid condition of their minds; and I believe that the reader, if he examine himself candidly, will usually agree in my statements.
§ V. The subjects of ornament found in man’s work may properly fall into four heads: 1. Instruments of art, agriculture, and war; armor, and dress; 2. Drapery; 3. Shipping; 4. Architecture itself.
1. Instruments, armor, and dress.