There is very little to be said about surfaces or forms of two dimensions. The principal requirement is that outlines should be agreeable and must be well defined. In fact, the two qualities are inseparable, for a well-defined outline is agreeable and a badly defined one is sure to be disagreeable. By well-defined is meant that its particular shape should easily appear and be clearly distinguishable. For instance, a square should appear with sides distinctly equal; a circle should have but one center. In an architectural opening either arch or entablature should prevail, and the character of the arch should be evident. In the examples presented ([Fig. 8]) in the view these principles are violated. The first figure is so clearly a square that at first, and before you have examined it closely, you think it is a square. It leaves an indefinite and consequently disagreeable impression. The same criticism applies to the second object, apparently a mirror. The glass is round, but the frame is so irregular that the impress of the circle is destroyed, and there is left an undecided and therefore uncomfortable sensation. In the third example the arch is so poorly defined and so weak, while the entablature above it is so strong and so prominent, that the result is a composition that fails to give pleasure, because no distinct idea is conveyed. In the last example the outlines of the arch are so indefinite that its character is indistinguishable. You can not see which prevails, the round arch or the pointed arch.
Fig. 12.
The same principles apply to smaller objects and to details, as seen in the next view ([Fig. 9]). To the left the date plate on top is bad in comparison with the one beneath it, because its direction is not so well marked and its corner projections are too large. In the lambrequins on the right, those are good in which the general direction is properly marked, and in which subdivisions are kept properly subordinated. Lambrequins have so entirely gone out of use nowadays that it is difficult to recall the time when they were regarded as indispensable parts of furniture.
There is one other point to which your attention should be called—that is, stability. If an object be intended to stand, its center of gravity should be so well within its base that there will be no danger of its being upset by the ordinary uses to which it is exposed. Pots and pans, pitchers, lamps, and candlesticks, of general and daily household use, should have bases so broad and weight so low that the accidental bump of the inexperienced “help” will not be inevitably fatal.
When utensils are made more for show than for use, as those in [Fig. 10], and are to occupy places of comparative security, beauty more than utility may be considered in the proportions of their supports. Where utility has disappeared altogether and the suggested outline of a vase, for instance, is used for purely ornamental purpose, supports may be done away with altogether, as appears in these drawings of Italian tapestries of the seventeenth century ([Fig. 11]).
The stability of pendant objects must also be considered. It is evident that the perpendicular line of suspension must be the line of equilibrium, and that these two must correspond with the design ([Fig. 12]). Whether any objects should under any circumstances be exposed to the real and apparent danger of falling is a question. We have got so into the habit of hanging pictures, engravings, and other works of art in our houses, and of seeing them hung in galleries, that we have lost sight of the incongruity of the custom. Pictures should be impaneled, and be permanent parts of the walls on which they appear. But, then, how could they be moved when owners tire of them, or tire of their houses, or how could they be gathered together in museums for purposes of study and public enjoyment? Picture frames are of comparatively modern invention. The idea of buying a picture for the purpose of selling it again was not entertained before the fifteenth century. Pictures were as substantial parts of churches and houses as were shrines and fireplaces.
Having very cursively reviewed the elements of form, we are in a position to understand decoration, which is simply the application to form of ornament.
The highest authenticated points at which flowering plants have heretofore been found growing upon the Andes are at about 17,000 feet, although the Kew Herbarium contains several specimens labeled as having been found at altitudes of from 17,000 to 18,000 feet. Sir Martin Conway has brought back from his recent explorations in the Bolivian mountains at least half a dozen species from 18,000 feet and upward, the highest being from about 18,500 feet. They include a saxifrage, a mallow, a valerian, and several Compositæ. Compositæ likewise attain the upper limit of phanerogamous vegetation in Thibet, where, in latitudes from 30° to 34°, one was found by Dr. Thorold at 19,000 feet.