On the Modern Ornaments of Architecture, &c. [◊]
IN no age since the Augustan era of Rome, perhaps, has decoration of the interior of dwellings been carried to greater excess than at present; nor, since the days of the florid style of Gothic architecture, has the exterior received more embellishment. Architectural ornaments have generally been copied from the antique, those especially which belong to the orders. Indeed there is a kind of classical standard, which governs the architect in the execution of public edifices, from which he cannot with propriety depart. National, and regal emblems, wherever suitable, should always be introduced in public buildings, and in those of a private or mixed character [p293] all legitimate ornaments may be displayed. Of this class the acanthus, vignette, the branches of the olive, and leaves of the palm, the crown of laurel, the chaplet of myrtle, and the wreath of roses, are all proper when judiciously introduced; and the rose and honeysuckle flowers, and the folicles, trefoils, cinquefoils, &c., which so often occur on sculpture and plaster work, are also proper, because they are imitations of nature.
But in our present style of decorative execution, from the most elaborate finishing of a regal palace, down to the pattern of a milk-maid’s gown, there is such latitude taken in the display of licentious fancy, that imagination itself is baffled to find anything in the infinite variety of nature’s works, to which their designs can be compared, or to which they bear the most distant resemblance!
It is really unaccountable, that the whole tribe of our artists, the ornamental statuary, scagliolist, paper-stainer, weaver, chintz and cotton printer, &c. should all be “straining their low thought to form unreal” forms and figures; and striking out the most intricate and complicated, to the utter neglect (except in very few instances) of those numberless simple though transcendently beautiful configurations, which everywhere appear in the works of nature.
This is surely a dereliction of all propriety, an exuberance of grovelling taste which no consideration can excuse, nor reason justify. In this age of refinement, good taste should be the guide in all things where invention is necessary, and design requisite; whatever is grotesque or fantastic, should be banished from our labours of art, and the elegant forms of vegetable or animal nature alone take their place.
If it be asked, how it happens that such obliquity of fancy (for it cannot be called taste) should so generally prevail, the answer is, were these pattern-mongers to copy from nature every body could judge of their ability as imitators, and, if unfaithful, would decry the artist; whereas, whilst bringing forth his nondescript and nondescribable forms of imaginary figures, he escapes the lash of the critic, which otherwise he would be subjected to. [p294]
It may be granted, that it is as ridiculous to form stone or plaster flowers, as those geometrical frets and fanciful nothings which are usually pourtrayed in architectural decoration: but it may be answered that if any ornament be necessary, that of a nondescript character is not more appropriate, as such, than natural forms would be; and these latter having a name, and many of them an emblematical character, may be often applied with a propriety which cannot belong to the other.
The old fashioned tapestry, notwithstanding its sombre appearance, was in its plan much more rational than the multifigurations of our modern paper hangings. The first represented some historical event or legendary tale, yielding some mental information, or it taught perhaps a moral lesson—the eye was amused while tracing the ideas of the ingenious sempstress; but in our ephemeral and gaudy ten-thousand-times repeated paper nothings, there is no design to interest, nor combination to amuse the eye longer than a transient glance. Even the Chinese, who, in all their decorative finishings shew rigidity itself, have escaped from tame mannerism in paper hangings, by imitating, from the edge of the carpet to the ceiling, all the gradations of turf, herbs, shrubs, and trees, upon a sky ground, enriched with figures or rather portraits of flowers and fruit, as well as beasts, birds and insects. This though it cannot deceive the spectator for one moment in mistaking a fictitious for a real scene, yet is certainly far superior to European paper-upholstery, as it at least may introduce a knowledge of natural history, which the latter has no pretension to, indeed seems studiously to discard, as beneath imitation.
All this vitiated taste, or fashion rather, is to be regretted; especially as it appears that those
Fancied forms which on the ceilings sprawl,