Sicilian Silk Pattern. Fourteenth Century (Fischbach)
Sicilian Silk Pattern. Fourteenth Century (Fischbach)
Sicilian Silk Pattern. Fourteenth Century (Fischbach)
Embroidered Tabard, Sixteenth Century,
in the Archaeological Museum at Ghent
(from De Farcy)
The early Greek potters ran them close in designing the black silhouettes of animals forming borders around their vessels and vases; but we find here at work a conscious ornamental feeling in the treatment of their forms—an apparently intentional arrangement of the lines of the animal into more or less formal curves. A running antelope, for instance, will take a sort of volute curve, and in one case the volute itself is drawn beneath. The forms of these animals and birds of the vase paintings were no doubt influenced by the brush, and many of them might be described as brush forms. The bodies of the birds and fish are oval or ovoid masses, and in their repetition, by means of such ornamental generalization, a certain balance and rhythm is obtained.
