It is the spirit, after all, that is the important thing to preserve, in decorative design, however widely we may depart from the letter sometimes. This is a difficult quality to define, but I should say it chiefly consists in a nice attention to the character of form, the elastic spring of curves, an understanding of the construction and proportions, and grasp of the effect. In designing we constantly feel the need of repeating certain masses with variations or balancing them by equivalents, or the necessity of leading up to certain main forms by subsidiary forms, and to carry out their lines in other parts of the composition. In designing figures or emblems, for instance, within inclosed spaces, such as shields or cartouche shapes, forming leading elements in a design, it requires much invention and ornamental feeling so to arrange them that, while different in subject or meaning, and differently spaced, they shall yet properly counterbalance each other, and, though varied in detail, shall yet be equivalent in quantity. The same sort of feeling would govern the case of designing two masses of fruit and foliage, say, forming two halves of an oblong panel, which, though starting on the symmetric plan from the centre, are not intended to be alike in detail; or in a frieze composed of a series of formalized trees, where it was desired to have each different, say, to express the progression of the seasons, it would be the sense of the necessity of equivalents which would govern the decorative effect.
Quantities in Design
Such considerations naturally lead us to the question of the use of quantities in design—the ornamental proportions of ornament, or the contrasting distribution of form and line. For the mere repetition of ornamental forms over surfaces and objects without reference to proportion or structure is not decoration. The perception of appropriate quantities in design is really the decorative gauge or measure of effect.
In designing a bordered panel—or say a carpet—we might decide to throw the weight of pattern, colour, or emphasis upon either the field or border. Supposing the field had a dark ground upon which the arabesque or floral design was relieved, in the border it would be most effective to transpose this arrangement, making the ground light, and bringing out the border design dark upon it. Or, if the motive were reversed, giving a light ground to the centre, with the pattern dark, the border might be brought out on a dark field. Or, again, for a less emphatic treatment the quantities of the pattern itself might be almost infinitely varied, massive forms and close fillings contrasting with open borders and united with intermediary bands.