Much the same principles apply to the treatment of the human figure as an element in ornament; they should be designed, whether singly or in groups, under the control of imaginary boundaries, and care must be taken that in line and mass they re-echo (or are re-echoed by) other lines which connect them with the rest of the design, if they occur as incidents in repeating wall-paper or hanging design, for instance. It is, however, quite possible to imagine a decorative effect produced by the use of figures alone (see p. [105]), with something very subsidiary in the way of connecting links of linear or floral pattern, much as figures were used by the ancient Greek vase-painters, beautifully distributed as ornament over the concave or convex surfaces of the vases and vessels of the potter, the forms of which, as all good decoration should do, they helped to express as well as to adorn.
CHAPTER V
Of the Influence of Controlling Lines, Boundaries, Spaces, and Plans in Designing—Origin of Geometric Decorative Spaces and Panels in Architecture—Value of Recurring Line—Tradition—Extension—Adaptability—Geometric Structural Plans—Frieze and Field—Ceiling Decoration—Co-operative Relation.
The function of line considered from the point of view of its controlling influence as a boundary, or inclosure, of design, upon which I touched in the last chapter, is a very important one, and deserves most attentive study.
The usual problem a designer in the flat has to solve is to fill harmoniously a given space or panel defined by a line—some simple geometric form—such as a square or a circle, a parallelogram, a diamond, a lunette.
Influence of Controlling Lines, etc.