FLOOR MOTIVE. SKETCH DESIGN FOR INLAID WOOD, SOUTH LONDON FINE ART GALLERY. DESIGNED BY WALTER CRANE.
Designs for extension upon floors and pavements, where the effect of perspective distorts forms as they recede from the eye, require their own special planning and treatment, square, circular, diamond, and fish-scale plans being generally the safest, as bases, since they preserve their form in perspective better than irregular non-geometric or more complex plans.
Much the same kind of considerations control ceiling decoration, where, in addition, suggestions may be taken from constructive conditions, as, in flat ceilings, the design following parallel beams and joists and their interstices; the panelled arrangement of a coffered ceiling; or radiating spring of lines from constructive centres, as in vaulted ceilings.
Where a pattern will be broken by deep folds, as in textiles, in hangings, and curtains, the conditions favour the recurrence of bold masses, richer points, and more strongly defined forms, at intervals, than would be agreeable in a pattern for extension on a plane surface, unless we except carpets, where boldness of form and richness of colour are desirable.
Such conditions as these influence every department of decorative design, and in proportion to the completeness with which they are satisfied will depend the success of designs; and a design which may have less actual beauty, perhaps, than another, but which completely fulfils the conditions of its existence, is likely to have a longer life.
DROP REPEAT WALL-PAPER. DESIGNED BY WALTER CRANE.
The persistence of certain well-known types of pattern is probably due to this—such as the continual reappearance of the Greek fret in various forms as a border design in all sorts of work.
Questions of scale in design are less absolute, perhaps, since, though one may say as a rule that large types of design and detail belong to large rooms and large scale buildings, there may be interesting exceptions, when large patterns might suit even in a small room, if a particular artistic effect were sought.