PERSIAN POMEGRANATE FORMS (FROM A GOAT-HAIR CARPET, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM).
CELTIC ORNAMENT FROM A CROSS AT CAMPBELTOWN, ARGYLLSHIRE.
The gilded, almond-shaped glory inclosing the figure of the Virgin and of Christ in Gothic painting and sculpture seems to be another form of the same emblem, and a similar form is common in all Persian and Eastern ornament design. It generally appears as a kind of fruit or many-petaled flower, or flower and fruit combined. I am inclined to think that it may have originally had a religious significance associated with fire or life,[9] while its beauty of contour and adaptability in decoration of all kinds were sufficient to perpetuate it even if the original meaning were lost. If the Persians invented it, it might have had some reference to their own primitive fire-worship, while with the Arabs, and wherever the faith of Mohammed spread, it would still be significant of the prophetic fire, and it is certainly universally found in the ornament of Mohammedan countries. We might trace it back to its primitive form in the Assyrian tree of life, and this on the face of it seems its most likely source; and we find it in Persian work definitely taking the pomegranate form within the rayed leaves. The rayed flower or leaf form curiously reappears in a late Celtic cross in Argyllshire, in association with the characteristic knotted work, a kind of tree form, and filling of pattern carved in the stone and culminating in the cross.
Whatever race may really claim its invention or first effective use, it appeals now universally to the ornamental sense, and has become the common property of designers, who do not usually disturb themselves with the question whether they have stolen a fruit from the tree of life, or sacred fire from an unknown hearth, so long as they can fill a space effectively or make an attractive and adaptable design.
Another form, now no less universal, is probably Persian in origin, although it has found a settled home in India—I mean what is known as the Indian palmette, so familiar to designers for Manchester calico prints.
I am told by Mr. Purdon Clarke that this palm shape denotes benison or blessing, or a message of goodwill of some kind. This answers to the symbolical meaning of the palm in the Bible, as carried by benign and holy persons and angels. Here would be a symbolical reason for its longevity in ornament, as it would naturally commend itself to an eastern race in a sun-burnt land, to whom the suggestion of shady palms would always be grateful. But here, again, the beauty of its contour appeals to the ornamentist on independent grounds. He values it for its graceful mass in a pattern, for its bold and sweeping curves, for its value as an inclosing form for small floral fittings.
To the Persian and Hindu designers, with their exquisite and subtle sense of ornament, with their passion for elaborate intricacy, such a form as this is utilized to its utmost capacity, both in counter-balancing and superimposed masses upon flowery fields, and as inclosures for smaller fields of pattern; while the abundant flora of their spring-time blossoms in a new and translated existence in their richly patterned printed and woven textiles, and in the carved ornament of their buildings.
TYPICAL ORNAMENTAL FORMS IN PERSIAN, INDIAN, AND CHINESE DESIGNS.