HAY ON ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.
,Pat universal craving for ornament in the decoration of public buildings, the furniture of private dwellings, and the materials of dress, finds our artisans and manufacturers unprepared to supply the want in a manner gratifying to cultivated tastes. Ornamentists are content with imitating what has been done before ; or they attempt to give an appearance of aovelty to old designs by fresh combinations or new applications of them, destructive to the beauty and character of the originals. Their highest point of success is correct reproduction ; and even this humble aim is rarely attained. To originate in the spirit of the ancients, but in a style adapted to modern requirements, is out of their power; not perhaps for lack of inventive faculty, but because they are ignorant of the first principles that govern the art of ornamental design. The Government Schools recently established neither teach these principles nor inculcate the necessity of ascertaining and applying them; but tend to confirm the imitative practice by their course of instruction: the students are set to copy ornaments, and taught to exercise their ingenuity in varying their shapes and patterns, and in contriving something new that shall resemble the old. This crablike-progress is the inevitable consequence of superficial studies and want of elementary knowledge; a want that this new work of Mr. Hay's is intended to supply.
Mr. Hay is a practical man, who has followed the profession of a decorator, and who has studied the subject deeply and scientifically. In this treatise on Ornamental Design the student will find a clue to the dig' covery of the source of an endless variety of beautiful forms and combinations of lines, In the application of certain fixed laws of harmonious proportion to the purposes of artThe volume contains a number of plates of " Original Geometrical Diaper Designs, illustrative of an attempt to develop the true principles of ornamental design as applied to the decorative arts." It originated in a suggestion by Sir David Brewster, that "a series of diagrams upon the principles of linear harmony, with the diaper designs resulting from them, might be productive of much improvement in the decorative arts." These patterns, in which "uniformity is seen amidst variety," resemble the Moorish arabesques • which it appears certain were designed on geometrical principles, that admit of an inexhaustible variety of combizuttions of lines. Mr. Hay also exemplifies the application of his theory of linear harmony to the production of beautiful forms generally; testing its soundness by applying it to the human figure and the purest creations of Greek art.
= This relates only to a portion of the varied field of decorative art; but in a previous work Mr. Hay has shown the analogy of harmonies of colour to those of sound; and we hope he will be induced to show the practical application of his theory to decoration as regards colour, as in this volume he has with reference to form. A more full and complete exposition of the laws that should regulate the character of ornament is desirable. His definition of the uses and limitation of ornament is clear, so far as it goes; ut it does not embrace the whole subject.
"Nature leaves nothing unadorned," says Mr. Hay; and be might have added, that in nature ornament is the efflorescence of utility and fitness.
"Strictly speaking, a mere ornament is something supplied by art, either to conceal what utility has rendered unpleasant to the perceptive faculty, or to enhance the effect of that which has been found to be otherwise tame and monotonous. Wherever, therefore, we observe an ornament, we may suspect a defect. Ornaments ought never to obtrude themselves upon the eye, but to appear as a necessary part of that which they are meant to embellish, like the graces introduced by the accomplished musician in the composition of a piece of music."
In referring to nature as the source of ornament, Mr. Hay lays it down as a principle, that "no artificial ornament will be truly beautiful that has not its archetype in nature "; but he adds, "it is not necessary that an ornament should be an imitation of nature." We would go further, and affirm as an axiom, that ornament should not be an imitation of any object whatever; but only an adaptation to the purposes of decoration of the peculiar beauty of form or colour, or both combined, that it exhibits. Ornament should not remind you of its triteness to the thing whence it was derived; its purpose is to please the eye by exquisite combinations of forms and colours-' and the more intricate a pattern the better, since its mechanism should not be easily traced, nor the source of its derivation be readily detected. Ornament is essentially artificial, fantastic, and non-natural; though its beauty be derived from an application of the principles that govern the harmonies of lines and hues in nature. Tiger-skins on hearthrugs, bouquets of flowers on carpets, landscapes on dinner-plates mimic draperies on paper-hangings, and clouds floating on sky-blue ceilings, are only a degree less barbarous than the jumble of Gothic arches in passagepapering, imitations of wood-work in relief on walls and in carpets, mouldings of glasses and bottles in gin-shop architecture, or the dressing-gown garnished with French horns and other musical instruments that Lablache wears as an absurdity in Ii Fanatic°.
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