bV 
 
ORNAMENTAL DESIGNS 
 
 FOR 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF DESIGNS IN LITHOGRAPHY, 
 
 SELECTED FROM THE WORKS OF THE BEST FRENCH AND GERMAN ORNAMENTALISTS. 
 
 WITH A TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 AND 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART 
 
 W. B. SCOTT, 
 
 r . T / JfV 
 
 OF THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF DESIGN, NEWCASTLE. 
 
 A. FULL A R T 0 N & CO., 
 
 STEAD’S PLACE, AND 21 LOTHIAN STREET, EDINBURGH; 
 
 AND 106 NEWGATE STREET, LONDON. 
 

 
 Folio 
 
 
 
 
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 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In presenting to the public this Treatise on the subject of Ornamental Art, the Author may be allowed to 
 express his sense, that the subject is one which ought to be discussed with much more study, and in greater 
 order, than he has been able to do: having been called upon without preparatory warning, and being occupied 
 with the duties of his situation during its composition. What he was able to accomplish he did with much 
 pleasure, in the hopes that it may not be unserviceable in pointing out the main features of the subject, and in 
 furnishing the student with a well-considered sketch. It is but justice to all parties to state that his connection 
 with the work did not extend to editing or selecting the examples: a task the difficulty of which will be readily 
 acknowledged. 
 
 Government School of Design, 
 N e wcastle-on-Ttn e. 
 
 WILLIAM B. SCOTT. 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 I. 
 
 The art of Ornamental Design is now becoming appreciated both 
 by the public and by the manufacturer, by the consumer and pro¬ 
 ducer of all the innumerable appliances of modern life. A few 
 years ago the application of the tine to the useful arts was scarcely 
 thought of; but at the present day, however distant we may be 
 from anything like a true understanding of their necessary connec¬ 
 tion, a beginning has been made, the question agitated, and a 
 field opened, wide enough for the advancement both of genius and 
 speculation. 
 
 Until lately, plainness, the absence of decoration, had been the 
 fashion for nearly a century. Not only were the enrichments of 
 art neglected, they were positively eschewed, and with architectural 
 correctness rose the idea that colour was incompatible with taste, 
 that blank walls were classic, and that uniformity and simplicity 
 were the same thing, and formed the true element of beauty. Such 
 was the prevailing feeling in relation to architecture and interior 
 painting from the time of Yerrio and Sir James Thornhill; mean¬ 
 while in the immense field of manufacture, although England, by 
 the force of machinery constantly improving, and immense resources 
 in capital and material, became the workshop of the world, success 
 was attained in spite of the greatest neglect of taste, and by the 
 sheer force of the “ substantial,”—by usefulness “ newly improved.” 
 In every corner of the world Avere the products of the English fur¬ 
 nace and loom to be found; half of the human family was clothed 
 by us; the conveniences and appliances of civilized life multiplied 
 to infinity by us; the linen for the Moslem’s turban, the tomahawk 
 of the Indian, came from the English merchantman, and it became 
 impossible to land even on a desert island without finding a trace 
 of former commercial visitation, or to cross the vast chain of the 
 Andes Avithout stumbling upon the fragments of a cast-iron pot, 
 genealogically authenticated by the word “ Carron.” The region 
 of taste Avas the only terra incognita to the men of the power-loom 
 and the forge. This, hoAvever, is not so much the case noAv, or if 
 it still holds, we may safely say that we have got over the first and 
 most difficult step toAvards improvement, namely, the knowledge of 
 our deficiency. The indications of this are manifold,—so much so 
 as to prove something like the setting in of a current, and to give 
 promise that the future artist will be a much more generally useful 
 agent than hitherto; that his sphere will be extended from the 
 narrow walls of the exhibition room, or the bookseller’s shop, to 
 the Avhole range of the industrial arts; that some knoAvledge of 
 drawing will be essential to the well-qualified Avorkman, and the 
 designer become one of the most important members of the com¬ 
 mercial community. 
 
 The diffusion of a knowledge of our subject will, hoAvever, be 
 found sufficiently grave to require many years for its accomplish¬ 
 ment; many publications for its simplest development: the neces¬ 
 sary studies have become so numerous and varied, each style pos¬ 
 sessing its own distinctive principles, and properly understood, 
 its own relation to the material to be used or the position to be 
 occupied. 
 
 In considering the periods of art in the past, we find that Avith all 
 the ancient nations ornamental design was distinguished by peculiar 
 characteristics,—that the designers trod in one path from which 
 they never diverged,—that authority had an overruling poAver with 
 them, and invention was comparatively little sought: so that a 
 moderate degree of experience enables the critic to say at once, 
 where, and at what period, any work either of high or of decorative 
 art has been produced. Indeed, this fact, as avc shall notice else- 
 Avhere, affords us a key to the understanding of the true nature and 
 proper uses of decoration. In the middle ages, this distinctness of 
 
 prevailing mode, this unity in the form of the thought of the age, 
 so to speak, was also maintained. The Gothic architecture presents 
 a gradation from the dark, low, massive masonry to the heaven¬ 
 pointing pinnacles of the triumphs of mechanism; from the round 
 arch and round church to the perfect Christian temple enriched in 
 all its parts—as justly progressive, as the development of a tree or 
 a floAver. Oat of the hard soil first appears the green stem, enclos¬ 
 ing the future leaves as yet firmly united, forming, as it were, a 
 Avedge to pierce upwards into day. This is the first, the naked 
 necessity of first development, the Cyclopean beginning, although 
 beautiful as all manifestations of natural force are. Development 
 commences, leaf after leaf divides from the parent stem, Avhich 
 meanwhile growing also, lifts them above the earth and gives them 
 freedom for expansion, and at length, from the hard nucleus, the 
 birth of the bloom repeating in process the birth of the plant; the 
 clear colour appeal's, “ the bright consummate floAver ” unveils itself 
 to heaven, beloved by the bee and the butterfly. As this is the 
 development of the natural flower, so is the evolution of the floiver 
 of true art, whether Gothic or any other form which has made a 
 lasting impression on the world. The initiatory step contained all 
 those that folloAved it, that is to say, each successive step was neces¬ 
 sary to the last; the impetus was forward. A principle was in¬ 
 cluded, and directed the workmen; there Avere no arbitrary novelties 
 or innovations,—no erratic experimentalizing,—no looking either 
 to the right hand or to the left, and less backward. The progres¬ 
 sion was gradual, taking centuries to Avork out,—architect, mason, 
 and decorator, working in harmony and patience; but the result 
 Avas completeness, a completeness in reference to those principles 
 from which they started. This relative perfection, Avherever it is 
 found, and perhaps we may say it is loftiest in the Greek, richest 
 in the Italian,* and most spiritual in the Gothic,*}* this relative 
 perfection we designate a School 
 
 The student of art who has been inducted into the theory which 
 forms the groundwork of any one of those schools, and who has 
 become so conversant with its productions that he perceives the 
 harmony and the animating beauty which runs through the least 
 as well as the greatest of its Avorks, becomes exclusively attached 
 to that particular style. Ilence the partisanship, and the repudi¬ 
 ating of every thing out of the sphere in which the student or the 
 artist of whom we speak has educated himself: hence, in a great 
 measure, the reAdval of Early English church decoration noAv ad¬ 
 vancing with so much spirit. 
 
 Such an artist becomes a pedant. He does not see that the 
 excellencies of his favourite style are admirable by virtue of their 
 true expression of Nature ; but he places the authority of the art 
 already fulfilled before that of the great original from which it was 
 draAvn, and which offers to him a field as exhaustless as it did to 
 the artist-workman he so much venerates—provided he studies it 
 Avith the same simplicity of purpose. 
 
 Not only, then, by a knoAvledge of what has been done Avill a 
 decorative artist be made, he must, by going to nature even like 
 his brother the pictorial artist, come to his work with fresh feelings 
 and fresh ideas, transferring the evolutions and varieties of form 
 and colour, knowing from actual observation more than from the 
 lessons of science. 
 
 * By Italian we would here mean the excessive enrichment of figure and 
 colour, which has been called, from the places where its remains were found at 
 the time of the renaissance, Grotesque, and which has been repeated in modern 
 times by the school of Raphael. 
 
 t The term Gothic has been, by the vote of the modern architect, nearly 
 abandoned: we have however used it, and may use it, instead of Pointed , 
 because we do not wish to confine it to the architectural, and instead of Chris¬ 
 tian, that distinctive having something of a party sound about it. 
 
 C 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 But this is, so to speak, the rare man, the Designer or inventor 
 of new combinations,—one to whom genius is requisite, and to 
 him, even more than to any other, is it absolutely necessary to be 
 acquainted with the various styles which have prevailed. Without 
 this, genius itself is apt to verge towards empiricism, and more 
 especially in a field where so much is arbitrary. Some individuals 
 may be found jejune enough to advocate the exclusive study of 
 nature, forgetting how much is required to understand her, how 
 much insight is necessary to distinguish her true features. The 
 very infinity of nature confounds the unarmed student. He must 
 know what to avoid as well as what to adopt; nor is the lively 
 feeling which perceives and appreciates the graceful and the beau¬ 
 tiful enough,—he must be also able to say in what these qualities 
 consist, to assign to them their technical reason, and, above all, to 
 point out to what precise decorative use they are most properly 
 applicable. 
 
 Some forms in nature are, indeed, in themselves so perfectly 
 graceful that the difficulty would be to misuse them so as to deprive 
 them of their pleasing impression. 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 The convolvulus is one of those objects thus happily presented 
 to the observation of the artist; and the above use of it is one ot 
 the most pleasing, because one of the most simple we have seen. 
 It is in Beauvais ware, the modest russet colour satisfying the 
 fastidious sense of enlightened taste, which requires that decoration 
 should not be imitative in form and colour at once. The unedu¬ 
 cated imitator of nature would not be contented to give the plant 
 in relief, he would add colour, and by thus depriving it of the per¬ 
 fection which it at present possesses by virtue of fulfilling all that 
 is attempted, destroy its pleasingness by making an ineffectual 
 attempt at deception. -Thus, it would become positively disagree¬ 
 able if the vase were used for holding real flowers, which would 
 afford an immediate comparison with the imitation. 
 
 Such an object as the convolvulus can also be directly applied, 
 and that independently of any other decorative accessories, con¬ 
 ventional or otherwise: liable of course to the law of proportion, 
 and to the requirements of the material and the uses to which the 
 article manufactured is to be put. But it is rarely the situation 
 of the ornamentist to be so freely placed, and that principally in 
 textile patterns, when this freedom has unfortunately been prin¬ 
 cipally instrumental in producing a no-meaning and mixed variety 
 of kaleidoscope and contrast-colour designs, (if indeed worthy of 
 the name,) to satisfy the continual change of fashion. 
 
 We have thus felt it necessary in this early stage of our remarks 
 to point towards the great archetype of all art, and to distinguish 
 between it and those adaptations more or less bearing reference to 
 the original; not, it will readily be believed, to undervalue the latter, 
 but on the contrary that we may, without any danger of being 
 misunderstood, the better insist on the great importance of a know¬ 
 ledge of authorities. The greatest men have willingly been copyists 
 in reproducing the architecture and decorations of the Greeks; and 
 in nearly every piece of work that an artist-workman may be called 
 upon to do, he will labour in connection with others in subordi¬ 
 nation to a general plan. Thus the plasterer and wood carver 
 must assist the architect,—cornices, panels, &c., must be in keeping 
 with the large features of the building; and the house painter, and, 
 
 lastly, the upholsterer, follow each other not as rivals, or as inde¬ 
 pendent sovereigns, but as labourers in the same vineyard. In any 
 other way the one will necessarily negative the other, and if they 
 did not, good taste would reject separate beauties placed together 
 without accord—individual parts, however pleasing, productive of 
 a discordant tout ensemble. That a contrary course to what we 
 point out has been hitherto followed is well known, and is to be 
 attributed mainly to the want of knowledge of the leading features 
 of styles, and to ignorance of their details. This paramount im¬ 
 portance of subordination in the various parts of a whole, is so 
 necessary as even to regulate the sentiment and manner of the 
 effects of the highest art; and one important quality fresco painting 
 possesses over oil, is, that the comparative weakness in depth of 
 shadow of which fresco is capable, prevents it, when justly under¬ 
 stood, from giving deceptive transcripts of nature, and by depths 
 and distances violating the architectural integrity of the room or 
 hall it may adorn. Painted in the one medium, the wall would 
 remain sensibly a flat surface; in the other, the vain-gloriousness 
 of modern oil painting would attempt to realize the architecturally 
 incongruous ideas of actual scenes and actual skies. 
 
 How much, then, the accomplished workman, able to assist in 
 working out harmoniously the ideas of the master, not to speak of 
 designing himself,—how much he has to learn ! 
 
 We have remarked the simplicity and unity of the idea pervad¬ 
 ing the contemporary works of the past ages. Down to the time 
 of the highest elevation of modern art this was the case; from the 
 earliest times, to the age immediately preceding that of the greatest 
 men of modern times, Michael Angelo, Da Vinci, Raphael,—or 
 perhaps we ought to say, till the age that followed them, just as 
 we consider these and their directors, Leo and others, the active or 
 passive agents in the change. From that time there has been 
 much degradation in the application of art to the every day uses 
 and enjoyments of life. In England, the Pointed architecture was 
 completing its latest triumphs in the form of the Perpendicular; 
 Henry VII.'s Chapel, and the Royal Chapel of St. George at Windsor, 
 were rising; and the reformation of the faith had paved the way 
 for the total abandonment of Gothic decoration, and the substitu¬ 
 tion, when classic authorities were more studied, of Palladian, and 
 more lately of Greek transcripts,—an importation which the church¬ 
 building party of the present day do not hesitate to stigmatize as 
 Pagan. At the present day every style contends for the mastery, 
 and in our manufactures every variety is encouraged, nor can we 
 identify any one as national. The ornamental sculptor, the wood 
 carver, the house decorator, the glass painter, the designer for iron 
 and brass as well as for silks and cottons, all these are called upon 
 to assist in the production of articles in all styles,—from the classic 
 to the geometrical and merely arbitrary, through the Gothic in all 
 its periods—not, it is to be feared, omitting the “ cabinet-makers' 
 Gothic,”—and the Revival in all its national varieties of Italian, 
 French, &c. 
 
 This, it must be acknowledged, is a sphere wide enough for the 
 ambition of the artist or critic either to discuss or to practise; and 
 which a work like the present may be contented to assist in de¬ 
 scribing, without laying claim to having exhausted. How beautiful 
 many of these styles are, and how interesting the study of the 
 change and progression of ornament as influenced by the moral 
 conditions of the times! In embarking on the study of the more 
 popular and widely diffused applications and forms of art, we enter 
 into the social life of the past, perhaps even more intimately than 
 by contemplating the higher efforts of fine art. Fantastic iron¬ 
 work, for hinges and door latches,—silver and eart henware, encircled 
 with legends and heraldry,—the designs of cloth of gold and tapes¬ 
 try,—the diapers on glass and the tracery in stone,—all bring us 
 vividly into the presence of the times that produced them. If this 
 is the case with articles of a merely curious kind principally valu-, 
 able to the antiquarian, it is not the less so when we find, as in 
 the great epochs, certain absolute beauties, and such expertness of 
 execution, as instructs and refines the taste, as well as furnishes 
 with principles and science. 
 
 II. 
 
 We shall now come to the History of Design. Not to spend more 
 time than the limitation of this Essay may conveniently allow, it 
 will yet be expedient to review the first appearance of art in the 
 ancient world, as in them we trace the germ of what has followed, 
 and attain the knowledge necessary to classify apd view clearly the 
 varieties of later usage. 
 
 Even the savage constructs,—uses the means which Nature 
 throws in his way to protect and defend himself, and also to 
 aggrandize his being, by beautiful images and pleasing associations. 
 He fashions vessels, tools, and weapons,—vessels wherein to seethe 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 11 
 
 the flesh of the kid, and in which to collect the fruits of the earth, 
 —tools to facilitate labour,—weapons to subjugate the stronger and 
 swifter animals. Perhaps the grandest invention the world has 
 yet seen was the first flame from burning wood. To what did it 
 not lead? Climate was by it subjugated, and a power placed in 
 the hand of man whereby the future arts became possible. 
 
 Immediately on this invention—now fabulous in its antiquity— 
 he made advancement. Not content with the regency of the things 
 he sees, he digs into the dead clay and extricates the brass and 
 iron,—the instruments of infinite new wonders. Nor defensive 
 only; but obeying the second great law of our being, he goes forth 
 to conquer, not the inferior brute alone, but evil in every form, 
 and brother savages become contending heroes. And here, at this 
 early stage of society, as it appears to us, that condition of man 
 which we now call the artist begins to manifest itself: Tubal Cain 
 and Jubal Cain were brothers—the worker in iron, and the player 
 upon the lyre. 
 
 As long as the cup has the single purpose of containing, or the 
 sword only that of destroying, the fig-leaves or wolf-skin only that 
 of sheltering, these appliances belong to the senses. Thus con¬ 
 tented man may go on for centuries, emerging into systematic social 
 life, the stronger ruling the weaker,—a mutual bond of law or force 
 being established, aggrandizing himself in various ways, (as the 
 early Romans compared to the other ancient nations may be said 
 to have done,)—and yet man the artist, throughout all the means 
 employed to attain these selfisms, may nowhere find his place. 
 
 .But our instruction i9 seldom of that kind. The human mind 
 looks upward as well as around,—having and holding is not enough, 
 —nay, it never was anything but as a means. A new motive— 
 and yet it is the oldest of all motives, but new in action—comes 
 into force: he hopes to answer the innate desire for the perfect, by 
 realizing to himself beauties. This the entire history of art illus¬ 
 trates—that he must advance spiritually as well as bodily. Heaven 
 is beyond all, and thither tend we. Beauty, as the symbol of good, 
 it is his desire to create; and this desire, in however rude a form 
 exhibited, being an obedience to a true intellectual motive, is true 
 art-work. No sooner has this been felt, than it rays out and alters 
 the whole face of the world to him. It is neither the bare hatchet 
 nor the string of beads he must have, but both in one. Every 
 endeavour is twofold. All that tee love we decorate, — decoration is, 
 indeed, a hind of manual worship. Whatever avc conceive, we endea¬ 
 vour to give utterance to,—to clothe in suitable form; that we may 
 communicate to all, that the eyes of all may see, and the beautiful 
 be affirmed. Thus Art becomes at once the interpreter and the 
 superior of nature; it aggrandizes the good and true as well as the 
 potential; and is it not the religion of God in the world, teaching 
 the worship of that only which is the highest? “ For it serveth 
 and conferreth to magnanimity/' as Bacon says, “morality, and 
 delectation ; and thence it was ever thought to have some partici¬ 
 pation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, 
 whereas reason doth bow the mind to the nature of things." 
 
 In reviewing the arts of the ancient world, it may not be neces¬ 
 sary to go further than Greece, except by way of comparison with 
 the works of that favoured land. The works of Homer scarcely 
 contain anything of importance on the arts of design, at least on 
 that of painting. This is the more remarkable, as lie speaks of 
 rich and elaborate embroidery as not uncommon ; on the splendid 
 diplax of Helen were worked many battles of the Greeks and 
 Trojans, fought on her account. This embroidery is actual painting 
 in principle, and is a species of painting in practice; and it was 
 considered such by the Romans, who termed it “ pictura textilis.” 
 The famous description of the shield of Achilles, worked by Vulcan 
 in divers coloured metals, satisfactorily establishes the fact that the 
 plastic art must have attained a considerable degree of development 
 in the time of Homer; and therefore determines also the existence 
 of the art of design, the ars delineandis* 
 
 The art of the sculptor has been considered more ancient than 
 that of painting; and although they are the same fundamentally, 
 the priority of the imitation of nature, by means of a solid body 
 and plastic material, may be readily granted. There are few tribes, 
 however savage, who have not some kind of images; but the exist¬ 
 ence of drawing on flat surfaces is very rare among unenlightened 
 nations. The first use of imitative art would most probably be in 
 connection with ai-chitecture; in expressing the purposes of the 
 building or in decorating it. The earliest remains of art that have 
 come down to us are of this character, forming the capitals of pil¬ 
 lars and the friezes above them. The combination of colour with 
 sculpture was, however, undoubtedly the earliest mode of repre¬ 
 senting life; and it is becoming generally admitted, that the build- 
 
 * Article ‘ Painting ’ in the ‘ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,’ 
 by R. N. Wornum. We have quoted elsewhere from this admirable paper. 
 
 mgs, and also the statues of the Greeks, in the highest ages of art, 
 were heightened } and enlivened by colour. But simple colouring, 
 and painting, strictly speaking, are quite distinct. The colouring 
 of the early wooden images—the Daidala, &c.—must have certainly 
 preceded any important essays in painting, or the representation 
 of lorms upon an even surface by means of colour, or light and 
 shade. But this was no stage in the art of painting, and these 
 figures were most probably coloured by the artists who made them. 
 “ The first temples," says Sir Christopher Wren, “ were in all pro¬ 
 bability, in the ruder times, only little cells to enclose the idol 
 within, with no other light than a large door to discover it to the 
 people when the priest thought proper, and when he went in alone 
 to offer incense, the people paying adoration without, for all sacri¬ 
 fices were performed in the open air, before the front of the temple; 
 but in the southern climates a grove was necessary, not only to 
 shield the devout, but from the darkness of the place to strike some 
 terror in their approaches, therefore trees were always an adjunct 
 to the cells; but trees decaying with time, or not equally growing, 
 (although planted at first in good order,) or probably not having 
 room, when the temples were brought into cities, the like walks 
 were represented by stone columns, supporting the more durable 
 shade of a roof, instead of the arbour of spreading boughs; and still 
 in the ornaments of stone-work was imitated, as well as the mate¬ 
 rials would admit, both in the capital friezes and mouldings, a 
 foliage, a sort of work composed of leaves, which remains to this 
 age." 
 
 This which is said of the antique is true of the architecture of 
 all the world: the pillar has ever maintained its character of a 
 supporting tree, and in the Norman capitals as well as the Egyptian 
 the leaves or flowers are given. In this historic truth do we dis¬ 
 cover a fundamental principle in decorative art,—that, as it origi¬ 
 nates in symbol, it ought to be always allied in meaning to the 
 object which it decorates. When these architectural proportions 
 became settled by science, the decorative parts were fixed by con¬ 
 vention; they retained their degree of significance, and became 
 parts ol a whole not to be altered. Nothing was there merely 
 because it was handsome; the skull, with its fillets and wreath, 
 ■which our imitative architecture still repeats, are doubtless the 
 representatives of the bones and trophies of the ruder fabric. 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 So also with the altars, the flowers which garlanded them in 
 festive days became their permanent ornaments. 
 
 Fig- 3. 
 
 The story of the acanthus may, indeed, be quoted as an instance of 
 actual invention in decoration being introduced on fixed architec¬ 
 tural proportions, but the tale is wholly doubtful; and if true, only 
 concerns the introduction into ornament of the particular plant 
 which afterwards became so beautiful in classic art. 
 
 In many of the eastern temples, as in the Egyptian, we find this 
 foliated character of capital in great variety, and productive of 
 great beauty. Although the shaft of the pillar is short, seldom 
 more than five diameters, while the Corinthian rises to nine the 
 stunted effect is obviated by the variety of form. As if formed by 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL AMT. 
 
 binding together a mass of growing stems, the column bulges from 
 the base, and what in the Doric became flutes we see in the Egyp¬ 
 tian as raised, giving the whole the appearance of a bundle of rods 
 firmly bound at the top, from which binding the leaf or flower 
 bending itself out forms the capital. The palm leaf* and the lotus, 
 doubtless from religious associations, afforded the principal plants 
 thus used. 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 Fig. i 
 
 In the subterraneous chamber at Mycente—which is perhaps the 
 most ancient piece of Greek art remaining—we see a similar treat¬ 
 ment. Mycenre, with Sicyon,-|- Argos, &c., were towns said to have 
 been built by the Cyclops. They now present only piles of huge 
 rough stones with portions of plain colossal masonry. The pillars 
 at the entrance to the chamber at Myceme present a character 
 wholly distinct from, and prior to the orders of the Greek. The 
 character of the capital is much nearer the Egyptian: but instead 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 of the flower being naturally expressed, we find it becoming re¬ 
 stricted and formalized. In the future practice of the Greeks this 
 formalization became complete, any representation of an original 
 natural object in the Ionic, Doric, &c., is lost; proportion alone is 
 their beauty; till in the Corinthian we again find the pleasant 
 hand of the artist, and in connection with a new object, the acan¬ 
 thus plant, much more capable of rich and varied treatment than 
 the lotus or the palm. 
 
 Although the earliest movements of the arts of sculpture and 
 painting are thus illustrated in their subservience to architecture, 
 it is only because the size and solidity of temples have made them 
 more durable than isolated and moveable productions of the sister 
 arts. Doubtless the first motives of all arts are the same, and yet 
 independent of each other. The idol must have been at least coeval 
 with the temple, and the picture in its first form of hieroglyphic 
 writing may have an equal or earlier antiquity. The common 
 method of sculpture pursued by the Egyptians, was hollowing out 
 or engraving the object, relief sculpture nowhere occurs in their 
 works: this is indeed the great distinguishing feature of Egyptian 
 art. Here, as in India, the law of the son inheriting his father’s 
 caste and trade, disallowed innovation: conservatism became the 
 first instead of the second political motive, and while the arts were 
 maintained they were prevented from advancing. How different 
 from the spirit of the Athenians, which, rising out of the rigid 
 commencement, went onward with accelerated power, like the grand 
 
 * In one of the smaller London theatres there is a very fanciful use of the 
 palm tree. The four pillars, two on each side of the stage, are notched like 
 the stem of the palm, and at the top spread widely out towards each other, 
 nearly meeting. In a new shop-front in Regent-street there is also a similar 
 adaptation. 
 
 t The most beautiful of the traditionary stories of the invention of painting 
 is related of a potter’s daughter of Sicyon. Her lover being about to leave her 
 on a long journey, she outlined the shadow of his face on the wall that she 
 might preserve his image. 
 
 chariot-race of the Olympic, onward and true to the goal, till it 
 reached the idea of the perfect! 
 
 In the remains of Persepolis we find relief-sculpture, but subject 
 to a restriction analogous to that of the intaglio or engraved method 
 of the hieroglyphics." The figure is indeed elevated from the sur¬ 
 rounding surface, but it is all equally so: the surface of the figure 
 being flat, and the degree of elevation it possesses being sudden and 
 confined to the outline. Thus, where the arm of a figure crosses 
 the body, it is scarcely if at all higher, but is expressed by an in¬ 
 dented outline. In the early works of the Greeks we find a similar 
 mode, but not to that extent; not apparently recognised as a prin¬ 
 ciple, but only done by the imperfectness of the workman. In the 
 invaluable marbles, lately added to the British Museum by Mr. 
 Fellows, we see distinctly marked three stages of the art:—the first 
 approaching this uniform and primitive style; the second freely 
 endeavouring to express varied action and form; and the third, 
 instinct with true beauty above all difficulty, exhibiting the most 
 perfect mould of the female form enveloped in lucid draperies 
 driven behind by the wind,—a creation like the marbles of the 
 Parthenon quite beyond common criticism,—such as makes the 
 artist who can appreciate it breathless with admiration. 
 
 The statues made by the great artist Dsedalus and by Endajus 
 were of wood; metal was also used for various purposes of sculpture 
 in the most ancient times, as we learn from Homer, Hesiod, and 
 Plutarch. Diapmnis, and Scyllis the Creton, were celebrated for 
 their marble statues about 776 years before Christ. 
 
 During the 250 years which elapsed between these artists and 
 the age of Phidias, the art made a slow but considerable advance. 
 Gradually the extreme wirey sharpness of execution relaxed, the 
 hair was less artificially curled, and the draperies gained more 
 freedom and variety. The characteristic of smoothness, finish, and 
 regularity of the parts, as in the locks of the hair and beard, which 
 were represented like a series of knobs, and in the drapery which 
 hung down in zigzags repeated with the greatest exactness, is the 
 most prominent in the early works, and it is to be supposed that 
 this was not entirely the result of inability, but rather of an appre¬ 
 ciation of regularity as a decorative element. 
 
 Of the immense importance of the arts in the great period of 
 classic refinement, it is impossible to read without wonder and a 
 degree of doubt as to the verity of the records. If, however, evi¬ 
 dence is to convince us, we must at last abandon this feeling, and, 
 in comparing the ancient with the modern world, acknowledge that 
 art was diffused and general with them, and that it is narrow and 
 exclusive with us,—that it formed part of their highest glory and 
 greatest enjoyment, while with us it is neither,—that with them 
 the realization of beauty was a religion and a vital necessity, with 
 us it is only what we call a gratification of taste. 
 
 It has been thought that the majority of the ancient statues 
 were of bronze, but Flaxman considers this not to have been the 
 case, and that marble was the general material. The working of 
 metals was undoubtedly early brought to great perfection by the 
 Greeks, although it does not appear that the great cities were so 
 skilled in this work as some of the lesser. Sicyon was long the 
 workshop of metals, iEgina was famous for bronzes, continuing, 
 according to Pliny, the Egyptian manner. The Sicilians, who were 
 Grecian colonists, and also the Etruscans, were skilled in metals, 
 but the greatest schools of antiquity were unquestionably Athens 
 and Rhodes. From this island, only 40 miles long and 13 broad, 
 the Roman conquerors carried off 3,000 statues, and the remains of 
 the world's wonder, the brazen Colossus, which lay there till the 
 conquest by the Saracens in 684 of the Christian era, was sufficient, 
 when reduced to pieces, and sold to a Jew merchant, to load more 
 than 900 camels with the metal! J 
 
 Design, as we have said, being the basis of both plastic and 
 linear arts,—of painting as of sculpture,—we find records of paint¬ 
 ing in the earliest architectural and sculptural monuments yet 
 discovered, in the tombs of Etruria as in those of Hindostan and 
 Egypt. Contemporary with the sculptors already mentioned, the 
 earliest whose names have been recorded, namely Dipaenis and 
 Scyllis the Cretan, we find the advanced state of painting in Asia 
 Minor evidenced by an anecdote in Pliny. The picture of the 
 Battle of the Magnetes by Bularchus was purchased by the King of 
 Lydia for as much gold coin as would cover the picture. 
 
 As in sculpture, the first efforts were figures Avhose limbs were 
 undivided from the body, so in drawing, the first form in which we 
 find it is that of a simple line circumscribing the body or figure 
 
 I The art of inlaying and colouring metals is still possessed in perfection by 
 many of the descendants of the nations of Asia Minor and Syria. The Circas¬ 
 sians especially pride themselves on colouring silver,—an art in which, in ancient 
 times, the Egyptians excelled, though it was practised by the artists of Tyre 
 and Sidon. —Lady Calcott. 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 represented. This was termed by the ancients a skiagram, instances 
 of which are familiar to us in the Egyptian manuscripts, from one 
 of which we give the following. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 When this simple outline is filled in with black, white, or colour, 
 it was called a monochrom , or a painting of one colour. Of this 
 kind are the silhouettes or black profiles which have been so largely 
 in use, from their cheapness and readiness of execution, since the 
 time of Lavator. The next step was the monogram, in which all 
 the parts of the form within the outline were indicated, such as we 
 generally find on the ancient vases, or such as the designs of Flax- 
 man, which are perfect monograms. 
 
 Fig. 8. 
 
 These outlines were most probably originally practised upon a 
 white ground; for Pliny remarks, that they were first coloured by 
 Cleophantus, who used “ testa trita,” by which we should perhaps 
 understand that he was the first to draw them on a red or coloured 
 ground such as that of the vases.* 
 
 The next step was the more perfect form of the monochrom 
 alluded to above; in this light and shade were introduced. These 
 ‘ monochromata ” were practised in all times and by the greatest 
 masters; and resembled the chiarosouri of the Italians. Of this art 
 some specimens were found in Herculaneum, painted with red on 
 white and black. 
 
 So far each of these steps is clearly defined, and may be con¬ 
 sidered as, so far, a kind ol independent art. Indeed, each of the 
 three methods enumerated has remained throughout the whole 
 practice of art, and is still in use. The last mentioned is one 
 of the most beautiful styles of interior decoration; and chiaroscuro, 
 with the addition of gilding, is capable of producing some of the 
 finest decorative effects. 
 
 The next and last essential step towards the full development 
 of the art of Painting, was the proper application of local colours 
 in accordance with nature. This is, however, quite a distinct pro¬ 
 cess from the simple application of a variety of colours without 
 light and shade,—a mode of painting which is simply polychromy; 
 and a picture of this latter description is a much more simple effort 
 than the rudest forms of the monochrom in chiaroscuro. But the 
 addition of local colours to a picture already possessing light and 
 shade, is the completion of the art of painting. 
 
 I'ully alive to all the elating and exhilarating influence of colour, 
 the ancients employed it in every thing. The colouring of architec¬ 
 ture seems to have been universal,—traces of colour are found on 
 most of the architectural remains of Greece, and on those of Italy 
 and Sicily. But with the exception of the Doric ruins at Corinth, 
 and the temple of iEgina, which are not of marble, the colouring 
 was confined to the mouldings and other ornaments, the friezes, 
 the metopes, and the tympana of the pediments. The columns and 
 walls of the buildings we have mentioned were coloured as well as 
 the other parts; but when the walls were of marble, they seem to 
 have been left in their native state. From the traces on ancient 
 monuments, we are enabled to form a very tolerable idea of the 
 ancient system of decorating buildings. They were painted in 
 various ways, and in a variety of colours; and a tasteful combina¬ 
 tion of colours must have added greatly to the effect of even the 
 richest mouldings. The ordinary decorations were foliage, ova, and 
 beads: but upon the larger mouldings on which foliage was painted, 
 the outlines of the leaves were engraved on the stone. Gilding 
 
 * Article ‘ Painting,’ ‘ Greek and Roman Antiquities,’ before quoted. 
 
 and metal work were also introduced. The architrave of the 
 Parthenon at Athens was decorated with gilded shields. Friezes 
 adorned with sculpture appear to have been invariably painted, as 
 also the tympana; in the Parthenon these parts were of pale blue. 
 With the Romans this love of colour degenerated into a mere taste 
 for gaudiness. The assemblage of works of art in the capital of 
 the world, must have induced the necessity of a very high pitch of 
 brilliancy to minister to the highly excited eye. As the Roman 
 architecture became more and more varied and overlaid with orna¬ 
 ment, so the decoration by colour became more and more glaring 
 and dependent upon contrasts. Sphynxes and obelisks from Egypt, 
 works of sculpture from all the conquered countries, to the number 
 of 14,000, adorned the streets. Greece became a Roman province, 
 and the great productions of art being carried off’ by the conquerors, 
 the artists following, finding a better market for their talents than 
 in their native country. Rome, therefore, and the towns of Southern • 
 Italy, were filled with colonies of artists, who willingly spent their 
 time in adorning those baths and villas, where a refined taste, the 
 offspring of luxury and leisure, seemed to palliate vice. How dif¬ 
 ferent were the purposes for which the masterpieces of art had been 
 conceived! 
 
 Vitruvius deplores the corrupt taste of his time, observing that 
 the true decorations of the ancients were laid aside, and that strong 
 and gaudy colouring and prodigality were substituted for the beau¬ 
 tiful effects produced by skill. Pompeii, with much that is chaste 
 and beautiful, has many traces also of what Pliny and Vitruvius 
 complain of. The work by Zalin affords us examples of this, but 
 without colour an illustration would scarcely convey any adequate 
 idea to the reader. Vitruvius contrasts the state of decorative 
 painting in his own age with Avhat it was formerly, and he 
 enumerates the various kinds of wall-painting in use among the 
 ancients. They first imitated the arrangement and varieties of 
 slabs of marble, then the variegated frames and cornices of panels, 
 to which were afterwards added architectural decorations; and, 
 finally, tragic, comic, and satiric scenes, and in the long galleries 
 and corridors, various kinds of landscapes, or even subjects from 
 the poets and the higher walk of History. But these things were 
 in the time of Vitruvius tastelessly laid aside, and had given place 
 to mere display, and the most fantastic, mixed, and unmeaning 
 inventions. The paintings on the grottoes which were exhumed 
 about the time of the revival of the arts in Italy, are by many 
 considered liable to this depreciatory criticism, although they have 
 furnished the originals for the decorations of the Vatican by 
 Raphael and his scholars. 
 
 In manners and in luxury, as in art, the Roman character de¬ 
 generated fearfully from the Greek. The feasts of the Athenians 
 were accompanied by an elevation of refinement which had no part in 
 the orgies and shows of the Romans.*!* The second period of Roman 
 art brings us down to the time of Dioclesian, comprehending the 
 first three centuries of the Christian era. At the beginning of this 
 time we first find portrait painters as a distinct class, landscape 
 painting was first attempted, and the first persons who seemed to 
 have illustrated books appear to have been Varro and Atticus. In 
 their noble libraries they inserted small portraits of the authors at 
 the head of their works. So diligent was Varro that he published 
 a collection of 700 portraits of eminent men. 
 
 What has been called the third period of Roman art commences 
 with the foundation of Constantinople, and exhibits a total change 
 in the style and purposes of the arts of design. The establishment 
 of Christianity, the division of the empire and the incursions of 
 barbarians, were the first great causes of this important revolution; 
 but it was reserved for the fanatic fury of the Iconoclasts effectually 
 to destroy all traces of the former splendour. These image-breakers 
 raised so effectual an outcry against the respect paid to pictures, 
 images, and adornments, that the popular fury precipitated itself 
 with fatal effect on much of the art which lavishly adorned the 
 new capital of the world. 
 
 The elevation of the Christian faith, and the total change which 
 followed on the intellectual as well as moral condition of the world, 
 must now be considered the ruling idea, both in the decay of the 
 ancient taste and in the rise of the northern genius. Polytheism, 
 with all its sculptured family of gods and goddesses, for a time 
 maintained a strange intercourse with the new faith. Some of the 
 Roman emperors placed statues of Abraham, Moses, and Christ, 
 among those of the lawgivers and benefactors of the heathen ages. 
 Severus, for example, whose mother Mammasa had been so charmed 
 by the eloquence of Origen that she inspired her son with favour 
 
 t Among the Greeks commerce was mostly confined to reciprocal relations 
 between the states. Fish from Sicyon, eels from Boeotia, cheese from Sicily, 
 wine of Phlius, perfumes from Athens, were among the items of a great ban¬ 
 quet ; we hear also of pipers from ASgium, cooks from Elis, tapestry from Corinth , 
 and a caldron from A rgos. 
 
 D 
 
14 
 
 ESSAY OK ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 lor the Christians, placed the statue of Christ and some of the 
 patriarchs among his household gods. But this was of course only 
 the first ignorance of the half-converted,—the genius of the old 
 and of the new faith could never be the same. They were wholly 
 opposed to each other ; and the classic mythology, with all its 
 poetic accessaries, and the grand art which raised men to a level 
 with the immortals, was desecrated, abandoned, and lost, to be for 
 a thousand years unknown, while a fabric of Gothic art, fitly 
 expressing the new faith as the Parthenon did that of the past, 
 rose, arch over arch, and pinnacles pointing up to heaven. We 
 must now, following the course of the evangelizing missionaries, 
 leave the classic regions of Italy and Greece, for latitudes nearer 
 our own. 
 
 Before doing so, however, it is necessary to point out the origin 
 about this time—that is to say, cotemporary with the Byzantine, 
 and rather earlier than the appearance of Gothic form of building 
 or style of decoration—of another and very distinct species of 
 ornament 
 
 The second commandment in the decalogue, as many of our 
 readers may be aware, was understood by the Jews as a literal 
 injunction against the making of any graven image, or any likeness 
 of any living thing whatever. This is still the case among the 
 strict Hebrews. At first the judaizing Christians might perhaps 
 adhere strictly to this interpretation, but fortunately not for any 
 length of time. In the Koran, however, this anathema against the 
 imitative arts is repeated, and all Mahomedans repudiate* to this 
 day the introduction of men, beasts, or even plants, in their de¬ 
 coration. 
 
 Consequently, when the followers of the prophet became princes, 
 and when mosques and minarets, palaces and baths, were built by 
 them, and embellished to meet the luxurious taste of the arbitrary 
 possessors, a style of ornament grew out of the strict avoidance of 
 all intelligible figure. As to the Jews, it does not appear that they 
 ever possessed a school of geometry any more than a school of art; 
 but not so the Arabs,—in the first centuries of the Hegira mathe¬ 
 matics were learnedly pursued by them. Accordingly, Moorish 
 ornament-}* was founded on geometry, and presents as many beauties 
 as mosaic can convey. In the work by M. Ilenemer, ‘ Arabische 
 und Alt. Italienische. Ban Verzierungen,’ there is an immense 
 variety of these ornaments, generally in two or three colours, very 
 delicately harmonized, principally taken from examples in Cairo, 
 the originals being pavements, roofs, and borders. 
 
 This design, however chaste, it will be easily seen, was very 
 limited, and we find somewhat later a much freer enrichment added 
 to it. Although still avoiding all representation of natural objects, 
 this later style—the style of the Alhambra—exhibits as splendid 
 arrangements of decoration as any that have ever appeared. The 
 colouring was equally rich with the design: not an inch of wall 
 was left uncovered, and nothing can exceed the splendour of these 
 waving and intersecting forms, sometimes given with gold on a 
 crimson ground, at others with crimson on blue picked out with 
 white. Several pages are given in the present work selected from 
 the walls of the great palace of the Moors in Spain, and also several 
 vases of French manufacture in the Moorish taste. 
 
 III. 
 
 “ To endeavour to trace the history of any one of the fine arts, 
 through the period which elapsed from its decline in the antique 
 world to its revival among the moderns,” says Lady Calcott, in the 
 last of her ‘ Essays towards a History of Painting/ “ is a task not 
 much more promising than that of finding the boundary lines, and 
 ancient landmarks of a country which has been laid waste by the 
 waters of a flood, or covered by the lava from a volcano.” Fortu¬ 
 nately it is not necessary for our present purpose to trace the 
 uncertain origin of things, or to do more than indicate, in passing, 
 the transition forms of art of the middle ages. The architecture of 
 the ancients cannot be said to have been really superseded by any 
 style which can be considered Christian, in the South. Nor was it 
 likely such would be the case, from the beauty of the existing 
 remains with which Italy was scattered, notwithstanding the de¬ 
 vastation of the northern tribes. At the same time, the variety of 
 Byzantine decoration exhibited in capitals and other ornamented 
 portions of church architecture scattered over Europe, is so great 
 
 * The portrait of the Sultan, which Sir P. Wilkie painted at Constantinople, 
 was said to be the first portrait painted of a descendant of the prophet. 
 
 t It is not uncommon to apply the term Arabesque to the Italian decoration 
 —that of the Vatican, &c.—the legitimate offspring of the ancient (grotesque) 
 style found in Pompeii, &c., of which we have spoken: but this is a merely 
 arbitrary use of the term. 
 
 as to preclude any particular criticism. Some specimens of these 
 retain the classic foliage, others are purely arbitrary, and unlike 
 every thing either that had gone before or that was to follow, while 
 a considerable portion are closely allied to the Norman, which was 
 now making its earliest and most vigorous efforts. The Byzantine 
 was an ineffectual effort to give a purely ecclesiastical tone to 
 Christian places of worship, struggling as it did against the ancient 
 architecture, so beautiful, and yet so peculiarly heathen in its details. 
 It rather grew out of established forms than originated a new style; 
 and it still retained too much of the character of the orders devoted 
 to past usages.” 
 
 “ But there arose in the west,”—we quote from an excellent little 
 work by the Rev. G. A. Poole,;—“in the middle ages, or the dark 
 ages, as we complacently call them,—a style of architecture grow¬ 
 ing, in all its parts and charactei’S, out of the wants of the Church; 
 and adapting itself to the expression of the very things which she 
 desires to express, in all her methods of embodying herself to the 
 eyes of the world, and to the hearts of her sons. And so entirely 
 did this style arise out of the strivings of the Church to give a 
 bodily form’ to her teaching, that it seems to have clothed her spirit, 
 almost as if the invisible things had put forth their energies unseen, 
 but powerful and plastic, and gathered around them on all sides 
 the very forms and figures which might best serve to embody them 
 to the eye of sense. A Gothic church, in its perfection, is an 
 exposition of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, clothed upon 
 with a material form; and is, as Coleridge has more forcibly ex¬ 
 pressed it, ‘the petrifaction of our religion;’ or as it has been 
 expressed by a mind essentially differing from Coleridge’s—which 
 makes the coincidence the more remarkable—‘ The divine order and 
 economy of the one seems to be emblematically set forth by the 
 just, plain, and majestic architecture of the other; and as the one 
 consists of a great variety of parts united in the same regular design, 
 according to the truest art and most exact proportion, so the other 
 contains a decent subordination of members, various sacred insti¬ 
 tutions, sublime doctrines, and solid precepts of morality, digested 
 into the same design, and with an admirable concurrence tending 
 to one view,—the happiness and exaltation of human nature.’ 
 
 “Such, then, is Gothic architecture:—theological, ecclesiastical, 
 and mystical, in all its parts and characters. It grew to its per¬ 
 fection, both in general design and in more minute details of orna¬ 
 ment and execution, during many successive generations: and 
 although we have few churches entire and unmixed of its earliest 
 forms, we have remains, more or less perfect, of almost every varia¬ 
 tion in its style, from the Norman of the twelfth century to the 
 elaborate perpendicular of the Tudors.” 
 
 The first Christian temples, it appears, were built in the form oi 
 a ship,§ that being the emblem of the church, and divided into 
 three parts,—the Narthex or Porch, for penitents and catechumens; 
 the Nave for communicants; and, lastly, the Sanctuary, or Chancel, 
 for the clergy and the altar. The apsis, or end of the chancel, 
 which always looked towards the east, as is strictly the custom with 
 all our English churches, was circular; and Eusebius tells us that 
 Constantine encircled the apsis of the church of the Holy Cross 
 with twelve pillars, according to the number of the Holy Apostles. 
 Along the floor of these early churches the figure of a cross was 
 expressed by a different coloured tile or stone from the rest of the 
 pavement. The Cross is the ground form of the Gothic church, 
 and throughout all its parts, even down to the most minute, string¬ 
 courses or foliage, in which trefoil plants are generally represented, 
 are shadowed out the great Christian verities, the Trinity and the 
 Atonement. The Atonement is expressed by the general form of 
 the Avhole, the cross; and, in some instances, as at Wells, Salisbury, 
 Lincoln, and York, we have the smaller transept above the great 
 arms of the cross, representing || the inscription placed by Pilate 
 over the head of our Saviour. To signify the Trinity, we have, 
 first of all, the threefold division, lengthwise, into nave, transepts, 
 and choir; the threefold division, breadthwise, of the nave or choir, 
 and the two aisles; and the same in elevation, described by the 
 arches separating the nave from the aisles, the triforium, and the 
 clerestory. The two western towers and central tower are also 
 expressive of the same. 
 
 Having now reached our own country, before following the 
 architecture, which we must do very briefly, it is just to our Saxon 
 
 + ‘ Churches, their Structure, Arrangement, and Decoration.’ Published by 
 T. Burns, Portman Street. 
 
 § Hence our English Nave, from the Latin Navis. 
 
 || There is, besides, in some churches, a remarkable formation, which is 
 doubtless intended to represent the inclination of our Lord’s head as he hung 
 upon the cross. The choir, or chancel, has a slight but perceptible inclination 
 from the line of the nave. It is very remarkable in Lichfield cathedral, and in 
 the churches of St. Michael, Coventry, Patrington, Holderness, and many others. 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 ancestors to go back to their times for a little. Bede mentions 
 several churches of stone of admirable workmanship, built before 
 the arrival of Hengist; and Matthew of Westminster relates that 
 the churches of Britain were repaired by Aurelius Ambrosius in 
 448. A century and a half after this date, St. Augustine was in 
 this country; and in the church-building carried on by the con¬ 
 verted kings of the heptarchy, we find constant allusion made to 
 the foreign artists, as in the case of Wilfrid of York, and Benedict 
 Biscop. Both of these exerted an influence on the arts of painting 
 and illuminating, as well as on architecture; they took many jour¬ 
 neys to Rome, and brought back many pictures, books, and images, 
 and also skilful builders and artificers from Rome, France, and 
 elsewhere. Of the churches so built, we are told that they had 
 many rooms of smooth stone, and a large room supported on many 
 columns. The windoics were glazed by glass makers from Gaul , and 
 the capitals and ceiling of the sanctuary were decorated with his¬ 
 tories, and curious figures projecting from the stone. 
 
 The pictures brought into this country by Biscop, 680, are, as 
 we may suppose, all scriptural,—a Virgin, portraits of the twelve 
 Apostles, and, what is more curious among the many others, some 
 subjects from the Apocalypse, executed with “ marvellous art and 
 wisdom.” These pictures must of course have been of Byzantine 
 execution, and their exposure in the Saxon churches doubtless 
 exerted a great influence on the illuminators now beginning their 
 work in England.* 
 
 The great school of learning at this period, and for centuries 
 before, was Ireland. Among the arts thus early known there, that 
 of illuminating is said to have been taught and practised as early 
 as the fourth century; and being conveyed from thence with other 
 branches of learning, was established soon after the Saxon conver¬ 
 sion in many places in England. Ethric and Wulfric, monks of 
 Hyde Abbey, are recorded with the additional honorary designation 
 of “ painters ” to their names. Here also the monk Godewin illu¬ 
 minated the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold. This Hyde Abbey 
 indeed, or “ new minster at Winchester,” is considered to have been 
 a principal school of the art in England. The most wonderful 
 specimen, however, of Saxon painting is in the book called the 
 Durham Gospels, which is of the Irish character. “ The chiel 
 features of the Irish or Hiberno-Saxon school of illumination, were 
 extreme intricacy of pattern, interlacing of knots in a diagonal or 
 square form, sometimes interwoven with animals, and terminations 
 in heads of serpents or birds. The Lombardic or Visi-Gothic MSS., 
 on the other hand, had tesselated or embroidered ornaments for the 
 capitals.”*f* We give a specimen from the Durham Book. 
 
 Fig. 9. 
 
 * The antiquity of altar-pieces and illuminated missals, has been traced con- 
 jecturally even to the time of the apostles themselves. At the beginning or 
 the Christian era, missive letters were usually written on tablets of wood 
 hollowed so as to present something of the appearance of a boy’s slate in a 
 frame. Two of these were placed face to face to preserve the writing, which 
 was on wax, and a pair of boards thus prepared was called a Dyptic. The 
 Epistles of St. Paul and the other apcstles to the primitive churches, were, in 
 
 We fondly attribute much in our laws to Alfred which had no 
 existence until centuries after. But his love of letters and arts is 
 not conjectural. At a time when the judge and thane at home, as 
 well as the berserkir abroad, needed the implacable vigilance of the 
 sword and the axe, he compelled all—Earls, Governors, Ministers— 
 to learn the arts of letters, or lose their preferments. The extremely 
 old or desperately stupid might have a dispensation granted on 
 condition of a kinsman, freeman, or serf, being constantly employed, 
 “ day and night,” in reciting to them. The king himself founded 
 churches, translated much into the native tongue, and the “ time- 
 candles .” which, being swayed about by the wind, “ through the 
 chinks in the king’s Avail,” told the hour untruly, he enclosed in a 
 horn case, and so invented the lantliorn. Artificers and artists he 
 invited from Germany and France. Working in metals Avas carried 
 to a high perfection in the subsequent Saxon ages, as we find from 
 the testimony of the conqueror’s chaplain. “ When William re¬ 
 turned to Normandy, he gave aAvay many presents of golden vases 
 and richly ornamented stuff, Avliich they hung up in their churches 
 on high feast days.” He says further—“ The English Avomen excel 
 in the use of the needle and in embroidering in gold, the men in 
 every species of elegant Avorkmanship.” Embroidery must have 
 been carried to a high degree of perfection indeed, since Ave hear of 
 ladies Avorking pictures representing the good deeds of their hus¬ 
 bands; and that St. Dunstan, at the prayer of a noble dame, painted 
 for her a robe Avhich she aftenvards embroidered. 
 
 On the entrance of the Norman conquerors, the distinctive 
 features of the Saxon church, which were those of the early churches 
 already alluded to,—the form, that of a parallelogram, Avith semi¬ 
 circular apse, the windows and doors of the same shape, small, and 
 feAV, —Avere superseded by the form of the cross with side-aisles, 
 &c.; and within a feAV years, no less than five cathedral churches 
 Avere begun, the arch retaining for some time the round form, and 
 the building somewhat of its sombre and heavy character. 
 
 The first appearance of the Pointed arch is found in buildings 
 of Celtic origin, and is formed by placing tAvo large stones in an 
 oblique position, resting on walls at their loAver edges and Avith 
 their other ends united at the top. At the ruins of Jarrow mon¬ 
 astery this form of door is seen, and in many other places. Others 
 ascribe its invention to the intei'section of tAvo semicircular mould¬ 
 ings on the face of a Avail, which forms the pointed arch in the 
 shape of an equilateral triangle with the sides curved. Arcades of 
 many varieties of this figure form ornamental dressings for Avails in 
 many of the Norman buildings. 
 
 Fig. 10. 
 
 The acute or lancet arch appears to have been adopted first of the 
 pointed series, and was immediately applied to every part of the 
 building. WindoAvs and door-ways, but especially the former, 
 exhibit beautiful specimens of this form in combination. Door¬ 
 ways of Avider dimensions Ave find divided by a central column into 
 two apertures of the lancet shape. 
 
 Figs. 11—14. 
 
 fact, missive letters despatched to their distant congregations; and there is 
 every probability that imaginary or real portraits of the writers accompanied 
 the letters, and headed the contents of the Christian dyptics, in order to insure 
 to them the same degree of reverence which was paid to the missives of the 
 government when headed by the imperial effigies. 
 
 The compact form of the dyptic suited the purpose of a moveable altar-piece 
 admirably. And the names dyptic or triptic, which implied, at first, but a 
 double or triple page, came with time to designate those folding altar-pieces so 
 frequently found in the earliest Christian churches.— Lady Calcott’s Essay. 
 t Sir F. Maddon’s Introduction to ShaAv’s Specimens of Ilium. MSS. 
 
1G 
 
 ESSAY OK ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 These narrow windows are often, as our examples show them, 
 double, sometimes treble, and often five together—as the five sisters 
 at York—at first without a common head. In the last of these 
 fimires is seen the commencement of the infinite variety ot form in 
 the upper part of the window, which very shortly became a favourite 
 field for the invention of the builder. From the early part of the 
 thirteenth to that of the sixteenth centuries, the designs of windows 
 are as countless as the variety of the carvings that adorn the capi¬ 
 tals of the pillars, and the bosses of brackets and pinnacles, varying 
 from loopholes of six inches wide to openings of 75 leet in height 
 by 24 in width, divided by upright mullions, transoms, and tracery. 
 
 The restorations of the Temple Church, Crosby Hall, and other 
 buildings which have gone on so zealously, and which are likely 
 to go forward on a far more extensive scale, have shown us how 
 gorgeous was the effect of the interior decoration of those times. 
 In Durham the capitals of some of the pillars of a plain character 
 are found to have had foliage painted on them, and, in the cleaning 
 of some of the angels’ heads in the Temple church, it was discovered 
 that not only had the hair been gilded, and the face painted, but 
 that the eyes had been inlaid with glass. 
 
 Everywhere the richest colour prevailed, from the floor which 
 was laid with enamelled tiles, to the roof which was^ covered with 
 tracery and devices. And now before the magnificence of the 
 Christian temple could be complete, to give its varied forms and 
 grouping of parts their entire charm, the painted window and 
 monumental sculpture were necessary. The earliest stained glass 
 had the devices or figures in the centre part, with borders, in which 
 a deep blue predominated, or mosaic of ruby and blue, but still the 
 blue overpowering the rest. In these conventional representations 
 of saints and bishops the natural colour is not adhered to; the 
 hair, for instance, is frequently blue or green, as the harmony or 
 contrast of colour may dictate. More lately, we find the decorative 
 part as well as the figures much nearer nature, and much more 
 white introduced. Last of all, as in King’s College, Cambridge, the 
 window emulated a picture, and the figures crowd the entire space. 
 
 The tomb went through as many changes as the church itself. 
 At first, the place of burial was only marked above the pavement 
 by the prismatic or triangular form of the roof of the coffin, as in 
 the tomb of Rufus. It then became decorated, and the entire sar¬ 
 cophagus appeared above the ground, as that of the Archbishop 
 Theobald, at Canterbury, 1161. " The third form, of which so many 
 are Avell known, was that of the effigy on the tomb. This began 
 earlier in Normandy than in England by thirty or forty years, the 
 sculptors being more expert, it may be, but many of them, even 
 among our earliest, are in a noble and severe spirit and large style; 
 exhibiting great beauty of execution, both in portraiture and in the 
 correctness and admirable treatment of the costumes. The fourth 
 form was that of a testoon, or arch, over the tomb: the earlier flat, 
 the later arched and terminating in a gessc or fleur-de-foliage. The 
 fifth mode was by mausolei, or tombs free of the wall, which became 
 very inconvenient from their size and position. The last of the 
 list were the brasses; which have also, like the sculptural effigies, 
 become the truest authorities for the antiquary and the artist. 
 We subjoin an example of the altar tomb—that of one of the 
 greatest architects that England has produced—Bishop William of 
 Wyckham.* 
 
 Fig. 15. 
 
 The last pure style, and the style which peculiarly belongs to 
 England—the Perpendicular—brings us down to the most eventful 
 epoch of modern history, that of the Reformation. Gothic archi¬ 
 tecture seemed to have culminated,—to have realized its greatest 
 efforts, and showed a tendency, after all its variety, to degenerate into 
 
 * Besides the numerous pages of German Gothic in the present work, the 
 reader will find some rich examples from York and Henry VII.’s Chapel, &c. 
 York was begun about 1230. Henry VII.'s Chapel was finished during the 
 reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 formality,—when new influences came into the field to put a final 
 period to its changes. The style of the thirteenth century has been 
 considered the complete, or “ perfect Gothic,” by Messrs. Whcwcll, 
 Cottingham, and others; and this is the most generally selected by 
 architects of the present day when selection is allowed. The pecu¬ 
 liarities of earlier works—those that give them the appellation of 
 Early English, Norman, or “Romanesque”—have been viewed as 
 not fully developed, while the change which began with the first 
 part of the fourteenth century, from its over-abundance of ornament 
 called the “ Decorated;" and the succeeding form of the Perpen¬ 
 dicular, so called principally from its paneled surfaces throughout, 
 and which, as we have said, finishes the cycle of our architecture, 
 have been denominated “ After Gothics .” 
 
 Durinf this long period, whatever relates to the decorative arts 
 must be found in connection with the church. Little there is out 
 of it that has been recorded of interest, and there is every reason 
 to believe that even the palace and the ladies’ chamber were miser¬ 
 ably deficient in the tasteful or artistic. The illuminator and the 
 silversmith, indeed, were in full operation, and the specimens of 
 the work of both are highly curious and beautiful. But not only 
 Avas there no class of men to represent Avhat we call artists—seeing 
 that the architects Avere priests; but the trades Avere not seemingly 
 in a very fixed state, one man exercising various callings, although 
 the twelve companies in London Avere formed by Richard I., and 
 the crafts had their aldermen at an earlier time. When the Earl 
 of WarAvick Avent to the court of France, he contracted Avith his 
 tailor for t\\a painters' work that Avas to be displayed in the pageantry 
 of his journey. 
 
 “ First, cccc pencils (pennons) bete with the raggidde stafte of 
 silver, pris the pece vd—08,—G—OOd. 
 
 “ Item for the peynting of tAvo jjavys (shields for the entire body) 
 for my lord, the one Avitli a gryfon stonding in my lordis colours 
 rede, white, and russet, pris of the paveys 00—06—08. 
 
 “ Item for the other pavys painted with black, and a raggid 
 stafte bete, with silver occupying all the felde, pris 00—03—04. 
 
 “ Item, one coat for my lordis body, bete with fine gold, pris 
 01 — 10 — 00 . 
 
 “ Item for a grete stremour for the ship of xl yerdis length, and 
 viii yerdis in brede, with a grete here and griffin holding a raggid 
 staffe poudrid full of raggid staves; and for a grete crosse of St. 
 George for the lymming and pourlraying, 01—06—08.” 
 
 Barren indeed is the field of art until the end of the Avars of the 
 Roses, and at the time when the revival of the arts of painting and 
 sculpture in Italy Avere producing such Avorks as the doors of the 
 Baptistry of Florence by Ghiberti, Avhicli M. Angelo said were 
 worthy of being the gates of paradise, and preparing the way in 
 the next age for the greatest of modern art; while, in Germany, 
 Von Eyck and others were making important inventions, we do not 
 find any corresponding movement at home. 
 
 The truth is, that in general civilization Ave were much behind. 
 Hoav rude our domestic architecture must have been, contemporary 
 with the erection of our great cathedrals, is evinced by the circum¬ 
 stance that chimneys are not understood to be at all older than 
 1200. “ Grates and chimneys,” says Whitaker, (History of Whalley, 
 p. 93,) “were beginning to be introduced about 1370.” 
 
 “ Now hath each riche a rule to eaten by himselfe, 
 
 In a privie parlur, for poore men’s sake, 
 
 Or in chamber with a chymney, and leave the chiefe hall.” 
 
 Piers’ Ploavmax. 
 
 Coal began to be burned in London as early as EdAvard I., as Ave 
 learn from its having been interdicted by him for fear of evil effects 
 from the smoke. The mines at Newcastle Avere discovered in 1300, 
 and Avere encouraged by Queen Philippa, Avho advanced the useful 
 arts in many ways. Cloth Avas first manufactured in the time of 
 EdAvard I. ; but the queen already named seeing how English avooI 
 was carried abroad and brought back woven, established also the 
 weaving of Avoollen cloths. This manufacture was in considerable 
 quantity in 1331. The illuminations of the court of Richard II. 
 show us highly decorated fashions of dresses and of hangings. The 
 latter must have continued to be so costly, however, as to prevent 
 their general use, being embroidered by hand until the early part 
 of the fourteenth century, Avhen French tapestry was first intro¬ 
 duced, having been invented in 1246. This became the staple 
 production of the toAvn in Flanders, Avliich has almost given its 
 own name to the article; and so early as 1398, the celebrated set 
 of “Arras hangings” at Warwick castle are mentioned. Large 
 quantities Avere imported into England, the first sort consisting of 
 silk Avith gold threads. This “ cloth of gold ” was the royal Avear. 
 and the idea of magnificence lent to it by the use of the precious 
 metal, maintained it in its place from the time of Richard II., 
 Avhose cloak is of cloth of gold embroidered with the well-known 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 S. S. ornament and figures of harts, to Henry VIII., whose portraits 
 by Holbein are profusely gilt. In Chaucer's translation of the 
 Romaunt of the Rose, he makes “ Richesse ” wear a dress on which 
 
 The barris were of gold full fine 
 Upon a tissue of satine ; 
 
 while “Largesse,” who is naively described as having “ her colere 
 open to show her brooch,” is habited in silk. 
 
 A golde brooche ful wel ywrouglit, 
 
 And ccrtes it xnissate her nought, 
 
 And through her smock ywrought with silke, 
 
 The flesh was seen as white as milk. 
 
 It has been seen that “ glass from Gaul ” was brought into England 
 in Saxon times. The art of making glass appears to have been 
 practised here from a very early time, and there is reason to believe 
 that windows were glazed in general use about 1180. The art of 
 blowing glass, however, which was followed on the continent from 
 about the date we have just mentioned, was not imported till long 
 subsequent; the first glass bottle produced in England being not 
 made till 1557.* The glass made at home, besides, must have 
 been always inferior, as we find it stipulated in contracts for stained 
 windows that the glass shall be from abroad. Thus, in the chapel 
 at Warwick, John Prudde of Westminster, who, though evidently a 
 man somewhat versed in the arts, is merely denominated “ a glazier,” 
 was employed to paint the windows; and in the covenant it was 
 stipulated, “ that he should employ no glass of England, but with 
 glass beyond the seas, and that in the finest wise, with the best, 
 cleanest, and strongest glasse beyond sea, that may be had in Eng¬ 
 land, and of the finest colours of red, blew, yellow, purpure, sanguine 
 and violet, and of all other colours, that shall be most necessary 
 and best, to make and embellish the matters, images, and stones, 
 that shall be delivered, and appointed by the said executors, by 
 patterns in paper, afterwards to be newly traced, and pictured by 
 another painter in rich colours at the charge of the sayd glazier.” 
 
 Others of these incidental notices to be found in Walpole are 
 equally curious. “ We have a royal order to pay a certain painter 
 20s. for painting the Exchequer chamber: that Odo the goldsmith, 
 be paid 4 pounds 11 shillings for making the pictures (meaning 
 thereby statues): that the king grants for building at Westminster 
 £2,591, in which sum Licoricia, the widow of David, a JeAv of 
 Oxford, was bound: that William the Florentine, our painter, make 
 the pictures and frontispiece of the altar, and the cost shall be paid 
 upon the view of honest and lawful men.” 
 
 Fearful that we have already dwelt at too great length on the 
 historical part of our Essay, we shall now proceed at once to review 
 cursorily the later manifestations of the arts of Design, from the 
 time of Elizabeth. Fortunately, the styles of ornament from that 
 of Francis the I., occupying by far the larger portion of the work 
 to which this Essay is prefixed, it is only necessary to mention them 
 chronologically. 
 
 Contemporary with the Arabesques (as they have been somehow 
 or other termed) of the Vatican and the Palazzo del Te, so superior 
 in taste and variety to anything then done, a love of novelty in 
 decoration spread over Germany, France, and Flanders. Gold¬ 
 smiths’ work especially became very elaborate, and immense sums 
 were expended in the setting of jewels and enamelling. This was 
 pursued by many great artists, and the prevailing form of the panel¬ 
 ling, varied and broken by belts and figures which began at that 
 epoch, has a peculiar applicability to chasing and carving. The 
 armour of the time of Henry VIII. was covered with chasing inlaid 
 with gold; the suit presented to him by Maximilian, and the suit 
 worn by Francis I., in the well-known portrait by Mittan, present 
 wonderfully beautiful examples of this inlaid work. Enamelling 
 also was much practised; those on copper produced at Limoges 
 are much and deservedly admired. 
 
 Francis I. has been rewarded for his patronage of the fine arts 
 by the honour which we associate with his name, in connection 
 with the productions of the time; and perhaps those examples 
 found in France, and distinguished as the style Francis I., are the 
 finest of all the varieties of the prevailing style of the age. The 
 Flemish is of a larger and more massive character, and possessed of 
 more richness and power in its bizarrerie, but less distinguished by 
 chasteness, artistic treatment, and freedom in the accessaries; while 
 the Elizabethan is meagre in comparison. Of all these three varieties 
 the reader will find ample illustration in the present work. 
 
 Although the chapels of Henry VII. and of St. George at Windsor, 
 were not completed till pretty well on in the reign of the Eighth 
 Henry, the buildings began by him were wholly different. In 
 imitation of his neighbouring king, Henry invited artists from Italy 
 
 * Glass was applied by Roger Bacon to many scientific purposes,—the magic 
 lantern and the magnifying glass being both constructed by him, 1250—1260. 
 
 and elsewhere, and the principal men who were retained at his 
 court—Holbein, John of Padua, and others—were fitted to introduce 
 innovation rather than to avert the decay of English architecture. 
 Previously to his time the picturesque manner of building denomi¬ 
 nated the Burgundian was introduced into England. It was used 
 chiefly for palatial edifices, the English nobility now becoming too 
 refined for the dark and gloomy castles in which hithex-to they had 
 lived. It is asserted that this so called Burgundian style afforded 
 our builders the true prototype of the Tudox - , being ascribed to the 
 two first reigns in that dynasty. There are scarcely any examples 
 of it now l-einaining in tlie country, and the two buildings known 
 to be of Holbein’s design, viz. a gatehouse to the Royal Palace of 
 Whitehall, and a porch to the Earl of Pembroke’s mansion at 
 Wilton; “the first,” according to Britton, “exhibits the features 
 of the latest Tudor style, and that at Wilton the revived Italian.” 
 Holbein made also many designs for chimney-pieces, jewellery, and 
 enamelling, (oxxe of his jewels we give below,) while John of Padua, 
 as greater men had done, made designs for the tapestry of the 
 palace, although professedly an architect. 
 
 Fig. 16. 
 
 Of the Elizabethan much has been written of a depreciating 
 character 1 , but at the present day it is more admired; and certainly 
 the numerous edifices throughout England, built in the reign of 
 Queen Bess, and decorated with the massive carved furniture, every 
 part in perfect harmony with the whole, warrant the highest enco¬ 
 miums that have yet been lavished upon it. 
 
 The Elizabethan, moreover, is the last link in the chain of our 
 national ai'chilecture. In the reign of James, the genius of Inigo 
 Jones, heralded by the growing influence of the classics, planted the 
 first worthy adaptations of the Italian architectui’e in England, and 
 Gothic, whei'e it was stiR practised, was degi-aded indeed. The 
 classic taste went on increasing in the following reign, and its 
 influence was assured by the collections of antique mai'bles and 
 Italian pictvu’es made by King Charles and the Earl of Ax’undel. 
 
 The stream had set in which was to continue to our own time. 
 The Gothic gradually became identified with all that was barbarous, 
 as indeed the term Gothic sufficiently evinces; while, from the 
 Italian going further into the strictly classic, we have of late years 
 built exact copies of Greek temples, the insignia of saci’ifice and 
 pagan ceremonial, (such as the skull of the bull with its fillets, 
 which we have already figured,) actually showing themselves on the 
 fronts of our colleges, churches, or mechanics’ institutes. The fur¬ 
 niture, howevei', which completed the interior of these buildings, 
 maintained its native character. It was never thought of, except 
 during a short time of the gi’eat Fi’ench i-evolution, when the 
 enthusiasts, contemning modern religion and Christianity altogether, 
 carried their admiration of ancient philosophy so far as to imitate 
 the manners of the Greeks both in costume and in furniture. 
 
 The caiwed woi'k of the time of Chaiies, as seen oix the high 
 and elaborate backs of chaii’s, on cabinets, &c., is often very gi’aceful. 
 It was principally of Flemish production. The design is composed 
 of foliage much more than the panel and riband, and occasionally 
 we see representations of actual nature of excellent execution. One 
 of the plans of Charles was to have established, in a princely man¬ 
 ner, an academy or college of the fine arts. Institutioirs of a like 
 nature were everywhere established on the Continent; but the 
 character of Charles’ projected establishment was far too aristocratic 
 
18 
 
 ESSA Y OK ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 to have been practically beneficial, at least in the lower and more 
 popular walks of art. But we must not omit, in speaking of this 
 age, and more particularly of the wood carving which distinguished 
 it, to mention the name of the greatest man in this way that has 
 ever appeared. Of the works of Grinlin Gibbons accessible to the 
 public we cannot speak, being ignorant of the places where they 
 are to be found, except the pedestal of the statue of Charles at 
 Charing Cross, which can give no adequate idea of the beauty of 
 those executed in wood at Burghley-House, Petworth, and else¬ 
 where. The subjects are, for the most part, swags of flowers and 
 fruit, extending from side to side of the immense chimney-piece 
 which occupies nearly the entire end of the room, and dropping 
 down each side. Bunches of flowers in total relief, enlivened with 
 birds and animals, shells and vases, of execution as exquisite as 
 the design is luxuriant and artistic. 
 
 The triumph of the Puritan party was the signal for the retire¬ 
 ment of the fine arts, and to say the truth, the partisan of Christian 
 art, at the present day, can hardly blame them, seeing the heathenish 
 turn that things were taking at the time. To be sure, the Puritans 
 considered any representation of the Virgin, or of the persons of 
 the Trinity, as bad or worse than the naked gods and goddesses 
 which Arundel had raised at York-House, but which were then 
 removed to Whitehall Gardens, and Enoch Wyatt was employed to 
 cover (!) them. Still the scripture pieces of Rubens, and of con¬ 
 temporary artists, are far from Christian ; and it must be borne in 
 mind, that although Charles had succeeded in getting possession of 
 Raphael's cartoons before Louis XIV., they were not even unrolled 
 till long after the time of the Restoration. The cavalier love of 
 art was undoubtedly mere gusto, —a refined and luxurious taste, not 
 an elevated appreciation. Anne of Austria, from quite opposite 
 motives, attacked the arts in a similar manner to the Puritans, at 
 least those specimens within her private jurisdiction, in the palaces 
 of Chateau-Madrid and the Luxemburg. Certain pictures and 
 statues, valued at 100,000 crowns, placed there by Francis I., she 
 caused to be removed and destroyed, because of their nakedness 
 and heathen character. 
 
 Had no destruction and spoliation taken place during the change 
 and fluctuation of religion in this country, our notices of chasing, 
 casting, carving, enamelling, and painting, would have been un¬ 
 doubtedly amply furnished with data: England must have been 
 nearly as rich in all the interior appliances of the arts as in the 
 grandeur of architecture. But from the time of the first order of 
 Henry against the monasteries down to the time of the common¬ 
 wealth, the wholesale destruction has left us almost destitute of 
 early examples of the arts of design in some branches. The last of 
 this series of persecutions against taste was an edict issued by the 
 Commons, in 1641, lor the taking away of “scandalous” appur¬ 
 tenances from all churches. Visitors were appointed, and allowed 
 6s. 8<L for each church. The journal of one of these visitors has 
 been preserved, from which we may gather the sweeping way in 
 which these worthies went to work. “ Clare, Suffolk, Jan. 6, 1642. 
 
 V e broke down 1,000 pictures (corbel heads ?) superstitious. I 
 broke down 200. Three of God the Father, three of Christ and 
 the holy lamb, and three of the Holy Ghost like a dove with wings, 
 and the twelve apostles were carved in wood at the top of the roof, 
 which we gave orders to take down, and twenty cherubims to be 
 taken down, and the sun and moon in the east window by the 
 king’s arms to be taken down.” This was one of five churches 
 visited on the same day. A great change has taken place in rela¬ 
 tion to church decoration within a few years, but it is not old 
 enough yet to make us believe it permanent. So lately as 1760, 
 when a window of stained glass which had been preserved almost 
 by miracle through all vicissitudes, from the time of Henry VII., 
 having been presented to him by the magistrates of Dort, was 
 bought by the churchwardens of St. Margaret’s, Epping, and put up 
 in the church there, they were indicted in the ecclesiastical courts 
 for setting up superstitious pictures, &c. 
 
 The style of interiors and furniture which was introduced in 
 the court of Louis XIV. is not what we might have expected from 
 the manners of the time, being small in its forms, and wholly 
 deficient in variety and freedom. Vapid and unmeaning, it was a 
 fashion, and yet has lasted and found admirers; its use being lately 
 revived in the frames of mirrors, stucco panelling, &c. * From this 
 court Charles II. returned at the restoration, and while Lely was 
 the great man, and afterwards Kneller, a swarm of little men who 
 painted little pictures, landscapes, sea-pieces, flowers, &c. followed 
 into England, and Autonius Verrio was invited to design for the 
 tapestry manufactory then established at Mortlake, who soon how¬ 
 ever left that and took the lead in decoration. lie appeared with 
 
 * For ample illustration of the style Louis Quatorze, see several pages of the 
 present work. 
 
 a host of assistants, the chief of whom were Laguerre and SchiefFer 
 and being a Neapolitan, introduced here, in a degenerated condition, 
 the style that had been so grandly followed on the roofs and walls 
 of many of the palaces, of Italy. The reader will find a certain 
 degree of illustration of this decoration, especially as applied to 
 roofs, in those sheets marked Italian in the following series. 
 
 The large works undertaken by Verrio, were first the ceilings 
 and staircases at Windsor—covered with allegories in which the 
 historic characters of his own time figure triumphantly with gods 
 and goddesses—and those at Hampton Court. He soon became a 
 great favourite, had the place of master gardener and a mansion 
 near Carlcton-House. The money he received must have been very 
 great; there are accounts extant of money paid by the king to 
 Signor Verrio, during five years, amounting to £6,945,—an immense 
 sum at that time.f This work he continued during the short reign 
 of the last of the Stuarts; but on the accession of William, he 
 refused for a time to serve him, and meanwhile decorated Burghley 
 and Chatsworth. This lasted during twelve years, during which 
 time he had £1,500 a-year for these productions. That Verrio was 
 a man of great ability, indeed an extraordinarily clever man, there 
 can be no doubt; but there are insuperable objections to his art, of 
 weight enough to consign it to oblivion. In the first place, the 
 darkness of the colours he used, and the confusion of his design, 
 were opposed to the true use of ornament, which ought to lighten 
 and enliven. It is difficult to contemplate one of his great stair¬ 
 cases without a feeling of vertigo, or as if one was in the presence 
 of a madman and in danger of the contagion, resulting from the 
 heterogeneous amalgama of temples, hanging cornices, cupids, furies, 
 bagwigs, courtiers, Ilerculeses, legs of goddesses, blue skies and 
 orange draperies.. In the second place, the mixture of the pictorial 
 with the allegorical, and both with the decorative, is opposed to 
 the principles of art; moreover, it does not combine with nor aggran¬ 
 dize the architecture, but, on the contrary, destroys the figure of 
 the walls. The splendour of this kind of decoration, however, and 
 the authority which it carried with it, gave it some permanence; 
 and Sir James Thornhill, at a later time, was employed to treat 
 the dome of St. Paul's, Greenwich Hospital, and other places in a 
 similar manner. In France, the taste of the time of Louis XIV. 
 continued in a great degree for a long period; Watteau, one of the 
 greatest of ornamentists in a light and pleasant vein, having 
 appeared with his ready invention, filling up the irregular panels 
 with vignette pictures, and introducing much variety in the other 
 portions of the ornament. Taste, however, all over Europe, was 
 gradually declining for some time previous to the period we speak 
 of; and although pleasing, the decorative productions of Watteau, 
 or of any other mode adopted from that time to the present age 
 —which is to a great extent an age of Revival—are wanting in the 
 higher principles, as well as in power, applicability, and usefulness. 
 
 IV. 
 
 iSucn is a brief sketch, pointing out the prominent landmarks in 
 the History of ornament. Having brought the subject down to the 
 present, we shall continue it by some notice of the interest now 
 felt in the subject, and of the Schools of Design, which already do 
 so much to generalize as well as to direct taste in this department. 
 
 The subject of Design, in connection with the manufactures ot 
 the country, had been from time to time partially mentioned as a 
 subject for public consideration by Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Bowring, and 
 others; but in the indifference of English politicians to questions 
 of art, perhaps partly resulting from the want of precedents; and 
 in the absorbing importance of machinery to the manufacturer, 
 causing him to forget every thing else; it was only about ten years 
 since that a committee of members was appointed by the House of 
 Commons to take evidence on the subject. This evidence was prin¬ 
 cipally a comparison between the qualities of English and foreign 
 productions, by which it appeared that English exports wholly 
 
 t “ Once, at Hampton Court, where, a few days before, he had received a 
 thousand pounds in advance, he was in search of Charles, and at length found 
 him in such a company that even his front of brass could not approach. He 
 called out, ‘Sire, may I have the favour of speaking to your majesty?’ The 
 king—‘Well, Verrio, what is your request?’ ‘Money, sire: I am so short of 
 cash, that I am not able to pay my workmen; and I have learned by experi¬ 
 ence, that pedlars and painters can’t give long ci-edit.’ The king smiled, 
 and said, he had very lately ordered him i'1,000. ‘Sire, but that was soon 
 Paid away, and I have none left.’ ‘At that rate,’ said the king, ‘you would 
 spend more than I do for the maintenance of my family! ’ ‘ True ’ said 
 
 Verrio; ‘but does your majesty keep open house as I do?’ Yet this insipid 
 repartee procured the sum he wanted from the iritt.y Charles.”— Sar,field 
 Taylor. 
 
ESSAY OX ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 19 
 
 depended on the excellence of the fabric and material, and that, 
 consequently, they consisted of articles in which taste was little 
 necessary; that, with articles wherein taste or artistic treatment 
 was a primary requisite, we could make little way commercially, 
 while the exports of France consisted nearly in the proportion 
 of five-sixths of fancy articles , or articles the success of whicli 
 depended on their design. In certain matters, iron and steel work 
 of a particular kind for instance, the French production was more 
 successful than ours, even when the cost of the raw material was 
 double. The difference was moreover attributed to the establish¬ 
 ment of schools throughout France, but principally at Paris and 
 Lyons, for the education in drawing and other matters, of hundreds 
 of those immediately engaged in manufactures. “ Taste in France,” 
 says a popular publication, “ is in remarkable contrast to the neglect 
 of it among the working community of our own country. Taste is 
 an abundant and cheap commodity across the channel—rare and 
 costly on this side of it,—a circumstance due very much to the 
 pains taken by the French government for a century and a half.” 
 In the department of silk weaving, it has been said, “ they supply 
 taste to the whole world in proportion to the exportations, which 
 amount to 110 millions out of 140, the home consumption being 
 only 30 millions. Among the weavers of Lyons, the whole com¬ 
 munity is educated to a certain extent in art, and every one more 
 or less concerned in devising patterns. Much attention is devoted 
 to every thing in any way connected with the beautiful either in 
 figure or colour. The workmen may be seen in their holiday 
 leisure gathering flowers, and grouping them in the most engaging 
 combinations. They are continually suggesting new designs to 
 their employers; and are thus the fruitful source of elegant pat¬ 
 terns." 
 
 “ There is hardly any considerable commercial house in the silk 
 trade,”—we quote from the Report before the House of Commons on 
 the subject ,—“ in which there is not a partner who owes his place 
 in it to his success as an artist. The town of Lyons is so conscious 
 of the value of such studies, that it contributes 20,000 francs per 
 annum, that is about £800, to the Government establishment of 
 the School of Arts, which takes charge of every youth who shows 
 an aptitude for drawing, or imitative design of any kind, applicable 
 to manufactures. Hence all the eminent painters, sculptors, even 
 botanists and florists of Lyons, become eventually associated with 
 the staple trade, and devote to it their happiest conceptions. In 
 the principal school, that of St. Peter’s, there are about 180 students, 
 every one of whom receives from the town a gratuitous education 
 in art for five years; comprehending instruction in anatomy, 
 botany, architecture, and loom pattern drawing. A botanical gar¬ 
 den is attached to the school. The Government allows 3,100 francs 
 a-year, about £130, to the school. The school supplies the scholars 
 with every thing but the materials, and allows them to reap the 
 benefit of their works. Their Professor of Painting is a man of 
 distinguished talent well known to connoisseurs. 
 
 “ The French manufacturer justly considers that his pattern is 
 the principal element of his success in trade; for the mere handi¬ 
 work of weaving is a simple affair with the improved Jacquard- 
 loom. He therefore visits the school, and picks out the boy who 
 promises, by taste and invention, to suit his purpose the best. He 
 invites him to his home, boards him, and gives him a small salary, 
 to be gradually advanced. One gentleman told Dr. Bowring that 
 he had three such youths in his employment, to the youngest of 
 whom he gave 1,000 francs, or £40 per annum. After three or 
 four years, if the young artist’s success be remarkable, he may have 
 his salary raised to double or treble that sum; and when his repu¬ 
 tation is once established, he is sure of the offer of a partnership. 
 Such is the general history of many of the school-boys of Lyons, 
 and of many of the manufacturers. Even the French weaver, who 
 earns only 15d. or 20d. a-day, prides himself upon his knowledge 
 of design.” 
 
 This school, which has been the most successful in Europe, the 
 establishment of which was one of the good deeds of Napoleon, was 
 fully described by several gentlemen concerned in the trade there 
 carried on. Throughout Fraixce there are an immense number of 
 schools, similar although smaller, every considei’able town being 
 able to boast of such an institution; while in Paris there are several, 
 the most important of which, after the Ecole Royale de Dessin, is 
 the Ecole communale. Throughout Belgium and Germany, also, fi-ee 
 instruction is given in endowed establishments, partaking much of 
 the nature of Schools of Design. 
 
 The l’esult of this widely diffused participation in the pleasures 
 dei'ived from taste in art, besides the education affoi’ded to profes¬ 
 sional designers for manufactures, or rather the establishment of such 
 a profession, it must be apparent, is of the most beneficial descrip- 
 tion. The standard of taste of the whole community is elevated, 
 they are critically alive to excellence. Another part of the evidence 
 referred to education at home, and ample testimony was adduced 
 
 of the ignoi’ance of our industrial community on matters which 
 ought to touch it so nearly. 
 
 The mass of our manufacturers had got into a regular habit of 
 applying to France for designs, to such an extent that the annual 
 expenditure for French designs by the district of Manchester, as 
 the director Mr. Wilson was informed a short time ago by the 
 Committee of the school there, amounts to no less a sum than 
 £ 20 , 000 . 
 
 Such is the commercial view of the matter. Thei’e is another 
 equally in favour of popularizing taste, and that is the l’efining 
 influence of art, the widening of the sphei’e of enjoyment. To the 
 educated eye nothing is without beauty in the outer world, and a 
 man’s work becomes elevated by an immediate connection with 
 natui’e in imitating the forms of grace he has observed by a know¬ 
 ledge of art. To this greatest of all arguments to the man , there is 
 another nearly as great which addresses the workman , and that is 
 the additional knowledge and sensibility of hand which this education 
 induces. 
 
 These considei-ations induced the Committee to come to the 
 resolution of recommending to Government the establishment of 
 Schools of Design, which was accordingly done in London and 
 Manchester. A movement had been made about seventy-five years 
 ago in Edinburgh, and the school was tliei’e extended previously to 
 the establishment of the London school. Gradually the communities 
 of other great towns urged their claims to similar benefits, and now 
 schools are established, besides in these places named, in Spital- 
 fields, York, Nottingham, Sheffield, Birmingham, Coventry, Glasgow, 
 and Newcastle 
 
 The statistics of the schools, as exhibited in last annual report, 
 present us with the immense aggregate number of 1,313 students, 
 being 586 in the Central school and Spitalfields, and 727 Provincial; 
 and this number has increased during the present year to such an 
 extent as amply attests their efficiency, as well as the awakening 
 of a universal interest in the objects in view. The advantages thus 
 afforded to the rising generation it is impossible to overrate, and 
 the more especially may we speak with confidence on this matter, 
 seeing that the Council and Director, whose knowledge is equally 
 practical and varied, does not precipitately incline to realize a crude 
 state of activity, and apparent rather than real ability on the part 
 of students; but rather by confining their efforts to right principles 
 of working, and careful practice, to prepare a broad and firm foun¬ 
 dation befitting the future eminence of the school,—a school of 
 intelligent workmen as well as able designers. 
 
 V. 
 
 The word Design, as a term in art, is one of very general appli 
 cation, and signifies the arranging together of parts into a harmo¬ 
 nious and fitting whole. Of design in ornament, which is the 
 branch under our consideration, this definition is strictly true. To 
 understand what is harmonious and fitting, is the object of the edu¬ 
 cation of the ornamentist in the theoretical part of his pursuit. 
 
 Ornament—that is, the decorative finish which our love ol 
 beauty requires to be superadded to the merely necessary—is, by 
 its very nature, relative; not existing by itself, but in connection 
 with, and subordination to, something else; viz. the object orna¬ 
 mented. 
 
 The Pictorial art, on the contrary, is subject to no such restric¬ 
 tive condition. It is subordinate to nothing, and has for its object 
 direct imitation, for the purpose of reproducing the sentiment of 
 nature. 
 
 We have had occasion, in the course of these pages, to call the 
 attention of the reader to the circumstance of early examples of 
 decoration being symbolic. In the first stage of art, indeed, imita¬ 
 tion of nature is attempted as well in the accessaries of decoration 
 as in independent works of art. But when we pass out of these 
 rude beginnings,—as soon as the hand of the early artificer has 
 gained the power to express his idea as he would have it expressed, 
 the decorative becomes fixed and conventionalized. Thus it was 
 both with the Greek and Gothic arts. The Christian church, we 
 have seen, was altogether typical in its architectural as well as its 
 decorative character; and in the possession of this quality, the 
 truly ornamental is in intimate connection, not with art in its 
 imitative or scenic capacity, but with art in its very highest develop¬ 
 ment,—with the representative or ideal. It aids the object it decorates, 
 not by making that object look like something else than it really is, 
 but by enforcing its purpose, and adding harmonies to its intention. 
 This being the case, it will be readily understood how a Avreath, 
 for instance, painted along a moulding, is more in accordance with 
 the principles of the art Avhen painted in one colour—a colour 
 harmonizing with the ground on which it is placed—than if repre- 
 

 ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 sented pictorially, as if it were a wreath of actual flowers. To 
 illustrate this further by another instance. Suppose a vase or jar 
 for containing wine, appropriately decorated with vine leaves and 
 grapes in relief, severe taste would prevent these leaves and grapes 
 being rendered deceptive and imitative of the reality, and would 
 dictate the propriety of treating them as a part of the jar; they 
 would then be in a measure abstracted from nature, and symbolize 
 the intentional purpose of the vessel. Further, an attempt to give 
 the leaves a paper-like thinness and whole relief would also offend; 
 not only for the reason stated, but also from awakening an insecure 
 feeling on account of the brittleness of the material. 
 
 On the other hand, the pleasure we derive from colour is to be 
 considered, and taken advantage of, as well as that of form, even in 
 those instances just brought forward; but it is to be used in a 
 similar manner,—general colours in correct harmonies being the 
 truly decorative, not imitation of the accidental appositions of 
 nature. This avoiding of artistic imitation has doubtless been by 
 some carried too far, and also, we are aware, that the contrary lias 
 its advocates, and some styles of decoration that have comprised 
 many beauties, and made a permanent school, have belonged to an 
 intermediate kind of art, partially combining legitimate decoration 
 with picture. But, strictly speaking, imitations of natural objects 
 are only ornaments in the sense in which all beautiful things are 
 ornamental. “ The artist and the ornamentist may choose out oi 
 caprice to unite their two arts, as in the case of arabesques, but the 
 arts are not the less essentially distinct, nor, as a general rule, the 
 less incompatible of practice. The very name grotesque, applied to 
 that kind of art by the painters of the middle ages, is used by us 
 to express anything very absurd or ridiculous; and in truth, since 
 it is a matter of fact that arabesque painting or sculpture have 
 always been the offspring of artists, they ought rather to be looked 
 upon as a kind of beautiful nonsense, than as a species of art to be 
 reasoned about.” 
 
 Although it is not desirable to enter into any disquisition on 
 the subject, which may seem in any degree abstruse to the general 
 reader, we may be allowed to quote from the introduction to the 
 Drawing-book of the Government School of Design, in which the 
 nature of the art is treated in relation to the education of orna- 
 mentists. 
 
 “ The art of the ornamentist may be considered in two points of 
 view: first, as to its means and materials of operation, as an imita¬ 
 tive art:—in regard to which it ranks midway between fine art and 
 art purely mechanical, and partakes of the nature of both; some¬ 
 times, like the one, working solely by the hand—sometimes, like 
 the other, by the aid of mechanism; or secondly, as to the end of 
 its imitation:—by which it is essentially distinguished from fine art 
 properly so called. On the nature of this distinction it is necessary 
 that we labour under no misconception; for it is obvious, that if 
 there be such an essential difference between the two kinds ot art 
 as is here affirmed, it must show itself more or less through every 
 stage of the tuition, giving to it a specific character and purpose 
 beyond that which it must have in common with every kind of 
 elementary instruction in design. It is, of course, to be understood, 
 that the distinction drawn between ornamental art and fine art is 
 made in reference to some object towards which each stands in 
 some manner related; for the fine arts, as dealing with moral ex¬ 
 pression, occupy a field into which the ornamentist has no claim 
 whatever to enter: but in regard to the beautiful in the works of 
 nature, they labour in common ground; and it is in their pursuit 
 of this, and in the end arrived at by each in relation to it, that we 
 discover their characteristic differences. 
 
 “ Now, the artist (and by artist is meant the painter and sculp¬ 
 tor, for the architect, as far as imitative art is concerned, is really 
 an ornamentist), in dealing with beauty in the works of nature, 
 never contemplates it apart from its natural subject. Beauty is 
 ■with him an individual quality—it is the beauty of a horse, of a 
 man, of a flower; and hence the expression of his ideas is necessarily 
 made by a fictitious resemblance of the object in which the beauty 
 naturally resides. He imitates the beauty of nature, by making 
 beautiful images of natural objects. 
 
 “ In the first place, then, in the matter of education, the beauties 
 of form or of colour, abstracted from nature by the ornamentist, 
 from the very circumstance that they are abstractions, assume, in 
 relation to the whole progress of the art, the cliai’acter of principles 
 or facts that tend by accumulation to bring it to perfection. The 
 accumulated labours of each successive race of ornamentists are so 
 many discoveries made,—so many facts to be learned, treasured up, 
 applied to a new use, submitted to the process of artistic generali¬ 
 zation, or added to. A language and a literature of ornamental 
 design are constituted; the former of which must be mastered before 
 the latter can be understood, and the latter known before we are 
 in a condition to add to its treasures. The very first step, there¬ 
 fore, in the education of ornamentists, must be their initiation into 
 
 the current and conventional language of their art, and by this 
 means into its existing literature.” 
 
 It behoves him in this Avay to investigate, in some degree, the 
 nature of beauty itself, as far as it is manifested in the established 
 and classical forms, that he may go back upon nature as the great 
 storehouse. 
 
 The forms of natural objects are of two species: one angular, 
 describable by straight lines; the other circular, expressed by curved 
 lines of various degrees of simplicity and regularity. Burke, in his 
 well-known Treatise, has said, that he “ cannot find any natural 
 object which is angular and at the same time beautiful. Indeed, 
 few natural objects are entirely angular: but I think those which 
 approach most nearly to it are the ugliest.” Admitting the truth 
 of Hogarth’s serpentine line of bea uty, he adds, “ Though the varied 
 line is that alone in which complete beauty is found, yet there is 
 no particular line which is always found in the most completely 
 beautiful, and which is therefore beautiful in preference to all other 
 lines; at least I could never perceive it.” Accordingly, we find 
 that the great majority of decorative forms are those of curvilinear 
 construction. But although the angular and right-line figures are 
 not greatly adopted in any of the leading styles, except such as 
 were fitted for working in mosaic; yet it is not so entirely discarded 
 as Burke’s remark would lead us to conclude, and which would be 
 the case if his remark were strictly true. Crystals present the 
 only unmixed angular figures to be found in nature; and the beauty 
 of these, independent of their chann in transparency or colour, is 
 generally acknowledged. 
 
 Regularity is itself a beauty, especially in artificial productions; 
 and such figures as the zigzag of the early Norman buildings, or 
 the classic fret, 
 
 Figs. 17 and 18. 
 
 are undoubtedly beautiful by possessing a harmonious relation to 
 the structure they adorn. The vertical and horizontal lines are the 
 great fundamental line3 of all architecture, and the form of general 
 construction carried out in the detail is certain to be pleasing. 
 
 The circle has undoubtedly, Avhen considered by itself, many 
 higher properties than the square for the purposes of the decorator, 
 and also -will be found associated in nature -with all that impresses 
 us as beautiful. It is, however, almost invariably associated with 
 the angular form, by being divided into portions or degrees by 
 lines from the centre, evidently suggested by floral construction. 
 We give in illustration a Roman boss, adapted from nature in a 
 strictly geometrical manner, contrasting very strangely with our 
 free Gothic manner, exemplified beside it, but still pleasing from 
 its exactness. 
 
 In the Elizabethan we find these two elementary forms constitute 
 the entire style, and in many of the roofs of that age this mixture 
 
ESSAY ON ORNAMENTAL ART. 
 
 21 
 
 of lines is productive of the best effects. They reminded us of what 
 has been already observed, showing forcibly that one great cause of 
 the beauty and agreeable feeling conveyed by such ornaments arises 
 from the fact that they carry into detail the general form of the 
 surface on which they are placed. 
 
 But in taking a cursory view of the examples and authorities 
 which time has collected on the subject, we cannot help observing 
 that the best parts of all the styles are -worked upon the basis of 
 the curve, and that the most beautiful specimens are the nearest to 
 that construction. The line of beauty is undoubtedly the radical 
 form of the most part of design. To have thought of defining 
 beauty as this line, or of considering it as the cause of beauty, was 
 doubtless an absurdity, seeing it is only the form of beauty, and 
 even then only a part of such form. Let us not, however, under¬ 
 value the observation, that grace in form is more or less identified 
 with this description of shape, however trite the remark has of late 
 become. When we look round us on nature this truth is no less 
 
 observable; and those classes of plants possessed of leaves deeply 
 cleft, like the acanthus, or which, like the vine or convolvulus 
 throw out tendrils, and proceed in a curving and climbing figure, 
 have always afforded the favourite materials of the ornamentist. 
 It is not necessary, however, to insist much on the advantage of 
 considering the skeleton or geometrical form of ornaments,—all are 
 worthy of study, and susceptible of beauty, when used harmoniously 
 with their environment, and in well understood proportions; the 
 best advice to the ornamentist, who has acquired careful and exact 
 drawing or modelling, is to desire him to do as the artist-workmen 
 of the great Gothic ages must have done, to go out to the garden 
 or field, to weigh well and study with precision the hues and con¬ 
 tours there presented to him in endless variety; let him pluck a 
 flower with its attendant green blades, and observe its action, the 
 general and particular form in its leaves, stamens, stem; its anatomy, 
 its surface, its transparency, its colour; paradoxical as it may appear, 
 he may find it to be indeed an epitome of all he ought to study! 
 
 rULLARTON AND CO., FUINTKRS, EDINBURGH. 
 
A 
 
 BY 
 
 PETER NICHOLSON, Esq., ARCHITECT. 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON DRAWING FURNITURE IN PERSPECTIVE, 
 BY A TEACHER OF DESIGNS. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH FIVE PLATES OF FIGURES. 
 
 ■ 
 
AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 Perspective is the art of drawing on a plane surface true resem¬ 
 blances or pictures of objects, as the objects themselves appear 
 to the eye, from any distance and situation, real or imaginary. 
 
 In order to understand the principles of perspective, it will be 
 proper to consider the plane on which the representation is to 
 be made as transparent, and interposed between the eye of the 
 spectator and the object to be represented. Thus, suppose a 
 person at a window looks through an upright pane of glass at 
 any object outside, and, keeping the eye steady, draws the figure 
 of the object on the glass, following the various outlines as if 
 the pencil touched the object itself; he would then have a true 
 representation of the object in perspective, as it appears to the 
 eye; for every part of the picture would coincide Avith the cor¬ 
 responding part of the real object, and if a line were drawn from 
 the eye through any point of the drawing on the glass, it would, 
 if continued, touch the same point of the distant object. 
 
 This method of tracing the outlines of objects, or at least 
 some more convenient devices for the same purpose, are some¬ 
 times extremely useful in obtaining accurate views where the 
 objects occur in suitable situations, or may be set up as models; 
 but in many cases this facility does not present itself, and we 
 are required to make drawings of objects that either do not 
 exist in reality, or not in the positions in which it may be de¬ 
 sired to represent them. On these and many other occasions 
 mechanical means cannot be resorted to, neither can any facility 
 of sketching acquired by practice prove at all times sufficient 
 for drawing a perfect outline. 
 
 Certain rules have therefore been made, deduced from the 
 principles already explained, for discovering the positions of the 
 various lines which form the outlines of objects, when the figure, 
 magnitude, and distance of the objects are known, and these 
 rules, together with the demonstrations of their truth, constitute 
 the practice and theory of perspective. 
 
 The surface on which the object of view is represented, is 
 called the picture, or the plane of the picture , which is always 
 supposed to stand upright, or perpendicular to the horizon.* 
 
 * In the various books on perspective, the representations are always 
 supposed to be made on a plane, perpendicular to the horizon; and indeed 
 that is always done in detached pieces, for it would be absurd to produce a 
 picture so contrived that the spectator must view it under an angle to see 
 it to advantage: the consequence of such an arrangement would be, that it 
 would seem much distorted, unless the spectator placed himself in a position 
 which no man in his senses would choose in viewing a work of art. In 
 pictures which decorate the ceilings of buildings, there are, however, nume¬ 
 rous examples of perspective, where the plane of the picture is inclined, or 
 even parallel to the horizon; or where the surface is curved, as in internal 
 domes, cylindrical vaulting, coves, die. 
 
 This species of decoration is seen in many Italian churches, and in some 
 of our own public buildings; and where the design is confined to human 
 figures, or objects which allow considerable latitude in the position of the 
 spectator without much distortion, the effect is sometimes tolerable • but 
 unfortunately the painters of old frequently chose to represent architectural 
 subjects, such as a supposed continuation of the building upwards by the 
 addition of a painted order, or the appearance of a dome supported on 
 pilasters, painted on a flat circular ceiling. These always appear miserably 
 distorted unless seen from one particular point, and as there is no reason 
 
 If a person stand in a long avenue or walk, which is straight 
 and equally broad throughout, the sides seem to approach nearer 
 and nearer to each other as they are farther from the eye, and 
 if the avenue be very long, the sides appear to meet in a point. 
 From these preliminary observations the following conclusions 
 will be sufficiently obvious. 
 
 Upright straight lines, (as the angles of buildings, &c.,) being 
 parallel to the plane of the picture, become upright and parallel 
 in the picture itself. 
 
 Parallel straight lines, whether horizontal or inclined, which 
 lie in a plane parallel to that on which the picture is drawn, 
 become also parallel to each other in the picture. All other 
 parallel straight lines will converge to a point, either in the 
 picture, or at a distance out of the picture, that is out of the 
 boundaries generally fixed upon as the sides of the drawing; 
 and the points to which such lines converge are called the van¬ 
 ishing points of those lines; but it may perhaps prevent confu¬ 
 sion, if we consider the picture as unlimited in extent, in which 
 case all such lines will converge to a point within the picture, 
 as in the example we have adduced of the long avenue. 
 
 We will now proceed to the most useful rules for drawing all 
 kinds of figures in perspective. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 [Plate A .] 
 
 Let ABCD, Plate A, Fig■ 1, be a flat board or surface of any 
 kind, or it may represent in miniature the ground we walk 
 upon, and it is therefore called the ground plane , whether denot¬ 
 ing the real surface of the ground, or, as in this case, the sup¬ 
 port of a model. Let a b c, &c. denote the model of a house 
 standing on such plane. 
 
 Let M be the point on which the spectator is supposed to 
 stand, which is therefore called the station point; and let MO bo 
 a perpendicular to the ground plane, drawn from M the station 
 point, to 0 the position of the spectator’s eye. The point 0 is 
 called the point of sight. 
 
 Let IWXN be the plane of the picture, raised perpendicularly 
 on the ground plane ABCD; the line IN in which the plane of 
 
 why a spectator should stand in one part of the floor rather than another, 
 the general bad effect is the most striking feature of such productions. It 
 is to be lamented that artists of acknowledged reputation should have so 
 far mistaken the object of painting as to waste their time on such futile 
 attempts at illusion: thus converting one of the greatest ornaments of 
 architecture into an absolute deformity. 
 
 Panoramic painting is performed on the interior of a cylinder, in the axis 
 of which, at a certain height from the bottom, is the station point; and 
 as the spectator is not permitted to approach near the picture, the effect 
 of panoramas, so far at least as perspective is concerned, is the most perfect 
 that art can produce. 
 
2 
 
 TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 picture meets the ground plane is called the intersecting line; 
 and the straight line VL parallel to IN, and at a distance from 
 it equal to MO, the height of the eye, is called the vanishing line 
 of the ground plane ABCD, and consequently of all other planes 
 parallel to it * Now in order to find the perspective represen¬ 
 tation of the house on the picture, draw OL parallel to b c, the 
 line of one front of the house, and the point L in the line VL is 
 called the vanishing point of the line b c, and of all lines paral¬ 
 lel to it. In like manner draw OV parallel to b a, the other 
 front, and the point V is the vanishing point of b a, and of all 
 other lines parallel to b a, as d g, e h, f i, the lines of the root. 
 
 Through the vanishing point L, draw KJ perpendicular to the 
 vanishing line VL; and through the point of sight 0, draw OJ 
 and OK parallel to the inclined lines d e and e f; the points J 
 and K are the vanishing points for the inclined lines of the 
 roof. 
 
 From the visible extremities a b c of the ground plan of the 
 house, draw the lines aM, bM, cM, to the station point M, meet¬ 
 ing the intersecting line IN in the points R, S, T. 
 
 In the plane of the picture, draw R g, S d, and T f perpendicu¬ 
 lar to the ground line IN. Prolong the line a b of the front of 
 the house till it meets IN, and the point P, where these two 
 lines meet, is called the intersecting point of the line a b. 
 
 Draw PQ, in the plane of the picture, perpendicular to the 
 intersecting line IN, and make PQ equal to the height b d or a 
 g of the walls of tlxe house; Q is called the intersecting point of 
 the top g d of the wall; and generally the intersecting point of 
 any line is the point in which that line produced meets the 
 plane of the picture. 
 
 Join the intersecting point P and the vanishing point V by the 
 line PV, cutting R^ in a, and Sd in b; also join the intersecting 
 point Q in the same vanishing point V by the line QV, meeting 
 R^ at g, and S(2 at d: then ah d g will represent the front a b d 
 g of the house. 
 
 Again, join &L meeting T/ at c, and join d L meeting T f at f. 
 Draw gJ, dg; join K / and produce the line to meet tfJ in e. 
 Draw eV cutting gJ in h, and we have thus a complete represen¬ 
 tation of the house. 
 
 PROBLEM I. 
 
 To put a Square in Perspective. 
 
 Let ABCD, Fig. 2, be the plan of the square, placed in any 
 desired position, to be seen from the station point S. Draw the 
 horizontal vanishing line IK, and parallel to it the intersecting 
 line LM, and the student may for the present draw these lines 
 nearly at the same inclination to the other lines as they are 
 drawn in the figure. From S let fall ST perpendicular to IK, 
 and T is the point of sight. From the angles ABCD of the 
 square draw lines to meet at S, and draw OS parallel to AD or 
 BC, and SN parallel to AB or DC; the points 0 and N are the 
 vanishing points for the sides of the square to which they are 
 respectively parallel. 
 
 Continue AD to P the intersecting point of the side AD, and 
 join PO, cutting DS and AS in II and E. Draw IIN and EN, 
 cutting BS and CS in F and G, and draw GO. The figure 
 EFGII is the perspective view of the square as required. 
 
 On inspecting the figure it is evident that the more distant 
 
 * The vanishing line for horizontal lines, always represents a level plane 
 at the height of the observer’s eye, so that if he stand on the sea-shore, the 
 visible horizon of the sea is the vanishing line of all horizontal, or level ob¬ 
 jects ; the oliffs and buildings rise above the horizon, and their lines, where 
 straight and inclined, converge to some point in the line of the horizon, 
 while the beach and sands are as evidently below the horizon, and their 
 lines converge Upwards in the same manner. In the example, Plate A. fig. 
 1, the object is entirely below the level of the eye, but it is easy to see that 
 it might be above the eye, or partly below, and partly above, as is mostly 
 the case in the view of a building. 
 
 the plan of the square is from the intersecting line, the more 
 the perspective figure will be foreshortened; because the point 
 P, which regulates the distance of H, the nearest point of the 
 figure, is moved in the direction of M in proportion as the point 
 D becomes farther from LM. 
 
 It is also evident that the view of the square might have been 
 obtained without the line BS; because, having found the points 
 F and G, a line joining them must complete the figure: such a 
 line is however sometimes useful as a check to the rest of the 
 work. 
 
 PROBLEM II. 
 
 To put a triangle in Perspective. 
 
 Let ABC, Fig. 3, be the plan of the triangle, S the station 
 point. Draw SN and SO respectively parallel to BC and BA, 
 and draw SP parallel to AC, which line SP must be continued 
 till it meet the intersecting line IK produced: continue AB to 
 R, and join RO. Join FN, and draw DE to the point where SP 
 cuts IK produced. DEF is the view of the triangle. 
 
 The distant vanishing point may in this case also be dispensed 
 with, but it is used because a point so situated is sometimes 
 necessary. 
 
 PROBLEM III. 
 
 To put a pentagon in Perspective. 
 
 Let ABCDE, Fig. 4, represent the plan of the pentagon. 
 Having, as in the preceding problems, drawn lines from all the 
 angles to the station point S, and lines from S parallel to all 
 the sides, there will be found the vanishing points OQTV, and a 
 very distant one in the direction of P. Continue AB to R; join 
 RO, and draw lines to the several vanishing points. FGHIK is 
 the view of the pentagon. 
 
 We shall not multiply examples of straight-lined figures, be¬ 
 cause it is quite evident that the same method is applicable to 
 all forms of which we can draw a plan. 
 
 PROBLEM IV. 
 
 To put a circle in Perspective by means of eight points of intersection. 
 
 [Plate B.] 
 
 In the foregoing problems the figures have been supposed to 
 stand inclined to the picture. We will now suppose a square 
 circumscribing a circle to be parallel to the picture, in which 
 case the vanishing point of two of the sides will be the point 
 of sight, while the other two have no vanishing point at all. 
 The plan of the square is also drawn on one side, instead of 
 under the view, and the station point is omitted. 
 
 Let ABCD, Fig. 1, Plate B, be a square. Draw the diagonals, 
 AC, BD, and from their intersection as a centre, describe a circle 
 to touch the sides of the square. Through the points IKTV, 
 where the diagonals cut the circumference, draw the lines GE, 
 1IF, LM, and NO, respectively parallel to the sides of the square. 
 
 We have thus ascertained eight points through which the 
 circle passes, namely, PQR and a, where it touches the square, 
 and IKTV where it cuts the diagonals, and these points are 
 transferred to the sides of the square. 
 
 Upon WX, Fig. 2, the intersecting line, set off DC equal to DO 
 Fig. 1, and DE and FC also equal to the same spaces in Fig. 1. 
 Find the centre a, and draw lines from all these points to the 
 point of sight P in the vanishing line YZ. Make CN equal to 
 the distance the nearest side of the square is supposed to be 
 from WX. 
 
TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 3 
 
 From P set off PY equal to the distance of the station point 
 from P, and Y will be the vanishing point of a diagonal of the 
 square. Join NY, and draw ec and bd parallel to WX. Draw 
 the other diagonal be, and the centre line PR parallel to bd. We 
 have thus the view of the square; the centre line PR is the view 
 of PR Fig. 1, g is the perspective centre of the circle, and IKTV 
 the points IKTV Fig. 1. The curve must now be traced through 
 the eight points as fairly as possible, always keeping in mind 
 that the perspective figure of a circle is a perfect ellipse. These 
 eight points through which the curve passes are in most cases 
 sufficient, but where the work is to a large scale, it is sometimes 
 desirable to find sixteen or more points, the manner of doing 
 which will be explained in the next problem. 
 
 PROBLEM V. 
 
 To put a circle in Perspective by means of sixteen or more points of intersection. 
 
 Let ABCD, Fig. 3, Plate B, represent the perspective figure of 
 a square drawn by the methods already pointed out. Draw the 
 diagonals, and through the point of their intersection, which 
 represents the centre of the original circle, draw a line fg paral¬ 
 lel to the vanishing line. 
 
 On a separate part of the paper, with a radius equal to ef or 
 eq (which are equal) describe a quadrant EFGHI Fig. 4: divide 
 the arc into any number of equal parts, and through the points 
 of division draw lines HL, GM, FN, parallel to one of the radii 
 IK, to cut the other radius EK. 
 
 Transfer all the parts of the radius EK thus divided upon the 
 line/?, Fig. 3, namely, KL from e to L, KM from e to M, and 
 KN from e to N, both ways. Through the points of the division 
 of the line fg draw lines to the vanishing point of AB, or CD, 
 and through the points where these vanishing lines cut the dia¬ 
 gonals, draw lines to the other vanishing point, and from each 
 vanishing point draw aline through the centre e. Then trace the 
 curve through all the points of intersection, as shown in the 
 figure. In this figure we have divided the quadrant into four 
 parts, by which we obtain sixteen points through which the 
 curve passes; and this is as many as are generally requisite for 
 the most careful drawing. 
 
 PROBLEM VI. 
 
 To draw the Perspective view of a Home by means of plans and elevations. 
 
 Let BIDLIv, Plate B, Fig. 6, be the plan of a house, or so much 
 of it as can be seen from the assumed point. Let 0 be the sta¬ 
 tion point, so situated that the building may be seen to advan¬ 
 tage,* and under a moderate angle. 
 
 * The choice of a point of view is one of the most difficult problems in 
 perspective, and though it cannot be reduced to any positive rules, the ob¬ 
 servations which follow will, we conceive, be generally useful to the student. 
 In the first place, we should never put the station too near the object, be¬ 
 cause a distortion is the inevitable consequence of so doing, and though a 
 station too distant may sometimes produce a tameness of effect, it is upon 
 the whole by far the least fault of the two; for in a geometrical elevation, 
 where the point, if we must suppose a point of view at all, is at an infinite 
 distance, the effect, however unnatural, never becomes offensive; but in a 
 view taken too near the object, there is absolute deformity. It may perhaps 
 be expected that we should dictate the precise angle under which a picture 
 is to be seen; in other words, how far the observer should be from the pic¬ 
 ture to see it with advantage. On this head common sense suggests the 
 best observations. If a person enter a room where pictures are hung up, 
 he places himself before each in some degree according to the size of the 
 work. Thus a picture three feet long would be viewed by him at a dis¬ 
 tance of three or four feet, and larger works at a greater distance: but it 
 must be remarked that, as large pictures have generally more complicated 
 subjects than small ones, they are commonly viewed nearer in proportion to 
 their length. This may give some idea of a rule to be observed in choosing 
 a point, but the student must take care that his work never look deformed 
 from any station whatever. With this important object in view, he will find 
 
 Draw the centre line OZ continued indefinitely to cut or meet 
 the plan, and this line must always be drawn so as to pass at or 
 near the centre of the picture, *f* and if we suppose that the 
 house is the principal or only object to be represented, and is 
 therefore destined to occupy the greater part of the picture, the 
 line OZ must pass near the centre of the plan. 
 
 Draw the intersecting line VL, crossing OZ at right angles 
 somewhere between the plan and the station point. \ From 0, 
 draw OL and OV, respectively parallel to the two sides of the 
 building, to the vanishing points L and V. 
 
 Draw lines Bb, Ii, Dd, Kk, LI, &c., from the principal angles 
 of the plan, all tending to the station point 0 as a centre; and 
 cutting the intersecting line in b, i, d, k, 1. 
 
 At any convenient part of the paper, which is here supposed 
 to be underneath the plan, draw the vanishing or horizon line 
 RQ parallel to VL, and at a convenient distance below it, which 
 must be greater or less as we suppose the eye to be more or less 
 elevated, draw the intersecting line WX parallel to RQ.§ DraAv 
 the lines b b, i i, d d, k k, 11, parallel to the centre line, as far 
 as WX, so shall these lines represent the angles of the building 
 in the perspective view. 
 
 Continue the lines ID, mn, to cut the line VL in h, and e, and 
 from these points draw lines h h, and e e, parallel to the centre 
 line, to cut WX: the line m n represents the greatest projection 
 of the cornice, and ID the wall of the building. 
 
 Upon e e set off e j the centre height of the building, taken 
 from the elevation, and from j set off j gthe depth of the cornice 
 and blocking-course, and describe the profile of the cornice, 
 which will have an increased projection, but no increase of 
 depth. From the profile thus found, draw lines to the vanishing 
 point R, which will be the lines of the coniice and top of the 
 central building. In like manner may the cornice of the side 
 buildings be drawn, but the operation is not shown to prevent 
 confusion. The position of the ground line of the building, 
 windows, and other parts may readily be laid down by the 
 means already pointed out, and the vanishing points for the bow 
 Avindow are found by draAving lines parallel to the several faces 
 from the station point, as before directed. 
 
 that some pictures, such as landscapes, will permit of a much larger angle 
 than buildings, or subjects in which the lines are straight and regular, and 
 among the latter there will be a great difference according to circumstances 
 which cannot here be touched upon. 
 
 t When any one looks at a picture, he naturally places himself opposite 
 to the centre of it, or nearly so, because he can then see both sides of it 
 equally well. The point of sight should therefore not be far from the 
 centre, for if it is, the objects on one side will present a distorted appear¬ 
 ance when viewed from the natural position; but it need not be absolutely 
 in the centre; indeed in views of regular architectural subjects, it is best to 
 place the point of sight a little way from the centre, or else one side of the 
 picture may become a perfect copy of the other, which always produces a 
 stiff’, disagreeable effect. In most compositions there are objects near the 
 sides of the picture, and Avhen these are the subject of distinct perspective 
 operations, the centre of the picture will be of course far from them, either 
 to the right or left, as the case may be. 
 
 I It is indifferent to the result where we place the line of picture, but it 
 is often convenient to draAv it so as to touch some projecting angle of the 
 leading object, for thus we obtain at once a line of heights; but the student 
 is often guided by the size of his intended view, for he may make it of any 
 dimensions with the same sized plan, by drawing his intersecting fine, either 
 near the station for a small view, or far from it for a large one, and indeed 
 it may be draAvn, if the scale require such an arrangement, entirely beyond 
 the plan, that is, he may leave the plan between the intersecting line and 
 station. 
 
 § The height of the eye is subject to much variation. On level ground it 
 cannot exceed between five and six feet, the real height of a man’s eye, but 
 in most cases an increased height may be given in a picture vrithout im¬ 
 propriety. 
 
 Bird’s-eye views suppose the eye at a immense height above the objects, 
 so that the horizontal line is near the top of the picture. Some persons put 
 the horizon in such views really a long way above the top, and yet show a 
 visible horizon of landscape above the buildings in the picture; but this 
 always produces a miserable effect. 
 
 Except in bird’s-eye views, the height of the horizon in the picture does 
 not altogether show the real height of the observer’s eye; because with the 
 same height of horizon, the eye may be very differently situated, and by 
 cutting off the lower part of the picture we only hide the nearer objects, 
 while we lower the horizon. 
 
The student is now acquainted with the most generally useful 
 method of putting a design in perspective, because by this pro¬ 
 cess he can form a better idea of his picture, or how the parts 
 will arrange themselves in the view before he begins, than by 
 any mode of proceeding which does not keep the geometrical 
 plan constantly before his eyes. It is easy to conceive that the 
 view may be made on another paper, by transferring the dis¬ 
 tances, instead of continuing the lines b b, i i, &c., downwards. 
 
 TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 PROBLEM VII. 
 
 To draw the Perspective view of an ornamental Oldish'. 
 [Plates C, Di] 
 
 Plate C, Fig. 1, exhibits the plan of the obelisk. Here, as the 
 several surfaces laid down have different heights, we have pro¬ 
 duced the lines representing them in the plan to the intersecting 
 line, so as to meet it at POMNL, <Sic., the intersecting points of 
 these lines. 
 
 In order that the plan might be sufficiently large to exhibit 
 with accuracy the various details necessary in a complicated 
 subject, and at the same time preserve the distance required to 
 prevent a distorted picture, the station point is beyond the ex¬ 
 tent of the paper, and is supposed to be inaccessible by ordinary 
 means. In these cases the lines may nevertheless be drawn by 
 several methods, with the same accuracy as if a ruler were actu¬ 
 ally applied to the station point, as we shall hereafter explain; 
 but the student must, for the present, take it for granted that 
 the lines may be so drawn. 
 
 The two extreme lines must however be found before any of 
 the others can be drawn; and to find these, having fixed upon 
 the distance from which it is desired to view the building, draw 
 the centre line c/D in the required position with respect to the 
 plan, (see notes p. 3), and cross it at right angles with the inter¬ 
 secting line YS. Upon another paper draw the outline of the 
 building, (for which purpose the outer square is enough,) to a 
 smaller scale,* so as to permit the station point to come in, and 
 draw two lines from the angles X and Y to the station. Then 
 draw the lines %a and Y b parallel to the lines so found in the 
 smaller plan. 
 
 The vanishing points must now be found, for these must be 
 at least as inaccessible as the station point. Now, as the dis¬ 
 tance of these points exceeds the limits of our paper, we must 
 again have recourse to a smaller scale, but in this case on the 
 paper itself; therefore, setting off‘ some aliquot part, as one- 
 seventh of the distance of the station from the intersecting 
 point, from D in the centre line, to f draw/V andyfy parallel to 
 AX and AY: so shall V and g be each equal to one-seventh of 
 the distance of the respective vanishing points from the centre 
 line. We may now proceed to put the obelisk in perspective. 
 
 The letters P, 0, N, M, &c., Plate C, Fig. 2, denote the posi¬ 
 tions of the intersecting points in Fig. 1, and are there denoted 
 by the same letters. Perpendiculars are drawn from these points 
 to p, o, n, m, &c., where the heights are given by the half eleva¬ 
 tion to the left. Thus a section is found which, while it agrees 
 with the geometrical section (or elevation) in the heights, differs 
 from it in the projections, Avhich are obviously increased in pro¬ 
 portion to the obliquity of the object in the plan. QR and QS 
 are lines drawn to the vanishing points. These should be drawn 
 by the same method of a reduced scale, and as high as possible 
 
 * In making views of extensive architectural designs, where many detached 
 parts occupy a large space of ground, it is advisable to draw the whole plan 
 to a small scale in the first instance, in order to compose the view judici¬ 
 ously ; for if this be not attended to, many bad, and even ludicrous effects 
 sometimes ensue—a near object may hide an important part of the design, 
 or a triumphal arch at some distance may seem dexterously balanced on the 
 top of a column in the foreground; a species of defect which the greatest 
 skill in aerial perspective cannot entirely conceal. 
 
 in the paper, in order to afford accurate means of drawing the 
 vanishing lines of the building. 
 
 By drawing lines from all the angles of the section so found 
 to the right hand vanishing point, we obtain all the perspective 
 lines on the right hand; and by finding the angular points of 
 these lines, namely, by drawing lines from kkk, &c. in Plate C, 
 Fig. 1, to the station point, and transferring these points to the 
 corresponding angles in Fig. 2, we obtain the other perspective 
 lines by drawing the various lines to the left hand vanishing 
 point. The extreme angles are found by drawing lines to the 
 station point; in the manner already shown. 
 
 Plate D, fig. 1, shows the outline of the obelisk completed. 
 
 The best method of drawing lines to an inaccessible point is 
 certainly by an instrument called the centrolinead; but as such 
 an instrument is not always at hand, it may be useful to show 
 some modes of drawing the lines without such aid. 
 
 Having found the lines QR and QS, Fig. 2, draw the perpen¬ 
 diculars QT, RY, and SX to meet the horizon or vanishing line 
 ZX. Now if we divide QT into any number of parts, and SX 
 into the same number, and draw lines connecting the points of 
 division, such lines will all tend to the vanishing point: there¬ 
 fore, using a proportional scale of any kind, by first finding the 
 ratio of SX to QT, we can obtain a line at any point between 
 Q and T, or below T, which shall tend to the same point as QS; 
 and the same with regard to the other vanishing point. The 
 lines st, st, &c. are found by dividing QT, SX, and RY each into 
 seven parts. 
 
 It is sometimes advisable to draw a number of lines about 
 balf-an-inch apart, or nearer, all tending to the vanishing points, 
 and then draw the lines of the buildings by the eye, using the 
 lines first found as a guide; but this requires an experienced 
 hand. 
 
 From what has been said respecting the vanishing points, it is 
 sufficiently clear that, when both these points are equidistant, 
 the centre line must pass through one diagonal of the square, 
 and that, as the square is turned round, one side of it approach¬ 
 ing nearer and nearer to a parallel position with the picture, the 
 distance of one vanishing point will increase, and that of the 
 other diminish, until the side of the square become actually 
 parallel to the picture, in which case there will be no vanishing 
 point for that side, while the point of sight will be the vanishing 
 point of the other side. 
 
 It is therefore advisable in cases of parallelism to find the 
 vanishing point of a diagonal of the square, which may be done 
 by drawing a line, parallel to such diagonal, to the station point, 
 as before directed in Problem iv. 
 
 The perspective appearance of a circle is either a circle or an 
 ellipse, whenever the whole of the circle is seen, but when the 
 spectator stands on the circumference of a circle, the part he 
 draws must be a parabola, and if he stand inside any part of the 
 circle, and draw a portion of the curve, the figure will be an hy¬ 
 perbola. By way of illustration, let the student stand in any 
 circular building, such as the Pantheon at Rome, the Radcliffe 
 Library at Oxford, or as a more homely instance, the ring at 
 Astley’s amphitheatre, and then dr aw the curve by mechanical 
 means. 
 
 The perspective appearance of a globe wdien the whole of it is 
 seen, is always either a circle or an ellipse; it is a circle, only 
 when a line drawn to the point of sight passes through its centre. 
 
 In order to make a view of a globe, draw lines from the sta¬ 
 tion S, Plate D, Fig. 5, to touch the globe, and join the points of 
 contact by the line ab; cd is the breadth of the perspective 
 figure in the picture, the height must be laid down from a scale, 
 and the circle which represents the globe (of which circle ab is 
 the diameter), must be circumscribed by a square, and put in 
 perspective by the methods already shown. By considering the 
 two figures of the globe A and B here shown in the plate, it 
 may appear strange that that of the globe A should be actually 
 broader than B; for the line cd of the globe A is longer than the 
 
TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE, 
 
 o 
 
 same line of tlie other globe, but it must be remembered that 
 the picture ef is seen at a considerable angle, so that the space 
 cd of A is not larger to an eye at S than c d of B. We men¬ 
 tion this, because many absurd objections have been raised 
 against perspective on account of this seemingly unnatural 
 fact; and parallel perspective, where such anomalies are most 
 manifest, has been called a distinct species, and contrary to 
 nature. If the mere circumstance of drawing on a plane be 
 defective, and perhaps it may justly be reckoned so, the fault 
 should at least not be attributed to the rules of perspective; 
 and we may observe that, in general, the choice of a point 
 sufficiently distant will remove all such objections. 
 
 PROBLEM VIII. 
 
 To drav) an Arm-Chair in Perspective. 
 
 [Plate D. Fig. 2.] 
 
 Let AB, BC, and their angle ABC, represent any angle 
 which the eye may determine, for the respective sides of the 
 Chair to be laid down. At a height supposed to be that of the 
 eye, draw a horizontal line DE. From the points A and C 
 draw the lines till they join the line DE; the point of their 
 junction gives the vanishing points D and E. In this figure the 
 point D extends beyond the drawing, but may be easily ima¬ 
 gined. Proceed then to sketch the Chair, and let the receding 
 parts of it in the respective limbs, ornaments, and working 
 subdivisions be regulated by the vanishing lines; as, CFD 
 determines the position F of the castor under, as well as 
 of, the back leg F; GHE the height of the ornamental 
 curves of the legs B and C ; DIK the points of the arms I and 
 K, and so on of the other parts and ornaments of the Chair. 
 
 On the same principle any other piece of common furniture 
 may be drawn in perspective. 
 
 The student who carefully studies the preceding problems 
 may, with practice, make himself master of the fundamental 
 principles of perspective. Several expedients may be devised 
 which occasionally shorten the processes, but these could not 
 have been noticed in a work where few examples are given, 
 without tending to create the confusion they are often intended 
 to obviate; and we think it better to instruct the student how 
 to work by means which keep the first principles always in 
 view. We shall however mention one method of dividing 
 lines perspectively on account of its great utility. 
 
 PROBLEM IX. 
 
 To divide a line into equal spaces. 
 
 [Plate A, Fig. 5.] 
 
 When we have a line to be divided into equal spaces, as 
 row of houses, Fig. 5, having found the two ends of the 
 the line, and draw AB to the vanishing point, prolong CA to 
 E, any point some height above the horizon; draw EF paral¬ 
 lel to the horizontal line IK, and draw EG to the vanishing 
 point. From any point H in the vanishing line, draw HF 
 through DB produced to L, and divide EF into the proposed 
 number of parts. From each point of division, draw a line to 
 H, cutting EG. Perpendiculars let fall from such points will 
 divide AB as required. 
 
 It is advisable to place the line EF some height above AB, 
 and that the point H be somewhere near the middle of the 
 subject, because the intersection of the lines is then not too 
 oblique to be observed with accuracy. The line EF may be 
 also divided unequally, in any proportion that may be required. 
 
 OF THE CENTRO LINE AD. 
 
 [ Plate D, Figs. 3 to 9.] 
 
 This is an instrument, invented by P. Nicholson, for draw¬ 
 ing lines which tend to a distant point not accessible, and is 
 therefore of great use in perspective. 
 
 We shall here exhibit the instrument and its parts. 
 
 Fig. 3 shows the centrolinead complete. 
 
 Fig. 4, a part of the same to a larger scale. 
 
 Fig. 5, brass plate, by which two running legs and the 
 blade are connected. 
 
 Fig. 6, joint or hinge connecting the legs. 
 
 Fig. 7, Nos. 1 and 2, the two parts of the joint before united 
 by the centre pin. 
 
 Fig. 8 shows how a square may be converted into a centro¬ 
 linead, in order to draw any number of lines which will con¬ 
 verge to the same point with two given lines: thus, let AE 
 and BD be the two given lines. Draw BA perpendicular to 
 
 BD, and BF parallel to AE. Suppose the edge DB of the 
 blade of the square to meet the back of the stock at B; fasten 
 a wedge with its vertex in B upon the back BA, so that the 
 vertical angle of the wedge may be equal to the angle DBF; 
 let a pin be fixed in the point A, and another in the point B,' 
 and the instrument be moved so that the back AB of the 
 square may be upon the pin A, and the side BC of the wedge 
 upon the pin B; then, if the instrument be stopped at any 
 place, a line drawn by the edge BD will tend to the same 
 point to which the lines AE and BD converge. 
 
 In Fig. 9, AH and Cl are the two given lines, BE and BF 
 represent the edges of the legs of the instrument, and BK the 
 drawing edge of the blade; then all the lines will tend to the 
 point D in the circumference of the circle ABCD. 
 
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 SHREWSBURY, MASS. 
 
 GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 
 
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