EVOLUTION IN ORNAMENT. 269 



culty increases with the subtleness of the curvature.' The aesthetic 

 effect of curves, as of gestures, is appreciated only after long training. 

 Their beauty is primarily due to the pleasure we take in making the 

 muscular movements necessary to follow them, and this pleasure is 

 strictly akin to that which we feel in tracing them with the hand, 

 either upon paper, or simply in gesture. Pleasure-giving, graceful, 

 muscular movements are always in curves, and their grace depends 

 upon the subtleness of the curve. 



If decorative art has had a beginning and an evolution, we should 

 expect to find a progress from straight lines to circles, spirals, and 

 ellipses, while more subtile curves, such as we find in Nature, would be 

 adopted later, and this is the case, not only in the art-history of na- 

 tions, but also in that of individuals, for the child must be educated 

 not only to make, but to appreciate and enjoy beautiful lines. 2 



Man, the world over, seeks to give pleasure to the eye. He is not 

 satisfied that an object should be useful to him ; it must be at the 

 same time beautiful; and indeed he is usually quite as anxious that it 

 should look well, as that it should minister to his comfort. It is not 

 enough that clothing should be warm : it must be graceful in form, 

 and covered, more or less, with ornament. A house of logs would hold 

 a congregation and supply all the facilities for public worship, but 

 that is not enough. We strive to make it a palace, and enrich its 

 walls with beautiful forms. It is verily surprising what an important 

 element ornament is in life. Is it, then, wonderful that man, striving 

 everywhere to please the same eye by lines, should occasionally in- 

 vent, independently, similar ornamental forms, or that decorative art 

 should, in its beginning, evolve in the same direction in different 

 countries ? 



The class of ornaments I have studied with the greatest care, and, 

 at the same time, the greatest success, is that to which the so-called 

 "Greek fret" and "honeysuckle ornament" belong, and I now pro- 

 pose to discuss the question of the origin and evolution of these decora- 

 tive forms, premising that other classes of ornaments may be studied 

 in exactly the same way. 



If a single straight line is pleasant to the eye, two parallel straight 

 lines are still more so ; for, in running the eye over one of the lines, 

 we have a sort of accompaniment produced by the indistinctly-seen 

 second line ; or, in looking along an imaginary line between the two, 



1 A straight line is beautiful, because of the pleasure we derive from the perfectly 

 even, regular use of the muscles employed in following it with the eye, a pleasure com- 

 parable to that produced by passing the hand over a smooth, flat surface, or by listening 

 to a single musical note. 



2 In music we find also a progress from a monotonous series of effects, to those which 

 may be represented by more and more subtile sounds. These are the curves of melody, 

 of force, and of acceleration, all of which, in the evolution of music, tend to greater sub- 

 tilty. I suppose that this progress from monotony to subtilty is to be explained by the 

 unconscious desire to escape the fatigue produced by a series of too similar effects. 



