444 Mr. H. H. Statliam [June 4, 



effect was gained by introducing a subordinate feature alternating 

 with the principal one (C). A greater variety might next be aimed 

 at by forming alternating groups instead of single forms, and the 

 grouping of these would almost inevitably lead to a system of 

 branching off on either side of a centre (D). This brings us to some- 

 thing not very far from the well-known Greek ornament shown in 

 Fig. 2, which is sometimes called the honeysuckle ornament, but 

 which in reality is probably no imitation of nature at all, but merely 

 the natural principle of growth from a central stem systematically 

 carried out in ornament. If we compare this painted ornament with the 

 carved antefixa ornament of the cornice of a Greek temple (Fig. 3), it 

 will be evident that both are designed on the same motive, but no one 

 would think of calling the latter an imitation of nature. The principle 

 of alternation of a principal and subordinate member, or of a long 

 and round form, is met with everywhere in ornaments of repetition ; 

 Fig. 5 is an Egyptian specimen, Fig. 6 shows two forms of Greek 

 ornament which have been employed perhaps more than any other 

 ornamental detail, over the whole face of the civilized world, and of 

 which the origin of the lower one at least is almost certainly artificial, 

 and taken from personal ornament. Below it is a sketch of a bit of 

 necklace from the Pelew Islands, which shows almost the exact form 

 in little of the Greek " bead and reel " ornament.* 



The Greeks, however, so completely conventionalized this and 

 other ornaments, drawn originally, perhaps, from very prosaic 

 sources, as to raise them to the rank of intellectually designed and 

 studied ornament. There has been, however, a frequent use of arti- 

 ficial objects, merely copied and strung together to produce what is 

 called ornament, and this is the third class of ornament referred to 

 above, which is neither natural nor abstract, and which is always felt 

 by a truly cultured taste to be bad and vulgar. For all true ornament 

 is the application of thought and invention in the adaptation of natural 

 form or natural law to the purposes of the decorator. But the 

 imitation of mere artificial objects of use is the confession that the 

 decorator who so uses them has no thought and no invention, and 

 that natural law and natural form have less charm for him than the 

 vulgar surroundings of his daily practical life. Accordingly, among 

 the Greeks, who in their art were nothing if not critical, we hardly 

 ever find the gross imitation of artificial objects ; it only occurs in 

 some subordinate work not of the best period. The Eomans imposed 

 upon the world, more than any other people, the vulgarity of what 

 may be called furniture ornament. Their temples being places for 

 the performance of sacrificial ritual, they thought it appropriate to 

 ornament them externally with carvings of the head or skull of tho 



* Some of the coincidences, it may be observed, between Greek ornament of 

 the best school, and the productions of nearly barbarous people in far remote 

 islands, are most curious, and would furnish in themselves a significant chapter in 

 the history of ornament. 



