1880.] on Ornament. 445 



animal tliat was sacrificed, and of the garlands with which he was 

 decorated (Fig. 26), or even with the representation of the sacrificial 

 implements themselves (Fig. 25). Such ornament represented the same 

 thing to the Eoman mind of tlie day which would be represented 

 to our mind if the Law Courts were decorated with carvings of 

 barristers' wigs spaced at equal distances and gowns festooned from 

 one to another, or if the Board schools were decorated with a frieze 

 of pens, inkstands, and spelling-books.* Such a decoration would at 

 all events have a practical meaning to us, just as the representation 

 of the garlands and the sacrificial imj^lemcnts had a practical meaning 

 to the Koman public ; so that if we adopted such suggestive ornaments 

 on our buildings, we should at least be on the same ground as the 

 Komans. But we have in fact fallen below them, for we imitate 

 their bulls' heads and garlands without their having even any 

 practical meaning for us : we reproduce the garland in stone, plaster, 

 and terra cotta (Fig. 27 : the modern builder calls it a "swag"), and 

 place it all over our buildings without sense or meaning, because it 

 had a meaning to the Eomans. Vulgarity and absurdity could hardly 

 be carried further. 



It may be useful to note some other instances of misapplication of 

 ornament in its relation to material and position. In surface orna- 

 ment no design can be suitable which makes the surface look like 

 what it is not. A flagrant instance of this is Fig. 12, from a 

 Pompeiian mosaic floor, where the Greek fret is applied with a per- 

 spective treatment which causes it to appear as if in relief, and gives 

 the impression that the visitor has to walk over a kind of gridiron. 

 This sort of deception is bad in any position, but worst of all in 

 a floor surface. Fig. 11 shows, by contrast, an Arabic design for 

 brick pavement, not only in perfectly good taste for its position, but 

 exactly suited to the material, and arising merely out of the studied 

 arrangement of bricks of two or three different shapes and sizes. 

 Figs. 19 and 20 are vases from the collection found by General 

 Cisnola in Cyprus, of which Fig. 19 is suitably ornamented by 

 circular rings following the natural movement of the vessel on its 

 axis in the process of turning, while Fig. 20 shows an ornamentation 

 by circles placed the other way merely for the sake of change, and in 

 a manner which, instead of growing out of the process of manufacture, 

 contradicts it. Fig. 21 is an example of the artistic effect that may 

 be produced by merely fashioning an v tide in the most convenient 

 method for its use and for the treatmeni of the material. It is one of 

 the Hissarlik cups, intended to be held by both handles when used 



* Tennyson contributes a definition of this kind of ornament in his suggestion 

 for decorating the tombstone of the " head-waiter at the Cock " — 



" No carved crossbones, the types of death, 

 Shall show thee passed to Heaven, 

 But carved crosspipes, and underneath 

 A pint-pot, neatly graven." 



