THE STYLE OF LOUIS XV. 



371 



towards naturalism ; nature contains few straight lines or regular cuives; 

 art, it was thought, should imitate her methods. Few periods indeed 

 have approached nearer to nature in the outlines of its compositions. 

 Since the Renaissance, design had deviated from classical precedents 

 at different times to a more or less degree, but except in very rare cases 

 it had hitherto clung to the principle of symmetry, the chief exceptions 

 being where similar, but not identical, figures were introduced on 

 opposite sides of 

 a composition. 

 Nature, however, is 

 seldom symmetri- 

 cal, perhaps never 

 absolutely so, 

 though in the front 

 or back view of 

 human and animal 

 figures and in 

 certain plants she 

 approaches it. 

 Usually natural 

 beauty is the result 

 of a balance or 

 harmony of another 

 kind. In the ex- 

 treme development 

 of the rococo style 

 the principle of 

 balance or com- 

 pensation was ex- 

 tended from the 

 decorative figures 

 to the design itself, 

 and features were 

 made whose right 

 and left halves were 

 dissimilar (Fig. 

 355). Not only is 



an irregular curvilinear panel, whose lines incline to the right, opposed 

 to another, where they incline to the left, as in the two leaves of an 

 arched double door, or as on each side of a chimney-piece, but single 

 doorways and chimney-pieces occur in which the two sides are actually 

 dissimilar. These extremes are, however, exceptional in France. The 

 instinctive moderation of French taste exerted a restraint on the rococo 

 style as it had done on the barocco, which was not always observed else- 



355- 



DKSIGN FOR ROOM DECORATION, BY 

 T. A. MEISSONNIER. 



