m 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



ilulV-cts. Tlie lUislei's of natural fruit anil loliagc wliicli siinouml the wimloMs 

 are conlimieil t!irmif,'linut the series of arches, ami are nrL'-itly varieil in de- 

 tail. Ilimi(;li [H-ecisoly similar in oompiisition. 'I'liero is nothing conventional 

 in these festoons— the clusters are simply connected toKether by a sirinf;. and 

 are composed of the most familiar ohjeds rendered with perfect truth. The 

 melon, the orange, the ehesnut, the tomata, the olive, grapes of dill'erent 

 kinds, pomegranates, gourds of every description, pine and cypress cones are 

 those which most frequently recur, with their foliage and blossoms. Tlie 

 artist has not even disdained the cahhage. cucumber, and the onion. This ex- 

 ainplc may leach us that objects for decoration may be sought throughout the 

 whole r.inge of nature's works with hopes of success. 



Unity is again lost sight of in the design No. 18. but the different objects 

 wliich compose it, are harmonized upon a totally different principle from any 

 which have been hilherto examined, aud the eOi-ct is rather clupendant upon 

 colour than on form. The panels contrast brilliantly with the white back 

 ground, and are relieved and rescued from heaviness by the sharp dark lines 

 which surround them ; this is quite antique. 



Having now completed the review of tliis series of arabesques, it is not my 

 hilention to detain you by any lengthened observations upon them, such as 

 occurred, having been expressed on the immediate occasicms on which they 

 arose. In the resources which the decorative artist can call to his aid, the 

 moderns have greatly the advantage over the ancients, since we possess their 

 materials and our own also. For as long as ancient authors arc read, and 

 ancient art appreciated, so long will allusions to the manners, customs, poetry 

 and religion of antiquity be familiar to us. and the symbols to wliich they 

 gave rise be universally understood ; indeed numberless allusions of this kind 

 are constantly before us, and are so familiar, that we forget to inquire their 

 origin. In personification, and the embodying of .abstract ideas, the field is 

 as open to us as to them, and we see to what advantage it may be turned by 

 the examples we luive just |iassed in review, and if we add to all these objects, 

 those derived from the useful arts and sciences which miy be turned to ac- 

 count in the hands of the skilful decorator, bis resources may be consi.Iereil 

 boundless. For as we have seen in these examples, it is not the familiar 

 aspect of any object which should banish its representalion from works of 

 fancy. Every thing ilepends upon its proper application. The ancients made 

 the best use of whatever they considered most appropriate, and we must en- 

 de.ivour to do the same. Thus on the pedestal of the c(}lumn in the Place 

 Vendome, which is a professed imitation of that of Trajan, modern arms and 

 habiliments occupy the place of those of the Roman period, sculptured on the 

 original. Whether this translation be as well executed as it might be, is not 

 now the question— I merely notice it as being right in principle. One fertile 

 source we have totally unknown to the ancients, from which materials may 

 be drawn for decoration. Carrying w ith them the invaluable quality of being 

 in all cases significant as well as oni>amental— 1 mean the science of heraldry 

 — I cannot help Ihmking that the Greeks who used so much diversity of 

 colour in their architecture, would have availed themselves liberally of the 

 tints of heraldry in their decorations had they been accustomed with it. From 

 the personal allusions it conveys it might be made a much more important 

 feature than it even now is in the decoration of private as well as public 

 buildings, and we have only to study tlie works of the middle ages for invalu- 

 able hints for the work in which it may be applied. The mere display of 

 shields of arms is but one. We shall find heraldry intimately woven into the 

 ornaments of our gofhic buildings, and he who can read its language may 

 often understand an allusion in what may appear at first sight a mere de- 

 coration. Thus one of the mouldings of the loinl) of Uumfrey Duke of Glo- 

 eester, at St. Alb.ans, is filled with an ornament, which on examination 

 resolves itself into a cup containing flowers, a device assumed by that prince, 

 says a M.S. in the College of Arms, as a mark of his love for learning. 

 Heraldry has not been neglected in moilern Italian art. and 1 remember in 

 particular a very well imagined .arabesque in the Towu-liall at Folisno. The 

 ceiling is covered with foliage, spreading from the centre. 



In the pilaster No. 3, many of the details are in the true spirit of the anti- 

 que — Ihc single figures are less so. An ancient painter would not have 

 placed them on a scrap of earth. In the Pompeian decorations, the detached 

 figin-es — 1 do not speak of such as are inclosed in frames — but the ih'lacherl 

 figures, partake of the artificbal character of the style to which they are 

 ■adapted, and if they are not represented as floating in the air, they stand upon 

 a bracket, or a mere line, or on any thing l)Ut the natural ground. 



My olijection to some of the terminal figures is, that tliey are improb.able. 

 lm]irobabli' I mean upon certain postulates, which it is necessary to assume 

 before we can reason upon these imaginary compositions at all. The mytho- 

 logy of the ancients has peopled the elements with lieings cimipi^unded of the 

 human and brute creation j their intelligence being indicated by the first, 

 and their fitness for the region they are supposed to inhabit by the second. 



There is nothing in ancient art in wbicli greater taste or judgemeiu is dis- 

 played than in some of these combinations. The animal functions appear in 

 nowise compromised by the mere interchange of corporal members, between 

 different species. Such combinations therefore, as long as they involve no 

 glaring disproportions, present nothing repugnant to the mind, and we art> 

 so f.amiliarized to them, that we pronounce upon the success of the repre- 

 sentation of a triton, a satyr, or a centaur, with as little hesitation as we 

 might upon that of any of the animals of which they a\e compoumled. We 

 are equally ready, or perhaps owing to a stronger association of ideas, more 

 re.ady to admit of aerial beings, supporting themselves on wings, floating in 

 the ether, or alighting upon a flower without bending the stalk; tlujugh 

 these are, in fact, less prnljable than those born of the ocean or the earlh. 

 Tietween animal and vegetable life there is also a sufficient analogy to attach 

 some probability, or at least to afford an apology, for the graceful combina- 

 tiuns between these two kingdoms of nature, invented by the ancients, and 

 adopted to a very great extent in the compositions before us ; but, when we 

 come to combine animal life with unorganized matter, the probabi:ity ceases, 

 and ff. as in the case before us, the unorganizeil portion is something artifi- 

 cial, and totally out of proportion, besides the combination becomes intoler- 

 able. Thus we acquiesce in the met.amorphoses of Ovid or the Arabi.an 

 Nights, as long as certain analogies are observed- but the transformation of 

 the ships of Kneas into sea nymphs, is a violation of probability to Hhich 

 nothing can reconcile us. 



No conventional form lias been more abused than the terminus ; intelli- 

 gence and immobility arc the attributes which the ancients intended it to 

 eniljody, but their apposite creation is totally different from anomalous com- 

 p isition like this into which it has been tortured. 



In No. 5 we arrive at a superior composition, for it must lie repealed j we 

 are examining the decoration of a single member of an extensive wlmle, and 

 that, however beautiful each may be, unity is a beauty in addition. No ob- 

 ject in decoration has been so extensively used as the scroll. The ancients do 

 not appear to have been alhicted w ilh an unhappy craving for novelties, nor 

 to have been haunted with the apprehension that beautiful forms of com- 

 position would become less beautiful by repetition. When the most appro- 

 priate forms ni architecture and decoration were once ascertained, they 

 were continually repeateil, but marked with a fresh character, and stamped 

 with originality by those refined and delicate touches which wers all- 

 sufficient when they were properly appreciated. In the same manner willi 

 regard to the ever-recurring form of the scroll, as long as the foliage and 

 ramifications of nature are unexhausted, so long will it be capable of assum- 

 ing an original character in the hands of the skilful artist. A striking illus- 

 tration of this position ni.ay lie drawn from the ar.alicsques in the p.alace of 

 Capsasola, where the pilaster of the Loggia are decorated with scrolls, all 

 similar in composition, but each formed of a different species of natural foliage 

 without the intermixture of any thing conventional except the regularity of 

 the convolutions. 



For the magnificent scroll before us we are indebted to the antique; it is 

 an imitation of the well known frieze of the Villa Medici, but the artist has 

 made it his own by tlie skill with which he has adapted it to his purpose, 

 both in proportion and colour. Nothing can be more happy than the manner 

 in which the upper part grows from the original design. I would jiartieularly 

 call your attention to the .animals — the squirrels, the mice, the lizards, the 

 snake, the grasshopper, aud the snail, dispersed about the branches, so well 

 calculated to fill the spaces they occupy, and at tli,e same time producing a 

 variety which woidd have been wanting, had the fotage only been extended 

 with that object. To the scroll in the half pilaster it is to be objecteil that 

 it is a repetition in small, of that in the principal compartment — but if ex- 

 amined separatelv, it will be found lull of instruction from the union it dis- 

 plays of natural objects with conventional forms. The spiral line of the 

 anti()ue scroll is evidently drawn from the natural course of climbing plants, 

 — it is conventional in its openness and regularity. The involucra of plants 

 furnish the hint for the base from which the antique scroll is made to spring 

 and the sp.atbes of the liliaceous tribe fur the sheaths, of a conventional re- 

 petition of which, the ancient sculptured scrolls principally consist. Thus 

 far for the general elements of the antique scroll, which the artist has impli- 

 citly followed in the example before us ; but he has enriched his composition 

 without disturbing its unity, by making every sheath proiluce a different 

 branch, drawn immediately from nature. The birds present an equal variety, 

 and ;u'e occupied according to their natural habits, in feeding on the berries 

 and buds, or on the variety of insects which are also introiluceil. The ara- 

 besques in the side panels arc to be particularly noticed in this example. 

 A Motion, however slight, is always to l)e desired, and here we see a very 

 graceful ono in the two winged boys who dip into a vase-like fountain. The 

 winged bear which occupies the medallion may be noticed as a violation of 



