174 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



some worthless authority, about the principles of beauty and 

 form. 



Among the many instances of this I will mention one, which 

 I scarcely expected in a man engaged for so many years in the 

 manufacture of works of ornamental art. It was while looking 

 over his vases that the form of one of them came under dis- 

 cussion, and led him to expound his views on beauty. 



A ponderous folio filled with well-executed drawings of every 

 kind of vase, from the best and worst designs, lay upon his 

 table ; showing that neither time nor trouble had been spared 

 in making the collection ; but when he pointed out the bad 

 as models of perfection, it was evident that neither the pos- 

 session of accurate copies of so many different works, nor the 

 habit of selecting from them, had given a proper direction to 

 his taste. He had no perception of beauty ; but he had his 

 own view of a theory, and everything was to bow to his crude 

 ideas about " flowing lines." A Greek cylix was, therefore, 

 pronounced by this criterion to be the ne plus ultra of bad 

 form, because " the bowl being so nearly at a right angle with 

 the foot, the lines could not flow." His test of excellence was 



(woodcut 1.) 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



illustrated in the outlines of cups of this form, and the abrupt 

 contrast of lines in the Medici and similar vases was severely 

 censured. 



A visit to another artist in this line led to a different 

 result. The fault was not in the maker, but in the public. 

 He had copied, with the judgment of a man of taste, the 

 most beautiful Greek vases, and had introduced upon them 

 the graceful and classical designs of our ill-appreciated Flax- 



