202 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Paet II. 



to have done an injury to the taste of Benvenuto Cellini (as 

 shown in his Diana of Fontainebleau and various works he 

 executed in France), as well as to that of some other Italian 

 artists, we may feel sure that the French, talented as they are, 

 should not be blindly imitated.] But we shall do right to 

 follow their example in the study and practice of drawing; 

 and, while we avoid their mannerisms, we may admire and 

 emulate their talent for invention and design. We may also 

 imitate them in the importance they attach to bronze-work, 

 for useful and ornamental purposes ; and though we must justly 

 applaud the efforts of an Elkington, we cannot but regret that 

 France should supply us with so many bronze castings, which 

 ought to be the productions of our own artisans. 



21. [The great point, both in enabling the hand to execute, 

 and in giving the power of appreciating the beautiful, is the 

 education of the eye; for, as the ear is the judge of sound, so 

 the eye perceives the harmony of proportion, form, colour, 

 and every other condition, on which beauty depends. Pro- 

 portion I place first, because it is the first condition of beauty, 

 whether in the figure, the flower, the vase, or the building. 

 It is like time to music ; and the first impression of an air is 

 pleasing if the time is correct, as rhythm was the first stej) 

 towards harmony. So too proportion has the first and most 

 striking effect, appealing as it does most immediately to the 

 eye ; and no amount of excellence in form or details will 

 compensate for a disregard of it. Nor would the most ele- 

 gant Greek vase, or the most classical building, continue to 

 be beautiful if its proportion were altered. What would so 

 many Italian monuments that command our admiration be 

 without it ?] What is it that overcomes and disguises the 

 deformity of those huge scrolls, or inverted consoles*, which 



* It would be well if other merits in the " Marble Arch " at Cumberland 

 Gate compensated for its inverted consoles. 



