§30. 



POSITION OP ORNAMENTS. 



263 



a mullion, it looks higher than a neighbour without it. For 

 the same reason a short woman wears a dress with a striped, 

 rather than a barred, pattern ; the latter suiting a taller 

 figure. [Cross lines and spots are offensive and fatigue the 

 eye, and the imitation of architecture on a floor offends the 

 sight as well as common sense.] 



50. Patterns placed one above the other, to ornament a 

 pilaster, or other upright member, are poor, and on a false 

 principle. The space should be filled up with a design com- 

 mencing at the base, and extending as a whole to the summit; 

 which should spring from what may be called a root, at the 

 lower part, especially if it bears any resemblance to foliage ; 

 and Mr. Ruskin is right in prefering capitals and 

 cornices where the ornaments are "rooted in the 

 lower part, and spring to the top." " This arrange- 

 ment," he observes, " is essential to the expression 

 of the supporting power. It is exactly opposed to 

 the system of running cornices and banded capi- 

 tals, in which the ornament flows along them hori- 

 zontally, or is twisted round them, as the mouldings 

 are in the Early English capital, and the foliage in 

 many Decorated ones. Such cornices have arisen 

 from a mistaken appliance of the running orna- 

 ments, which are proper to archivolts, jambs, &c. to the 

 features which have definite functions of support." But, 

 though inadmissible in cornices and capitals, a scroll pattern 



(44.) 



may sometimes run horizontally along 

 a band of stone- or wood-work, of clas- 

 sical or of mediaeval character. 



The first idea of the upright position of 

 these ornaments occurs in the Egyptian 

 capital, where the flower-stalk of the 

 shaft terminates in its natural head — 

 the blossom or the bud ; and the same 



s 4 



(45.) 



