AND ORNAMENTAL TREATMENT. 47 



scattered pattern ; yet some of the examples he gives as diapers are composed of an aggregation 

 of detached forms ; while Parker defines it as an ornament of flowers applied to a plain surface, 

 whether carved or painted ; if carved, the flowers are entirely sunk into the work below the general 

 surface — -and adds that diapers are usually square and placed close to each other. The true solution of 

 such a question may often be found by a little study of the etymology of the word under considera- 

 tion, but in the present case it is but little help to us, as there is a division of opinion, one deriva- 

 tion being suggested by the small ornaments of this character so freely found on the fabrics made 

 during the middle ages at YprSs, in Flanders, while another and more probable one is based on 

 the old French word, diapri, variegated, or diaspre, a jasper stone. Chaucer speaks of a meadow 

 diapered with flowers. A diaper, as it appears to us, is the repetition at regular intervals of a form, 

 such form, though generally floral or foliated, having a geometric basis ; the forms may be either in 

 contact, as in fig. 232, united into one composition by bands or lines of colour, as in figs. 161, 180, 182, 

 314, 325, or detached, as in figs. 217, 240, so long as the geometric arrangement is felt It does 

 not appear to us necessary that the pattern should be of varied colour, nor that it should be of 

 necessity composed of floral forms ; grotesque animal forms, monograms, and arbitrary conven- 

 tionalisms, have all from time to time been employed in forming what we think are entitled to be 

 considered true diaperings. It is by no means needful that the general bordering lines should 

 throw the composition into squares, as in fig. 334 ; hexagons, fig. 323 ; the rhombus, or diamond., 

 figs. 183, 241, 299, 314, 324 ; the equilateral triangle ; the semicircle, fig. 347 ; the vesica, figs. loi, 

 325 ; the circle, figs. 232, 269, or curved forms of a compound character, figs. 147, 284, 326, 

 are as legitimate in employment, and frequently more beautiful in effect. A powdering we conceive 

 to be the repetition of a given form at irregular intervals ; thus, the grounds of figs. 345, 349, are 

 illustrations of it, one being powdered in white, the other in blue and gold. Golden stars in a 

 ceiling are often seen powdered on a ground of blue. The forms employed in diapering and 

 powdering may be varied, they are not of necessity fac-similes of each other throughout a given 

 composition ; thus, in the stellate powdering we have alluded to, some of the star-like forms may 

 be larger than others ; some may have four points, others five, six, or eight, while, in the more 

 rigid composition of the diaper, though it is essential that the masses harmonise, the details may 

 be varied. A diaper, for instance, may be composed of the heraldic rose, thistle, and shamrock, 

 or the symbolic monogram, chalice, and thorny crown. 



Where so vast a field is open to the designer, no rigid line can be drawn — no definition so 

 carefully worded as to satisfy every case. Hence, while we have given our ideas on the subject, 

 we feel bound to confess that the student will, no doubt, from time to time, come across examples 

 that can with difficulty be assigned to either class. We have, however, in the foregoing remarks, 

 defined what we think to be the true meaning of the terms diapering and powdering, when used 

 most legitimately in the description of art-work of an ornamental character. 



PLATE 30. 



" And as for me, though that I konne but lyte, 

 On bokes for to rede I me delyte, 

 And to hem give I feyth and ful credence, 

 And in myn herte have hem in reverence 

 So hertely that there is game noon. 

 That fro my bokes maketh me to goon. 

 But yt be seldom on the holy day, 

 Save, certynly, when that the monethe of May 

 Is comen, and that I here the foules synge. 

 And that the fiowres gynnen for to sprynge." — 



Chaucer — " Legende of Goode Women:' 



The genus Centaur ea includes several plants of highly ornamental form, and rich in sug- 

 gestiveness to the designer. We have in the present plate represented two of these (the C. nigra 

 and the C. Scabiosa), while the others more especially worthy of attention are the C. Cyanus, the 

 brilliant blue flower found so commonly in the growing corn, and introduced very beautifully in a 

 1 6th century MS. in the British Museum, the C. Calcitrapa and the C. solstitialis. The 

 Black Knapweed (C. nigra) is very abundantly met with throughout Britain in meadows, 

 pasture-lands, and by the roadsides, and as it flowers throughout the summer, it can easily 

 be procured ' at almost any time by any one desirous of studying its natural growth, not 

 from illustrations, but by the far preferable way— direct appeal to Nature. It presents two 

 very distinctly marked typical forms, varieties, however, of the same species, as so many 

 intermediate forms are found between these two that, though the differences are marked enough 



M 



