264 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
that the Moresque must be a very cold 
and geometrical style indeed. But such 
a notion would be due more to our own 
freedom of fancv than to auy serious re- 
striction actually weighing upon the Ma- 
hometan carver. The religious law al- 
luded to in no measure deteriorates 
Moorish production. On the contrary, 
it has led the Eastern carver to search 
©Ise^fliere, and has forced him to think 
more deeply than he would have done 
had he been free to simply copy nature. 
Such observation as the Moors indulged 
in naturally improved their taste» and 
l^rousht to their notice many methods of 
procedure which, had they been as free 
to choose as we are, they, perhaps, would 
never have known. Thus prevented from 
copying nature in her integrity, they the 
more eagerly studied her set laws, and 
upon these founded one the most beau- 
tiful styles of decoration that the civil- 
ized world has known. Perhaps the most 
useful law of nature which the Moors 
followed in their surface decorations is 
that of radiation from a parent stem. 
Every part of the design can be traced to 
its br^inch and root, to whatever distance 
the decoration may go. There is no stop- 
ping of the design at one place and start- 
ing it again a liltle higher up, aiid, what 
is also of great importance, no foreign or 
incongruous matter is ever introduced. 
Yases and festoons, figures and masks, 
appear in other styles, and are all very 
well in their way for decorative purposes. 
It is an open question, however, whether 
a vase carved 
upon a panel, 
with a bunch 
of healthy 
flowers grow- 
ing out of it, is 
not a little too 
far-fetched to 
be classed as 
high art. The 
Moors never 
so indulged 
their fancies. 
They com- 
menced their 
design from 
the ground, 
and then, by 
bending the 
branches into 
el e g a n t 
curves, and 
filling the in- 
terstices with 
leaves and 
buds, they 
generally 
capped it with 
some for m, 
either floral or astral. 
Fig. 3 is a bracket upon which the carv- 
ing is peculiarly Moresque. There is one 
Fig. 3.— DBACKET. 
