3o 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
A PRACTICAL TALK ON DESIGN. 
K. M. Huger 
ESIGN is the placing together of lines or forms in a given space 
so as to make an agreeable impression on the mind through 
the eye, that is to say through the cultivated eye, for to "know 
what we like" is one thing, but to like what we should like is 
quite another. So soon as we are in possession of two or more 
lines and a given space, an arrangement can be made of greater or less beauty 
according to the appreciation of the artist for contrast, fitness, proportion, balance, 
action and spacing. 
Take a square, which is one of Mr. Dow's first problems and try the experi- 
ment; you will find that this process of arrangement contains the germ of all 
design and composition, whether it be in picture making, architecture, poetry, 
music, the drama, or what not. 
We must have contrast, repetition, series, action and quiet spacing. Imagine 
a play where there were no pauses, a musical composition with no restful chords, 
a design equally elaborate throughout, a picture without quiet spacing. The eye, 
mind and ear would weary of them all. Wornum has said in his "Analysis of 
Ornament " that the first principle of ornament is repetition — a measured succes- 
sion in series of some one detail (which in itself may be varied), in borders or 
mouldings for instance. This stage of ornament corresponds to melody in music 
— a measured succession of diatonic sounds. They both arise from rhythm — in 
music called time — in ornament called proportion or symmetry. The second stage 
in music is called harmony or a combination of sounds or melodies paralleled in 
ornamental art, where a combination or measured succession of forms is followed 
upon identical principles. Ornament consists, then, in something more than a 
mere artistic elaboration of either natural or conventional details. The highest 
mere imitative skill will engender but fanciful vagaries powerless to satisfy the eye 
and mind if not arranged in any order of combination of harmonic progression, let 
the motif be what it will. Then, too, if the designer wishes to ensure a lasting 
market in the civilized world he must be able to gratify an elegant cultivated 
taste, not by mere technique, but by such an aesthetic character as was attained 
by the Egyptians in their varicolored glass, in the figured cups of Sidon, the 
shawls of Miletus, the terracottas of Samos, the bronzes of Corinth, which com- 
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