Walter Crane

NEXT to the architectural basis influence in design, and, indeed, hardly separable from it, being another side of the constructive, adaptive art, we may fitly take the Utility Basis and influence.

This may be considered in two ways:

(1) In its effect upon pattern design and architectural ornament through primitive structural necessities.

(2) In its effect upon structural form and ornamental treatment arising out of, or suggested by, functional use.

(1) It is a curious thing that we should find the primitive ornamental motives bound up with the primitive structures and fabrics of pure utility and necessity, but such would appear to be the case.

The plaiting of rushes to make a mat was probably one of the earliest industrial occupations, and the chequer one of the most primitive and universal of patterns. If we look at the surface effect of the necessity of the construction, the crossing of one equal set of fibres by another set at right angles, with the interlacement, a series of squares are produced, which alternate in tint if the colour of one set is darker than the sets which cross it (see illustration). Emphasize this contrast and we get our chequer, or chessboard pattern, which, either as a pattern complete in itself, as in plaids and tartans, or as a plan, or effect motive in designing is, as I have said, perhaps the most universal and imperishable of all patterns, being found in association with the design of all periods, and still surviving in constant use among designers.

MATTING.

Let us follow the primitive rush mat a little further, however. As it lay on the primitive tent or hut floor its edges would take the sort of form shown on the following page. In ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, and Greek architecture we constantly find carved patterns used as borderings and figures, of the type given in the Assyrian example. Now, comparing this with the primitive matting, the suggestion is very strong of the probability of derivation of motive of patterns of this type from the same constructive source originally. In some instances, as on the enamelled tile from Assyria, the border reverses itself, but with the Greeks it finally took the upright direction, as in the Anthemion or honeysuckle border forms; but, however afterwards varied and enriched by floral form, its structural origin in plaited work is always to be traced, and it seems to gain from it a certain strength and adaptability.

PRIMITIVE RUSH MAT AND ASSYRIAN BORDER.

ASSYRIAN INCISED BORDER.

Another type of ornament may be traced to the constructive necessities of wattle and wicker work, so much used by primitive man in the structure of his dwellings, and in primitive objects of use and service.

ASSYRIAN ENAMELLED TILE.

The various forms of volute, or spiral, and guilloche ornament, so much used by the ancients—Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek—may be compared, in their structure and arrangement of line, with the form taken by the withy, or cord twisted around the upright canes or staves of a wattled fence, as seen in horizontal section. The primitive wattled structure gives the plans of these patterns. It certainly appears to account for their origin in a remarkably complete way.

GREEK ANTHEMION ORNAMENT.

WATTLED FENCE.

It is possible that another source which may have contributed to the evolution of the Greek spiral or volute was metal in the form of the thin beaten plates with which the primitive Greeks covered parts of their interior walls; but these were later times, and it is also possible that the primitive metal worker took his motive from the wattling too.

ANCIENT VOLUTE ORNAMENT.

PATTERNS FROM BRONZE SHIELDS CYPRUS.
GREEK VOLUTE OR MEANDER PATTERN.

TYPES OF DECORATION DERIVED FROM THONGING.

STONE AXE OF MONTEZUMA II.
BRONZE VESSEL, LAKE OF BOURGET.
EBONY COMB, ASSYRIA.
SCULPTURED STONE CORNICE, EGYPT.
NORMAN CAP, PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
BACK OF BRONZE KNIFE ESTAVAYER.

Before metal was used, or nails or joinery were known, the method of fastening two things together, such as the blade of a stone axe or hammer and its handle, was by thonging or tying them firmly together by strips of leather or thongs, and to this source again we might trace other types of pattern motives of very wide prevalence. In the first instances the thonging was imitated in metal-work when no longer used in the construction by way of ornament, as in various bronze implements existing; but later, starting from the tying and thonging motive, we get all sorts of variations, as in the zigzag of Norman arch mouldings, and in the earlier Celtic knotted work, which seemed partly a re-echo of some types of Eastern and classic ornament, unless we regard it as independently derived, like them, from primitive structure. It seems to make itself felt again in a new variety in the strap-work of our Elizabethan period, in which the ornament apparently was a new blend of Gothic with classical details, with an infusion of oriental or Moorish feeling, filtered through Italy and Spain.

FRIEZE (TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL TIVOLI).

As an instance of architectural ornament, the motive of which seems taken from a piece of common every-day usage, we may note the frieze of the Roman circular Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, which is composed of the heads of oxen, alternating with, and connected by, the curves of pendent floral garlands. To this day in Italy almost anywhere one may see this motive suggested by the appearance of the country ox wagon as it approaches along the road—the front view of the two oxen heads, with the level yoke across their necks, and the pendent connecting ropes hanging between.

It is probable, however, that whatever its origin, its suggestion was sacrificial, since the ox decked with garlands constantly figures in classical sculpture led before the altar to be slain, and this circumstance may equally have given rise to the sculptor's motive, just as we saw that the custom of decking the cornice of the Greek house with garlands suggested its perpetuation in stone carving by the classical architects.

It will be noted that those primitive sources to which we may trace motives in ornamental design, however, afterwards developed on purely ornamental lines, and because of their ornamental value, all of them have their beginnings in actual use and service, in physical and constructive necessity, and that they are closely associated with the form and character of the dwellings and temples of man.

(2) Turning now to the second division of our subject to consider "the effects upon form and treatment of surface arising out of, or suggested by, functional use," we shall still have to keep close to the dwelling, and constantly to remember the ever present architectural influence with the consideration of which we set out.

The angle of the pitch of the roof in buildings, for instance, which is so marked a characteristic in the different types of architecture, was originally determined by the necessities of climate. One might say broadly that the acute, high-pitched Gothic roof means snow or bad weather, while the low-pitched classic roof means sunshine for the most part; or we might say that the one typified winter and the other summer. A house must still be built mainly for one or the other, though by ingenuity and careful consideration of the points of the compass in choosing the site and planning, in the rare instances where free choice is still possible, something may be, and has been attempted, to fit all seasons; and it is this careful consideration of such points in our ancient buildings—say the old English manor houses, built to dwell in and to last—which gives that sense of homelike comfort and pleasure to the eye, perhaps, quite as much as the interest of their ornamental detail. A sunny garden terrace or arcaded front to the south to catch the winter sun—cool and shady rooms to the north for the summer—a sheltered porch to protect the guest against the weather. Such contrivances as these show that thought has been spent and care taken in the planning and building; that the builder or designer has been influenced by considerations of true utility—not in the bald and more modern sense of mere money or time saving appliance, but the truer economy of making a house livable. Here is a sketch of one of those old stone halls or manor houses of Derbyshire of the seventeenth century (Hazelford Hall), charmingly placed upon a hillside, so as to fit into or become part of the landscape, while it is really planned to live comfortably in, with due regard to the variation of the seasons and the winds. The living rooms face south and west.

Houses nowadays seem more built to sell than to live in (at least permanently), since I notice that often even when people build a house for themselves they constantly want to let it to somebody else. I should think that the gipsy van would suit modern habits exceedingly well. It would be more picturesque than "a brick box with a slate lid," to which most of us are committed, and probably much less expensive in the long run. The only thing required to make it practicable on any scale is a trifling alteration in the land laws.

The origin of mouldings in architecture, as their use in the capacity of dripstones declares, was to serve a purely useful purpose—the alternating concavity and convexity of the members which generally characterize them affording escapement for the rain water, and keeping it away from the windows and doors.

To give a simple illustration of the principle. If the sill of a window, for instance, be left rectangular and perfectly level, the water would be likely to run inward through the window, or perhaps into the wall, but if sloped on the upper surface and hollowed beneath, the water would tend to drop from the under outer edge clear of both window and wall.

This necessity led to motives in design and ornamental effect, and mouldings became valuable parts of Æsthetic expression in architecture, affording means of emphasis, of giving the effect of receding planes, and of using the important principle of recurring lines to which I called attention in the first chapter.

The barge-board, too, so picturesque a feature in old timbered houses, had the same useful purpose to subserve in keeping the weather from injuring roof and wall.

Staircases with the necessary handrail, again, have led to beautiful form in design, not only in the planning of the staircase itself, which is so important a feature in every house, but in the interesting and varied design in the balusters supporting the handrail, and in newel heads, etc.

Towers and church steeples, which form such important and picturesque features in architectural (and, one might add, landscape) design, owed their existence, in the first place, to the necessities of watch, guard, and defence, and probably also means of communication by signals.

To the mediÆval city, which, as it is now being realized, was a highly organized arrangement for mutual aid and defence, towers were of great importance both for watch and defence. They served as strong buttresses and vantage posts placed at intervals along the inclosing city wall, and flanking the gateways. The boldness and grace of design in some mediÆval towers is very notable. Those of Siena, for instance, and that town of towers, San Gimignano, of which I give a rough sketch to show the effect from a distance of the clustering towers, like a crown upon the hill top; above all, perhaps, is the famous tower of the Signoria or Palazzo Vecchio, the old city hall of Florence (thirteenth century). The Belfry of Bruges (thirteenth century), too, is another fine instance of boldness and grace of design. It had formerly a spire, which is shown in a sixteenth century picture, the background of a portrait by Pourbus, a Flemish painter, but the spire was twice destroyed by fire, and was not renewed a third time. But even as it stands the belfry is very striking, and, while it commands a vast prospect of the country round, it is also conspicuous all over the town, and a landmark to the flat country round about.

The towers of our own ancient village churches are generally battlemented, and the square ones often have a corner turret to give a more commanding view; and this again gives variety, and is a very picturesque feature. The battlements themselves (though intended for use in defence) are extremely ornamental features, and give relief and lightness to the parapet. In later Gothic times they were frequently fancifully pieced and filled with ornament, as on Magdalen Tower at Oxford. Their decorative value was perceived by the wood carver of the Gothic times, and they are constantly introduced in tabernacle work, screens, and furniture, where their use is purely decorative.

Chimneys, again, afford an instance of a purely useful and serviceable object lending itself to ornamental treatment and becoming important as parts of the design of a building.

The first chimney in England is said to be the one existing in the Norman house at Christchurch, Hampshire. The common practice was to have the fireplace in the centre of the hall and let the smoke escape by a louvre in the roof, as may still be seen in the hall at Penshurst Place in Kent (fourteenth century); but in later times, especially in the Tudor period, the chimneys of brick are often found full of invention and variety in design, and extremely rich in effect. I give sketches of some characteristic examples at Framlingham Castle and Leigh's Priory.

The fine old brick chimney stacks one finds among the old farmsteads of Essex it is supposed were built first and then the half-timbered house built around the brick stack.

Other useful things connected with the fireside and the chimney corner, which are remarkable for their adaptability in ornamental design, are the iron fire-dogs used to support the burning logs. We find them in great variety of shape and treatment, while their main or necessary lines remain the same. It is the standard or upright front part which affords a field for the inventive craftsman and designer. The fire-irons, too, are again purely useful in their object, but have become highly graceful and elegant in some of their forms.

The iron grate back (notably those of old Sussex), placed at the back of the fire against the chimney to protect the brick-work and radiate the heat, had again a purely useful function, but it has been the object of a great deal of fine and rich decorative design, chiefly of a heraldic or emblematic character, and many old examples exist. Cast iron has in modern times acquired a bad name (artistically speaking), but this is owing to its misapplication, as in railings or grills, where it endeavours to usurp the place of wrought iron. In a flat panel or plain surface, such as a grate back affords, however, cast iron has a singularly good effect, and renders bold designs well. There are some fine heraldic grate backs in cast iron to be seen at Cheetham's Hospital, perhaps the most interesting building in the City of Manchester.

I give a sketch of a quaint cast-iron chimney back of Gothic design from Bruges. At the Museum at the old Rath Haus there is a very good collection of examples. Somehow, with the modern, or rather mid-Victorian iron register fireplace all beauty and interest of design is lost. Though it should be remembered that a really fine artist and designer like Alfred Stevens spent his talent upon such things.

The conception of the thing, however, seems joyless and ugly, and in most surviving examples the ornament in endeavouring to be elegant becomes frittered and mean; and as to sheet-iron stoves they seem to be under a ban of hideousness, which seems sad when one recalls the charming and cheerful earthenware stoves of Germany of Gothic and Renascence times, full of colour and invention. The revived use of tiled chimney, and recessed and basket grates, has done much to restore cheerfulness to our hearths.

Before we leave the chimney corner I might mention another bit of metal, important before the days of kitchen ranges as the chief cooking apparatus, I mean the iron crane that is sometimes found still suspended in the wide chimneys of old farmhouses, made of wrought iron, twisted and curled, and with bright bosses of steel upon it, and great in hooks and hinges. Here is a sketch of a typical example in an Essex farmhouse.

Considerations of use, again, very evidently control design in lamps and candlesticks. A lamp necessitates: (1) a reservoir for the oil, and (2) a neck and mouth to hold the wick, and (3) a firm and steady stand. All these requisites are combined, with addition of handle, in the oldest and simplest form of lamp—the portable antique lamp to be carried in the hand. The reservoir is there, though small, and needing re-filling from a larger vessel (as was the case in the parable of the ten virgins).

These lamps were often placed upon the top of slender fluted tripod stands, to give light in the house, or hung in clusters by chains from a branched stand like a tree. A combination of many of the characteristics of the antique lamp is found in the comparatively modern brass Roman lamp (now called antique, but till within a few years, and I believe still, commonly used by the people): we have the small reservoir, with four necks for the wicks, closely resembling in form the antique hand lamps. This is pierced by the shaft of the stand, which finishes in a ring handle at the top and terminates in a broad moulded stand, so that the lamp can be used for carrying or standing with equal facility. The little implements for trimming, snuffing, and extinguishing are suspended by small chains from the neck of the standard and add to the ornamental effect. Each part is made separately and screws together.

With the modern powerful lamps of mineral oil and circular wicks, much larger reservoirs are required, and modern lamps have tended to take the urn shape owing to this necessity, and they lose in beauty of line generally as they gain in body (much like people). A satisfactory type has been introduced by Mr. W. A. S. Benson, of copper, with a copper fan-like shade, which is generally a difficulty with a modern lamp; and the glasses also, while necessary, complicate the design and cannot be said to add to the beauty, as a rule. (See Illustration, p. 77.)

However, a lamp design can never get away from the primitive triple conditions of lamp structure with which we saw in its earliest form reservoir, neck for the wick, and stand—possibly handle—but within these demands of utility there is scope for very great variations, and unlimited taste and invention.

The candlestick, with which the hand lamp has something in common, is, however, quite distinct in character, seeing that it is formed to hold the combustible part in a solid, instead of a liquid form. Its requirements, therefore, are a firm stand (like the lamp), a reasonable height, on which to raise the light, another to hold the candle, and something to catch the melting grease.

These conditions are satisfied in the form of the antique brass candlestick, but still better in the older Gothic form, or the church candlestick, which has a spike on which to hold the candle, instead of a hollow. A candlestick, therefore, should be true to its name and remain a stick, or moulded tubular column, though capable of development into the candelabrum, throwing out branches for extra lights from the central stem; a suggestive form, if sufficiently restrained, designed with taste.

The ancient hanging brass candelabra of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, or earlier, are very good in form as well as practical. There is a fine Gothic one in Van Eyck's picture in the National Gallery, "Jan Arnolfini and his Wife."

I have a good example of the later type—a German one. The stem is surrounded by the double eagle, and there are several tiers of mouldings, the larger ones being flat, and cut into notches at the edge to serve as sockets to receive the corresponding part of the branch, which fits on to them and supports the candles. These are arranged in two tiers of six lights each, and between each light occurs a little ornamental branch or finial, the whole being detachable from the hanging stem terminating in a brass sphere which keeps it straight and steady. It is a fine example of good, simple, and practicable design, which should always unite necessity and utility with beauty.

For carrying about, a candlestick needs the addition of a broad dish-like stand and handle, while the stick itself is kept low; hardly so attractive a form as the stationary columnar table candlestick, and yet having decided character and purpose of its own.

Those old-fashioned and most picturesque companions of candlesticks, the snuffers, are often very beautiful in design, and it seems to me that, however "improved," the wicks of modern candles still require some attention from them.

The necessity of protecting light affords in lanterns opportunities for the inventive adaptability of the designer in glass and metal.

I met with a very pretty and original motive in a German museum (at Lindau) which was hexagonal in form, pieces of glass fitted together by leads forming a globe-like body to hold the light, and terminating above in a neck, from which it hung to a bracket by a ring. It was furnished with a tripod stand in iron, so that it could be taken down and made to stand if needed.

There is plenty of room for invention in lanterns, and it seems a pity that our street lamp, which is practically a standard lantern, should remain so extremely prosaic, when it is a design so constantly repeated. It is not so much the plainness, since one needs no extraneous ornament if the purpose is well served by a structure of good lines. The necessity of cleaning the glass is probably a hindrance to much variety of form in the present state of things, and then, too, the electric light is coming into general use, bringing with it an entirely fresh set of conditions, so that before we get our ideal gas-lamp the necessity for it will probably have disappeared altogether, so to speak.

The idea of suspension and absence of rigidity or weight associated with electric lighting ought, one would think, to be suggestive to designers, but we don't seem yet to have quite shaken off the conditions of gas tubing on the one hand, or to have got much beyond the somewhat well-worn idea of bell-flowers bursting into incandescence on the other. One almost prefers the naked simplicity of the little pear-shaped glasses, with their incandescent twist of thread suspended at the end of the covered wires, to the flamboyant excesses in brass and copper electric fitting sometimes seen.

One might go on through the whole range of objects of domestic use, and multiply instances of beauty and designing invention applied to the humblest utensil, implement, or accessory, and suggested by the characteristic features stamped upon its form by the necessities and demands of daily use, which must never be lost sight of by the artist. Not a single thing that we touch or use but has had an enormous amount of human thought and ingenuity brought to bear upon it, which has determined its form as we see it, and which is constantly modifying form and material and character.

The present modifying influences, the direction in which human ingenuity mostly seems to work is in the time-saving, cost-saving, labour-saving direction, or would-be so, and under this influence designs of articles or objects of pure utility have a tendency to become very prosaic—or, perhaps, vulgarly assertive. It is the commercial instinct, no doubt, which is satisfied if a knife is a knife and will cut, or at any rate will sell, and puts no romance into either blade or handle. The old curved blades have disappeared, and only the silver knife receives any ornament, and that generally of a very uninteresting type. This prosaic tendency represents the mechanical side of the utility influence, which only reaches beauty, if beauty of line merely, by necessity of use; though under what I should term the short-cut inspiration beauty is generally entirely out of the question. This is to be deplored, since the simplest thing of use may be just as well made pleasing and good in form and line, though that may be the only kind of beauty possible to it.

When we come to pottery the utility and adaptation to service influence is very obvious. Look at the form of a water-vessel, a pitcher we will say, as a typical form. It must have a large hollow body to hold as much water as can be conveniently carried by a single person, but not more than its handle or handles will lift. It must have a neck for pouring out. A rounded form is found to be more convenient for carrying than a square, and is easier to balance in the hand or on the head. The soft clay, too, readily takes the circular form on the wheel when the pitcher is formed under the hands of the potter; and the rounded form may be diminished towards the base, which saves weight, and at the same time gives opportunity for grace of line. Its form at once expresses its purpose of carrying and pouring. A nobler form is seen in the Greek hydria—a large three-handed water-vessel, adapted for carrying and pouring. It was carried on the head or the shoulders, the two side horizontal handles enabled it to be lifted up and down, while its vertical handle served the function of pouring.

We may note the similarity in contour and proportion of the Greek amphora or wine-vessel, to the lines of a woman's figure. It is, perhaps, the most graceful of the antique forms of vessels, and it seems dimly reflected even in the purely prosaic form of the modern bottle.

We might trace through all the various forms of vessels the clue of utility, and note how it determines their typical form as they are adapted, like the hydria or pitcher, for carrying and pouring: the amphora or ancient wine-bottle for keeping wine cool in the earth in portable quantities: the bucket type for dipping and carrying: the funnel type for filling.

The copper water-vessel of the Roman people seems to combine the functions of bucket and pitcher in a highly picturesque way, and its form enables a quantity to be carried on the head.

The drinking vessel again shows quite a different type of form, and in all its varieties declares its function—the cup, the glass, the tumbler, the mug, and the tankard.

In the bottle we approach again the type of the pitcher, the holding and pouring functions being again emphatic, throughout all its many shapes. The illustration shows a selection of the typical forms I have mentioned.

The subject of the typical forms of vessels is very clearly illustrated in Meyer's "Handbook of Ornament," to which I may refer the student who wishes to pursue the subject further.

On the subject of bottles, however, I will just refer to a curious correspondence in design motive in two different materials.

The ordinary Italian oil or wine flask is one of the most charming of modern useful vessels. It is simply a piece of blown glass of the form first assumed by the molten glass when blown at the end of the glass-worker's tube. To make this primitive but elegant bottle portable and enable it to stand, it is bound around by a twist of rushes, or cane leaves twisted into a circular stand, and braced by vertical broader bands of the untwisted leaf at intervals, and a loop of the twist is twined around the neck, and left free to hang up or carry the vessel in. The whole is both highly practical and picturesque.

This is a type of Venetian glass bottle or decanter highly ornamented, in which the fundamental motive or idea of the protecting binding of rushes seems to be followed in glass. The melon-like divisions are defined by strings of raised glass laid on the surface, while the panels between are engraved in arabesques of leaves and birds, and the whole forms a very pretty piece of ornate glass design. (See illustration, p. 83.)

Here we have another instance of decorative motive derived from useful function, and of the adaptation in one material of a suggestion derived from another, though applied to the same type of form.

I have not mentioned the plate or dish type of vessel, which has on the whole, perhaps, received the most attention from the decorator of surfaces, perhaps on account of the more pictorial conditions its functional form presents.

There is a circular flat or concave surface in the centre of the dish, plate, or plaque to hold the food; and there is a circular space or rim for the hand, a border which will serve both as a frame to the central subject, and also to emphasize the edge. The Greek cylix, though really a shallow drinking cup, presents similar conditions to the designer, though more of the shallow boat or saucer type, and in the filling of these spaces the Greek vase-painter, as far as regards composition of line, dramatic action of figure, simplicity, and the necessary flatness and reserve, sets us the best models in this kind of design.

The Italian Renascence majolica and lustre ware give more sumptuous effect and more pictorial treatment, but are not nearly so safe a guide in taste as the Greek.

In pure ornament we cannot do better than study oriental models for the treatment of border and centre, and in the blue and white ware of China and Persia we shall find as satisfactory examples of decorative fitness as need be. The Chinese influence is freely and often very happily rendered in the blue and white ware of Delft, and in some of the works of the old English potteries, as Worcester and Derby for instance.

In textile design the functions of border, of field or filling, of wearing apparel, or furniture hangings and materials and their necessary adaptation to vertical or horizontal positions, differentiates the various types and classes of design in woven or printed stuffs. Here use again influences and decides decorative motive.

We recognize at once the essential differences of expression in different pattern plans and systems of line in horizontal extension, which mark them off as suitable for borders demanding linear, or meandering, or running patterns to fulfil their function of defining the edge, as in a garment or hanging, or in pottery, or forming a setting for the centre, as in a carpet.

For these reasons, bearing in mind the constructive suggestion of their origin, the typical examples given of border systems have held their own from the earliest times as fundamentally adaptable to horizontal extension, while they also adapt themselves to endless variation in design and treatment.

Just as, for the same reasons, the systems of pattern adapted for indefinite extension over a surface (both vertically and horizontally), and represented by the plans I have termed persistent, have held, and still hold, their place in the world of design. These latter, too, it will be noticed, are all constructed upon, or controlled by, the same basis—the rectangular diaper.

There seems something fixed and fundamental about these linear constructive bases of pattern design from the point of view of what might be termed decorative or linear logic, and apart from their origin in actual constructive necessity before spoken of, and, as far as soundness of principle can guide us in designing, we cannot go wrong in obeying them, however various the superstructure of floral fancy we may build upon them. The acknowledgment of the principle alone, of course, will not make us successful designers, any more than the skeleton makes a living figure. We cannot do without thought, fancy, and vivifying imagination, guided by the sense of beauty, as well as of use, to produce design worth having in any direction.

To trace out this clue of utility fully and adequately through all the varieties of the vast province of artistic design would need, not a single chapter, but a large and amply illustrated volume. I have only attempted to call your attention to certain typical forms and instances where the bearings of the necessities of use and service have decided those forms, and must always influence the decorative designer, who should never forget them for a moment.

Nothing has degraded the form of common things so much as a mistaken love of ornament. The production of things of beauty for ordinary use has declined with the gradual separation of artist and craftsman. Decoration, or ornament, we have been too much accustomed to consider as accidental and unrelated addition to an object, not as an essential expression and organic part of it; not as a beauty which may satisfy us in simple line, form, or proportion, combined with fitness to purpose, even without any surface ornament at all. The more we are able to keep before our minds the place and purpose of any design we have to make, the more we realize the conditions of use and service of which it must be a part, as well as the capacities of the material of which it is to be made; and the more we understand its constructive necessities, the more successful our design is likely to be, and the nearer we shall approach to bridging the unfortunate gulf which too often exists between the designer and the craftsman.