THE ornamentalist is more indebted to plants and flowers, both for materials and suggestions in design, than to any other division in the domain of nature. The best conventional and Æsthetic floral ornament was the outcome of the study of plants and flowers. That characteristic Greek ornament, the honeysuckle or anthemion, is said to have originated from the Egyptian lotus flower, or the Sacred Hom, and not from the honeysuckle; the conventional rendering of this flower in ornament is said to have been adapted from the Egyptian forms by the ChaldÆans; and later the children of those ancient flower-worshippers, the Assyrians, developed the pattern into more ornate forms. The Greeks in their turn are supposed to have copied the anthemion from the Assyrians: at first it was archaic and stiff, but full of vitality as ornament, and well adapted for its various uses and positions; and at last perfected to such a degree of Æsthetic purity in the Erechtheum, as to lose all traces of any particular plant, while embodying the best qualities of plant-growth; for in it we see vigorous life combined with grace and elegance.

Another phase of floral and leaf growth, and its proper development into pure ornament, can be studied in the many rosettes of the various styles. These are circular in plan, and would appear at first sight to be derived from flowers, but are mostly a cluster of leaves, radiating like the spokes of a wheel, either straight or curved.

There are many plants—for instance, the bedstraw and the madder—that have their sets of leaves arranged in a whorl round the joints of their upright stems; looking down on these leaves we notice that the plan appears like a rosette. This idea may have occurred to the ancients when designing their rosettes. The results, obtained by grouping a cluster of leaves together in this manner, are finer and stronger in appearance than any imitation of flowers, particularly in sculptured work. (See Fig. 136.) Leaflets and bracts growing at the junctions of stems and leaves also furnished ideas and forms for the making up of rosettes and similar ornament; but more use is made of these bracts in what is called “clothing stems,” or sheaths, some varieties of which are illustrated at Figs. 137 and 157; in fact, very good ornament is often composed of a stem or meander clothed with these bracts alone. Root forms are not much used in European ornament, though Indian, Saracen, and MediÆval decoration abound in examples of the treatment of roots. (See Fig. 138.) The objection to their use is this, that it gives the whole ornament the appearance of having been pulled up and hung to dry. This must always be an objection to their use, unless the root can be shown in the ground; consequently the Roman and Renaissance artists let their ornament

spring from vases or clusters of leaves. When roots are used it is clear that the general outline of the root must alone be taken, and the character of the growth expressed simply, to prevent confusion and obscurity.

As a rule, all redundances, excrescences, and accidental waywardness of growth, that might be interesting to a botanist, ought to be avoided in the decorative rendering of plant form; the average form and the higher beauties should alone be expressed. Though this may seem a paradox, the less realistic we make our designs, the more nature we put into them. We should strive to put the most perfect forms of nature into our ornament, avoiding those that are poor and stunted, as well as over-nourished and rank ones, though nature abounds in both.

In Persian[7] ornament we find flower and plant forms treated in a thoroughly decorative manner (Figs. 118 and 119); the pink and hyacinth were as great favourites with Persian decorators as the maple and vine were in mediÆval work, the lotus and papyrus in Egyptian, the peony in Chinese, and the chrysanthemum in Japanese; while such styles as the Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Saracenic are more purely conventional, and, without having much realism, are still based on natural forms.

Students in design cannot be too strongly advised to cultivate the habit of making correct drawings of

all kinds of plants, both in flower and fruit, especially those of single flower and of simple growth, accompanied by careful notes of the construction at the stem and leaf junctions.

The botanical analysis of a plant may serve a scientific end, and be useful to show the student the construction of the plant, but it makes a very poor show in an artistic design. Landor the poet said it was an act of cruelty to cut a flower from its stem: it would be interesting to know his opinion of that school which believes in dissecting plants to find “new forms,” many of whose designs present novelties that nature never dreamt of, such as leaves neatly cut in half, elevations, and sections of petals, stamens, pistils, seed pods, and other curious forms suggested

by these dissections, so that the design when completed is an anatomical preparation, and certainly innocent of any violation of the second commandment. A section through some flowers may, however, give suggestions of outline for some flat ornament. The testimony of the best old decorative design is against this practice. It is refreshing to see that in England a reaction is setting in, mainly owing to the efforts of such men as Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Messrs. Morris, Crane, and a few others, who prefer nature to novelty.

In selecting plants for particular purposes, it is well to bear in mind the material to be decorated, whether it be woven stuff, wood, or metal-work, and to choose the kind best adapted to the purpose—as the hare-bell, the wild poppy, grasses, and delicate ferns for muslins, cottons, and lace; the oak, orange, lemon, pomegranate, and the mallow for wood-and for stone-carving, and for iron-work. At the same time, a too rigid adherence to these principles is not to be advised. What is of most importance is to adhere to the growth

and character of the plant we use; for instance, a plant like the laurel (Fig. 139) is best suited for an upright or horizontal border. (See Figs. 140, 141.) The wild rose (Fig. 142) and the lemon (Fig. 145) are both

suitable for panels of almost any form, for all-over patterns, or for paper-hangings, &c. (See Figs. 143 and 146.) For narrow upright panels, plants of upright growth, such as the lily, the ox-eye, and the iris, &c., are most suitable. (See for illustrations Figs. 147 and 148.) A trailing vine makes a good ceiling decoration, and was so used by the Byzantine mosaic workers. Lastly, plants of horizontal growth, such as the dandelion, the daisy, &c., looked at from above, might be best adapted for a floor, a carpet, or a table-cover.

The well-known conventional acanthus and its varieties must now be described. There have been various suggestions concerning the identical plant from which the acanthus ornament is derived, but, like the anthemion of the Greeks, there is some

obscurity about it. The story told by Vitruvius of the sculptor Callimachus having the Corinthian capital suggested to him, by finding the plant growing round a basket covered by a square tile, is a plausible and certainly a pretty one (Vit. lib. 4, cap. 1). At any rate, Callimachus is credited by Vitruvius with the first use of the acanthus in capitals. The ornamental forms of the acanthus bear little resemblance to the natural leaf. (See Figs. 149, 150, 151, and 152.) The two latter are

leaves from Greek capitals, the first two have been drawn from nature. The acanthus, as we know it in the capitals of the Greek and Roman Corinthian, and the Roman Composite orders, is an artistic creation, adapted to suit the ends of a grand style of architecture, and not an imitation of a particular leaf. The characteristic difference of the classic ornament from the natural leaf lies in the “pipes” that start from the “eyes” at the base of the leaflets,

and, somewhat contrary to nature, taper downwards to the base of the leaf; these pipes, together with the central stalk, impart that strength and dignity which is necessary for architectural foliage, especially when it adorns the bell of a capital. (See Fig. 154.) The pipes are less important, and are consequently less marked in examples of smaller work, such as may be found in the acanthus of candelabra and panels, in which constructive strength is not required.

On the Corinthian capital, the acanthus presents a simple edge exactly repeated on each leaflet, with far less serration than is seen in the natural foliage: this imparts dignity to the leaf. On modillions a more serrated and smaller variety is used, with the stalks and pipes still prominent; while on candelabra and small pillars the leaves lie flatter, and the leaflets overlap, and owing to the fact that the leaves are smaller in scale and nearer to our eyes, more serrations and more detail may be put into them, for the smaller the scale the more detail is necessary.

(See Fig. 156.) To prevent the foliage in the latter examples from appearing flimsy, as it would naturally do with an overlapping edge much cut up, the edges of the leaves should be slightly thickened and rounded so as to catch the light, thus giving a rich quality to the decoration. The Greeks mostly used

that kind of acanthus that is known as the Acanthus spinosus, or the prickly variety; the Romans preferred the Acanthus mollis, or the soft-leaved kind. The olive-leaf has been used for the raffles of the leaves in the capitals of Jupiter Stator, Mars Ultor, and the Pantheon at Rome (see Figs. 154, 185, and 188), while at the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli the capitals have the oak-leaved variety. A bit of the soft-leaved acanthus is shown at Fig. 155 from the soffit of the architrave at the temple of Jupiter

Stator. The Romans sometimes used the acanthus in a lavish way, overloading mouldings with it; the cornice of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans, for instance, is overdone with decoration. (See Fig. 186.) The more modern type of acanthus used on majolica

plates and in painted decoration is of a very free character, but it only holds a secondary place, being generally found in combination with animal forms and grotesques. The utmost freedom in the curve and reflex curve may be allowed in the painted forms of the acanthus; this being logical enough when we consider that the greater part of the leafage is generated by the free play of the brush. (See Fig. 159.) The arabesques of the Vatican, and the Italian cinque-cento ware, afford the best examples of this painted foliage. The acanthus was the parent of nearly all the subsequent styles of decorative foliage down to the Saracenic and late Romanesque, and its modifications have shown the difficulty of improving on the Classic type. We are advised by ornamentalists and writers on art to seek for a new leaf that might in time rival the acanthus in ornament. The advice may be good, and many have given their attention to it, but no lasting results have as yet been obtained. Of late years there is a kind of scroll-work much favoured by some ornamentalists. It cannot of course be called new, few things can be in this world; but its persistent application, from illumination to stone-carving, will perhaps in time stamp it with a traditional character. The foliage is more like sea-weed than anything else, but it also has a faint resemblance to the acanthus, the ox-eye, and the wild poppy (Fig. 159). We have no fixed principles of ornamental art; even ornamentalists themselves disagree as to what is good, and what is bad, so that nothing lives long enough to become national ornament. How can we hope to vie with the ornamental

art of Greece, when the artists disagree and the nation is indifferent; while the Greeks enjoyed unity of artistic thought, and gloried in the worship of the beautiful? To gain a fuller insight into the delicate varieties of the acanthus, the student is advised to carefully examine and draw the foliage in the pilasters of Louis XII.’s tomb. The late Alfred Stevens has done more than any one of late years to properly apply the acanthus. (See Fig. 132.)