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    gl2 THE LEADER. [>To. 335, Saturday , < ...

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    ANALYSIS OF ORNAMENT. The Characteristic...

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    AN EDUCATOR. Contributions to the Cause ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Recollections Of Heine. Heinrich Heine. ...

    am sure at the Exposition they would win the great gold medal for pam ^ Fe ^ fSends bear such a test of constancy as a seven years' illness , espeoiallv in a ereat city , and one is not surprised that the visits to tteine s sick room bicame fewer and farther between as the years wore on . One dav when Berlioz was announced , Heine exclaimed . What ! some one cominff to see me ! Berlioz is always original ! " But in the very last months Heine was soothed by the visits of a new friend , a young lady of " unusual intellectual powers , " and it is touching . to read his notes to her , some of which Herr Meissner has been permitted to publish . We will quote one and it must be our last quotation—written at the beginning of January ,

    Dearest Mouche ! I am very suffering , and vexed to death , and the lid of my right eye falls , so that I can hardly write any more . But I love you and think of you , sweetest one ! The novel has not bored me . and it gives good hopes for the futureyou are not so stupid as you look ! Charming you are beyond all measure , and therein my soul delights . Shall I see you to-morrow ? A sort of weeping malaise overpowers me . My heart gapes spasmodically . These bdillentents are intolerable . I wish I were dead ! Deepest anguish , thy name is—Heinrich HBrxE .

    Gl2 The Leader. [>To. 335, Saturday , < ...

    gl 2 THE LEADER . [> To . 335 , Saturday , < ¦— ¦ ¦ . . . . . — - . _ i ^ z _ _______________________ ^^___ ..

    Analysis Of Ornament. The Characteristic...

    ANALYSIS OF ORNAMENT . The Characteristics of Styles : an Introduction to the Study of the History of Ornamental Art . By Ralph N , Wornum . Chapman and Hall . Whobvbe glances , critically , at the interior of certain well-appointed modern houses—of the middle order—will be struck by the absence of style from the furniture and decorations . He will have been prepared , perhaps , by the external disposition of stone , brick , and slate in a sort of deformed composite—a Gothic door , an Italian balustrade , spiked globes upon the coping , windows with Greek lintels , and above , a dull mass of sloping slate , in contrast with the white stucco of the substructure . Inside , a large Italian hall , lined—to the eye—with blocks of yellow marble , and pavedto the eye also—with blocks of black and white stone , leads to a saloon in which all nature is caricatured under the plea of furnishing and adorning .

    If the owner have a brilliant taste you step across kingfishers , convolutions of nameless flowers , tropical verdure bursting from Etruscan vases , to a rug , on which a Bengal tiger blinks at the fire everlastingly . A pagan boy , painfully suspended from a gold zenith in the ceiling , swings in an ormolu hand a cluster of white glass globes ; the walls are hung in imitation of blue damascened silk—not draped , however ; birds , fruit , flowers , foliage , Cupids cling along the upper line ; a base , uncoloured wainscot edges the flpor ; there are sweetly-shaped Carians upholding middle-age grotesques , curtains on which nameless parasites climb , and miscellaneous decorations which typify the ruin of art—fragments of all ages being thrown together to produce the burnished fkntasmagoria . This , which is not an imaginative description , but a reminiscence of a grand citizen villa , represents a large class of the habitations of the wealthy . In certain directions a purer taste is found ; but who that has observed the awkward attempts of the English manufacturer at the invention of " novelties , " will deny that a vast proportion of the designs thus produced are chimerical and barbarous ?

    Even when the form is tasteful , the idea is frequently absurd . Mr . Wornutn points out some examples of art-manufacture , beautifully executed , yet in conception utterly vile—a flower intended to emit a jet of flame , a bell made of leaves , a basket on an animal ' s head to hold a liquid . Here the idea of beauty was not wanting ; the objects were not eccentric or rude : what was wanting , was artistic education . A similar degree of ignorance prevails with many carpet-manufacturers , who deal with a floor as though it should appear as an uneven surface , as though every step should break some arching stem , or crush some full-leaved rose . Diaper patterns for carpets of the commoner sort are seldom employed , the design usually including a Brazilian multiplicity of red , yellow , and purple flowers , the bolder artists introducing occasional pieces of parquetterie and tessellation . To be bold , however—even in varying the forms of ugliness—has not been the hereditary sin of the English manufacturer . When did we first hear of the willow-pattern , and when shall we hear the last of its supremely repulsive formality ?

    Mr . Wornum is doing something as a teacher in ornamental art .- The substance of his long course of lectures at Marlborough House has been condensed into a treatise , which should become a designer's manual—not of specimens to be copied , but of lessons to be understood . It contains an outline of the history of decorative styles , with some analysis of the architectural orders , so far as their ornamentation varied . Two classes of styles are presented—the symbolic and the aesthetic , the imitative and the ideal . These are traced , in their several modifications , ns by genealogy , the links being found where possible , or , where only probable , suggested . Mr . Wornum very emphatically argues that no richness of material , no perfection of scientific processes—not even the highest skill—will place the manufacturer on a level with the ancient artificers , unless the inspiration of real art gives beauty to his forms , colours , « nd designs . Why were the variegated crystals of Egypt , the figured cups of Sidon , the shawls of

    Miletus , the Corinthian bronzes prized ? What made Ghiberti great r and what Cellini ? Other men have worked in bronze and gold . They , however , were aided by the use of natural objects , as copies , exact imitations being introduced in bunches and groups . But what could assist the Byzantine artists , who raised for the Arabian caliphs and generals the domed mosques and palaces of Damascus , Cairo , and Cordova ? They dared not represent , in their most elaborate and infinitely complex designs , a single living thing , a vegetable , an animal , an' angel , a chimera . Many species , oven of the ancient symbolism , were excluded . Yet , from more curves and interlacing ^ traceries , scrolls , labyrinths , the disguised forms of flowers , wonderful surface patterns were originated , which have never been rivalled . As the Egyptian decorator , "hy mere symmetrical arrangement , converted oven his hieroglyph into conspicuous and admirable ornaments—an ingenuity exercised also by the Chinese—so the Saracens elaborated inscriptions into their designs , and the beautiful Arabic character became a typical decoration . And , as Mr . Wornum says , although flowers were not palpably introduced ,

    the great mass of the minor details of Saracenic designs are composed of floral forms more than conventionalized , the very inscriptions being sometimes grouped as flowers . All races have chosen these for use in decoration not as is the English habit , to weave their outlines and colours confusedl y into carpets and tapestries , to paint them on cups , and arrange them , in unmeaning festoons , on roofs and walls , but to convert them into ideas , as ancient nations converted the lotus , the lily , the tulip , the papyrus , palm-trees stars , the flow of water , the zodiacal signs , and the almond and pomegranate of the Jews . That the Greeks were not mere copyists is proved ° by the existence of the ornament called the Honeysuckle , which was only one out of a thousand varieties from the same suggestion , though " half the classical

    buildings of modern times are covered with honeysuckles , bringing the whole art of Greece into disgrace for its monotony and formality . " As Quintilian , though he had never dreamed of shilling volumes , complained of the "innumerable authors" of his time , so Vitruvius , who had never seen a Londoner ' s gorgeous villa , was exasperated by the degraded stucco-work of his generation . " What the ancients accomplished b y art , we attempt to effect by gaudy colouring . Expense is substituted for skill . Who , in former times , used veraiillion , except for physic ? We now cover our walls with it . " AVhat would Vitruvius , who abhorred vermillion , have said of whitewash ? Pliny also denounced the man " who cares nothinw for art , provided he has his walls well covered with purple , or dragon ' s blood from India . "

    A Gothic church , Mr . Wornum says , looks like a fortification against the Aveather , with its high-pitched roof , solid buttresses , and narrow doors and windows , recessed in the massive walls : — In ornamental art generally , then , as in architecture , it is geometrical tracery which will stamp a design with a Gothic character : decorate it with natural flowers only , it will be still Gothic ; it would be necessarily made much more characteristic by the introduction of some of the historic ornaments of the period , —as the Tudor flower , fleur-de-lis , croeket-leaf , trefoil or Early-English leaf , vine-scroll , or any other of the more familiar ornaments of the style . As , however , the Gothic is a style which has flourished exclusively in cold countries , its ornaments of a natural class to be characteristic should be from such plants as are native to Gothic latitudes ; tropical plants would be inconsistent . Throughout we should prefer the wild plants of the north to the more exuberant flowers of the south . All exotics , in fact , that are not symbols , should be unconditionally excluded . The characteristic Norman ornaments are not admissible in the Gothic , with the exception of the tooth , and that is peculiarly rendered .

    Classical ornaments , likewise , are of course excluded ; even the scroll occurs only in the Gothic as a serpentine . Gothic ornaments independent of the tracery are nearly exclusively fruit , flowers , or leaves ; and as a general rule , their execution is extremely rude . One practical remark by Mr . Wornum is well worth quoting : —¦ The designer , like the poet , has his licence with regard to possibilities or probabilities . A mere natural improbability , where natural imitation is in no degree essential , is the privilege of the fancy ; but mechanical disproportions and impossibilities , violations of the most palpable laws of gravity , cannot be otherwise than offensive . Nothing can bring them within the range of good taste , as they are essentially obnoxious to aesthetic sensibility , which is the truest test of propriety in art , the effect being analogous to a discord in music . We may be extremely grotesque or fanciful without being ridiculous .

    There need be no limit to our chimeras , for nature is not their test ; but if we combine monsters in our scrolls , or place animals upon the tendrils of plants , we should at least proportion them in size to the strength of the stem or tendril upon which they are placed . This is not observed in many of the Vatican arabesques , and it is occasionally disregarded , also , in the later works of Mantua ; yet these are , in other respects , the standard types of the cinquecento arabesques , as developed in painting . We commend this very useful volume to the attention of all elementary students of ornamental nrt .

    An Educator. Contributions To The Cause ...

    AN EDUCATOR . Contributions to the Cause of Education . By James Pillans , Esq ., Professor of Humanity in the University of Edinburgh . Longman , Brown , Green , and Longmans . When some one was objecting to the dogmatic Doctor , that if every body were taught to read and write we should have no servants , " Sir , " replied Johnson , " while learning to read and write is a distinction , the few who have that distinction may be less inclined to work ; but when every body learns to read and write it is no longer a distinction . " The Doctor then

    proceeds to illustrate his remark by observing that if every man wore a laced waistcoat the singularity of the dress would be lost in the universality of the custom , and the underling still retain his position . This is but another proof of the Doctor ' s dogmatism being stronger than his logic , anil of the fatal facility with which he strove , by a rotund and pompous se ntence , delivered , as he delivered his , ex cathedra , to throw dust in the eyes ol his audience , and gull their reason . It is true it was a pious fraud , intended to conceal the obvious consequence and break down the barrier of foolish prejudice which then existed against general education , and which has only recently been removed . But wo may now , after a struggle of a quarter ot

    a century , view the case from a far higher elevation ; we may pursue us real issues to the end ; we may consider its acquisition as the acquisition of a new power , we might almost say a new faculty ; and if education is not something more than the wearing of iv lace waistcoat , it is nothing . My lord may wear a lace waistcoat , and my lord ' s valet and my lord ' s plougnboy , but as long as iny lord receives the best education so long shall niy lord be superior to his valet , who , with little learning , is still superior to the p loughboy . But education is a weapon which will render him who has the wit to use it best , whether prince or peasant , master , and then the weakest g oes the wall—the least intellectually capable will be the handicraftsman und tnc delver .

    Amongst the most earnest nnd liberal promoters of national education , Mr . Pillans , whose literary contributions to this cause are now collected in one volume , must bo cordially recognized . It having been admitted that education was a good thing , it was next to bo discovered what kind of education is best and how it ought to be administered . Wo might particularly

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 23, 1856, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23081856/page/20/