The principles of design
This covers a much wider area, and properly so, as an ornament in its wider sense covers the whole field of art, and it is only during the last century or so that the arts of painting and sculpture, and the decorative arts, have been divorced from architecture, and almost all tradition has been lost. The purpose of the present work is not so much to supply a few recipes which the student might get off by heart to successfully pass the examination, suppose this was possible or desirable, but rather to assist him to form an intelligent understanding of the general scale and scope of the decorative arts. It must not be forgotten that examinations are but a means to an end, and not an end in themselves.
Examinations can have no possible value except as indications of the degree of knowledge, or of the character of the information possessed by the different competitors. The system of cramming for a particular examination is indefensible from every point of view, and
the examiners are doing nothing but their duty in framing their questions in such a manner as to compel the student to make use of his intelligence, rather than to depend upon the memory only. In a mere handbook on such a large subject as this, it is not possible to do much more than classify and place the subject before the student with something like coherence and form. The bibliography of the various portions of the subject is very extensive. The books devoted to the direct elucidation of principles are, however, comparatively few.
The student should, in preparing for the examination on "Principles," supplement his studies by something more than a mere reference to the following works Owen Jones' " Grammar of Ornament," which, although it appeared at the time when the decorative arts had reached perhaps their lowest ebb, still remains a standard work.
Some contents:
CHAPTER I. The Elementary Line.
Materials needed. Prehistoric work; pure design; the spot of paint. Elementary principles defined; the line as a motif. . .
Chapter II. Shape Rhythm.
Examples; application to a border; simplicity; development of shape rhythm over a surface. Shape balance; was found; its application to line arrangements; black and white in line work. Shape harmony; examples; how to secure; its presence desirable. . . 14
CHAPTER III.- Measure Balance.
Its importance; elementary application to areas; as found in various productions. Abstract spots and their arrangement into units; balancing of same. . . . 37
CHAPTER IV. Shape Rhythm Areas.
Examples of early work and comments on same; relation to our problems. Spot arrangements and underlying principles; angles of repetition 53
CHAPTER V. Tone Balance
Black and White. Conclusion of line rhythm; lines in work of past. Distribution of two tones; balance secured; application of the principle to various problems. The page of the printed book; margins. ...... 68
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