Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
Much has been said and written about the Principles of Art; but nothing is more difficult to find, even in works professedly treating upon this subject. In fact, from amongst the numerous books extant in the English language which treat upon various Art-topics, it is scarcely possible to glean a ray of light sufficient to guide the student in any original essay, either in the fine or technical - arts. Before the scientific researches of Chevreul were made accessible to the artist, the important subject of the harmony and contrast of colours, was a complete chaos of crude dogmatism in the hands of those, who, when they put their own precepts into practice, produced a result universally pronounced-ridiculous. Even the human form has been submitted to line and rule, its free contours squared, and the compass, with the aid of the rule of three, made to perform the office of creative intelligence.
Only the light of science can dispel these ignes fatui. The Principles of Art rest securely upon a scientific basis, and any attempt to elucidate them without it, can only lead the student to confusion and disappointment. So far as the very limited space at command has permitted, the following pages will he found to contain a summary of the most important canons of Ornamental Art in connection with Form and its treatment, in Architectonics, and in the Ceramic Art. These subjects are chosen for their primary importance in Ornamentation, and the community of principles existing among the various arts permits their application to the Technic arts generally; to all works requiring or admitting of embellishment. It has not been thought necessary to enter upon the question of Colour, as that subject has been fully discussed in a scientific manner, by M. E. Chevreul, to whose work the student is referred.
A book on so vast and comprehensive a subject as Ornamentation, admits of an infinite amount of illustration. Ornamental Art is best illustrated, not by engravings, but in the original works upon which it has been applied. The student will find abundant illustrations of the most instructive character in the treasures of art contained in the British Museum, in the Ceramic collection at the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, and at Marlborough House. All that relates to Architectonics receives most valuable illustration from the materials of the Courts of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
When the reader has become familiar with the principles set forth in the following pages, and tests modern works by them, he will readily discover that most of our modem edifices, when not mere copies, have been designed in almost utter ignorance of the laws that guided the artists of antiquity and the middle ages. If these pages afford a clue to the artist in his study of the models of the past, so as to enable him to originate works for himself worthy of comparison with them, the object of this little book will be fully attained.
