Page:Pattern design - a book for students treating in a practical way of the anatomy, planning & evolution of repeated ornament.djvu/190

164 the one asserting itself here the other there, and each calling attention from the other. The lines themselves may be so ingeniously interlaced that it is hard to disentangle them. Some of them may be traced merely in outline, hardly strong enough to hold its own against more substantial features, or in a colour having more affinity with the ground than with the ornament generally.

But the most usual way of disguising the skeleton is, taking the hint from nature, to clothe it with something in the way of foliation—by which the bare constructional lines are as effectually hidden as the branches of a tree by its leaves. By this means the spirals of a scroll can be made to assert themselves as much or as little as occasion may demand. Only if the curves are not well-considered it is hopeless to try and make up for that by foliation, to disguise bad lines by leafage. A broken-backed scroll betrays itself beneath it all. There is no disguising its native infirmity. Pattern is vertebrate; and in a scroll the spinal cord is very plainly pronounced.

As to whether it is better to reveal or to disguise the construction of pattern, to insist upon it or to call attention away from it, that is a question to be answered partly according to the temperament of the designer, partly by the circumstances of the particular case. Either plan is best upon occasion. But it is a point upon which the artist should in every case make up his mind at once. He should know what he is going to do, and do it deliberately.

Referring to the popular prejudice against anything like formality in design and especially against anything which "you can count," as they say, the public has a right to call the tune it pays for, and will no doubt get what it wants. If it will have nothing of severity or restraint in pattern, so much the worse for design. If, however, any student of ornament should feel that way, so much the worse for him, or for his chances of success in this direction. His wiser