Page:Pattern design - a book for students treating in a practical way of the anatomy, planning & evolution of repeated ornament.djvu/27

 I. WHAT PATTERN IS. Pattern not understood — The meaning of the word— Comes of repe- tition, and is closely connected with manufacture — -Has alvvaj's a geometric basis — Use and necessity of system in design — Lines ine- vitable, and must not be left to chance. To readers of a book upon the subject, no apology for pattern is necessary. Modest as may be its pretensions to artistic consideration, it covers ground enough to command attention. It is here and there and everywhere about us. There is too much of it by more than half — and more than half of it is of such a kind as to make the discriminating wish they could do without it altogether. Still, there it is; and there is no escape from it. If folk knew a little more about it, realised what was and what was not within the control of the desigrier, under- stood how pattern came to be, and something of its scope and purpose, as well as of the processes through which a design must pass before ever it comes (for their momentary delight or lasting annoj'^ance) to be produced, they would be less at its mercy. For the difficulty of designing is by no means in proportion to the importance of the field of design; and in the case of repeated pattern, with which we have mostly to do — even those of us who are not concerned with trade or manufacture -the invention it requires is in inverse ratio to the free scope afforded. It is easier, as WilHam Morris confessed, to design a big hand-made carpet, in which the artist is free to do very much as he hkes, than to plan a small repeating pattern to the idth of Wilton pile or common Kidder-