Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/288

274 honeysuckle ornament or Anthemium was developed from the accessory ornament A, Fig. 15, while the oblique honeysuckle ornament, Fig. 18, appears to have been developed from the little triangles, Fig. 13.



In the Greek honeysuckle ornament the lines are not only subtile and beautiful, but they flow from one another and the parent-stems tangentially, according to a recognized and readily-explainable law in decorative art. For, just as gestures that flow tangentially from one another are more agreeable to the muscles of the arm, so lines tangential to one another are more pleasant to follow with the eye than those that start abruptly from one another.

The beautiful bounding line to the figure A, Fig. 19, appears to have been added after attention had been attracted to the elegant outlines of the Anthemium. When the figures A, A, were drawn close together, but little space was left for the narrow figure B, which was



therefore compressed as in Fig. 17. As the ornaments A and B were cultivated, the sigmoids were neglected, and, in course of time, they dropped out entirely from some of the borders, leaving, however, at the base of the ornament, two little volutes, which it is important to note are in the broad figure A turned in a direction opposed to that of the generating volutes. These little basal volutes are most remarkably persistent, and serve to aid us in determining the origin of many decorative forms, that have changed to such an extent, that their relation to the Anthemium would otherwise not have been suspected. Time will not allow me to trace out at greater length the line of evolution of this series of ornaments, and I can only allude to the Acanthus border as its richest and most luxuriant outgrowth. This is a matter of history, and I do not need to discuss it here.