Monthly Archives: February 2009

It must not be thought that pure decoration is lifeless. It has
its inner being, but one which is either incomprehensible to us,
as in the case of old decorative art, or which seems mere
illogical confusion, as a world in which full-grown men and
embryos play equal roles, in which beings deprived of limbs are
on a level with noses and toes which live isolated and of their
own vitality. The confusion is like that of a kaleidoscope, which
though possessing a life of its own, belongs to another sphere.
Nevertheless, decoration has its effect on us; oriental
decoration quite differently to Swedish, savage, or ancient
Greek. It is not for nothing that there is a general custom of
describing samples of decoration as gay, serious, sad, etc., as
music is described as Allegro, Serioso, etc., according to the
nature of the piece.

Probably conventional decoration had its beginnings in nature.
But when we would assert that external nature is the sole source
of all art, we must remember that, in patterning, natural objects
are used as symbols, almost as though they were mere hieroglyphics.
For this reason we cannot gauge their inner harmony. For instance,
we can bear a design of Chinese dragons in our dining or bed rooms,
and are no more disturbed by it than by a design of daisies.

It is possible that towards the close of our already dying epoch
a new decorative art will develop, but it is not likely to be
founded on geometrical form. At the present time any attempt to
define this new art would be as useless as pulling a small bud
open so as to make a fully blown flower. Nowadays we are still
bound to external nature and must find our means of expression in
her. But how are we to do it? In other words, how far may we go
in altering the forms and colours of this nature?