Decorative Art

By the term "decorative," we mean the ornamentation of anything constructed for some useful or special purpose as opposed to the ornamentation whose object is to please per se. Thus, though both sculpture and easel pictures are decorative in one sense, they are executed with no consideration or regard for other purposes than to please. As we have before shown, the humblest of the decorative arts may be raised to the dignity of a fine art if an artist takes the work in hand and succeeds, or the work may degenerate into mere craftsman's work. For decorative purposes, the various methods are modified and adapted to the important considerations of the use and fitness of the object or place decorated.

Naturalism In Decorative Art

Thus no good artist would paint a finished and studied landscape on a dado, he would paint the scene flat, and colour it in appropriate harmony with surrounding objects, for that is the aim; and a workman not an artist would, of course, painfully elaborate and finish it so that it was neither a decorative work nor a painting in the ordinary sense. In all good decorative work the same old story of naturalism holds good; all the best decorative work we have seen was suggested by nature, and though, of course, it is beyond the scope of decorative art to "copy nature,"as superficial folk say, yet all patterns and forms and harmonies should be suggested by nature. We have seen harmonies of sea-weed and sand which would have made a beautiful colour scheme for decorative work. The best decorative work has always been suggested by nature; geometrical patterns being taken from crystals, microscopic drawings of vegetable cells, etc.

Photography As Applied To Decorative Art

However, we must omit a general discussion of this interesting subject, for we are here only concerned with its photographic side. We are not aware that this application of decorative art has ever received much attention ; and when we mention transparencies and enamels, we have said all that has been done towards employing photography decoratively. By enamels, of course, is not understood those glossed and raised productions on paper, which by some extraordinary blunder have been erroneously called enamels.