Classical Ornament

This rare collection, originally published in Germany during the 1860s, presents a wealth of designs from temples and other buildings of ancient Greece and Rome. The seventy-one black-and-white plates include mythological creatures, floral borders, engraved columns and capitals, and many other decorative motifs, all rendered with the delicacy and precision characteristic of classical ornament. A valuable source of royalty-free illustrations, this compilation abounds in images that will provide a touch of authenticity to any graphic project related to ancient Greece or Rome. Fine art aficionados, crafters and designers, and collectors of classical art will rejoice in this inexpensive volume and its hard-to-find artwork.

In a wide-ranging and richly illustrated book, the authors begin by tracing the ways ornament has been used over the last five centuries, the rules of decorum and etiquette associated with it, and the social, moral and spiritual values it has represented. They examine how architecture set the agenda for ornament in the Renaissance, and how printed images carried a common vocabulary of ornament throughout the Western world. They survey the personal side of ornament, both in dress and in the domestic interior - a private expression of the self and a public statement of social and cultural status. They look at ornament in the public domain - from the lavish decoration and symbolism of a town pageant to the logos of today's corporate industry - and show how the ever-evolving role of ornament is to invent and embody the collective spirit of communities at work and at leisure. They conclude by discussing how the Western tradition of ornament has responded to and absorbed 'exotic' African and Asian motifs: Moresque motifs of the Near East and such familiar designs as the 'Paisley' and Willow" patterns.

These in-depth, historical, and critical essays study the meaning of ornament, the role it played in the formation of modernism, and its theoretical importance between the mid-nineteenth century and the late twentieth century in England and Germany. Ranging from Owen Jones to Ernst Gombrich through Gottfried Semper, Alois Riegl, August Schmarsow, Wilhelm Worringer, Adolf Loos, Henry van de Velde, and Hermann Muthesius, the contributors show how artistic theories are deeply related to the art practice of their own times, and how ornament is imbued with historical and social meaning.

"'Classical Ornament,' first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2016, contains all the plates from 'Classiche Ornamente,' originally published by J. Veith, Carlsruhe, Germany, ca. 186-"--Title page vers

This classic sourcebook of decorative motifs contains 100 plates of royalty-free Gothic designs, meticulously reproduced from rare 19th-century engravings. Many are floral and foliate designs rendered from panels, capitals, borders, brackets, friezes, grotesques, and other decorative elements from such architectural landmarks as New College Chapel at Oxford and Rouen Cathedral.

This book discusses the origins of ornamental art — illustrated by the oldest examples, dating mostly from the paleolithic and neolithic ages, and considered from the theory-of-symmetry point of view. Because of its multidisciplinary nature, it will interest a wide range of readers: mathematicians, artists, art historians, architects, psychologists, and anthropologists. The book represents the complete analysis of plane symmetry structures, so it can be used by artists as a guide to the creation of new symmetry patterns. Some parts of the contents (such as Chapter 4, about conformal symmetry, and Chapter 6, about modularity in art) give the reader an opportunity to develop computer programs for producing images illustrating the corresponding symmetry forms. Contents:Theory of Isometric Symmetry Groups in E2 and Ornamental ArtSimilarity Symmetry in E2Conformal Symmetry in E2\{O}The Theory of Symmetry and Ornamental ArtModularity in Art Readership: Mathematicians, psychologists, anthropologists, architects, artists and art historians. Keywords:Reviews:“In Jablan's book one finds more than one normally expects from the title … In a nutshell one finds, so to say, all: an algebraic and a geometric characterization, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, discrete and continuous transformations, graphs and tiling, classification, presentation and notation.”Zentralblatt MATH

'Urban Design: Ornament and Decoration' focuses on decorating the city and how ornament has been used to bring delight to the urban scene. The authors show how the pattern and distribution of street and square and other major elements in the city can be enhanced by the judicious use of decorative surface treatment and by the careful placing of hard and soft landscape features. This second edition, updated by Cliff Moughtin and now available in paperback, includes a new chapter on mud architecture. Case studies of city decoration are also outlined to bring together the ideas discussed and to show how ornament and decoration can be used to emphasize the five components of city form: the path, the node, the edge, the landmark and the district.