the evolution of ornaments

7/28/2019 The Evolution of Ornaments

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THE EVOLUTION OF ORNAMENTS

Prof. Crisencio M. Paner, MSc.


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WHAT IS AN ORNAMENT?

In architecture and decorative art, ornamentis a decoration used to embellish parts of a

building or object.

Design of a classic ornament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CommunityisSimetryJohn_Manuel_07.png


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Large figurative elements such as

monumental sculpture and their equivalents

in decorative art are excluded from the term;

most ornament does not include human

figures, and if present they are smallcompared to the overall scale.

Rose wood carvings on ceiling, Hindu temple inHyderabad,India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosewood_ceiling_at_Rameshwara_Temple_in_Keladi.jpg


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Architectural ornament can be carved from stone,

wood or precious metals, formed with plaster or clay, orpainted or impressed onto a surface as applied

ornament.

In other applied arts the main material of the object, or

a different one such as paint or vitreous enamel maybe used.

Wood panel carved with arabesque

motifs in the Great Mosque of Kairouan

(also called the Mosque of Uqba), in

Tunisia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqbahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqbahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqbahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boiserie,_porte,_Grande_Mosqu%C3%A9e_de_Kairouan.jpg


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USES OF ORNAMENTS

A wide variety of decorative styles and motifs have been

developed for architecture and the applied arts, includingpottery, furniture, metalwork.

In textiles, wallpaper and other objects where the

decoration may be the main justification for its existence,

the terms pattern or design are more likely to be used.


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USES OF ORNAMENTS

In textiles, wallpaper and other objects where the

decoration may be the main justification for itsexistence, the terms pattern or design are more likelyto be used.


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In a 1941 essay, the architectural historian Sir John

Summerson called ornaments as "surface modulation".

Decoration and ornament has been evident in

civilizations since the beginning of recorded history,ranging from Ancient Egyptian architecture to the

apparent lack of ornament of 20th century Modernist

architecture.


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HISTORY OF ORNAMENTS

The detailed study of Eurasian ornamental forms was

begun by Alois Riegl in his formalist study Problems of

style: foundations for a history of ornament of 1893,

who in the process developed his influential concept of

the Kunstwollen (artistic intention) .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Rieglhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Rieglhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Rieglhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Riegl


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Riegl traced formalistic continuity and development in

decorative plant forms from Ancient Egyptian art andother ancient Near Eastern civilizations through the

classical world to the arabesque of Islamic art.


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Ancient Arabesque (Muslim) Ornament


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Jessica Rawson has recently extended the analysis to

cover Chinese art, which Riegl did not cover, tracingmany elements of Chinese decoration back to the

same tradition the shared background helping to make

the assimilation of Chinese motifs into Persian art after

the Mongol invasion harmonious and productive.

Ancient Chinese Ornament Ancient Persian Ornament


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Styles of ornamentationcan be studied inreference to the specificculture which developedunique forms of

decoration, or modifiedornament from othercultures.

The Ancient Egyptianculture is arguably the

first civilization to addpure decoration to theirbuildings.


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Their ornament takes the forms of the natural world inthat climate, decorating the capitals of columns and

walls with images of papyrus and palm trees.


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Assyrian culture produced ornament which shows

influence from Egyptian sources and a number of

original themes, including figures of plants and

animals of the region.


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Ancient Greek civilization created many new forms

of ornament, with regional variations from Doric,

Ionic, and Corinthian groups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_orderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionic_orderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_orderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_orderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionic_orderhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_order


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The Romans Latinized the pure forms of the Greek

ornament and adapted the forms to every purpose.


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From the 15th to the 19th century, "Pattern books"

were published in Europe which gave access to

decorative elements, eventually including those

recorded from cultures all over the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pattern_book&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pattern_book&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pattern_book&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pattern_book&action=edit&redlink=1


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Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (Four Books

on Architecture) (Venice, 1570), which included bothdrawings of classical Roman buildings and renderings of

Palladio's own designs utilizing those motifs, became the

most influential book ever written on architecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architetturahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_quattro_libri_dell'architettura


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Napoleon had the great pyramids and

temples of Egypt documented in the

Description de l'Egypte (1809).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l'Egypte_(1809)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l'Egypte_(1809)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l'Egypte_(1809)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l'Egypte_(1809)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l'Egypte_(1809)


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Owen Jones published The Grammar of Ornament in

1856 with colored illustrations of decoration fromEgypt, Turkey, Sicily and Spain.

He took residence in the Alhambra Palace to make

drawings and plaster castings of the ornate details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Jones_(architect)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grammar_of_Ornamenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grammar_of_Ornamenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Jones_(architect)


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Contacts with other cultures through colonialism

and the new discoveries of archaeology expanded

the repertory of ornament available to revivalists.

After about 1880, photography made details of

ornament even more widely available than printshad done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism


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MODERN ORNAMENT

Modern architecture, conceived of as the elimination of

ornament in favor of purely functional structures, left architectsthe problem of how to properly adorn modern structures.

There were two available routes from this perceived crisis.

One was to attempt to devise an ornamental vocabulary that was

new and essentially contemporary. This was the route taken by architects like Louis Sullivan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture


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MODERN ORNAMENT

and his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wrighthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright


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MODERN ORNAMENT

or by the unique Antoni Gaud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%ADhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%ADhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%ADhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaud%C3%AD


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MODERN ORNAMENT

Art Nouveau, for all its excesses, was a conscious

effort to evolve such a "natural" vocabulary of

ornament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveauhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau


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MODERN ORNAMENT

A more radical route abandoned the use of ornament

altogether, as in some designs for objects by ChristopherDresser.

At the time, such unornamented objects could have been

found in many unpretending workaday items of industrial

design, ceramics produced at the Arabia manufactory inFinland, for instance, or the glass insulators of electric lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dresserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dresserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dresserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dresserhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dresser


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MODERN ORNAMENT

This latter approach was described by architect Adolf

Loos in his 1908 manifesto, translated into English in1913 and polemically titled Ornament and Crime, in

which he declared that lack of decoration is the sign of

an advanced society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Looshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Looshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_and_Crimehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Looshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Looshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Loos


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MODERN ORNAMENT

His argument was that ornament is economically

inefficient and "morally degenerate", and that

reducing ornament was a sign of progress.

Modernists were eager to point to American

architect Louis Sullivan as their godfather in thecause of aesthetic simplification, dismissing the

knots of intricately patterned ornament that

articulated the skin of his structures.

Adolf Loos furniture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivan


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MODERN ORNAMENT

With the work of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus

through the 1920s and 1930s, lack of decorativedetail became a hallmark of modern architecture and

equated with the moral virtues of honesty, simplicity,

and purity.

Le Corbusier Sofa Bauhaus Furniture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusierhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusierhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusierhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusierhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusierhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier


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MODERN ORNAMENT

In 1932 Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock

dubbed this the "International Style". What began as a matter of taste was transformed into an

aesthetic mandate.

Modernists declared their way as the only acceptable way to

build.

Arch. Philip Johnson glass house
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_style_(architecture)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_style_(architecture)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_style_(architecture)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_style_(architecture)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry-Russell_Hitchcockhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnson


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MODERN ORNAMENT

As the style hit its stride in the highly-developed postwar

work ofMies van der Rohe, the tenets of 1950s modernismbecame so strict that even accomplished architects like

Edward Durrell Stone and Eero Saarinen could be ridiculed

and effectively ostracized for departing from the aesthetic

rules.

Mies van der Rohe ChairEdward Durrell Stone Interior design

Eero Saarinen Womb chair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Durrell_Stonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohe


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MODERN ORNAMENT

At the same time, the unwritten laws against ornament

began to come into serious question.

"Architecture has, with some difficulty, liberated itself

from ornament, but it has not liberated itself from the

fearof ornament," Summerson observed in 1941.


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MODERN ORNAMENT

One reason was that the very difference between

ornament and structure is subtle and perhapsarbitrary.

The pointed arches and flying buttresses of Gothic

architecture are ornamental but structurally necessary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecture


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MODERN ORNAMENT

The colorful rhythmic bands of a Pietro Belluschi

International Style skyscraper are integral, not applied,but certainly have ornamental effect.

Furthermore, architectural ornament can serve the

practical purpose of establishing scale, signaling

entries, and aiding wayfinding, and these useful design

tactics had been outlawed.

Cathedral Hill Church, San Francisco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Belluschihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Belluschihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Belluschihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Belluschi


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MODERN ORNAMENT

The argument against ornament peaked in 1959 over

discussions of the Seagram Building, where Mies van derRohe installed a series of structurally unnecessary vertical

I-beams on the outside of the building,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagram_Buildinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mies_van_der_Rohehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagram_Buildinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagram_Buildinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagram_Building


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MODERN ORNAMENT

And by 1984, when Philip Johnson produced his AT&T

Building in Manhattan with an ornamental pink granite neo-Georgian pediment, the argument was effectively over.

In retrospect, critics have seen the AT&T Buildingas the first

Postmodernist building.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Building_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Building_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Building_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Building_(New_York)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Johnson


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the evolution of ornaments

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