THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.


debasement, it is not difficult to see the reason for the distinction between
good
and bad; and that is undoubtedly the case.  The three great styles of orna-
mental design, during the periods of their purest development, very plainly
displayed the same features of conventionalization, geometrical arrangement
of
natural forms, their adaptation to ornament an object without injuring its
useful-
ness, and avoided the direct imitation of nature for design.  These are the
characteristics of Greek, Gothic and Renaissance ornament at their best,
and
when these features became less prominent, the styles decayed, ending in
the


Hindoo Bronze Vase.
barbarous efforts at ornamentation that come of imitation without thought.
For let it be remembered that design is not the mere imitation of details
of
the physical world, but adaptation and arrangement of them. Imitation may
be
seen in the looking-glass, but the glass can hardly be said to design; so
a man
who reproduces the accidental grouping of natural forms to ornament a carpet
or a wall-paper only imperfectly represents the phenomenon of the mirror,
with
as little thought, the same skill in design, and with less reflection.
The broad clear line, then, which history teaches us to draw between design
applied to industrial and fine art, divides the ornamental from the pictorial,
the
conventional from the natural, adaptation from imitation, the geometrical
from
perspective efects.
When either branch of design deserts its own characteristics and employs


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