GREEK ORNAMENT.


type, and are rather constructed on the general principles which reign in
all plants, than attempts to
represent any particular one.  The ornament No. 2 is the nearest approach
to the honeysuckle-that is,
the leaves have the peculiar turn upwards of that flower, but it can hardly
be called an attempt to
represent it. Several of the ornaments on Plate XVII. are much nearer to
Nature: the laurel, the ivy,
and vine will be readily distinguished. Plates XVIII., XIX., XX., and XXI.,
present further varieties
from borders, necks, and lips of vases in the British Museum and the Louvre.
Being produced by one
or two colours, they all depend for their effect on pure form: they have
mostly this peculiarity, that the groups of leaves or flowers all spring
from
,\.IN     a curved stem, with a volute at either end, and all the lines grow
out
of this parent stem in tangential curves.  The individual leaves all radiate
from the centre
of the group of leaves, each leaf diminishing in exquisite proportion as
it approaches the
springing of the group.
When we consider that each leaf was done with a single stroke of the brush,
and that from the
differences which appear we may be sure no mechanical aids were employed,
we must be astonished
at the high state of the Arts which must have existed for artists to be found
in such numbers able
to execute with unerring truth what it is almost beyond the skill of modern
times even to copy with
the same happy result.


36