{"id":4159,"date":"2016-11-14T07:50:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T12:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/?p=4159"},"modified":"2016-11-14T14:01:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T19:01:55","slug":"owen-jones-and-the-grammar-of-ornament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/2016\/11\/14\/owen-jones-and-the-grammar-of-ornament\/","title":{"rendered":"Owen Jones and the Grammar of Ornament"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Owen Jones (1809-1874), an\u00a0architect and designer, became one of the\u00a0foremost authorities on\u00a0design theory and historical ornamentation\u00a0and patterns.\u00a0<\/span>He was a major contributor to modern color theory, and his doctrine\u00a0on patterns and ornament are still considered relevant to scholars and historians today. After predictable tours of\u00a0the great European cities, he turned his attention to the East for\u00a0Ancient\u00a0Greek and Islamic design. Spending\u00a0significant time in the 1830s touring Greece,\u00a0Egypt, Constantinople and Spain, he produced many drawings and water-colors,\u00a0which he then reproduced through the newly\u00a0developed chromolithography process. His publication demonstrated the elegance, complexity, and the purity of Islamic form, color, and design, which whet the\u00a0interest among Victorian architects and designers, eventually establishing Islamic art\u00a0as serious and significant. Based on his contributions,\u00a0Jones was given the considerable\u00a0responsibility for the layout and decoration of the Great Exhibition of\u00a01851. While he meticulously studied the decoration of many cultures and periods, he was also a proponent for\u00a0developing a uniquely 19th century style in England. He was an avid collector, acquiring and reproducing as many examples as possible for teaching tools, including\u00a0illuminated books, wallpapers, textiles, ceramics, etc. He even gave a nod to the art of tattooing as a genuine artform. Jones published “The Grammar of Ornament” as a source book for examples and theories from various periods to encourage experimentation and incorporation of art forms and design.<\/p>\n

“I have ventured to hope that, in thus bringing into immediate juxtaposition the many forms of beauty which every style\u00a0of ornament presents, I might aid in arresting that unfortunate tendency of our time to be content with copying, whilst the fashion lasts, the forms peculiar to any bygone age, without attempting to ascertain, generally completely ignoring, the peculiar circumstances which rendered an ornament beautiful, because it was appropriate, and which as expressive of other wants, when thus transplanted, as entirely fails.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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“We can find no work so fitted to illustrate a Grammar of Ornament as that in which every ornament contains a grammar in itself. Every principle which we can derive from the study of the ornamental art of any other people is not only ever present here, but was by the Moors more universally and truly obeyed. We find in the Alhambra the speaking art of the Egyptians, the natural grace and refinement of the Greeks, the geometrical combinations of the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Arabs. The ornament wanted but one charm, which was the peculiar feature of the Egyptian ornament, symbolism. This the religion of the Moors forbade; but the want was more than supplied by the inscriptions, which, addressing themselves to the eye by their outward beauty, at once excited the intellect by the involutions, and delighted the imagination when and the music of their composition.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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“Man\u2019s earliest ambition is to create. To this feeling must be ascribed the tattooing of the human face and body, resorted to by the savage to increase the expression by which he seeks to strike terror on his enemies or rivals, or to create what appears to him a new beauty. The tattooing on the head which we introduce from the Museum at Chester is very remarkable, as showing that in this very barbarous practice the principles of the very highest ornamental art are manifest, every line upon the face is the best adapted to develop the natural features.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Description:<\/dt>\n
Jones, Owen.\u00a0The grammar of ornament. London\u00a0: Published by Day and Son, Limited,\u00a0[1865].<\/span><\/dd>\n
Persistent Link:<\/dt>\n
http:\/\/nrs.harvard.edu\/<\/a>urn-3:FHCL:29003077<\/a><\/dd>\n
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Repository:<\/dt>\n
Widener Library<\/dd>\n
Institution:<\/dt>\n
Harvard University<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owen Jones (1809-1874), an\u00a0architect and designer, became one of the\u00a0foremost authorities on\u00a0design theory and historical ornamentation\u00a0and patterns.\u00a0He was a major contributor to modern color theory, and his doctrine\u00a0on patterns and ornament are still considered relevant to scholars and historians today. After predictable tours of\u00a0the great European cities, he turned his attention to the East for\u00a0Ancient\u00a0Greek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4191,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}