The language of ornament / James Trilling.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Trilling, James, 1948-

Series:

World of art

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Decoration and ornament.

Physical Description:

224 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Summary:

Ornament, the art of decorative patterning, has given rise to some of the most spectacular creations of human imagination and skill. Although the modernist emphasis on unadorned form pushed ornament to the margins of Western taste in the twentieth century, an ornamental revival is now under way.

James Trilling presents a dazzling variety of ornament from the Paleolithic age to the present day, enabling the reader to appreciate both its inherent beauty and its historical importance, whether in the monumental architecture of Mycenean Greece or the inlaid vessels of Zhou dynasty China, in the bronze mirrors of early Celtic Britain or the carved and woven ornament of Native Americans. He balances the characteristics of individual styles against their evolution and their role in contacts between cultures, focusing on patterns that have migrated across large stretches of time and space.

The Language of Ornament is a companion and guide to the global panorama of ornament that will be of equal value to artisans, collectors and students of art history.

Contents:

Introduction: What is Ornament? 12

Chapter 1 Appreciating Ornament 22

The Lost Art of Seeing

The Structure of Ornament

The Single Image as Ornament

Pattern-Books and the Illusion of Accuracy

The Dialogue of Ornament and Functional Form

Identifying Ornamental Styles

Chapter 2 Sketches in Art History: The Three Ages of Ornament 90

Paleolithic: A False Dawn?

Neolithic: The Great Apprenticeship

The Last Five Thousand Years: A Creative Explosion

Ornament and Cultural Exchange

The Paisley Pattern: A Paradigm of Cultural Exchange

The Evolution of 'Multinational' Patterns

The Medallion Style

The Vine-Scroll

Square Kufic

Ogival Patterns

Interlace

Chapter 3 Ornament as a Conventional System 146

Convention in Life and Art

Ornament as a Challenge to Reality

Literalism, Naturalism, and Stylization

The Artistic Power of Materials and Techniques

Virtuosity and its Discontents

Chapter 4 Ornament in the Age of Modernism 184

Prelude to Revolution

Ornament and Craft in the Modern World

Adolf Loos and the End of Artifice

Material-Based and Process-Based Ornament

The Flowering of Modernist Ornament

Determinate and Indeterminate Form

Matisse and Ornament

Ornament After Modernism.

Notes:

"246 illustrations, 68 in color."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0500203431

OCLC:

59544349