Fine Arts.

they thus become impressive and expressive in various -ways . We may as well have them beautiful . It is at this point that architectirre becomes a fine art ; before it Avas only a useful art . Yet have its most refined beauties the invaluable advantage of the substantial basis of the useful . It is on this solid foundation that this art rests . Loftily , airily , gracefully , and gradually as it may expand and toAver into the beautiful and sublime , yet does its firm foot still rest on the rock of direct utility . This is a vast advantage , Avhich

in these practical days especially , more than counterbalances the more direct appeal to our mind possessed by painting and sculpture . Painting and sculpture rest on our sympathies . Architecture greatly on our Avants . Our sympathies may be in abeyance—our wants never . For their higher aspirations the three arts may toiver together , but architecture is the base of the pyramid . But tie fourth sister now claims our attention . In regarding her Ave must not forget her two-fold character . In her smaller

province , Decoration , Ave may perceive , arises directly and chiefly from architecture . Ornament , so to speak , is the immediate parasite of architecture . It is the lichen that springs from it , a natural growth ; the ivy or honeysuckle that clings to its pillared trunk ; the mistletoe which buds out amidst its branches . The earliest and crudest selection of architectural forms has in it

the seeds of decoration . The column of wood sprouts into leaves at the top . The finials become fruit and flowers . The bundle of upright reeds is rudely simulated in stems , and the capital magnifies the head of the papyrus , lotus , or acanthus . No nation has been so impregnant of art that the simplest forms of natural structure have not very soon suggested to them surface ornament ; and that commenced , decoration is born . Then begins its existence ; first , in a kind of crystallisation from points over the surfaceand then

, in a more vital action . Sometimes it runs over the Avhole Avork , in the more florid styles , as in some of those of the Indians and Moors . In others it only crops out here and there , as in Grecian and some simple Gothic styles , lipping over a moulding , bursting out into growth in capitals and finials , and grasping the union of arches ivith knots of stems and leaves . Compact to architecture is its first life ; but its seeds fall about and are wafted on their light plumage hither and thither "

on pavements , Avails , draperies , and furniture , and all the adjuncts of our habitations . True it is , however , that there is another starting point of ornament , that of personal decoration ; which is so strong a natural passion that the savage Avill often have decorations even before he has clothes . Paintings on the human skin itself , as with our rude forefathers on these isles , are among the earliest examples of surface

ornament , as bright feathers in the hair and festoons of teeth and shells are among the earliest decorations of uncultured man . Thus , from his own person doss the ornament of the savage extend to all his cherished implements . His bow , his quiver , and his club partake of them ; his paddle and his canoe receive the like embellishments . The latter may be called his moving habitation , and thus decoration returns to architecture . On the door-posts and pillars , and along the cornices of these habitations , Ave soon see surface ornaments appearand then

gro-, tesque heads of human beings , as household gods , & c . The rude hut of the New Zealanders of the Society and Friendly Isles , as pictured in Captain Cook ' s and other Voyages , presented , when first discovered , this early kind of decoration . The temples of Central America , as described by Stephens and drawn by Catherivood , afford examples of the same early stage of decoration . Even at the present time , Chinese architectural decoration has not advanced much beyond this t Celtic and Scandinavian

ornaype . ment is of a similar character . Indeed , this early style , which is greatly serpentine and lacertine , or made up of serpents aind lizard forms , Avith the occasional introduction of grotesque heads and foliage , lias probabl y been much the same in all countries . AVith no nation did art spring , like Minerva , of full growth from the head of her parent , but ivas the offspring of long travail . The saymg that , "Art is long and life is short , " may be applied to the art and life of nation

a , as well as of an individual . "VVe see , however , that although decoration is the close companion of architecture , it is not in this respect alone that she possesses our regard . To decorate in some way or other is one of the first things that man has ever done in his leisure moments . Nature herself is decorated everywhere , and wherever our eyes unassisted fail to show us this—take up the microscope and it is soon demonstrated

. Man ' s decoration soon arrives at its limit . The most minutel y finished goldsmith's work under the microscope becomes rude and incomplete . Under the same test the most delicate lace becomes a coarse and uneven net . But nature is a far more complete workwoman . Submitted to the same scrutiny any scrap taken haphazard of her manufacture , leaf or flower , shows ' in itself a world of subtile and perfected detail . In nature we meet Avith decoration in the most unexpected places . The snow that flutters down to the earth , afTords under the microscope the most starthngly regular and charming arrangements of crystallised ,

decoration . Some years ago a number of these , excellently drawn by Mrs . Glaisher , were figured in the Art Journal . Even sections of the sterns of plants , and of their seed A-essels and floAvers , present occasionally most decorative forms , as has been admirably illustraced m this room by Mr . Dresser . More simply the village child well knows the natural likeness of the oak ivhich is seen on cutting across the stalk of the common fern or brake , in the centre of Avhich tradition and fancy picture King Charles ! And these latent

mines of ornamental forms areivithout end . Nature has been said to work by mathematics ; she may be Avell said also to work by decoration . Doubtless the two qualities are closely connected , at least they meet us together at every turn . If decoration , then , is so universal in nature , it does not become us to slight it in art . Yet it is not imfrequently slighted even in tho » e quarters Avhere you Avould least expect it . For example : few things of the kind , perhaps , are more difficult than to induce a committee of

gentlemen interested in the erection of a statue to accept for it a duly decorated pedestal . The advantages of the union of sculpture and decoration in such works are visible throughout great part of the Continent , and even here , in the centre of London , in the example of the picturesque pedestal of King Charles at Charing-cross . And yet , from an incomplete idea of simplicity , most of onr statues stand on crude granite posts . It is extremely difficult on such occasions to impress sufficientlthat just simplicity consists in

y unity , not in baldness and crndeness . It is such public deficiencies as these Avhich may be acknowledged to call for a more polite regard for the fourth sister of the fine arts . I do not desire to overrate her mission and poivers , but I do claim for her a higher status and more attention than she is in the habit of receiving in this country . In one point of view , as I have said , decoration is subservient to the other fine arts ; in the other , it regulates them all . As merely

decoration , it is not a substantive , but an adjective . It does not stand alone . It embraces the other muses . It is not a thing of itself ; it advocates something else ; decoration is an adjective . On the other band , a painting , a piece of sculpture , or a structure is a noun substantive , a thing of itself . Not so decoration . Decorationclings , it needs support ; it follows , it does not lead the ivay ; it enhances , it dees not originate . This is its restricted province .. Nevertheless , in , its higher phase , it regulates the whole of the other arts—binds them together , and completes them as they can be completed by no other means .

Advantageously as the sisters may all be seem together , uniting in practice as well as kindred in appearance , yet each has its individuality . Strong as the family likeness may be , still Ave may observe especial resemblance between some more than others , as Ave do in families . Thus Ave may remark that painting and sculpture seem much to group together , and architecture and decoration to have a similar affinity and disposition . AVe may notice one of the most striking of these points . Painting and sculpture both seek

to represent the Avorks of the Creator . Neither architecture nor decoration have directly this object . Decoration , to be thorough , must ever be more or less conventional ; if not in detail , yet in arrangement . The painter represents trees and flowers as they grow ; the decorator arranges a branch of foliage in a given line , and hangs his flowers in festoons . A similar conventionality or regular modification from nature distinguishes architecture . Deriving her styles evidently from natural objects , yet successful

architecture is never the direct imitation of nature . The arch of heaven may have suggested the dome ; but the architect does not decorate it with the sun or moon , or pourtray a storm or sunset in it , but erects it Avith constructive embellishments of treatment ivhich are ivithout reference to the original type . The interlacings of a Gothic roof may have been suggested by the frontage of an avenue , and the pendentive ceilings of Alhambresque halls , from-the stalactite vaults of caves , cool and pleasant in a burning clime . Yet

are these natural type conventionalised in execution , or they ivere not satisfactory . Even in the structures made by the lower animals Ave do not witness the direct imitation of nature . The nest of the bird , the Avaxen palace of the bee , the lofty edifices of the African ant—which last vastly exceed in proportion to its artificers any works of man—are none of them direct imitations of anything else , in nature , but are , per se , of themselves . Birds , quadrupeds , and . even fishes—many of them make , more or less , houses for themselves ;

and the bower-bird not only constructs his boAver of twigs , but also decorates it with all the bright finery he cat , collect to feast the eye of his lady mate , as you may see in the Zoological Gardens . He is a decorator as ivell as an architect . The architecture of birds , indeed , is very various . There are the cave-temples of the sandmartin and of the little oivl of the prairies ; the stucco-palaces of the swalloAv and house-martin ; the exquisite and refined retreats of the finches ; the plastered house of the thrush ; and the warm and cosy abodes of the Avren and bottletit . Then come some which build more open domiciles , as the hawk , heron , rook , and woodpigeon , & c . Indeed , in bird architecture there may be said to exist