art are not the natural result of a true sense of ornamental abstraction, of architectural fitness, and of the nature of materials. They do not manifest a fine appreciation of the beauty of the object conventionalized. They are factitious conventions which often do violence at once to the forms of nature, and to the true principles of design. The ear of barley, and the flower stalks, in Plate IX, a characteristic work of the Lombardi in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracole in Venice, illustrate this. The rigid parallel straight sides and the square end of the
Fig. 97.—Renaissance Arabesque.
barley ear, and the flaccid sinuousness of the flower stalk, are expressive of no architectural or material conditions to which the artist had to conform. They express nothing but the designer's insensitiveness to the character and beauty of the natural forms. Compare the ear of barley (Fig. 98) from an ancient Greek coin in the British Museum.[1] Though severely conventionalized, this representation finely expresses the true character of the real object. Such details as the rectangular barley ear and nerveless flower stalk in Plate IX would seem to indicate an incapacity on the part of the designer to appreciate those elements of beauty in plant life which may be made effective in ornamental carving, were they not associated with other details that manifest a fuller sense of vital character. The foliation of
- ↑ Coin of Metapontum.
