FLORIATED ORNAMENT: A SERIES OF THIRTY-ONE DESIGNS
Augustus Welby Pugin
Augustus Welby Pugin: FLORIATED ORNAMENT: A SERIES OF THIRTY-ONE DESIGNS. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849. First edition. Quarto 13 3/16 x 10 11/16 x 1 in. [33.5 x 27.1 x 2.6 cm]. Red morocco with five gilt ornamental designs tooled to each board. Spine with author, title, and three fleur-de-lis and crown decorations, all in gilt. Wear to four corners covered with brown tape; wear to spine covered with transparent adhesive. Small, green tab with former owner’s identification number [Q 37] to spine heel. Top Edge Gilt. Chromolithographed color frontispiece and additional title, followed by 29 chromolithographed plates, many enhanced with gilt, and all with plate guards intact as issued. Morocco with expected wear to shoulders, tips and joints. Endpapers spotted. A few random spots throughout, but all 31 plates bright and intact.
One of the most influential of mid-nineteenth century pattern books—designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (British, London 1812–1852 Ramsgate)—the book was intended by Pugin as a design source for stencilling. An influential work used by artists and craftsmen of many disciplines, with gorgeous chromolithographs, printed by M. & N. Hanhart and H. C. Maguire, in primarily reds, blues, greens and gold.
"Reacting to the tradition of neo-classicism as early as the 1830's, English architects and decorators took a renewed interest in the art of Gothic cathedrals. This movement, called Gothic Revival, shaped the whole Victorian era and was on a scale that had no equivalent in other European countries. In the midst of the industrial boom, the enthusiasm for the Gothic period, seen as an exemplary society in which the arts blossomed in a mystical and fraternal spirit, was set against the effects, considered degrading, of mechanisation.
Augustus Pugin (1812-1852) was the first to rediscover in Gothic art the principle of a close union between art, craftsmanship and technique. His main treatises of architecture and decoration, such as 'Floriated Ornament' (1849), were to influence for a long time the artists of the Arts and Crafts movement. Today, the magnificent decoration of the London Houses of Parliament still testifies to his virtuosity as a decorator and a colourist.
"Pugin's plea in this book was for designers to go directly to nature itself, as medieval designers had done, instead of making use of already conventionalised classical or antique ornament, which architects and designers had used since the period of the Italian Renaissance. He also felt that, to derive the greatest decorative value from natural forms, the structure of plants should be studied and exploited (as he maintained the medieval artists had done), instead of (as contemporary decorative artists were wont to do) painting realistic bunches of fiowers, etc., imitating a three dimensional effect in their decorations of flat objects. On this point, Pugin was in advance of the decorative theories of Owen Jones, Christopher Dresser, and William Morris." — Elzea et al: The Pre-Raphaelite Era, 1848-1914, 1976 <p>
Commentary by Alice H. R. H. Beckwith: “Pugin intended his Floriated Ornament primarily as a design source for stenciling, but architects, wallpaper makers, and silversmiths could and did find advice here. The main thrust of Pugin's introduction was that medieval artists turned to nature for all of their forms and design ideas. This he believed should be the first principle of design in any age. However, what distinguished medieval art from that of other times was the way in which those designers adapted and arranged their forms. Pugin described how geometry provided a means of flattening and simplifying natural forms and unifying the overall design. He thus qualified his argument for imitating nature, adamantly rejecting the use of shadow and foreshortening in designs intended for flat surfaces such as walls or the pages of books.
“In his architectural practice Pugin gathered around him a corps of artisans and designers whom he trained to paint, paper, stencil, and drape his interiors. He was interested in metalwork objects for liturgical use in his churches, and read illuminated manuscripts and the books of Henry Shaw, searching for medieval inspiration and records of accurate usage. Wishing to pass his knowledge along to a wider audience of artists. Pugin published the thirty-one designs in Floriated Ornament three years before he died, when he was already infirm with his final illness. The patterns he gave to posterity in this book were the flat geometric forms recommended in his introduction. A hint of the magnificence of his own library can be found in his statement that the botanical nomenclature employed in Floriated Ornament came from his copy of the Tabernae monatus eicones Plantarum, printed at Frankfurt in 1590.
“In the frontispiece to Floriated Ornament individual elements such as the grapevine are stylized, as are all the other shapes. The composition, or as Pugin would call it, the disposition, is organized in a series of concentric arches around a central cross. Swirls of overlapping grapevines link each bordering band of ornament to the center. Warm colors and a Latin text in a Gothic-influenced printed script evoke a mood of triumphant praise, allowing the frontispiece to function as a visual dedication to the Cross. Ornament, lettering and the arched shape of the frontispiece are influenced by medieval illuminated books. The cross rests on a base crenellated like a Gothic castle, and the legend "O Crux Ave" (O Hail the Cross) is placed between paired rose windows. This image is not limited by its historical roots, because Pugin went far beyond his sources to create a truly remarkable example of the possibilities of chromolithography in book ornamentation.”