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Owen Jones: Grammar of Ornament 1856
One of the most influential design-theorists of the 19th century - in company with John Ruskin, Henry Cole, William Morris, Emery Walker - Jones was an architect also fascinated with ornament and design, and like many at this time - a bit of an orientalist to - he began his work on Ornament studying the tessellated patterns of Islamic cultures at the Alhambra. He was friends with Henry Cole and with him responsible for the establishment of the South Kensington Museum (later called the Victoria and Albert or V&A - the first director was Henry Cole) - and he advised on the foundation collections there. With Cole, Jones helped formulate the curriculum proposals on design for the new Government School of Design (1837 - later called the Royal College of Art). After helping Cole structure the Great Exhibition of 1851, Jones focussed on producing his masterwork: The Grammar of Ornament - in which he illustrates samples of surface pattern ,from around the world - and through history - and attempts to analyse the ‘certain general laws’ that underpin their design - and implicitly to encourage the development of a schema of ornament relevant to the Victorian period - which he accuses of otherwise being content with ‘copying whilst the fashion lasts’. He aims to ‘awaken a higher ambition’ - that of formulating the basic laws from which contemporary students and designers can extemporise and innovate designs relevant to their own time. His book has been vastly influential ever since.
In his Preface to the Folio Edition (1868), Jones explains his approach: “First - That whenever any style of ornament commands universal admiration, it will always be found to be in accordance with the laws which regulate the distribution of forms in nature. Secondly. That however varied the manifestations in accordance with these laws, the leading ideas on which they are based are very few. Thirdly. That the modifications and developments which have taken place from one style to another have been caused by a sudden throwing-off of some fixed trammel which set thought free for a time, till the new idea, like the old, became again fixed, to give birth in its turn to fresh inventions. Lastly. I have endeavoured to show, in the twentieth chapter, that the future progress of Ornamental Art may be best secured by engrafting on the experience of the past the knowledge we may obtain by a return to Nature for fresh inspiration. To attempt to build up theories of art or to form a style, independently of the past, would be an act of extreme folly. It would be at once to reject the experiences and accumulated knowledge of thousands of years. On the contrary, we should regard as our inheritance all the successful labours of the past, not blindly following them, but employing them simply as guides to find the true path.” In the 21st century, we face the same issues - it is the intent of the mediainspiratorium and mediaplex to summarise the recent history of innovation in the media arts, while providing a source of inspiration and ideas for developing solutions relevant to our times and to the complex mesh of technical, aesthetic, communication and narrative strands that we inhabit.