The Grammar of Ornament

A Visual Reference of Form and Colour in Architecture and the Decorative Arts - The complete and unabridged full-color edition

Owen Jones

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780691172064
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400882717
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

A complete and unabridged full-color edition of the classic sourcebook on ornamental design

First published in 1856, The Grammar of Ornament remains a design classic. Its inspiration came from pioneering British architect and designer Owen Jones (1809–1874), who produced a comprehensive design treatise for the machine age, lavishly illustrated in vivid chromolithographic color. Jones made detailed observations of decorative arts on his travels in Europe, the Middle East, and in his native London, where he studied objects on display at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 and at local museums. His aim was to improve the quality of Western design by changing the habits of Victorian designers, who indiscriminately mixed elements from a wide variety of sources.

Jones's resulting study is a comprehensive analysis of styles of ornamental design, presenting key examples ranging from Maori tattoos, Egyptian columns, and Greek borders to Byzantine mosaic, Indian embroidery, and Elizabethan carvings. At once splendidly Victorian and insistently modern, The Grammar of Ornament celebrates objects of beauty from across time periods and continents, and remains an indispensable sourcebook today.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Preface to Owen Jones’s Original Folio Edition
• General Principles
• CHAPTER I: Ornament of Savage Tribes
• CHAPTER II: Egyptian Ornament
• CHAPTER III: Assyrian and Persian Ornament
• CHAPTER IV: Greek Ornament
• CHAPTER V: Pompeian Ornament
• CHAPTER VI: Roman Ornament
• CHAPTER VII: Byzantine Ornament
• CHAPTER VIII: Arabian Ornament
• CHAPTER IX: Turkish Ornament
• CHAPTER X: Moresque Ornament from the Alhambra
• CHAPTER XI: Persian Ornament
• CHAPTER XII: Indian Ornament
• CHAPTER XIII: Hindoo Ornament
• CHAPTER XIV: Chinese Ornament
• CHAPTER XV: Celtic Ornament
• CHAPTER XVI: Mediæval Ornament
• CHAPTER XVII: Renaissance Ornament
• CHAPTER XVIII: Elizabethan Ornament
• CHAPTER XIX: Italian Ornament
• CHAPTER XX: Leaves and Flowers from Nature
• Index to the Commentaries and Introduction
• Index to Owen Jones’s Text
• Owen Jones: A Chronology