Excerpt from Historic Ornament: Treatise on Decorative Art and Architectural Ornament; Treats of Prehistoric Art, Ancient Art and Architecture, Eastern, Early Christian, Byzantine, Saracenic, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance Architecture and Ornament T HE comprehensive nature of the subject of this work renders it impossible to deal with its various divisions and sub-divisions, except in a very condensed manner, within the limits of a handbook for students. I have endeavoured to present to the reader, and to the student of ornamental and decorative art, some of the salient features which characterize the historic styles of ornament, and those that seem to me to show themselves as landmarks in the wide domain of Historic Ornament. Realistic decoration was the earliest form of all art, as we find it in the etchings on the bones drawn by the pre historic cave-dwellers; but ornamental design or pattern drawing is a kind of invention which implies the orderly decoration of architectural forms and other objects, and is generally applied to such objects with the View of adding some enrichment that shall make them more pleasing to the sight. The former belongs more to pictorial art, while the latter is purely decorative. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.