"Decorative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... made up in a style not distinguishable from the original, as one may easily see by calling on our worthy next neighbor, Briggs, who holds the opposite corner to our 'Atlantic Monthly.' No porcelain, it is true, is yet made in America, these decorative arts being exercised on articles imported from Europe. Our tables must, therefore, perforce, be largely indebted to foreign lands for years to come. Exclusive of this item, however, I believe it would require very little self-denial to paper, carpet, and furnish a house entirely ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... artists of the period. They were chiefly employed for entertainments, and the banquets of the wealthy. They are seen in use in scenes painted on the vases themselves. Many, especially those of the later style, were solely used for decorative purposes, as is evident from the fact of one side only being executed with care, while the other has been neglected, both in the drawing and in the subject. Those with Panathenaic subjects were probably ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... personality, and producing his own individual work. At first none came to him. That did not matter. Then the few came to him. That did not change him. The many have come now. He is still the same. He is an incomparable novelist. With the decorative arts it is not different. The public clung with really pathetic tenacity to what I believe were the direct traditions of the Great Exhibition of international vulgarity, traditions that were so appalling that the houses ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... the illustration of the engine, in chapter two, the non-human thing is a personality, even if it is not beautiful. When it takes on the ritual of decorative design, this new vitality is made seductive, and when it is an object of nature, this seductive ritual becomes a new pantheism. The armies upon the mountains they are defending are rooted in the soil like trees. They resist invasion with the same ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... full ardour of her femininity she entered into the purchasing of the yellow opera cloak. They paid for that decorative garment the sum of two thousand five hundred francs. It seemed it was embroidered, and the ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... frame offers a finer subject for the display of decorative taste and elegance than the hair:—the countenance, the contour of the head, and even the whole person, may be said to be greatly affected by its arrangement and dress. As the possession of fine hair is peculiarly prized, so ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... the end of the seventeenth century, his invention of plate glass, which finally drove Venetian mirrors out of the markets of the world. The Venetian mirrors, charming as they are from the aesthetic point of view of decorative art, are simply blown glass rolled flat, cut, polished, and tinned. The art of making them came, like other arts, to Venice from the East, and in the sixteenth century the Venetian mirror was the true 'glass of fashion' all ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... of plebeian origin, at some loss as to the roots of its ancestral tree. We may venture to locate them in the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1756-57 the London Society of Arts offered prizes for specimens of decorative manufactures, such as tapestry, carpets and porcelain. This was part of the same movement with that which brought into being the Royal Academy, with infinitely less success in the promotion of high art than has attended ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the middle class were fashioned only with a view to utility; there was a popular belief that beautiful things were expensive, and the thrifty housekeeper who had no money to put into bric-a-brac never thought of such things as an artistic lamp shade or a well-coloured sofa cushion. Decorative art is well defined by Mr. Russell Sturgis: "Fine art applied to the making beautiful or interesting that which is made ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... have been shifted slightly so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph. The illustration tags for the decorative chapter headers and footers have not been ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... unique fashion. The delicate tracery in marble, so characteristic of Mogul work of the sixteenth century, is seen here at its best, as well as the inlays of the lotus and other flowers in sapphire, turquoise and other stones. The effect is highly decorative and at the same time chaste and subdued. A feature which impresses every visitor is the remarkable trellis work in marble. A solid slab of marble, about six feet by four and about two inches in thickness, is used as a panel. ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... maid, How can I fitly sing The priceless decorative aid To dialogue you bring, Enabling serious folk, whose brains Are commonplace and crude, To soar to unimagined planes Of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... letters. He did not make a study a part of antiquity for its own sake, but used it as an instrument of culture.' The result of culture in Pattison's actual life was not by any means ideal. For instance, he was head of a college for nearly a quarter of a century, and except as a decorative figure-head with a high literary reputation, he did little more to advance the working interests of his college during these five-and-twenty years than if he had been one of the venerable academic abuses of the worst days before reform. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... always dainty; that white Middy | | Blouses are jauntier with matching Skirt; that Cricket | | Sweaters are "Sportsiest." | | | | The Sub-Deb Shop—understudies the "Deb" in outfitting | | the "Sub!" Are your years between 13 and 16—here are | | Sports Frocks; decorative Georgettes; bright cool Prints | | for a summer morning; pastel Chiffons or buoyant | | Taffetas for the evening party. And in Coats—there's | | the slim "wrappy", the Cape-back. | | | | When Youth Steps Out—if it's young youth, it chooses | | for smartness and comfort, a "Felice" Pump—in patent ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... color scheme is the very latest thing in decorative art. There is nothing shrinking about us, for we come boldly forth in orange and yellows in true cigar-ribbon style—even our motor licenses of last year had poppies on them. Speaking of poppies, I heard the other day of a lady who voiced her opinion in all seriousness in the paper, that ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... veined yellow, candelabra and clock ditto mounted on bronze, common and heavy in design,—Roman standards with Greek foliage! Above the clock is that inevitable good-natured lion which looks at you with a simper, the lion of ornamentation, with a big ball under his feet, symbol of the decorative lion, who passes his life holding a black ball, —exactly like a deputy of the Left. Perhaps it is meant as a constitutional myth. The face of the clock is curious. The glass over the chimney is framed in that new fashion of applied mouldings which is so trumpery and vulgar. From the ceiling ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... only her occupying them. The beautiful coffre presented to her with the layette of the Dauphin still stands on a table in an adjoining chamber, and the paintings on its white silk casing are scarcely faded yet, though the decorative ruching of green silk leaves has ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... very similar character, but somewhat coarser in texture, and heavier. See Plate III., b to g, and Plate IV., f Both these groups include variations in the decorative designs, as may be seen in the rest ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... side-streets and unlovely dwellings. In the middle of the fifth century men rose above this ideal. They began to recognize private houses and to attempt an adequate grouping of their cities as units capable of a single plan. But they did not carry this conception very far. The decorative still dominated the useful. Broad straight streets were still few and were laid out mainly as avenues for processions and as ample spaces for great facades.[4] Private houses were still of small account. The notion that the City was the State, helpful and progressive as it was, ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... In a little while the mere absence of occupation for so great a multitude of people everywhere became an evident social danger, and the government was obliged to resort to such devices as simple decorative work in wood and stone, the manufacture of hand-woven textiles, fruit-growing, flower-growing, and landscape gardening on a grand scale to keep the less adaptable out of mischief, and of paying wages ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... Cashmere, Greek statuary, Gothic architecture, and Saracenic tracery, Etruscan gold-work stands absolutely alone,—the result of an artistic instinct deeper than any rules or any instruction, and therefore not to be improved or repeated. It is characterized by the most subtile and lovely use of decorative masses and lines,—not for representation or imitation, which are not motives to enter into pure ornament, but for the highest effect of beautiful form and rich color, without giving the eye or mind any associative or intellectual suggestion. The vice of all modern ornamentation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... satisfaction; but chiefly the child wishes to assure itself that some impartial judge can interpret its notation. One definitely artistic gift, however, many children do possess, and that is a sense of the decorative possibilities of their medium. This gift they have in common with the Primitives; and this the douanier possessed ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... bread and cheese and looked with interest about the room. The tables and woodwork were dark, the walls and ceiling also low in tone. But there were some fine decorative notes that stood brightly out. On one wall was a lovely gold-framed picture in which a young woman of great beauty held back a sumptuous curtain revealing a castle on the Rhine set above a sunny terrace of grapevines. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... rhythmical movement of line and form. The theory finds support in the industrial arts, where beauty often seems to be only a luxurious charm supervening upon utility; but also in painting and sculpture when appreciated in their decorative capacity as "things of beauty." There is a partial truth in this theory; for, as we have seen, the sensuous media of all the arts tend to be developed in the direction of pleasure; and no man who lacks feeling for purely sensuous values can enter into the fullness of the aesthetic experience. ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... poet); passages where something was wanted for the sake of the plot, but he did not care about it or was hurried. The conception of the passage is then distinct from the execution, and neither is inspired. This is so also, I think, wherever we can truly speak of merely decorative effect. We seem to perceive that the poet had a truth or fact—philosophical, agricultural, social—distinctly before him, and then, as we say, clothed it in metrical and coloured language. Most argumentative, didactic, or satiric poems are partly ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... as a matter of fact a great longing for it. But I don't think that twenty-one is a good age for being quite sure if that longing is not mere sentiment. I suppose you think I'm just indulging myself with the decorative side of religion, Father Lamplugh? I really am not. I can assure you that I'm far too much accustomed to the decorative side to be greatly ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed earth. Whereupon a neighbour's little girl, at the behest of her mother, duly craved and received permission from Bess to gather a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a semaphore against ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... squinting at her like an entomologist over a favorite beetle. Take her for what she seems, and chuck analysis. She is decorative. She ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... which light was so largely increased, prove how gloomy the library must have been before they were undertaken. Next, after important repairs to the walls and floor, and the construction of the decorative plaster-work at the east end, the old bookcases were sold, and Benet the joiner supplied twenty new cases and one half-case. The only old case remaining is, by tradition, the half-case against the screen on the north side as ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... found a second descending ramp, this one less steep than the first, so that he was able to keep to his feet while using it. And the gloom of the next floor was broken by odd scraps of light which showed through pierced portions of the decorative bands. The door was there, a locking ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... hold, nice to look at, and do you mean to say that your heart wouldn't give a jump, and that you would not take a fancy to the writer from that very moment? Of course you would; and so, if you please, I am going to look after the decorative department, and see what can be done. I must give my mind to it—Oh! I'll tell you what would be just the thing. When I was in the library one day lately I saw some sweet little note-books with pale green leaves and gilt edges. I'll ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... England it would be pretty nearly true, if it were said that the whole amount of art of the decorative kind that existed in England between 1810 and 1850, for instance, would fill but a small museum, and that its quality would fill but slight requirements, it would require a bold Anglophil to contradict. There came a dull pall, like that of her own black fogs, over ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... but wonderfully pretty building rapidly arose on the brow of the hill between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove; and that place, the scene of so much squalor and misery a hundred years before, became gay with all that decorative art could do, and busy with daily throngs of gratified visitors. The place had a most distinguished appearance; seen from the harbour, its dome and fluttering flags rose up from among the luxuriant foliage of the Botanic Gardens, as if boldly to proclaim that New South Wales ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... noticeable in the power house and the electrical sub-stations and particularly in the passenger stations. It might readily have been supposed that the limited space and comparative uniformity of the underground stations would afford but little opportunity for architectural and decorative effects. The result has shown the fallacy of such ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... the refinement of the architectural expressions of a modern state of society they could not of course comprehend. About the year 1786, we find Sir William Chambers, the leading architect of his day in England, in his famous treatise on "The Decorative Part of Civil Architecture," giving elaborate and emphatic expression to his contempt of that Greek Art, which had presented itself to him in a guise well suited to cause misapprehension and error. "It must candidly be confessed," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... antique bronzes, brought out into strong relief by a background of tapestry, adorned this lofty hall, which had none of that confusion of decorative objects, in the midst of which some modern artists seem to pose themselves ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... bamboo and the wrappings," she warned Old Chris. "I'll make something decorative-like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... so charmingly furnished with carpets and decorative furniture that Liszt himself was surprised into admiration as he entered my 'petite elegance', as he called it. Now for the first time I enjoyed the delight of getting to know my friend better as a fellow-composer. In addition to many of his celebrated pianoforte ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... things, made, not for the European market, but for the daily use of the people, such as drinking-vessels—lota is the pretty name—and big brass plates out of which they eat their rice and dhalbat. They keep them beautifully polished with sand, and I think they ought to be rather decorative; much more attractive certainly than the candlesticks and pots and cheap rough silver-work which is the usual loot carried away by ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... incursions of the Masai. These Amu people have the same Wahuma features as Kamrasi, whom they also resemble both in general physical appearance, and in many of them having circular marks, as if made by cautery, on the forehead and temples. These marks I took not to be tatooing or decorative, but as a cure for disease—cautery being a favourite remedy ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... capital. The roads are lined with fruit-trees, and numerous little gardens are strewn here and there,—true country gardens with everything in them; flowers, onions, cabbages and grapevines, currants, and a great deal of manure. The village has a primitive air; it is rustic, and has that decorative simplicity which we artists are forever seeking. In the far distance is the little town of Soulanges overhanging a vast sheet of water, like the buildings on the lake ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... an expedition to Whitford, accompanied by Miss Bracy and her two enchanted pupils, and there laid in a stock of purchases, unpretending and in good taste, aiming only at what could be well done, and not attempting the decorative wardrobe of a great lady. Ethel was highly amused when the Misses Anderson came for their inspection, to see their concealed disappointment at finding no under garments trimmed with Brussels lace, nor pocket-handkerchiefs all open-work, except a centre of the size of a crown-piece, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... that it comprised the usual French Count and the usual Italian Marchese—decorative social milestones, always to be found in certain places, and varying very little in appearance. The table was long, and the dinner was long; and Little Dorrit, overshadowed by a large pair of black whiskers and a large white cravat, lost sight of her ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... there cannot be great variation in the proportioning of space, but it is important that the use of each room should be well understood and that it should be planned accordingly. If that is not done our decorative and furnishing schemes later on will be misapplied. Families differ as to their dispositions toward rooms. Most of us would not think of calling for an old-fashioned parlor in a small house nowadays, but ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the traveler sees at once hundreds of costumes which in any American city would draw on all the boy population as surely as the Piper of Hamelin. First and foremost comes always the enormous hat, commonly of thick felt with decorative tape, the crown at least a foot high, the brim surely three feet in diameter even when turned up sufficient to hold a half gallon of water. That of the peon is of straw; he too wears the skintight trousers, and goes barefoot but for a flat leather sandal held by a thong between the big toe ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... school. She came daintily up the aisle, two cheap bangles on one wrist slipping over a slim hand, and tinkling. Floretta's mother had a taste for the cheaply decorative. There was an abundance of coarse lace on Floretta's frock, and she wore a superfluous sash which was not too fresh. Floretta toed out excessively, her slender little feet pointing out sharply, almost at right angles with each ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to be commanded by his subject, or his vehicle of expression. But until he ceases to love both with a blind passion, he will probably be so commanded. And then his style will appear decorative, florid, mixed, unequal, laboured. It is the sobriety of a satiated or blunted enthusiasm which makes the literary artist. He ought to remember his dithyrambic moods, but not to be subject to them any longer, nor to ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... light, standing about in groups or marching up and down in pairs solemnly talking business or of the "Common Guid" of the town. How, for instance, they thought of electing the Earl Raincy to be their provost, honorary as to duties, but exceedingly decorative and possibly useful. The ninety-nine-year leases of the Out Parks would fall in during his time of office, and the feu duties would have to be rearranged. It would be a very suitable thing indeed—in all respects—that is, if the Earl could see his ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... picture in our mind's eye the stage and person of the European or American conjuror. A few small tables with spindle legs (upon them a steel frame or so, transparent and decorative) are exposed to our view. The performer appears with rolled up sleeves in close fitting clothes and by the end of his performance has filled the stage with several large flags, a bouquet of flowers and, may be, a beautiful lady, all, possibly produced ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... larches, firs and other trees now covering the Atholl estates, would sell for 10,000,000 pounds if brought to the hammer. But he was not only the greatest arboriculturist in the world, but the founder of tree-farming as a productive industry as well as a decorative art. Already it has transformed the Highlands of Scotland and trebled their value, as well as clothed them with a new and beautiful scenery. What we call the Scotch larch was not originally a native of that country. Close to ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... work of Mr. Waldo Story one admirable portrait bust is of Cecil Rhodes. A decorative work, a fountain for the Rothschild country estate in England, is charmingly designed as a Galatea (in bronze), standing in a marble shell that is drawn by Nereids and attended by Cupids. The happy blending of marble and bronze gives to this work a pleasing variety of color. Another decorative ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... lintel appears to consist of seven gauged or keyed pieces each, but is in reality a single stone, the effect being secured by deep scorings. A heavy molded cornice and handsome gutter spouts complete the decorative features apart from the chaste pedimental doorway with its fluted pilasters and dainty fanlight, which is mentioned again in another chapter. A rolling way and areaways at the basement windows pierce the wall at the sidewalk level after the manner of the time. Indoors, the hall extends ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... event is so close that an invention of this character would be as inexplicable as the fact itself. That which indeed almost always betrays invented or unnatural incidents is that they do not fit into the framework of the facts. They are extraneous events, purely decorative elements whose place might ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Home, founded in Soho by Mrs. Callender—a worthy old Scotswoman—odd and whimsical, perhaps, but rich, very rich and influential. My clergy, however, have enough to do with the various departments of our church work. For instance, there is the Ladies' Society, the Fancy Needlework classes, and the Decorative Flower Guild, not to speak of the daughter churches and the ministration in hospitals, for I ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... distance from the centre of the principal front—and that the interior is to be splendidly adorned with marble, scagliola, and other rich materials; whilst the galleries, armoury, chapel, state-rooms, &c. are to display the most gorgeous ornaments of the cabinet-maker, upholsterer, decorative painter, and other artisans. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... repetition of the same. However, this detracts not in the smallest degree; from the merit of those Parisian belles who shine as first-rate dancers. The mechanical part of the business, as Mr. C——g would call it, they may thus, acquire by constant practice; but the decorative part, if I may so term the fascinating grace which, they display in all their movements, is that the result of study, or do they hold it from ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... their true function in design in such measure as they suggest stability and convenience; and this can be obtained in such structures without the adoption of bad proportions offensive to the taste. In fact, certain decorative effects have been made with good results; but these have been wholly subordinate to the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... beside the standard galleries, I visited the Secession Gallery, and there I saw pictures by Becker-Gundhal, Louis Corinth, Paul Crodel, Josef Damberger, Julius Diez, Eichfeld, Von Habermann (a portraitist of distinction), Herterich (with much decorative ability), Von Heyden (deceased, and a capital delineator of chickens), Von Keller, Landenberger, Arthur Langhammer (deceased), Pietzsch, Bruno Piglhein (also deceased, I am sorry to say, for he had genuine ability), ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... I think he has all he can do keeping up with the beauty shop. You see, it is more than a massage parlour. They do real decorative surgery, as it is called. They'll engage to give you a new skin as soft and pink as a baby's. Or they will straighten a nose, or turn an ear. They have light treatment for complexions—the ruby ray, the violet ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... colors, shone the string of porcupine beads to which the Indian charmstone hidden in her bosom was attached. It all harmonized with the time, the place, the atmosphere. Anywhere else it would have been preposterous as a decorative presentment, but here, in this little nook where the coureurs de bois, the half-breeds, the traders and the missionaries had founded a centre of assembly, it was the best possible expression in the life so formed at hap-hazard, and so controlled by the coarsest ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... is all this to the feasts of the world! There is a great show, but no satisfaction. There is much decorative china, but no nutritious food or drink. "Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again." We rise from the table, and our deepest cravings are unappeased. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" We know. We have had a condiment, ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... estate, and they multiplied until the whole place swarmed with them. And he wanted them all for himself, so that it was forbidden to sell or give even an egg away. The place was in the charge of a major-domo, a good-natured fellow, and when he discovered that we liked peacocks' feathers for decorative purposes in the house, he made it a custom to send us each year at the moulting-time large bundles, whole armfuls, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... mowed great swaths through tangled thatch with a pair of close-cutting clippers. But instead of making a complete job of it, a thick fringe of hair which resembled a misplaced scalping tuft was left for decorative purposes, just above the forehead. The effect was so grotesque that I had to invent an excuse for laughing. It was a lame one, I fear, for Shorty looked at me warningly. When we had gone on ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... THE MORAL of the verses Is: That short men can't be tall. Nothing sillier or worse is Than a jay upon a mall. And the jay opiniative Who, because he's imitative, Thinks he's highly decorative Is ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... of getting even for that Garden of Eden affair. But lately, pythons proving scarcer than in that favoured locality, she had switched to a lion. She wanted, she said, to give the skin to her sister. In vain we pointed out that a zebra hide was very decorative, that lions go to absurd lengths in retaining possession of their own skins, and other equally convincing facts. It must be a lion or nothing; so naturally we had to make ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... its bottle-shaped and chambered nest[47], studs it over with small lumps of clay, both inside and out, upon which the cock-bird sticks fire-flies, apparently for the sole purpose of securing a brilliantly decorative effect. Other birds, such as the hammer-head of Africa, adorn the surroundings of their nests (which are built upon the ground) with shells, bones, pieces of broken glass and earthenware, or any objects of a bright and conspicuous character which they may happen to find. The ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... absolutely different to what they used to be when I first remember them in the 'eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sort of smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty and flamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions. Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street Tube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a loss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had never existed,' I said, 'Granville ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Mr. Baird. It is intended as a practical manual for the use of coach painters, and we must say, upon examination of its contents, that we think it admirably adapted to meet the wants of that class of artisans for which it has been prepared. There is perhaps no department of decorative art in which there is greater room for the display of skill and taste than in coach painting. This work, however, does not deal with the subject of art, to any great extent. Its aim is to give information in regard to colors, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... it is from this manuscript that the two published volumes of it were printed. The library forms part of the Museum, which occupies a ground-floor wing of the castle. The first room is an armoury, in which all kinds of arms are arranged, in a decorative way, covering the ceiling and the walls with strange patterns. The second room contains pottery, collected by Casanova's Waldstein on his Eastern travels. The third room is full of curious mechanical toys, and cabinets, and carvings in ivory. Finally, we come ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... elevations; but the fact remains that the exterior and interior do not correspond. A greater authority than this critic has thus defined good architecture: "The essence of good architecture of any kind is that its constructive system should be put boldly forward, that its decorative system should be such as in no way conceals or masks the construction, but makes the constructive features themselves ornamental."[81] And at his uncle's cathedral of Ely, Wren might have borrowed and worked out an idea which would have ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... matters. Henry Irving had had little training in such matters—I had had a great deal. Judgment about colors, clothes and lighting must be trained. I had learned from Mr. Watts, from Mr. Godwin, and from other artists, until a sense of decorative effect had become ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... years and more of marriage, they were very good friends; or, why not say, old acquaintances? There are two kinds of crystallisation in love affairs, with all respect to M. de Stendhal. One kind hardens the surfaces without any decorative effect. There are no facets visible, no angles to catch the light. In the case of the Macartney marriage I suspect this to have been the only kind—a kind of callosity, protective and numbing. The less they were thrown together, she found, the better friends they were. At home they were really ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... brackets, and all sorts of little useless knicknacks, has helped on this confusion, till one is almost tempted to regard them as nuisances. A few of these ornamental trifles, arranged with an eye to a certain unity of design, may do very well; but, as William Morris, the great apostle of true decorative art in England, has said, "Better pure empty space than unworthy and confusing ornament." You may have heard it related of the great naturalist, Thoreau, that he made a collection of stones during his rambles, and placed them on his writing-table; ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... of Indian sacred and decorative symbols, we learn that two main ideas are outstanding: desire for rain and belief in the unity of all life. Charms or prayers against drought take the form of clouds, lightning, rain, etc., and those for fertility are expressed by ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... speaks of the admirable staircase which adorns the north front and which, with its extension inside, constitutes the principal treasure of Azay. The staircase passes beneath one of the richest of porticos—a portico over which a monumental salamander indulges in the most decorative contortions. The sculptured vaults of stone which cover the windings of the staircase within, the fruits, flowers, ciphers, heraldic signs, are of the noblest effect. The interior of the chateau is rich, comfortable, extremely modern; but it makes no picture that compares with its external face, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... dimpled; the throat was full and round also, a white column supporting the tawny head, and indicated that Vixen was meant to be a powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend themselves most readily to the decorative art ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... delight; building crystal bridges, with tracery of lace delicater than Valenciennes, and spangled string-pieces, and fretted vaultings, whimsical sierras, stalactite and stalagmite. An icicle is one of those careless toys of nature which the decorative art of man imitates in vain. They are among the myriad ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... artists, who seized upon everything that came to hand, including the old deities themselves, to amuse themselves and win the admiration of their dull pupils at Rome. He who would appreciate the difficulty of getting at the original rude drawings must be well acquainted with the decorative ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... meekly. If not ruffled by paltry objections as to the fit of the foot, he will accede to any amount of instructions as to the legs and tops. And then a new pair of top boots is a pretty toy; Costly, perhaps, if needed only as a toy, but very pretty, and more decorative in a gentleman's dressing-room than any other kind of garment. And top boots, when multiplied in such a locality, when seen in a phalanx tell such pleasant lies on their owner's behalf. While your ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... of "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," "Red Riding Hood," etc., etc. Popular tales that are ever in demand, sumptuously illustrated with exquisitely decorative and highly original designs. Printed on rough art paper. 12 full-page colour plates. 144 ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... a card tray—brass if the hardware is brass— silver if the hardware is nickel or iron—and a medium-sized pottery vase in crackle ware, or some natural color. A hall lantern or scones would be in harmony with these furnishings, and have decorative value. ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... generations of Florentine artists, those earlier Venetian painters, down to Carpaccio and the Bellini, seem never for a moment to have been tempted even to lose sight of the scope of their art in its strictness, or to forget that painting must be, before all things decorative, a thing for the eye; a space of colour on the wall, only more dexterously blent than the marking of its precious stone or the chance interchange of sun and shade upon it—this, to begin and end with—whatever higher matter of thought, or poetry, or religious reverie might play its ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... Bronze Age, transformed them completely, much as scientific tillage has converted the cotton tree into a low shrub. The precocity of this civilization is clear. At early as 3000 B.C. it included an impressive style of architecture and a decorative art naturalistic and beautiful in treatment as that of modern Japan.[824] From this date till the zenith of its development in 1450 B.C., Crete became a great artistic manufacturing and distributing center for stone carving, frescoes, pottery, delicate porcelain, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... of a Happy Life New Edition, with Decorative Lace Border and Lace Cover Design. 12 mo, ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... compounded of the scent of cheese, black beetles and old boots. There were four bedrooms besides, all opening on to the dining-room; and a tiny drawing-room, seldom used and never dusted, was filled to overflowing with gilt furniture and decorative fantasies in ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... assortment of books by Horatio Alger, Jr. Printed on a good quality of paper and bound in cloth. Each book wrapped in a decorative jacket ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... itself is neither picturesque nor decorative. It does not offer that delightful assemblage of birds and snakes, of men and quadrupeds, of heads and limbs, of tools, weapons, stars, trees, and boats, which succeed each other in perplexing order on the Egyptian monuments, to give permanence to the glory of Pharaoh ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is a part of it that is purely decorative and a part that is expressive or emotional. You notice that the general design and scheme of decoration, although really Greek in feeling, follows rigidly the Egyptian conventions. But the portrait is entirely ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Romans, portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one hundred and twenty feet ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... ETC, FOR "FITTING up."—Time was when our ancestors were content to stick their preserved specimens in boxes with nothing to break the blank of white paper which backed them up. Nowadays we have arrived at such a pitch of decorative art in taxidermy, as in all things, that this stiffness of outline does not suffice; accordingly, we break our background by flowing lines of beauty, produced by the graceful aids of dried ferns and grasses, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... like the dulcet appeal of a mellow flute, but like the trumpet stop of some powerful party organ. The cornea was perhaps a shade sallow or so, even verging on the Widow's favourite Yellow—(for the Widow, like some modern decorative artists, was sweet upon all tawny tints, from the most delicate buff to the most flamboyant Orange)—but as to any touch, tint, or tone ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... upon, stood perfectly straight and upright across the sky to the south of them a row of magnolias (grandiflora) at least sixty feet high, with their boles, as smooth as the beach, trimmed bare for two-thirds of their stature. The really decorative marks of the trimming had been so many years, so many decades, healed as to show that no harm had come of it or would come. The soaring, dark-green, glittering foliage stood out against the almost perpetually blue and white sky. Beyond them, a few ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... medium for the introduction of much instructive matter relative to the character and industries of the cities and countries through which they pass. A description is given of the native sports of boys in each of the foreign countries through which they travel. The books are illustrated by decorative head and end pieces for each chapter, there being 36 original drawings in each book, all by the author, and four ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... she continued, "may be interesting, but they are not decorative. Unless, of course," she added, hastily, being at a loss to account for the peculiar expression of Ted's face, "they're very old ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... tower and the entire clerestory, with the flying buttresses and the turret crowning each of them. This stone, as far as its surface is concerned, is irreparably damaged and when touched detaches itself; consequently all decorative motifs wherever the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... I had to face the usual ordeal of having to "write" as best I could a motto for use as a wall picture. Our lettering, when done with a brush, falls pitifully behind Chinese characters in decorative value, and our mottoes will not readily translate into Japanese. I was often grateful to Henley for "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul," because with the substitution of "commander" for captain, the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... snugger within than you might fancy. A lot of the men had given homelike touches to their habitations. Pictures cut from the illustrated papers at home, which are such prime favorites with all the Tommies made up a large part of the decorative scheme. Pictures of actresses predominated; the Tommies didn't go in for war pictures. Indeed, there is little disposition to hammer the war home at you in a dugout. The men don't talk about it or think about, save as they must; you ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... of Berlin and of Paris, now an enlightened amateur—"see, how that charlatan of a Fossati has taken care not to increase the number of trinkets now that we are in the reception-rooms. These armchairs seem to await invited guests. They are known. They have been illustrated in a magazine of decorative art in Paris. And that dining-room through that door, with all the silver on the table, would you not think ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... wasn't ugly, like de Vignolles. On the contrary, he was, as men go, distinctly good looking; he knew he was; the glances of the beautiful and hypothetical stranger assured him of it, and he had looked in the glass not half an hour ago to reassure himself. Solid he was, and well built, and he had decorative points that pleased: a fresh color, eyes that flashed blue round a throbbing black, a crisp tawny curl in his short moustache and shorter hair. He was well off; there wasn't a thing she wanted that he couldn't give her. And he was the admired and appreciated friend ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... superior recognition in all cases where there is the slightest apparent conflict between the two. Certainly no man ever did more to popularize the genuine truths of science in this country than Professor Agassiz, or worked more successfully to that end. He was willing to place the decorative wreath on the starry forehead of science, but refused to pluck from the soul "the starry eyes of faith and hope," that man might be dwarfed down to the "nearest of kin" to the ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... that the little girl who was once herself had been more admirable in every way than this polished woman who had succeeded her: the woman who was everything that little girl had yearned to be and who stood self-revealed as brilliant and hard as one of her own purely decorative diamonds. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... case the topic was very successful. Mr. Saffron embraced it with eagerness; with much animation he discussed the merits, whether practical or decorative, of various uniforms—field-gray, khaki, horizon blue, Air Force blue, and a dozen others worn by various armies, corps, and services. Alec was something of an enthusiast in this line too; he soon forgot his embarrassment, and joined in the ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... It was too fine a morning for youth to grieve. At the distance the plumes of smoke made by the shells became decorative rather than deadly. From a crest he saw upon the plateau of Vicksburg and even discerned the dim outline of houses. Looking the other way, he saw the smoke of the iron-clads down the river, and he also caught glimpses of the Mississippi, ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... our most decorative native trees is the American beech. As fine a specimen as is often seen is this one not far from Easton, Maryland photographed during the past summer. It is an enormous tree and very productive. It is one of forty or fifty trees on the grounds of one of the numerous large estates of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... and between ranks on ranks of schoolchildren, strewing roses and singing paeans. At Brighton there was an immense sacrifice of the then fashionable and costly flower, the dahlia, no fewer than twenty thousand being used for decorative purposes. But a sadder because a vain sacrifice on this occasion, was of flowers of rhetoric. An address, the result of much classical research and throes of poetic labor, and marked by the most ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... spun from fibre of colored glass. And some wheeled devices, which might have been toys. Lester and Hines picked up only token pieces of the fabric. Frank took a three inch golden ring that glinted with mineral. Except that it looked decorative, he had no idea ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... very important distinction between what is beautiful and what is merely pleasing because of its being useful and agreeable, we see at once that the words "decorative," "ornamental," "attractive," "handsome," etc., are constantly used by writers on this subject in a misleading and question-begging way. We can hardly blame a man like Barrington for writing (11) that among the natives of Botany Bay "scars are, by both sexes, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... perforated metal cover, usually of copper or brass, which was kept highly polished, and formed, as it hung on the wall, one of the cheerful kitchen discs to reflect the light of the glowing fire. The warming-pan has been deemed of sufficient decorative capacity to make it eagerly sought after by collectors, and a great room of one of these collectors is hung entirely around the four walls with a frieze ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... the "Fig-Tree Angle," because of the group of sculpture representing the fall of man. The figure above the angle capital of the upper arcade is that of Gabriel. The richly decorated capitals of the lower arcade represent personifications of the Virtues and Vices, the favorite subjects of decorative art, at this period, in all the cities of Italy. The capitals of the upper arcade, no two of which are alike, are also richly wrought with figure sculpture, the one on the angle containing representations of the ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, 1895 • Various
... swarming with every unnecessary of life; they had the spacious and lofty hall with armor and swords and spears and shields, "all useful," as an auctioneer would say—"all useful, gentlemen, for decorative purposes"—with trophies of the chase in its milder home forms and as carried on in African or Bengal jungles; they had a library filled from floor to ceiling with books containing, it is to be presumed, the life-blood of master spirits, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... the ornamentation your friend objects to?[4] If it is, I would observe that there is no evidence of progress in the decorative and ornamental arts during the Ming Dynasty; and even in the Jesuit instruments that part of the work is purely Chinese, excepting in one instrument, which I am persuaded must have been made ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... nature springs directly from the fact of sex. He claims that to it 'we owe our love of color, of graceful forms, of melodious sound, of rhythmical motion, the evolution of music, of poetry, of romance, of painting, of sculpture, of decorative art, of dramatic entertainment. From it,' he says, 'springs the love of beauty, around it all beautiful arts circle as their centre. Its subtle aroma pervades all literature, and to it we owe the heart and all that is best ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... her rough material, recreates it, and refashions it in fresh forms, is absolutely indifferent to fact, invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment. The third stage is when Life gets the upper hand, and drives Art out into the wilderness. That is the true decadence, and it is from this that ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... taste thus aroused will, no doubt, finally lead them to adorn the facades of their wooden huts with the grinning skulls of slaughtered enemies, prettily disposed at measured distances. A thoughtless world may laugh, indeed, at these naive expressions of the nascent artistic and decorative faculties in the savage breast, but the aesthetic philosopher knows how to appreciate them at their true worth, and to see in them the earliest ingenuous precursors of our own Salisbury, Lichfield, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Francesca was built of light-brown stone and decorated with much ornate molding. It was fourteen stories high, and was supplied with ornamental fire-escapes. It was "no slouch of a building." Everything decorative which could be done for it had been done. The entrance was almost imposing, and a generous lavishness in the way of cement mosaic flooring and new and thick red carpet struck the eye at once. The grill-work of the elevator was of fresh, bright blackness, picked ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and of the two it must be borne in mind that it is the rich shareholder who spends the money. While occupation and skill incline one towards severity and economy, leisure and unlimited means involve relaxation and demand the adventitious interest of decoration. The shareholder will be the decorative influence in the State. So far as there will be a typical shareholder's house, we may hazard that it will have rich colours, elaborate hangings, stained glass adornments, and added interests in great abundance. This "leisure class" will certainly employ the greater ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... after I had taken my seat in the car—I discovered what a mistake I should have made if I had followed my first impulse. For, upon examining the stitches more carefully, I perceived that what I had considered a mere decorative pattern was in fact a string of letters, and that these letters made words, and that these ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... monuments and the revival of the languishing native art-industries. The old pottery, jewelry, metal-work, rugs and embroideries of the different regions were carefully collected and classified, schools of decorative art were founded, skilled artisans sought out, and every effort was made to urge European residents to follow native models and use native ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... England country, when you have been using them hard for years in a bad light. And oh, they had been such nice eyes when she was just Phyllis Narcissa at home, so long and blue and wondering! And now the cataloguing had heavied the lids and etched a line between her straight brown brows. They weren't decorative eyes now ... and they filled with indignant self-sympathy. The Liberry Teacher laughed at herself a little here. The idea of eyes that cried ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... on any crowded street see the use and abuse of this noble material. There is scarcely an article of dress into whose composition it does not enter and it is worn upon all occasions. Many things have brought about this result. The tendency of fashion is towards the decorative and picturesque and in these qualities velvet excels all other fabrics. Silk waste and thread are cheaper than ever before so that velvet costs much less than formerly. The men behind the looms have evolved more ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... May be Preserved.—Almost any kind of bright wood berries may be preserved for decorative use in the winter, by dipping in melted paraffin and putting away in a cool place until needed. Treated in this way berries will remain firm and bright for a long time, and may be ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... about it, Gordon is the most presentable man that ever breathed. He is so good looking and easy and gracious and witty, and his manners are so impeccable—Oh, he would make a wonderfully decorative husband! But after all, I suppose you do live with a husband. You don't just show him off at ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... meritorious officers, Beauchef, Miller, Erescano, Carter, and Vidal, and all the other officers and soldiers who, in imitation of your Excellency, encountered such vast dangers, will be brought to the notice of Government, in order to receive a decorative medal, in gratitude for their gallantry, and in proof that Chili rewards the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... surrounding each page and the divider illustrations are emphatically decorative in the original, and have been approximated in ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... followed the lightly waved hands with keen approval, then rose to the lively and colourful face, with its hazel eyes, its small and pretty nose, and the lip-caught smile which seemed the climax of her decorative transition. Never had he seen a creature ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... would refer to certain styles of decoration and hangings which they had seen in the Pullman parlor-cars. He had never seriously regarded the influence of the furnishing of these cars upon the travelling public; now he realized that, in a decorative sense, they were a distinct factor and a very ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... those leaves with serrated, or deeply cleft and indented edges, lend themselves most readily to decorative treatment. Large, broad leaves, with unbroken surfaces, and triangular or rounded outlines, are less manageable. Those most commonly taken ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play—the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... delivered in New York only a year before, and with Whistler's well-known opinions, it is impossible not to admit that the charge was justified. Such phrases as "artists are not to copy beauty but to create it ... a picture is a purely decorative ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... surveyed the result with surprise. The room was scrubbed as bare as a shaven chin. So she took some coloured almanacs from the bedroom and kitchen, and tacked them on the walls, studying the effect with the gravity of a decorative artist. The crude blotches of colour pleased her eye, and she considered the result with pride. "Wonderful 'ow a few pitchers liven a place up," ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... the husbands, actual or to be, of others. No lady can be considered truly Corinthian unless she has figured as the defendant in an action for goods supplied by a milliner. It is thus that the Public learns the Corinthian value of silks, and satins, and laces, and decorative butterflies. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various |
