Ornament and the Sources of Design in the Decorative Arts

Jose Rengel

09/10/2016

Ivins, William M. ""Ornament" and the Sources of Design in the Decorative Arts." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 13, no. 2 (1918): 35-41

The article is about the importance of ornaments and the different styles of ornaments and the craftsmanship. Ornaments are designs that are used to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose. Ornaments can be considered decorative art because engravers have been making their own style of ornaments for centuries, and it shows a list of engravers with their own style and how they used it. Even until today, the collection of decorative art has educated more collectors than the craftsmen based on the design and the craftsmanship.

This article can help people understand the concept of design and craftsmanship, how to understand how those are two different things and understanding the difference between the two. Artists can consider adding ornaments to certain of their works; many artists decide to give ornaments to their pieces in order to make it look more attractive. Ornaments and decorative art are important pieces to art because it can make them look better, and for centuries many types of ornaments have been crafted.

WARP First Post

Labels Help You Organize

All blog posts must be labeled with two keywords, which blogger calls Labels. When faculty visits your blog for evaluation purposes, we will use the labels to quickly find your work. If you do not use the keywords properly, we will not be able to find your work. Proper set-up and maintenance of your blog falls under the Research and Participation part of your grade which counts for 30% of the overall semester grade. 

Topical Keywords

The first set of keywords correspond to the module we are working in. We will refer to these as topical keywords since they correspond to the topic we are exploring over the two-week periods. Your first group of posts will be labeled under Topic: Creative Impulse since this is the first topic (Topic #1). Here are the topical keywords you will use through out the semester:

Topic: Creative Impulse

Topic: Pattern and Ornament

Topic: Rhinoceros

Topic: Narrative

Topic: Landscape

Topic: Zine

Categorical Keywords

The second set of keywords will organize your posts according to kind. Here are the Keywords you will use for Labels:

Exercises - tag for posts documenting all assigned exercises. The first one will be the paper folding exercise from the first class. 

Readings - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to the assigned readings. The first ones will be for "The White Bird" and the Jerry Saltz article from Vulture.com. 

Small Works - tag for posts documenting all assigned small works. The first blog post labeled Small Works will contain images and accompanying descriptions of the three small works you complete for the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1). 

In-Depth Projects - tag for posts documenting all assigned In-Depth projects. The first blog post labeled In-Depth Projects will contain images (or video if appropriate) and accompanying descriptions of the more robust work you produce in response to the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1).

Outside Visits - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to all required visits outside of the classroom. These include visits we do together as a class [during class time] or individually outside of class time. 

Please be sure to use both a topical and categorical keyword when labeling your posts.