DECORATION XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT 303

independence and notoriety, or of gambling for chance regards. The English perpendicular¹ work is by far the worst of this kind that I know; its main idea, or decimal fraction of an idea, being to cover its walls with dull, successive, eternity of reticulation, to fill with equal foils the equal interstices between the equal bars, and charge the interminable blanks with statues and rosettes, invisible at a distance, and uninteresting near.

The early Lombardic, Veronese, and Norman work is the exact reverse of this; being divided first into large masses, and these masses covered with minute chasing and surface work which fill them with interest, and yet do not disturb nor divide their greatness. The lights are kept broad and bright, and yet are found on near approach to be charged with intricate design. This, again, is a part of the great system of treatment which I shall hereafter call “Proutism;”² much of what is thought mannerism and imperfection in Prout’s work, being the result of his determined resolution that minor details shall never break up his large masses of light.

§ 30. Such are the main principles to be observed in the adaptation of ornament to the sight. We have lastly to inquire by what method, and in what quantities, the ornament, thus adapted to mental contemplation, and prepared for its physical position, may most wisely be arranged. I think the method ought first to be considered, and the quantity last; for the advisable quantity depends upon the method.

§ 31. It was said above,³ that the proper treatment or arrangement of ornament was that which expressed the laws and ways of Deity. Now, the subordination of visible orders to each other, just noted, is one expression of these. But

¹ [See above, pp. 227-228 n.]

² [See above, § 24. Ruskin in later works used the verb rather than the noun, “to Proutise” (a coinage suggested to him by Copley Fielding): see Elements of Drawing, § 257, Notes on Prout and Hunt, pref. § 36. For a list of the very numerous references to Prout’s works and characteristics, see Index Volume.]

³ [See above, ch. xx. § 17, p. 265.]

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