Servile ornament,
in which the execution or power of the inferior workman is entirely
subjected to the intellect of the higher;--2. Constitutional ornament,
in which the executive inferior power is, to a certain point,
emancipated and independent, having a will of its own, yet confessing
its inferiority and rendering obedience to higher powers;--and 3.
Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is admitted
at all. I must here explain the nature of these divisions at somewhat
greater length.
Of Servile ornament, the principal schools are the Greek, Ninevite, and
Egyptian; but their servility is of different kinds. The Greek
master-workman was far advanced in knowledge and power above the
Assyrian or Egyptian. Neither he nor those for whom he worked could
endure the appearance of imperfection in anything; and, therefore, what
ornament he appointed to be done by those beneath him was composed of
mere geometrical forms,--balls, ridges, and perfectly symmetrical
foliage,--which could be executed with absolute precision by line and
rule, and were as perfect in their way, when completed, as his own
figure sculpture. The Assyrian and Egyptian, on the contrary, less
cognizant of accurate form in anything, were content to allow their
figure sculpture to be executed by inferior workmen, but lowered the
method of its treatment to a standard which every workman could reach,
and then trained him by discipline so rigid, that there was no chance
of his falling beneath the standard appointed.
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