The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

This beautiful, highly influential book, long a classic in its field, remains today one of the most comprehensive and best-organized presentations of historic ornamental design. The original 100 color plates, meticulously reproduced here from the rare original folio edition, present a dazzling spectrum of copyright-free design motifs from both ancient and modern cultures. The Grammar of Ornament features designs from around the world: the West to the Far East and many cultures in between.

Graphic and fine artists will find nearly three thousand designs rendered in fine detail from a variety of sources:

• Greek and Roman borders and mosaics
• Celtic designs taken from manuscripts
• Motifs from medieval paintings and stained glass
• Floral patterns from Chinese porcelain, wood, and fabrics
• Illuminated script from the Koran
• Ornamentation from Turkish mosques and tombs
• Moorish designs from the Alhambra

Connoisseurs of art and design will find the book's rich display of decorative motifs an endless source of contemplative pleasures.

The work of the celebrated English designer and architect Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, initially published in 1856, was the first book to present a global and historical range of ornament in color, the first to display primitive art for its design content, and among the first to suggest nature as a basic design source.

Widely used and circulated, this prophetic work ushered in a major change in Western aesthetics and heralded the move towards nonrepresentational art. Its value as a beautifully organized and produced pictorial museum of historic ornamental design remains unsurpassed.

Owen Jones was born in Barry, South Wales, and lived there until he was 18 years old, when he moved to Portsmouth to study Russian. He relocated to s'Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, after earning his degree and resided there for ten years. Owen returned to Barry at the age of 32 to work for his family's construction company, first as a painter, then as a director. When he notified his local bank that he had been promoted to 'painter and director,' they corrected him, stating, 'No, you mean a 'painter and decorator.' For ten years, he was also the office manager.

Owen relocated to Thailand at the age of 50 to live with a Thai female he met while on vacation there. He married her and now lives in her birth hamlet in distant northern Thailand's rice belt. 'Born in the Land of Song, living in the Land of Smiles,' as Owen puts it.