142) may be considered a type. This is analogous to the fanciful forms
of frost seen on the interior of a pane of glass, and is frequently to
be found where the water is very shallow, and where its mixture with
some gritty substance, or blade of grass, or other obstruction, has in
all probability interfered with a more geometric arrangement. By degrees
the whole surface of the water becomes interlaced with needles and
pinnæ, whether singly or in groups, and thin laminated surfaces of ice
which cover all interstices. Then, according to external influences, the
ice either thickens, obliterating all this beautiful tracery, or it
melts away before the rising temperature of the day. It often happens,
however, that these processes occur after dark, or that the water
freezes so rapidly as to disappoint the wishes of the observer. At
moderate temperatures these changes are best observed; but, in our
opinion, they are somewhat dependent on other atmospheric conditions.
The formation of the needles is common to the freezing of water under
all circumstances, and they vary from a few inches to a few feet in
length.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.]
To return to the crystals of snow. Fig. 3 (page 136) is another
elementary figure, common to temperatures about the freezing-point; it
is not often less than half an inch in diameter, and is a miniature copy
of the water crystal.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.]
Another simple order of figures, and containing within themselves the
germ of the most symmetrical combinations, is that of which Figs. 4 and
5 (page 136) are types; they exhibit secondary spiculæ diverging from
the principal radii at an angle of 60°.
Around the simple it frequently happens that a secondary and smaller
star is arranged, as in Fig. 6 (page 136), the radii of which are
intermediate between those of the former. An angle of 30° is, however,
of unfrequent occurrence, and it seems probable that in this and similar
cases it is the union of two crystals of distinct hexagonal formation.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.]
Sometimes it happens that the secondary spiculæ, which we see in Figs. 4
and 5, are continued down the main radii until they form a contact with
each other, as in Fig. 7 (page 137). The star thus enclosed about the
centre generally becomes laminated and of great transparency. In other
varieties, as in Fig. 8 (page 137), it is intersected by the rays of the
secondary or intermediate crystal.
Having traced the elementary principles of these figures to the first
formation of a simple nucleus, we will proceed to the consideration of
the more compound varieties, in which the nucleus is a conspicuous
element of construction.
[Illustration: Fig. 28.]
The figures we have been considering, although possessed of unity of
design in a high degree, are found to exhibit no great perfection of
structural detail when examined beneath a lens; those that we are about
to inquire into belong to a more perfect order, much more minute and
very compound.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.]
Fig. 28 is a figure of this class, much enlarged and drawn as seen
beneath a microscope. It was highly crystallized, and the angles and
planes of which it is composed were sharply and well defined. The prisms
at the end of the radii were cut into facets, and glistened with
brilliancy, as did the six prisms around the centre. The radial arms
were sharply cut, six-sided shafts, very different from the snowy
rounded spiculæ of the elementary figures. It was easily discernible to
the naked eye, and principally those parts which are white in the
engraving, and which communicate to the copy very much the effect of the
original when under the full influence of direct light. The centre is
laminated, hexagonal in form, and within it we perceive the secondary
star of prisms; also that each addition to the radii diverges at an
angle of 60°.
Fig. 29 is another, highly crystallized, and composed of parallel
prisms, divergent from the radial arms at an angle of 60°, and without
nucleus. The irregular blade-like terminations arise from an ill-advised
eagerness in the observation of their originally very complicated
structure, by which they were in a moment dissolved, without injury,
however, to the symmetry of the figure.
[Illustration: Fig. 30.]
Fig. 30 is a beautiful compound of the higher order of crystallized
bodies with the more elementary, the nucleus belonging to the former,
and the radii at their extremities to the
[Illustration: Fig. 31.]
latter. This at first sight appears an anomaly; but we explain it on the
supposition that the entire structure of the original crystal has been
of a high order, the shafts six-sided, as they remain still at their
base, and the leafy incrustrations to have been regularly distributed
prisms, as in the preceding figure; that the crystal, in its descent,
has passed through various temperatures of intense cold, probably
exchanged for a warmer at one instant of time, in which it has partially
thawed, and again passing into a cold stratum in approaching the ground,
has been once more congealed, giving rise to the white opacity and
irregular form of its terminations. And this explanation is the more
reasonable, as will be gathered from a description of the dissolving or
thawing of these bodies.
Fig. 31 is a crystal seen just previous to its returning to the
primitive drop of water. Originally composed of the ordinary radial
arms, each supporting prisms of the form seen in Fig. 29, and with a
simple hexagonal nucleus, under the influence of a very slightly
increased temperature the rigidity of each line has become relaxed,
whilst the crystalline matter, all but fluid and no longer heaped up
into prisms, is distributed over a wider area, according to the laws of
attraction and corresponding area of surface.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.]
[Illustration: Fig. 33.]
A very different order of figures are those of which Figs. 32, 33, 34,
and 35 are types. The originals were exceedingly small--so minute,
indeed, that the specks containing all these beauties of detail were
almost inappreciable to the naked eye. It will readily be perceived that
they differ greatly from the order arising out of the primitive star or
its secondary radii. The base of these must be referred to the hexagon,
as shown at Fig. 2. The most highly elaborate of our illustrations,
shown at Fig. 33, exhibited a succession of planes raised one above
another, the centre of each radial arm intersected by a slender
crystalline shaft laden with delicate prisms. Fig. 35 preserves more the
form of the ordinary hexagon, and was cut very regularly into facets.
Of Figs. 34 and 35 we were unable to observe the exact disposition of
the raised surfaces, and have delineated the outline only: these figures
fell, with several others far more complicated, during the continuance
of a very unusual degree of cold for these latitudes.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.]
II.
We have thus far endeavoured to show the true bases of construction, and
how that crystallization proceeds onwards from the simple forms to the
more complex, and have selected from numerous varieties a few of the
best types illustrative of this progress. Our limits will scarcely
permit us further to individualise these beautiful creations; yet, not
to mislead, it is necessary to refer to an intermediate order, in which
the hexagon star is laden with divergent spiculæ between groups of
prisms. Fig. 36, selected from this very numerous class of figures, was
one of several observed during the cold weather, following upon the
general thaw, which terminated the long-continued and severe frost of
1855. The spiculæ were icicle-like, of the utmost delicacy, opaque, and
well defined; the prisms, on the contrary, were watery, almost rounded,
and, as it seemed, on the verge of dissolution. The entire figure had
the appearance of two distinct orders of formation--the prisms which
belong to a very low temperature, and the spiculæ which are commonly
formed at and about the freezing-point. Fig. 37 is another of the same
class, and in a very intermediate state; the additions to the main radii
are neither prisms nor spiculæ, yet partaking of the character of both:
its peculiarity consists in the tertiary incrustations being placed
downwards towards the centre. This form has been observed only during
very severe cold.
Fig. 38 is somewhat analogous to the crystals of water; its centre is
hexagonal, but the prisms are irregular crystalline incrustations of the
utmost delicacy and transparency; it was of large size, fully half an
inch in diameter, and glistening like a fragment of talc among the
snow-flakes, was discernible at a considerable distance.
[Illustration: Fig. 35.]
Fig. 39 (page 156) is a specimen of a double crystal; that is, two
similar crystals united by an axis at right angles to the plane of each.
It is highly complex, and the effect of each is more than doubled by the
arrangement. Crystals so united are not unfrequent in severe weather.
During one winter our observations numbered nearly two hundred
varieties.
[Illustration: Fig. 36.]
The series of small drawings given on pages 137, 138, and 139, were made
with a lens of moderate power, but they are not equal in value or
structural detail to those drawn beneath the microscope. They are among
the most elementary figures observed; and, as illustrative of the first
principles of formation, are chiefly worthy of consideration. Of more
elaborate figures drawn beneath the microscope, besides those more
immediately referred to in the text, examples are given in Figs. 40, 41,
and 42.
The idea of observing snow crystals is by no means original. We know for
certain that Aristotle observed them; also Descartes, Greu, Kepler, and
Drs. Nettes and Scoresby of modern times. Sir Edward Belcher also
devoted a considerable degree of attention to the study of the crystals
of snow in the Arctic regions. There the radial arms were seldom less
than an inch in length, and might be seen, according to Sir Edward
Belcher, drifted in heaps into the crannies and recesses of the ice.
They were seldom to be obtained in a perfect condition, generally
separating, by reason of their weight and size, on descending to the
ground.
[Illustration: Fig. 37.]
III.
Having brought to a close all that is here necessary to say respecting
the formation of these bodies, and the position they occupy in regard to
scientific inquiry, we may now turn to a consideration of their
capabilities to suggest new forms in decorative design, as applied to
the industrial arts. Being ourselves desirous to promote the adoption of
the appropriate as well as the simple beauty of truth in ornament, we
will first inquire how far these figures are in accordance with those
general principles of arrangement of form which in all ages and
countries have constituted the truly beautiful in art.
These are summed up briefly in the propositions contained in the opening
chapter of Mr. Owen Jones’s “Grammar of Ornament.” We extract the
following:--
“Proposition 3.--As Architecture, so all works of the Decorative Arts
should possess fitness, proportion, harmony, the result of all which is
repose.
“Proposition 5.--Decoration should never be purposely constructed: that
which is beautiful is true, that which is true is beautiful.
“Proposition 8.--All ornament should be based upon a geometrical
construction.
“Proposition 9.--As in Architecture, so in the Decorative Arts, every
assemblage of forms should be arranged on certain definite proportions;
the whole and each particular member should be a multiple of some
particular unit.
“Proposition 10.--Harmony of form consists in the proper balancing and
contrast of the straight, the inclined, and the curved.”
[Illustration: Fig. 38.]
Further on, from the same high authority, we receive as an axiom--“That
there can be no perfect composition where either of the three primary
elements is wanting--the straight, the inclined, and the curved, or
where they are not so harmonized that the one preponderates over the
other two.” In the crystals of snow we perceive these last conditions
are implicitly fulfilled, inasmuch as they include the varieties,
straight, angular, and curved, of which the angular has a decided
preponderance.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.]
With regard to the proportions of number on which these figures are
based, we shall find them almost all deficient in the maintenance of a
ratio, water crystallizing at an angle of 60°, a fact exemplified in the
radial arms and the secondary and tertiary additions, which, always
produced at the same angle, are characteristic of the greater number of
these crystals. Thus they can be considered suggestive only of more
complete designs--the centre, in fact, of a bordering or pattern-work,
to be completed round them according to the intended application, and
with due reference to those ratios of number which are found most
acceptable in composition.
[Illustration: Fig. 40.]
Founded upon a strictly geometric base, and a uniform repetition of a
certain concordant irregularity of parts, bound together in one
harmonious unity by the laws of circular composition, which serve to
lend beauty to their constructive details, and constitute the archeus of
the figure, we are impressed with a conviction of their truth and
conformity to the natural principles of beauty.
The impulse created in their favour is thus subsequently confirmed on
rational and acknowledged grounds of admiration. This is the more
satisfactory that, belonging to no school of architecture or design,
they may be considered as originating a new order of forms for the
further supply or extension of those so long acknowledged and admired.
We do not, however, consider that they will equally well assimilate with
all or any of the orders of decorative art. It appears to us, according
to the means placed at our disposal for arriving at a conclusion, that
they are analogous in many respects to the numerous specimens of angular
composition which belong to the mediæval period of Byzantine art.
[Illustration: Fig. 41.]
It may not be altogether foreign to the subject briefly to consider the
united power of geometric figures, in conjunction with colour, to
produce the striking and beautiful effects which form so important a
feature in Byzantine and Moresque mosaic (but particularly the former)
specimens of art.
[Illustration: Fig. 42.]
The base of Byzantine mosaic is principally the relation of the hexagon
to the triangle, upon which base almost innumerable combinations have
been constructed. These Byzantine mosaics are always extremely simple in
structure, some being made up entirely of the triangle, others of stars
either six or eight rayed, singly or enclosed in a hexagon or octagon
placed at intervals, and united by the more simple figure of the
triangle, which, arranged in groups, serve as connecting links from one
to the other. The whole composition is rendered either sparkling or
monotonous according to the employment of contrasted effects or a
limited and uniform range of colour, and is admirably illustrative of
how the uniformity of the geometric figure may be broken up and
destroyed, its very character changed, indeed, according to the system
of colouring adopted--an illustration still further confirmed by a study
of the varied and evolved designs on a part of the encaustic pavement of
the Byzantine Court at the Crystal Palace, which, described in shades of
neutral tint throughout, upon a ground of the same colour, renders it
difficult for the eye to detect any variation of pattern.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.]
The specimens of Moresque mosaic with which we are acquainted differ
somewhat in character from that which we have been considering. Based
upon the square and its affinities, it is constructed mainly with
reference to the ratios of eight, four, and twelve. It is less
glittering in colour than the Byzantine, and attracts the eye more to
masses than to fragments.
The figures of snow are nearly allied to the principles of these
decorative styles of art, based as they are upon a system of angular
geometry. We perceive, also, that the primitive base of the crystals is
the leading figure of mosaic, founded, as most of it is, upon the
hexagon and its combinations, though occasionally admitting, with great
effect, the employment of the octagon. Thus they seem naturally
suggestive of an extension of the forms common to mosaic, and may be the
means of eliciting fresh combinations scarcely less beautiful than those
transmitted to us from the past.
The fitness of mosaic for the purposes of decoration is evident, on the
ground of its conformity to certain fixed principles of truth which
scarcely permit of deviation. One of the oldest of the mechanical arts,
originating in experimental combinations with cubes solid and
transparent, subsequently improving as the science of geometry became
more generally understood, it is now, in the hands of some of our most
eminent manufacturers, not the least important among the industrial
agents of the present day, as may be seen in the beautiful encaustic and
painted tiles for pavements and decorative purposes generally, executed
by Messrs. Minton & Co., of Stoke-upon-Trent.
One great fault of the decorative designs of the present day is the
want of “appropriate” ornament to the purposes in view, and the mixture
of schools or styles of art, which characterize so many of the patterns
commonly produced for domestic and even higher applications--a mixture
too often involving the entire destruction of truth, fitness, and
proportion, the three essential elements of beauty. In the magnificent
work on the “Principles of Ornament,” by Mr. Jones, we have an entire
history of the past in architectural design, classified into schools,
the origin and progress of each, either traced or traceable in
connection with the period at which it flourished, and the people who
gave it birth. We may therefore anticipate that the pure and beautiful
so made known amongst us may exercise an important and beneficial
influence on design, from its highest to its lowest applications.
We do not forget, however, that the art of mosaic, taking its rise
beneath the sunny skies of Italy and Greece, and glittering even now on
the walls and beneath the cloisters of the Byzantine churches of Italy
and Sicily, and within the mosques and palaces of the East, accords
rather with the genius of the South and the gorgeous taste of the East
than with the less florid tone of more northern lands; and a thorough
understanding of the conditions under which it so long assimilated with,
and continued to constitute a dazzling feature in, the decoration of
two, if not three, of the highest styles of architecture--the Moresque,
Byzantine, and Arabian--is necessary to enable us to profit to the full
by its capabilities as an industrial agent. Nor do we forget that the
rise of mosaic (we are speaking of its conventional varieties) was
accompanied by, or was rather the result of, the decline of art, when
for a period a mechanical process usurped the place of higher efforts of
design and fancy.
For the very reason, however, that the art and its imitations must be to
a great extent mechanical, we could wish to see its range of utility
still further extended. Not admitting of wide deviations from fixed
principles, we would prefer to see it substituted for the large mass of
nondescript patterns to which we have already made allusion. And our
facilities are great for introducing it into more general use; for in
the same way that the painter’s art has, with the utmost truthfulness of
effect, reproduced for our study and admiration representations of the
elaborate inlayings of marble and glass, with which the originals,
centuries ago, were constructed, we may carry its imitation successfully
into almost every branch of manufacture or decoration; and, whilst
preserving the spirit of the combinations, unfettered by the
constructive difficulties of the original work, we may engraft new
figures, and originate new styles of pattern, perhaps available for a
variety of applications.
IV.
An attempt to adapt a revival of Byzantine glass mosaic to various
household elegancies has within the last few years been made by Mr.
George Stephens, of Pimlico, who, after considerable study of the
mosaics of antiquity, has designed a large variety of elaborate and
beautifully executed patterns for tables, stands, panellings,
candelabra, &c. In the specimens that we have seen his combinations have
been based, many of them upon the hexagon and its varieties, and several
upon the octagon, which is necessarily more removed from the simplicity
of the Byzantine school. In the opinion of Mr. Stephens the figures of
snow are highly suggestive of a still further extension of the forms
known in mosaic, and he considers that they will materially aid in the
construction of new figures. We believe that it is his intention shortly
to attempt an adaptation of some of them to the purposes of his art.
We feel that we cannot sufficiently admire the structural detail of the
greater number of these productions, and the rich effects of colour
united in their composition. But here we may remark, that to render the
ancient Byzantine mosaic an appropriate decorative agent, it is
necessary that the artist should not copy implicitly from the works of
the past, but seek most to maintain between it and surrounding
influences the same relation that formerly existed between it and the
people under whose hands it attained such distinguished pre-eminence. As
we have already said, the art originated beneath the skies of Italy and
Greece, and with it the system of bright and glittering colours which
rendered it so perfect in itself, and in its relation to all surrounding
things. Deprived of these bright influences of climate, we find it in
our own country no less beautiful in itself, but wanting in a due
harmonious relation to the tone of colour it is brought in contact with.
To remedy this--to naturalise the art, in fact--the artist should be
content to trust rather to harmony of design than to chromatic effects;
so that the eye, uncaught by a general sensation of brilliancy and
glitter, may repose upon the quiet harmony of the design; and this
remark we make as applying more or less to all mosaic, and entering as a
matter of consideration into every application of which it is capable in
this country, though more particularly in reference to the especial
description executed by Mr. Stephens.
In rejecting strong chromatic effects, however, we would not be
understood to sanction neglect of the very material aid afforded by
colour in giving life and purpose to mosaic; but we would have it
studied with a view to its creating as many varieties of pattern as can
possibly result from the introduction of a limited range of colour upon
a uniform series of designs. For instance, how many varieties of pattern
the eye is able to trace from the simple repetition of a six-rayed star
of uniform colour upon a ground broken into triangles by the
introduction of two other colours to complete the triple harmony! This
is an unfailing charm in mosaic: however simple or however complex the
construction of the design, viewed from a distance, the eye is
constantly discovering, without mental effort, fresh combinations
which, arising out of natural and fixed laws, communicate pleasure to
the beholder.
To encaustic tile-work and its imitations the figures of snow appear
peculiarly suggestive; and it is remarkable that a few of the patterns
preserved to us from antiquity are exactly similar to the nuclei of some
of the snow crystals. In this application, far more than in the
conventional glass mosaic and its imitations of which we have been
speaking, we are compelled to seek effect in symmetry of design.
Necessarily excluded from imparting the idea of raised surfaces, such
being inconsistent with the intention of flooring, which is to present a
level surface to the eye and feet, we are also confined to a very
limited range of colour, in order not to interfere with the decorations
of the walls and ceilings, and the manufacture of encaustic tiles being
in itself limited to the employment of but few colours. Thus excluded
from the rich and subtle harmonies of colour, and the relievo of light
and shade, our attention is principally directed to the design which, in
regard to this application, should combine simplicity with uniformity of
outline, and be easily referable to a purely geometric base. And here we
may add, in regard to the figures of snow, that, whether in outline or
in relievo, they are equally symmetrical. In the one case they are
simply enlarged copies of the general effect to the naked eye; in the
other they present to us structural details only visible by the
employment of a high-power lens, or as seen by the aid of a microscope.