Illustration: Indian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.
Within Owen Jones 1856 book The Grammar of Ornament there are two distinct chapters dealing with the ornament of the sub-continent. Indian and Hindoo ornament are two chapters that deal with the same geographical area. The Hindoo chapter deals with what could be classed as largely native or indigenous decoration within India, even though this chapter contained colour plates that highlighted Burmese as well as Indian decoration. Jones must have felt that Burma, which at the time was considered by many Victorians to be an extension of British India, did not necessarily merit a separate or distinct geographical or cultural area within his book.
Jones Indian chapter on the other hand, deals much more with the ornamental and decorative work of Northern India. This largely imported Islamic set of decorative ideals was to play such an important part in the history of the decorative arts in this part of India. They came to epitomise to many outside the region, Indian decorative and ornamental art.
Illustration: Satellite map of India.
Jones saw Islam as being responsible for producing one unified and indeed unifying decorative style that stretched from North Africa to Northern India and beyond. He felt that the rules and tenets that guided the religion also guided the decorative arts. These guiding principles could be seen through a number of mediums including textiles, wood, metal, ceramics and many more. More importantly, he believed that Islamic decoration and ornamentation had no use or purpose for affectation and fashion. He felt that all elements within the pattern work and larger ornamental styles and themes within Islam were counted as vital to the finished piece. In other words, a finished decorative piece had all the elements it needed and nothing could be added or taken away. There is a definite link between this belief and that of the British Arts & Crafts movement. It would perhaps be too defining to say that Islam influenced the early Arts & Crafts movement, but it would be true to say that the early pioneers of the movement were looking for correlations between a sustainable and long lasting alternative to mass produced irrelevance and obsolescence. That they found interesting design beliefs and formulas within both medieval Christianity and Islam is understandable.
Illustration: Indian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.
It is interesting that Jones on more than one occasion in The Pattern of Ornament stressed his belief that Indian decorative work should be both studied and understood by British designers, particularly if they wanted to fully understand and appreciate the reasoning behind finely styled decorative pattern work.
The illustrations shown here are only some of the examples shown in Jones book. Many of the Indian themed colour plates produced in The Grammar of Ornament were either from collections within the South Kensington Museum or those collected by the East India Company. Many of the examples were either on permanent display or could be easily viewed by interested parties.
Illustration: Indian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.
The four examples I have chosen are images from both mainstream Islamic decoration, but also from that of the highly individual approach made by Iran, which had played such an important role within the structure of Islamic decoration, particularly with regards to that of complex floral work which seemed a particular speciality of Iranian designers.
It is perhaps this decorative flower work that seems to be so intrinsically associated with Northern India and held in such high regard by a whole host of nineteenth century British designers from Owen Jones to William Morris and beyond. It is not hard to recognise the influence of this Northern Indian style and its effect and influence can be seen throughout British nineteenth century decorative pattern work, particularly as regards printed and woven textiles and carpet design, two areas that benefited enormously from the extensive London collections that had originally derived from Northern India.
Illustration: Indian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.
Further reading links:Islamic Decoration and Ornament as seen by Owen Jones
The Grammar of Ornament: All 100 Color Plates from the Folio Edition of the Great Victorian Sourcebook of Historic Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Grammar of Ornament: A Monumental Work of Art
The Grammar of Ornament. Folio Edition
The Art and Architecture of India: buddhist/hindu/jain
The Majesty of Mughal Decoration: The Art and Architecture of Islamic India
The Art and Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, Second Edition
Hindu Art and Architecture in India
The History of Architecture in India
The Traditions of Northern India: A Study of Arts, Architecture and Crafts in Haryana
Indian Art (Oxford History of Art)
Art and Architecture in Medieval India
Mughal Style: The Art And Architecture Of Islamic India
