This week we discussed Owen Jones' argument that "[c]onstruction should be decorated. Decoration should never purposefully be constructed;" The Grammar of Ornament 1856. He reasoned that any decoration may be symbolic or suggestive of the represented object, but never so close as to attempt to imitate them. It is amusing to me, then, that murals are so freely produced today - is this a purposeful resistance to Jones and other succeeding design reformists? I think so - murals are the very pinnacle of imitation - they are literally an interior painted to 'imitate' another scene. It is possible for a mural to be stylised, but the picture attached is an example of one that looks almost too real - the way the curtains are painted with shadow, the bird, trees and ivy with so much detail and depth, and the landscape with perspective - all direct opposites to the standards prescribed by Jones who believed that impersonation especially of nature, which was a perfect thing created by God, could not, and should not, be copied.
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| http://www.alltackle.com/ceiling_murals.htm |
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