imple geometric forms common to nature and art.
Early ornament consists in the repetition of such forms. The next step
was to connect them by lines: and so form and line, through endless
vicissitudes and complexities, became united, to live happily in the
world of decorative motive ever after. But long after the primitive
unadorned geometric forms themselves have ceased to be the chief forms
in ornament, their controlling influence is asserted over the boundaries
of the more complicated masses introduced.

[Typical Forms of Ornament]

The simple rectangle is disguised under the fret, the circle and spiral
assert their sway over the boundaries of the palmette, or circle and
semicircle unite to form the oval so frequently used both as a unit in
Greek ornament and as a controlling boundary. These are typical border
forms: for extension and repetition in fields of pattern we find the
same geometric plans at work in combination and subdivision, forming at
first the ornament itself, and afterwards furnishing the plan and
controlling boundaries only. Even in later stages in the evolution of
surface decoration, in what are called naturalistic floral patterns,
amid apparent carelessness and freedom, by the exigencies of repetition
the ghost of buried geometric connection reappears, and compels the
most naturalistic roses on a wall-paper to acknowledge themselves
artificial after all, as they nod to their counterparts from the masked
angles of the inevitable diaper repeat.

[Illustration (f056): Tree of Typical Pattern Forms, Units, and
Systems.]

We find in the historical forms of decorative art constantly recurring
types of form and line, such as the lotus of the Egyptians, the anthemia
of the Greeks, the pineapple-like flower and palmette of the Persians,
the peony of the Chinese. These forms, at first valued solely for their
symbolical and heraldic significance, and continually demanded, became
to the designer important elements or _units_ in ornament. They gave him
fine sweeping curves, radiating lines, and bold masses, without which a
designer cannot live, any more than a poet without words. They were
capable, too, of infinite variation in treatment, a variation which has
been continued ever since, as by importation to different countries (the
movement going on from east to west) the same forms were treated by
designers of different races, and became mixed with other native