ape; it consists of a number
of lobes which are disposed upon a stalk which is more or less forked
(tends more or less to dichotomize). If you call to your minds some of the
Pompeian wall decorations, you will perceive that similar forms occur there
in all possible variations. Stems are regularly seen in decorations that
run perpendicularly, surrounded by leaves of this description. Before this,
these suggested the idea of a misunderstood (or very conventional)
perspective representation of a circular flower. Now the form also occurs
in this fashion, and thus negatives the idea of a perspective
representation of a closed flower. It is out of this form in combination
with the flower-form that the series of patterns was developed which we
have become acquainted with in Roman art, especially in the ornament of
Titus' Thermae and in the Renaissance period in Raphael's work. [The
lecturer here explained a series of illustrations of the ornaments referred
to (Figs. 12, 13, 14).]

The attempt to determine the course of the first group of forms has been to
a certain extent successful, but we meet greater difficulties in the study
of the second.

[Illustration: FIG. 13.]

It is difficult to obtain a firm basis on which to conduct our
investigations from the historical or geographical point of view into this
form of art, which was introduced into the West by Arabico-Moorish culture,
and which has since been further developed here. There is only one method
open to us in the determination of the form, which is to pass gradually
from the richly developed and strongly differentiated forms to the smaller
and simpler ones, even if these latter should have appeared
contemporaneously or even later than the former. Here we have again to
refer to the fact that has already been mentioned, to wit, that Oriental
art remained stationary throughout long periods of time. In point of fact,
the simpler forms are invariably characterized by a nearer and nearer
approach to the more ancient patterns and also to the natural flower-forms
of the Araceae. We find the spathe, again, sometimes drawn like an acanthus
leaf, more often, however, bulged out, coming to be more and more of a mere
outline figure, and becoming converted into a sort of background; then the
spadix, generally conical in shape, sometimes, however, altogether replaced
by a perfect thistle, at other times again by a pomegranate. Auberville, in
his magnificent work "L'Ornement des Tiss