ABSTRACT
Originating from Scotland, Dyce in a full, though relatively short career, managed to engage with being an artist, a theorist, a designer, and a reforming administrator. Dyce’s ideas on pattern drawing were rooted in his experience in Edinburgh and the perceived need for designers to understand the manufacturing industries for which they worked. The artist and the ornamentist may choose out of caprice, as in the case of arabesques, to unite their two arts; but the arts are not the less essentially distinct, nor, as a general rule, the less incompatible in practice. The outlines of Greek ornaments are only approximations to scientific forms; nor are more required in art. The solidity or coloured effect of the ornament are matters connected with the application of the form, but the outline, as containing its principle, is in itself complete; and in becoming practically acquainted with this, the student has made a positive acquirement in ornamental design.
