The Object of Ornament
Introduction
This exhibition arose from a collaboration between participants in a Brown University art history seminar of Fall 2001 and curators from three departments at the RISD Museum: Costume and Textiles; Decorative Arts; and Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Studying each department's resources in the area of European ornament, the group examined how the work of artisans in materials such as wood, metal, fiber, and ceramics responded to and participated in the inventions of designers who drew patterns for prints.
Highly detailed and finely wrought, ornament prints were widespread throughout Europe during the early modern period (late 15th through the 18th century). In studying prints together with decorative arts and textiles, it becomes evident that any relatively portable object could disseminate patterns and ideas.
A profusion of ornament in daily life (or the plain and dreary lack of it) advertised social values and publicly demonstrated taste, education, and experience, as well as wealth. Ornament literally shaped the patterns of European life and identity during the slow change from a subsistence to a consumer economy. The object of ornament became, infact, the production of ever more hybrid, luxurious, and imaginative versions of itself.
Exhibition images
