Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume LI, No. 2623 [‎711r] (11/32)

February 27, 1903.]
JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
309
painted on vellum (with all the detail and
finish to which that beautiful material lends
itself), sent as a substitute for a working
drawing for large embroidery or carving, and
accompanied by instructions that they must be
strictly followed. Or of friezes and panels, of
which the different parts, heraldic and orna
mental, have been done by different designers
working in ignorance of each other’s design.
The general design is made, perhaps of well
drawn and graceful lines, with spaces where it
is thought, probably correctly, that the shields
would tell. Then a sketch, perhaps a mere
diagrammatic note of the arms, is procured,
■enlarged to the right size, and blindly copied.
Of course the result is patchwork. Careless
treatment of heraldry seems to pervade applied
art, and so to spoil what is otherwise meritorious
work. Much incongruityarises from fear lest im
proving the drawing or composition may violate
heraldic rules, and this brings us to the necessity
for acquiring such a knowledge of the subject as
will enable the designer to know what points are
really essential, and therefore to be carefully
retained and accentuated where accent is
proper, and what, on the other hand, may be
modified or ignored. A knowledge of the
system of heraldic description, called blazon,
will be absolutely necessary to this end.
Pedantry in non-essential matters is of course
absurd, and artistic freedom is always to be
■desired, but there must first of all be a basis of
knowledge on which to work.
It will be necessary to study the subject
sufficiently to distinguish between the essential
principles (such as underlaid the old good work)
and the later amplifications of rules, full
of pedantic insistence on regulating every
detail however unimportant, which were made
when the legal mode of thought had dis
placed the artistic one. The rules that are
necessary to prevent confusion will be found
sufficiently elastic to allow variety of treatment.
Among the qualities that it will be desired to
■express are just proportion, distinct definition,
good distribution in filling spaces, strongly
characterised and well accented forms, and
vigorous pose.
The proportion of the parts of a usual form
of heraldic group of shield, crest, helm and
mantling, to each other remained fairly con
stant from the end of the 13 th century to
Tudor times, and may be taken (roughly) to
be two-fifths of the whole height for the
shield and three-fifths for the helmet and
crest. This merely as a practical guide. I
I need hardly say that it is not to be taken
as actual measurement, but only as suggest
ing the relative weights in the design. The
character of the crest, whether broad and
solid, or tall and slight, would affect this.
The result of these proportions is to bring the
helm a little above the actual centre of the
design, where it forms a satisfactory point on
which the other objects group themselves.
With regard to the proportions of ordinaries
to their fields, many rules to be found in
treatises may be safely ignored. In good work
the ordinaries vary in size with the requirements
of distinctness in respect to the other charges,
and their variation in this way has no other
significance. I do not, of course, deny the use
fulness of points of proportion, they may be
useful so long as it is recognised that they are
approximate and variable guides instead of
dogmatic inflexible rules. With regard to
charges, it is equally impossible to say what
exact proportion they should bear to the field,
nor in most cases could we measure it if we
did. It must be a matter of artistic percep
tion which decides whether a space is properly
filled. In any case the proportion would be an
apparent rather than scientific one, and would
be greatly modified by circumstances, colour for
instance. I need hardly point out that the
actual measurements would not be the same for
a white object on black as for a black one on
white. It is curious howprevalent the desire has
always been to reduce to exact rules matters
that are insusceptible of that kind of con
trol. The 16 th century efforts at a geometric
way of drawing letters and the attempt to
regulate minutely heraldic drawing are in
stances of a peculiarly wrongheaded way of
approaching matters essentially aesthetic.
As to the animal forms, vigour is of the
utmost importance, together with strong
characterisation. In this connection the lions
of the Assyrian reliefs are very suggestive.
The expression of strong, leonine character
by means of the accentuation of the muscular
masses is a method that lends itself well to
heraldic design. The composite figures are
also well worthy of study in relation to the
griffins and other monsters of later times.
Gerard Leigh, writing in the middle of the
16 th century, has something to say about
griffins ; they are, as you know, half eagle and
half lion, which students of natural history
may like to know, thus : “ Griffins bear great
enmity to man and horse ; though the man be
armed and on horseback, yet they take the
one with the other quite from the ground and
carry them clean away. I think they are of
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