Exotic Decoration. Teaching Art with Art.

From the dawn of history, people have enjoyed decorating things they valued, although all that usually remains of very old art is works made of stone and pottery. Even though wood, cloth and baskets do not last as long, decorated fragments have been discovered that tell us about this urge to make objects more interesting to look at.

The most exotic art was usually reserved for important people such as kings, generals and religious leaders who wanted to make themselves seem even more powerful by wearing jeweled crowns and rich robes. They also lived in ornate palaces, while priests had equally splendid temples. Important objects, such as swords, thrones, crosses and altars, were also richly decorated. Sometimes, they were so completely covered with gold and precious stones that they seemed encrusted like a tropical coral reef.

The problem with all this marvelous artwork is that when conquerors and other ambitious leaders came along, they wanted the same kinds of things and usually destroyed earlier precious art and used the gold, silver and jewels to decorate themselves in new ways. As a consequence, not very much old art of this kind has survived. Sometimes all that remains are descriptions by people who saw it. Occasionally it appears in pictures and sculpture.

Luckily, some exotic art has survived that people today can see for themselves in museums and books. For example, some of the clothing and jewelry worn by Egyptian pharaohs have been preserved, and so have some that belonged to Alexander the Great. Art from Mexico and South America that escaped the Spanish conquest can also be seen. In other parts of the world, all that remains are the ruins of richly carved temples, such as those in India and Southeast Asia, because paintings, woodcarvings and weavings have all faded or rotted away.

Even though powerful people had the finest kinds of exotic decoration, it has never been restricted only to them. Ordinary people have always made designs on pottery, clothing, furniture, rugs, tools and even themselves (tattoos); and as these things decayed or were destroyed, new ones were made.

The art collections of most museums show that this desire to decorate remains strong. Easter eggs from Eastern Europe, for example, are completely covered with patterns. Colorful hand-embroidered clothing continues to be made in parts of Central and South America, as well as Africa and Asia. Richly carved canoes have been found in many Pacific Islands, as well as in the Asian country of Thailand. The list goes on and on, and students should be encouraged to continue this search on their own.

The problem that often faces children and adolescents is that they have not had the opportunity to see examples of different kinds of richly decorated art to have learned how varied it is and, most importantly, to discover those kinds that most appeal to them. This lack of opportunity also makes it very difficult for students to know how to use decoration effectively in their own art. In an effort to introduce them to some, several contrasting examples are provided in this article.

Almost any school art medium may be used as students develop their own ideas about exotic decoration. More important than the art materials is how students may best use their choice of media in this way. When painting or illustrating, spaces can be filled with repeating designs. However, asymmetrical patterns often look more exotic than symmetrical ones. Clay can also be decorated with paint once it is dry or has been fired in a kiln. Clay surfaces can also be scratched or carved, or they can have decoration stuck on.

Plaster or wood are most likely to have lines and shapes cut into their surfaces. Block printing or screen printing often consists of repeating patterns that completely cover a length of cloth and make all of it decorative--sometimes for clothing, but also to cover furniture. Designs can be woven into textiles and also into baskets. The most important understanding is that the best ideas come from individuals who then use them with whatever art medium they are using.

Artists continue to produce exotic decoration because people enjoy being surrounded by visual luxury. Over the last few centuries, for example, numbers of artists and designers have concentrated their creativity on producing exotic work that fills most of the space in an artwork. Examples by two of these artists are included here, although many others had similar goals.

The face of the 18th-century clock from Germany is the only part that is undecorated--and that was only because people needed to be able to read the time. Everything else is so profusely decorated that it is easy to forget that the object is a clock.

The assemblage art of Alfonso Ossorio was inspired by the 1200-year-old Celtic masterpiece of manuscript illumination, Book of Kells, but instead of drawing and painting, Ossorio worked with small objects set in plastic adhesive. Lastly, the carving from India is an example of a very different but equally exotic kind of decoration that frequently covers the outsides of Hindu temples.

Alfonso Ossorio was born into a wealthy Philippine family. He went to school in England and attended college in the United States. He came from a deeply religious background and these convictions remained with him throughout his life. As he grew older, his ideas about art were strongly influenced by his graduate studies in the art history of the Middle Ages. Other ideas grew out of studying the assemblage art of the Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, who was among the first to make artworks from collections of unrelated objects. Other important influences came from his friendship with the French artist, Jean Dubuffet, and the American abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock.

These combined influences resulted in numbers of style changes that eventually led Ossorio to arrive at his own style of assemblage. The surface of this work is studded with found objects that are mainly hard and shiny. He called these works "Congregations" because they were composed of many kinds of carefully selected objects that were arranged to create a unified work of art.

This assemblage, Thee and Thy Shadow, is thought to be one of the best examples of Ossorio's idea of congregations. The list of objects he used is quite long and is included here to illustrate the complexity of the collection. Preparations for the creation of his congregations could take Ossorio several months, as he searched through junk shops throughout the New York area. Those selected for this work are: rope, 1961 pennies, dominoes, chain, driftwood, eyeglass arms, shells, denim, mirrored glass, feathers, glass crystal, belt with buckle, glitter, brass hook, velvet, paint sticks, coral, plastic beads, clear plastic, plastic letters, glass eyes, and epoxy adhesive on wooden panel.

This guardian figure was carved during an Indian dynasty that lasted from 1006 to 1346. It was a time when a large number of richly decorated stone temples and monuments were built. The outside walls of these structures were completely covered with sculpture and carved designs so that not an inch was left untouched. The sculpture consisted of stories about Hindu gods and spirits. People were expected to walk around the buildings and read the stories before entering the temple. Few of these stories included words, probably because most people at the time could not read. For this reason, it is better to think of these sculptures as stone writing. The stories consisted of wicked stepmothers, enchanted forests, animal helpers, with princesses and heroes living happily forever.

The sculpture shown here portrays a figure that guarded a doorway. No part of the costume has been left undecorated, while the tall headdress is particularly ornate. The weapons on each side of the figure are more decorative than useful, and are covered with snakes, leaves and other objects that are probably magical. Small figures are carved around the figure of the guardian.

Every part of this and every other piece of Indian sculpture had special meaning for the people who visited the temples and it was carved according to strict rules. The Indian carvers had to follow these rules and, unlike present-day sculptors, were not free to design anything they liked.

These elaborate initials from the handwritten Irish manuscript, Book of Kells, were intended to impress church congregations with the splendor of the religious message of Christianity, particularly since most people 1,200 years ago were unable to read the words for themselves. Even for the priests, who would read from the book during church services, legibility was not very important because they were so very familiar with the words.

The decoration in the Book of Kells was most complex in those parts that glorified important events in the life of Jesus Christ. The famous page shown here, introduces St. Matthew's account of the Nativity. It includes a monogram of the abbreviated Greek words for the name of Jesus Christ. Most of the book is written in Latin, however, because that was the language of the church at the time.

The artistic style seen here had been developing for a long time before the Book of Kells was written, and the same kinds of designs are found in stone carving and metalwork to show that it was not limited to manuscript art. Every part of the page, except for main outlines, is filled with carefully drawn designs and patterns, much of it made with a compass. Other parts are filled with masses of interlaced lines, many of which are different from each other, as though the artist or artists working on the book were free to complete them as they wished. Several portraits can also be seen.

In the years following the Italian Renaissance, art became increasingly ornate and, by the 18th century, a style appeared that was the most decorative of all. It was called "Rococo," after the idea of being crusted with coral and shells. It was very popular everywhere in Europe, especially in France and Germany. The most ornamental examples were found inside the great palaces of the nobility. Rococo art was sometimes made of molded plaster and sometimes of carved wood, and found its way on to chairs, tables, doors, beds, mirrors and even clocks. Much of it was covered with gold leaf to make it look even more exotic. In some churches and palaces, interior walls and ceilings were also filled with Rococo designs and paintings.

This example of a Rococo clock shows just how skillful master wood carvers were at that time. In places, the wood is cut through so that we can see through the design. And parts of the carving are paper thin so that one mistake would have ruined it. Moreover, the design is asymmetrical: Each side is different from the other, which makes the ornate decoration look even more exotic. It is difficult to imagine wood being carved with this much detail and yet this level of skill is found in much Rococo art.

The decoration of this clock is made to look like a fairyland. Some parts show rich foliage, while others include arches, columns, steps, balustrades and a fairy-tale entrance. It wouldn't take much imagination to compose a fantasy story about the place. Only the clockface is fairly simple and that is because people needed to be able to tell the time easily. Attention is drawn to the clockface because it is just about the only geometric shape in the design (a circle), and it is enameled instead of gilded. In addition, it is the only part of the clock that is centered in the design.

PHOTO (COLOR): Chi-Rho page, St. Matthew's Gospel, Book of Kells, c. 800. Illuminated in Iona-Kells-Northumbria. Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. ©Art Resource, N.Y.