Ornament and Rhetoric
The writings of Vitruvius and Alberti clearly reveal that the concept of ornament has its roots in rhetoric, going back as early as Greek antiquity. There is a connection with the rhetorical ornatus in the sense of Horace’s “ut pictura poesis erit” (“as is painting so is poetry”), that is, the concept was used in rhetoric and poetry in reference to architecture and the fine arts in general, in the early modern era mainly out of a spirit of humanism. This explains the integration of architectural details into the concept of ornamentation in the modern era, particularly in the writings of Alberti, who himself found his way to art theory by way of poetry and literature.
The Roman rhetorician Quintilian wrote in his “Institutio oratoria” (92–96 BC), which was rediscovered by Poggio Bracciolini in the library of the Abbey of
St. Gallen in 1415: “The ornate is something that goes beyond what is merely
lucid and acceptable.” Ornament is thus singled out as the essence of the art of
oratory and, by association, of a work of art in general, since Quintilian goes on to say that acutum (piquancy), nitidum (polish), copiosum (richness), hilare (liveliness), iucundum (charm) and accuratum (precision) are the components of gratia (grace) which, in his opinion, make an oration into a work of art.
Such concepts are these strongly influenced non-rhetorical assessments of art well into the 18th century. In this way, ornamentation also became a kind of language, the rhetoric of which was understandable to the cultured beholder.
Bernd Evers, Rainald Franz
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