yle, but perhaps emblematic as to their motive, have
been repeated till the meaning and form have been lost; or else, as in
the case of the lotus, the emblem is forgotten, and nothing remains
but the recognized conventional form.

One conventional pattern which, having commenced by being a symbol,
has been repeated and varied till it has allowed the original
essential meaning to escape, is the "palm-leaf" or "cone" pattern on
French or Paisley shawls, which, having been a sacred emblem--the tree
of life--in Persia, became in Europe, when the religious myth was
lost, only a shawl pattern--merely a leaf, with plant painted within
its outlines. (Plate 23, Nos. 10, 11.)

Decorative designs become conventional in spite of the intention of
the designer. He is overruled by the spaces to be covered and the
materials to be employed. His design must produce a flat pattern; he
must repeat it again and again; he must give it a strong outline; he
must distribute it regularly at certain intervals. Repetition at once
conventionalizes the most naturalistic drawing, and the most sacred
and mysterious emblem. Alternation is equally a source of
conventionalism. There is no motive that cannot be conventionalized
into a pattern by repetition. A Gothic crown and a true lily,
repeated, will make an ecclesiastical conventional pattern. Then come
all the Arabian and Moresque forms (which are mostly geometric), and
also the Gothic (which are partly geometric and partly naturalistic,
especially those in German and debased Spanish and Portuguese Gothic
design).

[Illustration: Pl. 19.
1. Key Pattern.
2. Broken-up Key.
3. Beads.
4. Key and sign of Land.
5. Wave and Babylonian Daisy.
6. Key and Fundata.
7. Wave and Bead.
8. Wave and Daisy.
9. Key and Sun Cross.
These Key Patterns from Ceiling of a Tomb at Saccarah, in Egypt.
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians.")]

Then we must accept as conventional all those which may be called
kaleidoscope patterns, which are broken fragments of old motives,
repeated or "radiated" so as to become partly geometrical, wholly
conventional. (See Pl. 17, No. 2.)

Conventional patterns may be reduced into three kinds.

First, the naturalistic, which have by repetition been adapted for
decorative art.

Secondly, the symbolical--Pagan or Christian, religious or historical,
including the Heraldic.

Thirdly, those conventional forms which may never have had any