Gombrich, E. H.: The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art

Order, be it the invisible one hidden behind nature or the visible one created by man as decorative art, sings its own soundless melodies that resonate with our minds and our sense of beauty. Just as music is defined by “repetitive” and “harmonious” tones, human beings never stop trying to express their identities through ornaments, creating artificial order amidst the chaos of nature (Gombrich 1984, 37). As a self-generating force known as physis (φύσις), nature is celebrated for its variety and creativity. It is never confined by any defined shape and thus rarely produces a perfect circle or straight line, let alone a repetitive one (Gombrich 1984, 5). Therefore, it is our primitive instinct to notice unusual order in our surroundings as it stands out from the chaotic environment. Similarly, the development of artificial design and the use of decorative art, beginning with geometric order in all civilizations, signify mankind’s first attempt at self-reflection by communicating through a language of various combinations of patterns and colors distinct from nature.

What is the best way for decorative art to communicate? Are there common sense or general rules that separate good order from bad? Or secrets, hidden beneath the surface of every decorative art, that hold the most profound effect? Since “art”, written once, represents beauty and grace, written twice as “tart”, becomes flamboyant, and written three times as “tartar”, adds a barbaric tone that breaks the existing balance, a criticism that is often made against Rococo art (Gombrich 1984, 88). In Gombrich’s book The Sense of Order, which the author originally intended to title The Unregarded Art (Gombrich 1984, 116), he aims to explore the world of decorative arts and guide his readers to uncover the hidden secrets of a field that is rarely discussed compared to other disciplines in art history.

Decorative art, as implied already by its name, is created for the purpose of decoration. It is condemned to play a secondary role in its creation. Most of the time, it goes unnoticed or “unregarded”, yet it is eager to occupy every vacancy of our senses. Some dazzle our eyes with their complex patterns, lacking any profound information, like the beautiful (kalos, καλὸς) forms (eidos, εἶδος) in the kaleidoscope (Gombrich 1984, 149), while others want to convey the hidden message behind their symbolic figure – a mystery waiting to be unraveled, like the meandering line, echoing with our breath and cosmic order.

Gombrich’s The Sense of Order is the author’s second book, after Art and Illusion, about decorative art. Before his attempt, the most famous representatives and their works were William Hogarth’s The Analysis of Beauty (1753), Owen Jones’ The Grammar of Ornament (1856), Ralph Nicholson Wornum’s Analysis of Ornament (1856) and Jone Ruskin’s The Two Paths (1859). These theories were mentioned in different chapters of Gombrich’s work as methods and attempts that people used to generalize the rules for creating order. What distinguishes Gombrich from them apart is that he does not give a clear answer as to what “beauty” is but provides his readers only a vague “sense” of the topic, whereas all his predecessors attempted to define it with clear instructions: Hogarth believes that beauty must please the rules of following principles: “fitness”, “variety”, “uniformity”, “simplicity”, “intricacy”, and “quantity” (Paulson 1997, 23). Jones does the same, summarizing all his points under the Chapter ‘General principles in the arrangement of form and color, in architecture and the decorative arts, which are advocated throughout this work’ before beginning his case studies of different ornament in each culture and civilization (Jones 2016, 23–29). In Gombrich’s Chapter Six, ‘Forms and Things’, the author illustrates Ruskin and Wornum as two contrasting examples. Ruskin advocates for “animation”, believing that decorative art should embrace nature’s liveliness by preserving its elements. In contrast, Wornum supports “stylization”, arguing that superior decorative art should be entirely ornamental, creating an artificial geometrical world totally independent of nature (Gombrich 1984, 154).

Gombrich avoids concrete instructions and provides only a “sense” of idea regarding decorative art. In the epilogue ‘Some Musical Analogies’, the author begins his argumentation by mentioning the dilemma that Lessing had already discussed in his Laokoon. An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry about “rest” and “movement” through T. S. Eliot’s poem ‘Four Quartets’: “Words move, music moves/ Only in time; but that which is only living/ Can only die. Words, after speech, reach/ Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,/ Can words or music reach/ The stillness, as a Chinese jar still/ Moves perpetually in its stillness./ Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,/ Not that only, but the co-existence,/ Or say that the end precedes the beginning,/ And the end and the beginning were always there/ Before the beginning, and after the end./ And all is always now (Gombrich 1984, 285).” Words and music evolve over time. They are characterized by their “movement”. Painting can only crystallize a concrete or abstract moment characterized by its “rest” and “stillness”. Gombrich saw in the decorative arts the potential to combine the two ambivalent and overcome the limitations inherent in their nature. Although decorative art is visual art, it can also possess musical characteristics that allow it to “flow” (movement) into infinity. Just as music combines different chords to form a melody, decorative art, especially when it has a “serial order”, can gather various elements to create a harmonious combination that, through repetition, overcomes its limitations of time and space, and guides our eyes with its specific melody toward infinity (Gombrich 1984, 74). Like music, everyone has their own style preferences. Gombrich does not attempt to define good decorative art, as our inclinations combine our primitive intuition and acquired thinking that varies from person to person and time to time.

Why are people fond of decorative art? Gombrich provides an intriguing answer: it stems from our fear and love, the two extreme human emotions, reflecting the “psychology of decorative art” in his book title. People are afraid of emptiness and adore infinity, as expressed by the Latin terms horror vacui and amor infiniti (Gombrich 1984, 125). The fear we feel taps into our primal need to create order in our environment to feel secure. On the other hand, our fascination with infinity mirrors our desire to build a world that transcends the limits of our natural environment. It’s a timeless, artificial realm where we see ourselves as the absolute rulers of creativity.