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Ornament · Motif

Borders & frames

Decorative frames, cartouches and rules around content.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under ornament: how much decoration, and of what kind?

styles make it: 134
as a defining choice: 18
as a usual one: 63
now and then: 53
avoid it: 8

Styles defined by it 18

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic & Register Compositionc. 0–394 · Middle East & North AfricaThe visual system of pharaonic Egypt, in which writing is made of pictures and pictures are ruled like writing.
Ethiopian Ge'ez Manuscript & Haräg Illuminationc. 500–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe manuscript art of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, written in the Ge'ez syllabary on parchment from the Garima Gospels (radiocarbon-dated to roughly the 4th–7th centuries) to the present.
Armenian Manuscript Illuminationc. 862–1800 · Middle East & North Africa, Eastern EuropeThe illuminated books of the Armenian Church, from the Gospel of Queen Mlke (c. 862) and the Etchmiadzin Gospels (989) to the last manuscripts around 1800.
Hebrew Micrographyc. 895–present · Middle East & North Africa, Southern Europe, Central Europe, Western EuropeA Jewish scribal art in which lines of minute Hebrew script, usually the Masoretic notes that guard the biblical text, are written so that the line itself draws: interlaced frames and star rosettes on full carpet pages, and animals, knights, fish and grotesques in the margins.
Persian Miniature (Ilkhanid, Timurid and Safavid Book Painting)c. 1300–1700 · Middle East & North Africa, South AsiaThe court book painting of Iran and Timurid Herat, formed in Mongol Tabriz from Islamic, Byzantine and Chinese models: from Rashid al-Din's Jamiʿ al-tawarikh (1314) and the Great Mongol Shahnama to Behzad's Herat and the Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp, ending in the album pages of Safavid Isfahan.
Mithila (Madhubani) Paintingc. 1350–present · South AsiaWomen's ritual wall and floor painting from Mithila in north Bihar and Nepal's Terai, attested from at least the 14th century, seen by W.
Persian Nastaʿlīq Calligraphy (Qiṭʿa, Chalipa and Siyāh-mashq)c. 1400–present · Middle East & North Africa, South AsiaThe 'hanging' script of Persian poetry and an art of the single sheet.
Sápmi Graphic Identity (Duodji & Gákti Colour Code)1600–present · Northern Europe, Eastern EuropeDuodji is Sámi handicraft: hard work in wood, horn and bone, soft work in skin and cloth; drums painted with alder-bark figures survive from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books)1752–1885 · Southeast AsiaPainted Burmese folding books of the Konbaung court and its monasteries.
Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type1810–1900 · Western Europe, North AmericaThe commercial jobbing print of the industrial century: posters, playbills, auction notices and ephemera built from a flood of new display types (fat faces, Egyptians, grotesques, Tuscans and condensed wood type).
Cuban Tobacco Lithography (Habilitaciones & Marquillas)1845–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe chromolithographed dress of Havana tobacco.
Celtic Revival Illumination & Lettering1861–1951 · Western EuropeOrnament and lettering of the Celtic Revival in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, modelled on Insular gospel books such as Kells and on carved stone crosses.
Kanga (Swahili Message Cloth)1886–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaPrinted cotton wraps worn by women of the Swahili coast and its hinterland since the late nineteenth century, bought in pairs.
Mir iskusstva Book Art1898–1927 · Eastern EuropeThe graphic idiom of the St Petersburg World of Art circle (journal 1898–1904, exhibitions until Paris 1927) and the book artists around it.
Bezalel School1906–1929 · Middle East & North AfricaThe house style of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, opened in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz in 1906 with E.
Shanghai Modern & Yuefenpai1910–1949 · East AsiaThe commercial art of treaty-port Shanghai.
Wendingen & Amsterdam School Typography1918–1932 · Western EuropeThe graphic language of Wendingen (1918–1932), monthly of the Amsterdam architects' society Architectura et Amicitia, and its editor H.
Madinah Mushaf (King Fahd Complex Qur'an Page)1985–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networkedOne fixed page for the Qur'an across much of the Muslim world: Uthman Taha's fully vowelled Naskh in fifteen justified lines, written so that every page ends at the end of a verse (the late Ottoman âyet-berkenar layout), inside a floral frame, with sura titles in framed cartouches and verse numbers in small round medallions.

Styles that often use it 63

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 53

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Framed panelsin 118 of 134
Central symmetryin 113 of 134
Spiritual & sacredin 79 of 134
Floral & vegetalin 68 of 134
Folk & sacred symbolsin 74 of 134
Authoritative & institutionalin 65 of 134

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in ornament