Chinese Ornament in the Decorative Arts

The Chinese are probably the people with the most inventive genius on our planet. Among their numerous inventions in almost all fields are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing, to name only the so-called “Four Great Inventions”.

The luxuriant and colourful decorative arts of China, e.g. fine porcelain, carved jade, brilliant lacquer ware or cloisonné, are a flamboyant demonstration of the Chinese ornamental creativity.

Chinese Ornament in the Decorative Arts is a carefully gathered collection of ornamentation from precious 19th and early 20th century portfolios, an era in which the decorative arts have had in Europe a strong revival and many impressing source books were produced. Their plates are beautiful polychrome lithographies, using sometimes even gold and silver in the reproduction of the images of classic ornament.

Unlike the tightly packed plates of these lavish paper editions (in which each plate is a compilation of several patterns), modern digital publications allow a much more open layout.

Bitedition wanted each ornament to attract the attention it deserves and therefore displays in the present pattern book each faithfully reproduced motif on one single page.

With more than 400 royalty-free designs and illustrations of different size the e-book Chinese Ornament in the Decorative Arts offers to students and artists, professional designers and arts-craftsmen, historians and architects as well as simple amateurs of ornamentation and decoration the ultimate image bank of Chinese ornament.