“I will not subscribe to the argument that ornament increases the pleasure of the life of a cultivated person, or the argument which covers itself with the words: “But if the ornament is beautiful! . . . ”
To me, and to all the cultivated people, ornament does not increase the pleasures of life. If I want to eat a piece of gingerbread I will choose one that is completely plain and not a piece which represents a baby in arms of a horse-rider, a piece which is covered over and over with decoration.
“The development of culture is concurrent with the removal of ornaments from objects of daily use”
“I have emerged victorious from my thirty years of struggle. I have freed mankind from superfluous ornament.”
Ornament and Crime: Selected Essays
Commissioned by Karoline Newman as a response to ‘Simon Lewty & The Nereids’ at The Lettering arts Trust, Snape Maltings, Suffolk. Depictions of the ‘Mythical Nereids’ created by 26 Artists represented by the Lettering Arts Trust.
GLAUKONOME
The Nereid of the ‘mastering the grey’ sea
(framed)
Designed / hand-set / composed
by Kelvyn Laurence Smith
with a careful selection of monotype ornaments / decorative borders & typographic sorts
Printed letterpress on a Vandercook Universal 4 /
in various Greys / Greens & Silvers /
on a GF Smith 270gsm Colour plan Real Grey
in a very limited edition of 6
12 x 12inches (300x300mm)
Signed on the reverse by the artist
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The Nereids were sea nymphs in Greek mythology, fifty in total, daughters of Nereus and Doris. They helped sailors on their voyages when they faced fierce storms. They lived with their father in the depths of the Aegean Sea. One of the better known Nereids was Thetis, who was the mother of the hero Achilles. In Greek mythology, the Nereids are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters to their brother Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors (such as the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece). The Nereids symbolized everything that is beautiful and kind about the sea. Their melodious voices sang as they danced around their father. They are represented as beautiful women, crowned with branches of red coral and dressed in white silk robes trimmed with gold. These nymphs are particularly associated with the Aegean Sea, where they dwelt with their father Nereus in the depths within a golden palace.
The ‘Typographic Ornament’ prints are constructed from a unique collection of metal type borders and ornaments. Mr Smith is in no way fancy – and as an antidote to the decorative nature of the material — the borders are formally hand-set on a simple grid system to reinforce the beauty of the original cuts and the grace of the formal arrangement. They are made in very limited editions and are printed on BFK Rives & Somerset cotton printmaking paper.
Typographic Ornament — A Landscape
Letterpress Print — Pink on Grey
Designed & hand-set
with Metal type Ornaments
& Printed in a Limited Edition of 6 /
in Fluorescent Pink ink
on 280gsm BFK Rives Grey
with a blind de-bossed credit /
760 x 380mm (30 x 15 inches)
Signed by the Artist
