The Mediation of Ornament - Oleg Grabar (1992)

Oh, I almost forgot about this book I read right back at the start of semester, Oleg Grabar’s The Mediation of Ornament (1992). I was fascinated by how Grabar refuses to treat ornament as mere embellishment. He describes it as an intermediary, something that mediates between viewer and object, between surface and meaning. In his words, ornament isn’t a distraction from the “real” work; it is the work’s way of thinking.

He writes about vegetal motifs appearing through art and architecture across cultures, and how these forms always suggest life, motion, and transformation. They’re not static decoration but living systems of growth and a visual coded language that is universally recognised. I love the idea that ornament isn’t passive, but that it moves and animates.

Looking back, I can see how that thought has threaded through everything I’ve done this semester. When I bead, embroider, or paint, I’m not “just” decorating, I’m building a surface that breathes and that draws the eye in and then beyond itself. Grabar describes ornament as a kind of demon, a mediator that transforms whatever it touches, which feels true to my own practice. The more I’ve leaned into embellishment, the more I’ve realised it’s not an excess, it’s a form of thinking.