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Decorative Arts

Art
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Arts concerned with the design and ornament of useful objects and spaces. In poetry, the term can prompt attention to pattern, surface, and domestic material culture.

Detailed Definition
Decorative arts include textiles, furniture, wallpaper, glass, metalwork, ceramics, and other designed objects that join beauty with use. Poets may draw on these forms to examine household life, labor, class, inheritance, and the meanings carried by ornament. A decorative approach to poetry can privilege pattern, texture, and repeated motifs, while a critical poem may ask why certain kinds of skilled making have been dismissed as merely decorative.
Example
Example in poetry:
William Morris’s designs for textiles, books, and wallpapers show how decorative arts can inspire poems attentive to pattern and ornament; A poem about a patterned ceramic bowl can repeat color words and curved sounds to imitate its decoration; In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats responds to an object that is both useful vessel and decorated artwork; A poet may write a sequence in which each stanza follows the repeating motifs of a quilt, such as stars, vines, and stitched borders
Additional Notes
Decorative arts include textiles, furniture, ceramics, jewelry, wallpaper, and other designed objects that join beauty with use. Poems can draw on these materials to explore labor, class, gender, inheritance, or domestic life. Attend to pattern and ornament, since decoration may carry cultural meaning.
Also Known As
Applied Arts Ornamental Arts
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