Figure 4. Decorative motif showing the principle of alternation.

Figure 4. Decorative motif showing the principle of alternation. Fig. 92 from Dresser, _The Art of Decorative Design_. Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

Figure 4. Decorative motif showing the principle of alternation. Fig. 92 from Dresser, _The Art of Decorative Design_. Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

Figure 11. Dresser, an ornament that “may justly be said to embody two natural facts” about water’s behavior against a surface, the way it rebounds and the way it clings. Figure 7. Dresser, illustrations of a violet, a flower that we encounter as a “vertical ornament” with bi-lateral symmetry (left) and a flower we encounter as a “horizontal ornament” with radial symmetry (right).