The decorated style is a name given by some writers to the perfected English Gothicarchitecture also known as the second style of pointed architecture, which flourished from about 1300 to 1375 when it passed into the Perpendicular. Rickman used the term to describe the period between Early English and Perpendicular, occupying most of the 14th century, and based his definition mainly upon window designs, many of which made use of the then new art of bar tracery.
The decorated style is distinguished from the Early English, from which it was developed, by the more flowing or wavy lines of its tracery, especially of its windows, by the more graceful combinationsof its foliage, by the greater richness of the decorations of the capitals of its columns, and of the mouldings of its doorways and niches, finials, etc, and generally by a style of ornamentation more profuse and naturalistic, though perhaps somewhat florid. The most distinctive ornament of the style is the ball-flower, which is usually inserted in a hollow moulding.
The Decorated style has been divided into two periods: the Early or Geometrical Decorated period, in which geometrical figures are largely introduced in the ornamentation; and the Decorated style proper, in which the peculiar characteristics of the style are exhibited. To this latter period belong some of the finest monuments of British architecture. Research Decorated Style
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Ball-Flower
