SECOND DIVISION. IMITATION OF COLOURED OBJECTS WITH COLOURED MATERIALS OF A DEFINITE SIZE. INTRODUCTION. FIRST SECTION.-GOBELINS TAPESTRY. SECOND SECTION.-BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY FOR FURNITURE. THIRD SECTION. —SAVONNERIE CARPETS. FOURTH SECTION.-TAPESTRIES FOR HANGINGS AND CAR PETS. FIFTH SECTION. -MOSAICS. SIXTH SECTION.-COLOURED GLASS WINDOWS OF LARGE GOTHIC CHURCHES. 141 SECOND DIVISION. IMITATION OF COLOURED OBJECTS BY COLOURED MATERIALS (THREADS, ETC.). INTRODUCTION. (367.) IMITATIONS resembling more or less those of painting can be made with materials of a certain diameter, such as threads of wool, silk, and hemp, adapted to the fabrication of Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries; the woollen threads exclusively employed in fabricating Savonnerie carpets; the small regular and irregular prisms of mosaics, and the coloured glass of the windows of gothic churches. (368.) The tapestries of Gobelins and of Beauvais, and also the carpets of Savonnerie and certain very elaborate mosaics, may all be considered as works which resemble the method of painting in chiar'oscuro; while the windows of gothic churches correspond more or less exactly to painting in flat tints. It is the same also with tapestries for hangings and carpets which, instead of being fabricated with scales of at least sixteen or eighteen tones, as they are in the royal manufactories, are fabricated with scales composed of three or four tones only; and, far from mixing threads of various colours or tones of one scale, with the intention of imitating the effects of chiar'oscuro, the coloured objects reproduced present to the eye small monochromous bands of a single juxtaposed tone. (369.) There are also some works which reproduce coloured designs by a kind of mixed system, because these designs are the result of the juxtaposition of monochromous single-tinted parts of a palpable size; but in juxtaposing these portions, the effects of chiar'oscuro have been sought by making use of the gradations of scale or the mixture of hues. Such are ordinary mosaics, carpets, embroidered tapestries, &c. (370.) Patterns exercise so much influence in the tapestries and carpets of the royal manufactories, that I consider it necessary to offer some reflections, arising from numerous observations I have had occasion to make on the kind of painting best suited to this purpose, hoping they will interest artists who occupy themselves with works of this class, and who seek to understand the principal object of this kind of painting. When they have once determined the principal effects they aim at producing, they will see what points of ordinary painting may be sacrificed to obtain them. They will thus be able to arrive at a conclusion as to what must be done for perfecting the special portion of their imitation. It is by starting both from the physical condition of the coloured elements the Gobelins weaver employs, and from the texture of the tapestry, that I deduce the necessity of representing in this kind of work only large well-defined objects, and particularly remarkable for the brilliancy of their colours. I prove by analogous reasonings that patterns for hangings must recommend themselves more by opposite colours than by minute finish in the details. Finally, after having regarded in an analogous manner the patterns of carpets, I endeavour to prove by the same considerations that to pretend to rival painting by the coloured elements of mosaics or stained glass, is to establish a confusion most detrimental to the progress of arts absolutely distinct from painting, both in their object and the means of attaining it. (371.) The principles truly essential to these arts of imitation being deduced from their individual speciality, they are found to be established beyond dispute; it therefore becomes easy to distinguish the efforts by which we may hope to attain true perfection from those which can only bring about the opposite result. SECTION L GOBELINS TAPESTRY. CHAPTER I. OF THE ELEMENTS OF GOBELINS TAPESTRY (372.)-(375.). CHAPTER II.-ON THE PRINCIPLE OF MIXING COLOURED THREADS, IN ITS RELATIONS WITH THE ART OF WEAVING GOBELINS TAPESTRY (376.)—(380.). CHAPTER III.-ON THE PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST, IN CONNECTION WITH THE PRODUCTION OF GOBELINS (381.)-(388.). CHAPTER IV.-QUALITIES WHICH PATTERNS FOR GOBELINS TAPESTRY MUST POSSESS (389.)—(392.). |