ARTICLE 2.

Tapestries, Carpets, Mosaics, and Coloured Glass Windows, corresponding to Painting in Flat Tints.

A. Tapestries with Human Figures.

(886.) Although I have advised for tapestry models executed on the system of painting in chiar'oscuro to resemble painting in flat tints, yet I shall not recommend taking the models entirely according to this latter system.

B. Tapestries for Furniture Hangings.

(887.) It is quite otherwise with patterns of tapestry for furniture: I believe that we can make some very beautiful works in copying patterns in flat tints; and that, in the decoration of large apartments, we may obtain an excellent effect from this kind of tapestry. I believe, also, that it would be more suitable for forming part of a general system of decoration, than the kind of tapestry of which I have spoken in the preceding article. Finally, it is more favourable than this latter to the splendour of the colours.

C. Carpets.

(888.) The preceding observations (887.) are entirely applicable to the production of carpets.

D. Mosaics.

(889.) Mosaics being composed of more rigid and coherent coloured materials than the arts which combine coloured materials employ, I believe that it will be requisite, in judging works of this sort, to consider the resistance of the materials to friction, to water, and to atmospheric agents as essential qualities; the colour will follow afterwards.

E. Windows of Coloured Glass.

(890.) According to the manner of considering coloured glass windows under the threefold relation of transmitting light into large gothic churches, of their accordance with the decoration of objects consecrated to the rites of the Church, of transmitting a coloured light entirely in conformity with the religious sentiment, I only prescribe windows of uniform colour for rose windows and straight windows with circular or pointed tops, I prescribe the smallest possible number of colours in the glass; glass of uniform colour must predominate over the other to produce the best possible effects of colour.

SECTION III.

OF THE PRINCIPLES COMMON TO DIFFERENT ARTS WHICH ADDRESS THE EYE BY VARIOUS COLOURED AND COLOURLESS MATERIALS.

INTRODUCTION (891.).

CHAPTER I. - PRINCIPLE OF VOLUME (898.).

CHAPTER II. PRINCIPLE OF FORM (900.).

CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLE OF STABILITY (903.).
CHAPTER IV. - PRINCIPLE of Colour (905.).
CHAPTER V.-PRINCIPLE OF VARIETY (906.).
CHAPTER VI. PRINCIPLE OF SYMMETRY (909.).

CHAPTER VII.-PRINCIPLE OF REPETITION (915.).

CHAPTER VIII.-PRINCIPLE OF GENERAL HARMONY (920.).

CHAPTER IX.- PRINCIPLE OF SUITABILITY OF THE OBJECT TO ITS DESTINATION (927.).

CHAPTER X-PRINCIPLE OF DISTINCT VIEW (933.).

INTRODUCTION.

(891.) THIS book would have concluded with the preceding section, if I had not been forcibly struck in my own experience with the generality of certain principles relating to very distinct arts, at the time I was arranging objects differing either in colour, form, or size-sometimes in two of these properties, occasionally in all three. It was chiefly when occupied with the arrangement of vegetable forms that I appreciated, more than ever, the aid which the architect had received in perfecting his art by the contemplation of these forms and their arrangements; and numerous instances strengthened my opinion, that our senses can only be affected by a very small number of things at the same time, just as our reason can at once seize but a few affinities in the ideas which occupy our attention at a given moment.

(892.) It seemed to me not without use to show clearly how experience leads to the observation of facts, which, generalised, become principles adapted to establish common affinities between widely different compositions, and to serve as a basis to a deep and critical examination, as well for the progress of art as for the study of the faculties of man, when he experiences deep impressions on beholding works of na

ture and art.

(893.) It is in this manner that I have been led to distinguish the principles expressing either the intrinsic qualities of objects or the affinities of the parts of which these objects may be composed, or the affinities of subordination which many objects possess amongst themselves; and, finally, the affinities which these objects should have with their destination, and with whoever contemplates them. In conformity with these ideas, I have established the following principles :

9°.

10°.

variety.

symmetry.

repetition.

general harmony.

fitness of the object for its destination. distinct view.

By the rational application of these principles, we are enabled to distinguish the similitude of the affinities which exist in very different works, and how, when we have to judge of one which is complex, we do not at first see the product of any particular principle, but rather the product of many; and thence how important it is, for the examination of the whole, that each part should be brought back to the principle which governs it.

(894.) But in order to give our analysis the greatest possible precision in showing, on the one part, how we conceive its extension, and on the other part the limits in which we include it, we say that the language of the fine arts being addressed to the eye, is able to present the same object under two general conditions-one in which the object is in repose; the other, in which it is in motion; and we add, that in both of them the object can be isolated, or made part of an association of objects identical, or at least more or less resembling each other.

Let us cite some examples.

(895.) 1ST CONDITION: IN REPOSE.

First Example.

A. Isolated.—An isolated tree may be presented to the eye by the painter, or by the gardener.

B. Part of an Association.-A tree may be presented to the eye by the same artists, no longer isolated, but grouped with other trees of the same species, or of the same genus, or different genera, but having some affinity with it in form, size, or colour.