Where we are limited to decorating a wall
by means of plain painting, stencils, or wall-paper, this idea of
reposeful constructive lines and forms on the lower wall should still
dominate upon the field. Subject to our repeating plan we may be freer
both in line and form, using free scrolls, branch-work, fruit, and
flower masses at pleasure, because the space is more extended, and we
shall feel the necessity in a repeating pattern of spreading adequately
over it; but such designs, however fine in detail, should be constructed
upon a more or less geometric base or plan. We are, as regards the main
field of the wall, still unavoidably, though not disadvantageously,
influenced by the tradition of the textile hanging or arras tapestry, no
doubt; and certainly there is no more rich and comfortable lining for
living rooms than tapestry, or, at the same time, more reposeful and
decoratively satisfying. But, of course, where we can afford arras
tapestry (such as the superb work of William Morris and his weavers), we
ought not to allow anything to compete with it upon the same wall. It is
sufficient in itself.

[Illustration (f128): Arras Tapestry: Diagrams to Show the Principle of
Working and Surface Effect: (1) Vertical Position of Warp as Worked in
the Loom and Relief Effect of the Wefts; (2) Enlarged Section of Warp as
Hung (Horizontal); (3) Single Threads of Warp and Weft; (4) Warp and
Weft as in the Loom (Vertical).]

[Tapestry]

Of what splendour of colour and wealth of decorative and symbolical
invention tapestry was capable in the past may be seen in magnificent
Burgundian specimens of the fifteenth century, now in the South
Kensington Museum.

Tapestry hangings of a repeating pattern and quiet colour could be used
appropriately beneath painted upper walls, or a frieze, as no doubt
frequently was the custom in great houses in the Middle Ages.

[Appartimenti Borgia]

In the Appartimenti Borgia in the Vatican, for instance, which consists
of lofty vaulted rooms with frescoes by Pinturicchio upon the upper
walls between the spans of the vaulting, and upon the vaulting itself,
we may see, about eleven feet from the floor, along the moulding, the
hooks left for the tapestry hangings, which completed the decoration of
the room. The lower walls are now largely occupied by book-shelves; but
books themselves