order designs the principle of transposition
of the relation of pattern to ground is a useful one to bear in mind, as
leading always to an effective result. I mean, supposing our field shows
a pattern mainly of light upon dark, the frieze might be on the reverse
plan, a dark pattern on a light ground.

And whereas, as I have said, one would exclude wide light spaces from
our mural field, in the frieze one might effectively show a light sky
ground throughout, and arrange a figure or floral design upon that.

The principle governing the treatment of main and lower wall spaces or
fields, which teaches the designer to preserve the repose of the
surface, may be said to rule also in all textile design, and textile
design has, as we have seen in the form of tapestry, and hangings of all
kinds, a very close association with mural decoration.

[Textile Design]

Any textile may be considered, from the designer's point of view, as
presenting so much _surface_ for pattern, whether that surface is hung
upon a wall, or curtains a door or a window, or is spread in the form of
carpets or rugs upon floors, or over the cushions of furniture, or
adapts itself to the variety of curve surface and movement of the human
form in dress materials and costume. Textile beauty is beauty of
material and surface, and unless the pattern or design upon it or woven
with it enhances that beauty of material and surface, and becomes a part
of the expression of that material and surface, it is better without
pattern.

[Illustration (f126): Portion of Detail of the Holy Carpet of the Mosque
of Ardebil: Persian, Sixteenth Century.]

To place informal shaded flowers and leaves upon a carpet, for instance,
where the warp is very emphatic, and the process of weaving necessitates
a stepped or rectangularly broken outline, is to mistake appropriate
decorative effect, capacity of material, and position in regard to the
eye. We cannot get away, in a carpet, from the idea of a flat field
starred with more or less formal flowers, and colour arrangements which
owe their richness and beauty, not to the relief of shading, but to the
heraldic principle of relieving one tint or colour upon another. The
rich inlay of colour which a Persian or any Eastern carpet presents is
owing to its being designed upon this principle; and in Persian work
that peculiarly rich effect of colour, apart from fine material, is
owi