rnament and Dress," by M. Charles Blanc,
formerly Director of the French Institute. Eng. Trans.,
Chapman and Hall, London.

[83] See Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," p.
31.

[84] Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," p. 43.

[85] Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," pp.
43, 45, 46.

[86] Chinese design shows naturalistic art arrested and
perpetuated on totally different principles. Their
representations are all equally allied to their art of
picture-painting, whether on china with the brush, or on
textiles with the needle. The flatness of the picture is
still preserved by their ignorance of perspective. When
they attempted to express different distances, they did
so by placing them one above another, so that in reading
the composition the eye first takes in the distant
horizon; next below it, the middle distance; and being
thus prepared, it comes down to the actual living
foreground, on which rests the dramatic action and
interest addressed to the spectator. The Chinese
understood many of the secrets of art, yet never
achieved perspective.

[87] See Mr. Penrose's work on the measurements of the
Parthenon at Athens. Published by the Society of the
Dilettanti.

[88] Marked outlines in embroidery add to the flatness,
and enable us to omit cast shadows. In this it differs
entirely from pictorial art, where one of the great
objects is to avoid flatness.

[89] Semper's theory, already mentioned, is that textile
design was certainly flat; that it was the first form of
decoration, and was followed by bas-relief, which could
not at once rid itself of the original motive.

[90] Auberville's "Ornamentation des Tissus" (eleventh
century).

[91] Redgrave's "Manual of Design," pp. 43-45.

[92] This idolatrous type was introduced into England by
the Buccaneers, and reflected on our carvings and
embroideries of the time of James I., slightly modified
by the Italian Renaissance of that period. As this sort
of vulgar ornamentation has once prevailed, let us
protect ourselves against its possible recurrence.

[93] While making this passing allusion to the theory
that the origin of all Gothic decoration is mainly
founded on the motive of interlacing stems and foliage,
I wish to guard myself against being supposed