nd
pride and piety were equally enlisted in these gifts to the Church.

Byzantine patterns have a barbaric stamp, and yet have much of the
grandiose about them; but they are to the last degree conventional. In
the early mosaics, both in Constantinople and Rome, every face and
head, every flower and animal, represents a type and not an
individual.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.
Gothic Trees, from Bayeux tapestry.]

Gothic foliage patterns, in England and elsewhere, are a struggle
between the naturalistic and the conventional. The Norman style and
the Romanesque, which preceded it, and from which it was modified and
elevated, show their vegetable forms thick-stemmed and few-leaved,
whereas the Gothic aspired to a developed gracefulness; and the
Renaissance, which succeeded it, assumed all the freedom of natural
flowers and plants, floating in the breeze, on their delicate stems.
(Pl. 28.)

All the Renaissance patterns, which, as their name denotes, were born
again, like butterflies to frolic for a day of gay enjoyment, are
purely decorative. Their generally charming, graceful forms group
together to cover empty spaces with every regard to the rules of
design and composition, but without any inner meaning. If we take
these arabesques to pieces, we generally find the parts come from
various sources; and having served last in pagan Rome for pagan
purposes, had been slightly refashioned for Christian decorative
art,[125] before the Byzantine inartistic taste, and barbaric
splendour of metal-work patterns, had extinguished all the gay fancy
of the arts of Southern Europe.

The mediaeval revival was a return to the light and fantastic, and a
protest against the solemnity of all Gothic art, which had had its
great day, had culminated, and died out. The patterns of the
Renaissance are all guided by the principles of repetition and
duplication, or that of doubling the pattern, which repeats itself to
right and left, as if folded down the middle.

The principal lines thus echoed one another; but the artist was
permitted to vary the conventionalism of the general forms of figures,
flowers, fruit, or butterflies, so as to balance and yet differ in
every detail.

[Illustration: Pl. 29.
CLOUD PATTERNS.
1, 2, 3, 7. Japanese.
4. Chinese.
5, 8, 9. Mediaeval.
6. Badge of Richard II.]

[Illustration: Pl. 30.
Indo-Chinese Coverlet, supposed to have belonged to Oliver
Cromwell. Hatfield Hou