the remains of Roman villas and tombs
everywhere. From all of these we may learn something.

The obvious intention of hangings in household decoration is to cover
bare walls, so as to adorn at once that which was rough or common,
without delay or trouble. They were also used as curtains to shut out
the cold or the heat, and to give privacy to rooms without doors or
windows. Hangings on bare walls have always been meant to hang
straight down, undisturbed by folds, whereas curtains and portieres
would probably have to be looped up or continually drawn aside. The
designs to be worked upon them should necessarily be regulated by
their shape and use.

Semper considers that a square is an expressionless form, and that it
should be avoided.[455] If you wish to give dignity to a room, its
hanging decorations should be divided into panels of greater height
than breadth, so as to elevate the spaces they cover. Horizontal
stripes bring down the ceiling, and even in furniture, look ill except
as borders. Nothing can be more ugly or inartistic than the curtains
one finds in old illuminations, covered with bands of the same pattern
throughout the surface, but even this is less unpleasant on the walls
than lines crossing each other at right angles. The Romans looked on
chequers as barbarous national characteristics, and left them to the
Gauls and Britons. Chequers should be avoided unless they express a
meaning, as in Scotch tartans. Semper observes that the striped
stuffs, especially those of Oriental fabrics, were never intended to
be spread out flat, but to be draped in folds and loops, and the lines
only seen broken up. He continues:--"One rule, which cannot be
neglected with impunity, is this: that whether the hanging or screen
is supposed to stand or to hang, there must be an above and a below to
every pattern, and it must, moreover, be upright." All foliage
designs, and those containing animals, must start from below, and grow
upwards. Another of his laws is that the heaviest colours should be
placed below, and the palest and brightest above. This may be
disputed. It must be first determined where contrast is needed. If
the darkest part of the pattern is below, it may be necessary to give
it the lightest background, on the principle of balancing quantities
in colour. The dado, or lowest border, will often give the necessary
weight to the design. Semper goes on to say, "A surface may be made to
appear to stand, or to hang down