of carpets by steam power predominates in Europe
and the United States of America, and at one time appeared to be giving
the _coup de grace_ to the craft of making carpets by hand, there has
been in recent times a revival in this latter, and many carpets of
characteristic modern design, several of them made in England, are due
to the influence of the late William Morris, who devoted much of his
varied energies to tapestry weaving and pile carpet weaving by hand,
both of which crafts are being fostered as cottage industries in parts
of Ireland, as well as in England. At the same time leading English
carpet manufactures continue to produce hand-made carpets as occasion
requires. In France a much more systematic existence of tapestry weaving
and pile carpet making by hand has been maintained and is of course
attributable to the perennial activity of the state tapestry works in
Paris (at the Gobelins workshops) and in Beauvais, and of corresponding
works managed by private enterprise at Aubusson and elsewhere.

Designing patterns for English carpet manufacture is now more organized
than it was, and greater thought and invention are given to devising
ornament suitable to the purpose of floor coverings. Before 1850 and for
a few years later, rather rude realistic representations of animals and
botanical forms (decadent versions of Savonnerie designs) were often
wrought in rugs and carpets, and survivals of these are still to be met
with, but the lessons that have been subsequently derived from
intelligent study of Oriental designs have resulted in the definite
designing of conventional forms for surface patterns. The early movement
in this direction owes much to the teaching of Owen Jones, and in its
later and rather freer phases the Morris influence has been powerful.
Schools of art at Glasgow, at Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere in
the United Kingdom have trained and continue to train designers, whose
work has contributed to the formation of an English style with a new
note, which, as a French writer puts it, has created a sensation in
France, in Germany, in fact in all Europe and America.

France retains that facility of execution and liveliness in invention
which have been nurtured for over three hundred years by systematic,
governmental solicitude for education in decorative design and
enterprise in perfecting manufacture. Her Aubusson and Savonnerie
carpets have maintained a style of design in form and colour entire