only in Brussels, but
everywhere that the high-warp looms are set up. The "art nouveau" of
that day influenced every brush and pencil. The great crowding of
serried hosts on a single field disappeared, and fewer but perfect
figures played their parts on the woven surface. Wherever
architectural details, such as porticoes or columns, were introduced,
these dropped the old designs of "pointed" style or battlements, and
took on the classic or the high Renaissance that ornaments the facade
of Pavia's Certosa. One by one the wildwood flowers receded before the
advance of civilisation, very much as those in the veritable land
are wont to do, and their place was taken by a verdure as rich as the
South could produce, with heavy foliage and massive blossoms.

[Illustration: MELEAGER AND ATALANTA

Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris
workshops by Charles de Comans]

[Illustration: PUNIC WAR SERIES

Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor
Carey, Esq., Boston]

It is impossible to overestimate the importance to Brussels of the
animating experience and distinguished commission of executing the set
of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel after cartoons by Raffaelo
Sanzio. The date is one to tie to (1515) and the influence of the work
was far-reaching. The Gothic method could no longer continue.

The Renaissance spread its influence, established its standards and
introduced that wave of productiveness which always followed its
introduction. There are many who doubt the superiority of the
voluptuous art of the high Renaissance. There are those who prefer
(perhaps for reasons of sentiment) the early Gothic, and many more who
love far better the sweet purity of the early Renaissance. Before us
Raphael presents his full figures replete with action, rich with
broad, open curves in nudity, and magnificent with lines of flowing
drapery. To him be accorded all due honour; but, if it is the
privilege of the artist's spirit to wander still on earth, he must
find his particular post-mortem punishment in viewing the deplorable
school of exaggeration which his example founded. Who would not prefer
one of the chaste tapestries of perfected Gothic to one of those which
followed Raphael, imitating none of his virtues, exaggerating his
faults? It is these followers, the virilities of whose false art is as
that of weeds, who have come almost to our own day and who have