us encourage the whim.

The time of Gothic perfection in tapestry-making is included in the
few years lying between 1475 and 1520. Life was at that time getting
less difficult, and art had time to develop. It was no longer left to
monks and lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious
consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell on the story
of modern art, except as it affects the art of tapestry weaving. With
the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater
excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of
the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or
distorted in expression, now required a treatment that should convey
its subtlest shades of expression. Gifted weavers rose to the task,
became almost inspired in the use of their medium, and produced such
works of their art as have never been equalled in any age. These are
the tapestries that grip the heart, that cause a _frisson_ of joy to
the beholder. And these are the tapestries we buy, if kind chance
allows. If they cannot be ours to live with, then away to the museum
in all haste and often, to feast upon their beauties.

RENAISSANCE

That great usurper, the Renaissance, came creeping up to the North
where the tapestry looms were weaving fairy webs. Pope Pius X wanted
tapestries, those of the marvellous Flemish weave. But he wanted those
of the new style of drawing, not the sweet restraint and finished
refinement of the Gothic. Raphael's cartoons were sent to Brussels'
workshops, and thus was the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and
thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish
tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous
textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change
of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium
was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the
Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy
were still dominant notes.

It was the overworking of the craft that led to its decadence. Toward
the end of the Sixteenth Century the extraordinary period of Brussels
perfection had passed.

But tapestry played too important a part in the life and luxury of
those far-away centuries for its production to be allowed to languish.
The magnificence of every great man, whether pope, king or dilettante,
was ill-expressed before his fellows if he were n