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SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT ON DESIGN.

at the fountain head has been shown in reviewing thedesigns, where the artist, exhibiting what should be spe-cimens of his own taste, has fallen into the false taste ofthe public, or rather outrun it. In the manufacturedproducts we see the result; the principal carpets ex-hibited combining a mixture of ornament with naturalor imitative flowers, designed with the greatest skill,coloured with the tints of nature, and gracefully andtastefully disposed; the ornament however, is purelyarchitectural, and in shaded relief, without any sense offlatness; and consists largely of the broken curves, thecoarse scrolls, and the shell forms of the Louis Quinzeperiod. In the carpet from the manufactory at Aubusson (France , 1499,) the contrasts of colour, both as to tintsand light and dark, are of the most violent kind; dis-tressing the eye, and distracting the attention from anyworks which might be in juxtaposition with it. Thecarpet from the Gobelins Manufactory is less objec-tionable in its contrasts of light and dark, and is highlyskilful in its arrangement of colour, but it has the sameerroneous use of it, the same adoption of the ornament ofanother material, the same florid taste and want of flat-ness. It may be said that these works, designed for thegorgeous magnificence of palaces, can hardly come undersober rules; that they are essentially intended for dis-play. Even allowing this to be the case, such specimensmay well serve as warnings of the danger of adoptingthe like style for more general uses; and even in a pa-lace, the chaste simplicity of its statues, and the subduedhues of the works of high art which should adorn it,could stand little chance of vying with the richness andlustre of fabrics so over-decorated; and the princelyinhabitant would certainly share the attention of thespectator with the gaudy carpet which covered the floor.

The English designers contribute less to the Exhibitionthan their French neighbours, and, although their worksare behind the others for skill and execution, some arein a far more sober and just taste. The designs exhi-bited by the students of the Government School of De-sign are of this number; being the works of students, itcan hardly be expected that they should abound in in-vention, and we ought to he satisfied to find that goodprinciples prevail in them. There is a good design ex-hibited by J. K. Harvey in the Fine Arts Court (ClassXXX., 119), and two or three of inferior excellence inother parts; but it may be fairly said that our carpet de-signers, as a body, have not sent evidence of their skillto the Exhibition, but are to be judged of rather by thefabrics themselves. With the exception of France ,already remarked upon, no other nations have contri-buted any designs.

Oji turning attention to the manufactured goods, theywill be found to consist of such a confused mixture ofstyles, and to exhibit such a total want of consistency,that it is at once evident the designers, both at home andabroad, are amenable to none of those principles whichhave been explained as governing the decoration of car-pets. It is true that among the number of works ex-hibited there are many of great skill and ingenuity ofdecorative treatment, of rich combinations of colour, andwhich nearly approach to excellence; but it is neverthe-less obvious, even from their extreme variety of style,that designers and manufacturers feel themselves boundby no laws, and perfectly at liberty to adopt any or allinodes of ornamentation, without regard to what is suit-able for the material or the uses which the fabric is meantto subserve.

The French designs applied to carpets are largely cha-racterized by the works already remarked upon, theprevailing faults of these being the prevailing faults ofthe large majority of their works—architectural reliefornament, perspective treatments, want of flatness, crude-ness of colour, harshness of contrast, and want of relativescale in the ornament, pervading the greater number oftheir works. Three imitations of Persian rugs from theNational Manufactory at Beauvais, from their flat-ness, quiet contrasts, and broken hues of negative colour,show to great advantage in connexion with the worksaround them. Nor can it be said that the other Europeanexhibitors follow any sounder principles of design, either

[Class XXX.

in their national workshops or in the general labours oftheir manufacturers. The prevailing taste of France seems to be that of the Continent generally, but withless excellence of details, skill of arrangement, and know-ledge t of art; and although here and there works ofmuch merit may be exhibited, the absence of true prin-ciples is everywhere apparent.

The English carpet manufacturers are large exhibitors,and on the whole the decoration of their best goods maybe characterized as less extravagant than the foreign ones,not, however, that there is here any acknowledgment ofsound principles, or complete repudiation of false ones.Thus, sometimes, as in the carpets of the MediaevalCourt, and in those exhibited by Messrs. Newton, Jones ,and Willis, a flat floral ornamentation and geometricalarrangement has been duly attended to, but the contrastsare too strong, or the necessary sobriety of colour is notobtained. Sometimes floral decoration has been used, asin the carpets exhibited by Messrs. Tuberville, Smith,and Co. (Class XIX., 318, p. 571), White and Co.(Class XIX., 343, p. 572), Henderson, Widnel, and Co.(Class XIX., 201, p. 567), Brown, Maclarkn, and Co.(Class XIX., 114, p. 564), Watson, Bell, and Co. (ClassXIX., 337, p. 572), and by Messrs. Jackson and Graiiam(Class XIX., 390, p. 573), all which have much merit, butthe flowers are often far beyond the natural size, the coloursare bright and gaudy, and flatness is not attempted; inshort, imitation and not ornamention has been the rule ofthe designer. The last-named manufacturers exhibit acarpet designed by John Lawson, which, as greaterattention has been paid to ornamental requirements, isgiven in the accompanying impression. In the carpet

2609c

itself the border is about half its width too narrow for thecentre, but this is not seen in the woodcut; the colour ofthe centre consists of gradations of a neutral red, theforms of the border are red on a dull white ground.While it is one of the most commendable of such fabrics,it will serve to illustrate the error of indiscriminatelyapplying the ornamentation of one material to that ofanother. Thus the design, taken from the excellentwork on the Alhambra by Mr. Owen Jones , and thereused as a wall decoration, where its “up and down”treatment was characteristic and proper, is no longer sowhen applied to a carpet, since this requires an “ all-over ”treatment, or an arrangement towards the centre, a con-sideration which does not seem to have entered into themind of the designer. Messrs. White and Co. (p. 572and Messrs. Watson, Bell, and Co. (p. 573), exhibitcarpets of great merit, imitative of those of India and