Class XXX.]

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OX DESIGN.

729

Turkey, and it is only necessary to turn to them from |the surrounding works to be convinced of the justnessand truth of the Eastern style and application of colour tosuch fabrics; indeed a most careful examination hasconfirmed a strong feeling as to the great superiority ofthe designs of Indian and Turkish carpets, both in thearrangement and general tone and harmony of the colours,and the flat treatment and geometrical distribution ofform. The Turkish carpets are generally designed withnjlat border of flowers of the natural size, and with acentre of larger forms conventionalized, in some caseseven to the extent of obscuring the forms, a fault to beavoided. The colours are negative shades of a mediumor half-tint as to light and dark, tending rather to dark,with scarcely any contrast, and therefore a little sombrein character. Three hues predominate and largely per-vade the surface, namely, green, red, and blue; these arenot pure but negative, so that the general effect is cool,yet rich and full in colour. The colours, instead ofcutting upon each other, are mostly bordered with black,the blue has a slight tendency to purple, and a few orangespots enhance and enliven the effect. The distributionof colour in these fabrics is far simpler than in thosefrom India , which last have sometimes a tendency tofoxiness, from a larger admission of warm neutrals, asbrown and brown purple; they also admit of a muchgreater variety of colours than the Turkish . The colourof the Indian carpets, however, is so evenly distributed,and each tint so well balanced with its complementaryand harmonizing hue, that the general effect is rich andagreeable; the hues all tend to a dark middle tint inscale, and white and yellow are sparingly introduced todefine the geometrical arrangement of the forms, sucharrangement being the sound basis of all Eastern orna-ment. The illustration given in Fig. 1, Plate 1, is froman Indian rug, and will illustrate the various principles,and the tone of colour contended for. A large silkencarpet and a smaller one, exhibited by the Honourablethe East India Company (p. 917), are flue examples ofthe skill and taste which are evidently traditional in theIndian races.

Having spoken thus highly of the decoration of suchgoods in India , it is painful to observe the attempts igno-rantly made to vitiate the sound taste of the native artists.It has no doubt been done by those who are unaware ofthe true knowledge and just principles evident, more orless, in all the Indian manufactures; but it is not the lessnecessary to be commented on, since a school of industryseems actually in operation at Jubbulpore for teachingthe reformed Thugs to make carpets in the worst Euro-pean style, and at Bangalore the same teaching seems inoperation. It is to be hoped that, when the admirationelicited by the display of the Indian fabrics at the GreatExhibition is re-echoed back to the land that producedthem, this strange error will at once be remedied. Evenif good, such patterns are not consonant with Indiantastes, and it is perhaps fortunate that they are really soextremely bad that they may fall at once before thebetter knowledge which the European judgment of themerit of Indian ornament will call forth and support.

The gross errors to which imitative treatments haveled in the decoration of carpets have been already referredto in the general prefatory remarks, and need hardly beinsisted on afresh after the definite principles which havebeen just given; neither need more be said on the errorof adopting unchanged the ornament of other materials;it therefore only remains to remark that a certain vague-ness of form and absence of flow of line in the Turkish carpets, which sometimes approach monotony, might beremedied by the introduction of strap ornament in theborders, and of diapers of flat floral ornament on thecentral field, under the same true principles of colour andcontrast that these works evince, which, uniting theflowing and varied lines of European decoration withsound Eastern taste in tone, colour, and geometricalarrangement, would suit our climate and uses, and banishsome of that trash and crudity so evident on all sides,and which has its climax in the cheap manufactures ofthese articles. One thing is certainly to be learned fromthe works referred to, namely, that bright colours are not

necessarily rich or beautiful, but that tone is a greatsource of richness, and has at the same time the farthermerit of keeping such goods in their true place in thescale of furniture. No nations exhibit greater richnessof what may be called upholstery, or more gorgeouscostumes, than those of India and Persia , and the wisdomdisplayed in the negative tone and subdued colour oftheir carpets is worthy of consideration, as a means ofenhancing and supporting the richness and costliness oftheir other fabrics and their personal decorations.

Almost all that has been said of carpets is applicable todruggets and felted goods for the same uses, and theprinciples of their ornamentation, under certain modi-fications, may be applied to floor-cloths and painted clothfor furniture covers, as well as to printed, felted, andwoven fabrics, in various materials, for table-covers.

Floor-cloths are not so much used in this country fordwelling apartments, as in halls, staircases, lobbies, andother approaches, and richness and fulness of colour are,therefore, in general, less needed. The laws which regu-late mosaics and inlays for floors will, in some degree,rule these works also, except that wood inlays, especiallywhen large, require a design capable of being framed inits construction, and of having due regard to the shoul-derings of mortices and tenons, a construction obviouslyunnecessary in floor-cloths. It is, therefore, requisite toguard carefully against mere imitations of such designs,and more especially to avoid all imitations of carpetpatterns. Frets and guilloches for borders, and geo-metrical combinations for the inner field, with a centre,may be adopted when the work is large, as in the clothexhibited by Messrs. Smith and Baber 'Class XIX., .‘171,p. 573 \ which has much merit, although it is too violentin its contrasts; while all-over patterns of simple geo-metrical diapers, in quiet, graduated tints, have the besteffect in cloths for general purposes. The painted clothsfor furniture follow’ a little too much the old Japan colouring, and are heavy and monotonous from theirdarkness. There are good diapers on some of the French cloths exhibited, and on some of those of Goijring andBoiime, of Eeipsic (3 Zollv., 164, p. 1111); but theircloths for the ceilings of carriages are wormy in line andunpleasantly crude in colour. The table-covers in woollen,cotton, flax, and silk, either woven, printed, or felted, ofwhich there are a great variety in the Exhibition, areoften characterized by the same faults as the carpets—imitative flowers and architectural relief ornament, withvases, baskets, &c., forming too frequently the details,whilst the contrasts of colour are sometimes of the mostviolent kind. Thus there is great richness in a clothwith a border decorated with the flowers of the Brug-mansia, exhibited by White and Sons (Class XIX., 343,p. 572', but the requisite flatness is not obtained; andthere is much merit in a Gothic pattern, with a well-coloured border, exhibited by II. and T. Wood (ClassXIX., 352, p. 572', but the architectural decorationintroduced is objectionable.

Curtains and Hangings.

The ornamentation of textile hangings follows the samelaws, and is amenable to the same general principles, asthat of other wall decorations, flatness of treatment andsubdued contrasts of colour being the only sure guides.

The richest, and at the same time the most sobereffects in silk, are produced merely by the processes ofweaving, as of satin figures on a tabby ground, in a self-colour; and ornament properly suited for this treatmentof the silk is generally in good taste, and shows the fullsplendour of the rich material. Next to this, graduatedtints of a self-colour, as gold on straw’ colour, or evenornament in one colour, on a ground formed of thenatural golden tint of the silk, where the contrast is nottoo violent, has a good effect, and shows to advantagebeside those over-decorated works which are covered withnatural flowers in many colours; since the lustre ai.dgloss of the silk, and the richness of colour consequent onthese qualities, are seen to the greatest advantage inthe flat masses of such ornament, heightened as they* are by the duller ground, while smaller parts and varied