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Page 45
Now, hitherto we have not got further into the matter of decoration
than to talk of its arrangement. Before I speak of some general
matters connected with our subject, I must say a little on the
design of the patterns which will form the chief part of your
decoration. The subject is a wide and difficult one, and my time
much too short to do it any justice, but here and there, perhaps, a
hint may crop up, and I may put it in a way somewhat new.
On the whole, in speaking of these patterns I shall be thinking of
those that necessarily recur; designs which have to be carried out
by more or less mechanical appliances, such as the printing block or
the loom.
Since we have been considering colour lately, we had better take
that side first, though I know it will be difficult to separate the
consideration of it from that of the other necessary qualifications
of design.
The first step away from monochrome is breaking the ground by
putting a pattern on it of the same colour, but of a lighter or
darker shade, the first being the best and most natural way. I need
say but little on this as a matter of colour, though many very
important designs are so treated. One thing I have noticed about
these damasks, as I should call them; that of the three chief
colours, red is the one where the two shades must be the nearest to
one another, or you get the effect poor and weak; while in blue you
may have a great deal of difference without losing colour, and green
holds a middle place between the two.
Next, if you make these two shades different in tint as well as, or
instead of, in depth, you have fairly got out of monochrome, and
will find plenty of difficulties in getting your two tints to go
well together. The putting, for instance, of a light greenish blue
on a deep reddish one, turquoise on sapphire, will try all your
skill. The Persians practise this feat, but not often without
adding a third colour, and so getting into the next stage. In fact,
this plan of relieving the pattern by shifting its tint as well as
its depth, is chiefly of use in dealing with quite low-toned
colours--golden browns or greys, for instance. In dealing with the
more forcible ones, you will find it in general necessary to add a
third colour at least, and so get into the next stage.
This is the relieving a pattern of more than one colour, but all the
colours light, upon a dark ground. This is above all useful in
cases where your palette is somewhat limited; say, for instance, in
a figured cloth which has to be woven mechanically, and where you
have but three or four colours in a line, including the ground.
You will not find this a difficult way of relieving your pattern, if
you only are not too ambitious of getting the diverse superimposed
colours too forcible on the one hand, so that they fly out from one
another, or on the other hand too delicate, so that they run
together into confusion. The excellence of this sort of work lies
in a clear but soft relief of the form, in colours each beautiful in
itself, and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is
also beautiful, though unobtrusive. Hardness ruins the work,
confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye, and
makes it restless, and lack of colour is felt as destroying the
raison d'etre of it. So you see it taxes the designer heavily
enough after all. Nevertheless I still call it the easiest way of
complete pattern-designing.
I have spoken of it as the placing of a light pattern on dark
ground. I should mention that in the fully developed form of the
design I am thinking of there is often an impression given, of there
being more than one plane in the pattern. Where the pattern is
strictly on one plane, we have not reached the full development of
this manner of designing, the full development of colour and form
used together, but form predominant.
We are not left without examples of this kind of design at its best.
The looms of Corinth, Palermo, and Lucca, in the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, turned out figured silk
cloths, which were so widely sought for, that you may see specimens
of their work figured on fifteenth-century screens in East Anglian
churches, or the background of pictures by the Van Eycks, while one
of the most important collections of the actual goods is preserved
in the treasury of the Mary Church at Dantzig; the South Kensington
Museum has also a very fine collection of these, which I can't help
thinking are not quite as visible to the public as they should be.
They are, however, discoverable by the help of Dr. Rock's excellent
catalogue published by the department, and I hope will, as the
Museum gains space, be more easy to see.
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