Mr. Image’s third lecture will be delivered on January 21 and will, no doubt, be largely attended, as the subjects advertised are full of interest, and though ‘sweet reasonableness’ may not convert, it always charms.

MR. MORRIS ON TAPESTRY

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 2, 1888.)

Yesterday evening Mr. William Morris delivered a most interesting and fascinating lecture on Carpet and Tapestry Weaving at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition now held at the New Gallery.  Mr. Morris had small practical models of the two looms used, the carpet loom where the weaver sits in front of his work; the more elaborate tapestry loom where the weaver sits behind, at the back of the stuff, has his design outlined on the upright threads and sees in a mirror the shadow of the pattern and picture as it grows gradually to perfection.  He spoke at much length on the question of dyes—­praising madder and kermes for reds, precipitate of iron or ochre for yellows, and for blue either indigo or woad.  At the back of the platform hung a lovely Flemish tapestry of the fourteenth century, and a superb Persian carpet about two hundred and fifty years old.  Mr. Morris pointed out the loveliness of the carpet—­its delicate suggestion of hawthorn blossom, iris and rose, its rejection of imitation and shading; and showed how it combined the great quality of decorative design—­being at once clear and well defined in form:  each outline exquisitely traced, each line deliberate in its intention and its beauty, and the whole effect being one of unity, of harmony, almost of mystery, the colours being so perfectly harmonised together and the little bright notes of colour being so cunningly placed either for tone or brilliancy.

Tapestries, he said, were to the North of Europe what fresco was to the South—­our climate, amongst other reasons, guiding us in our choice of material for wall-covering.  England, France, and Flanders were the three great tapestry countries—­Flanders with its great wool trade being the first in splendid colours and superb Gothic design.  The keynote of tapestry, the secret of its loveliness, was, he told the audience, the complete filling up of every corner and square inch of surface with lovely and fanciful and suggestive design.  Hence the wonder of those great Gothic tapestries where the forest trees rise in different places, one over the other, each leaf perfect in its shape and colour and decorative value, while in simple raiment of beautiful design knights and ladies wandered in rich flower gardens, and rode with hawk on wrist through long green arcades, and sat listening to lute and viol in blossom-starred bowers or by cool gracious water springs.  Upon the other hand, when the Gothic feeling died away, and Boucher and others began to design, they gave us wide expanses of waste sky, elaborate perspective, posing nymphs and shallow artificial treatment.  Indeed, Boucher met with scant mercy at Mr. Morris’s vigorous hands and was roundly abused, and modern Gobelins, with M. Bougereau’s cartoons, fared no better.