OKNAMENTATION OF RUGS AND CARPETS. 1 



[With 6 plates.] 



By Alan S. Cole, C. B. 



In preparing this course of lectures, which the Royal Society of 

 Arts has kindly invited me to give on textile ornament, I find the 

 range of subjects covered by the title much wider than I expected. 2 



Of textiles alone there are several distinct sorts: (1) Shuttle 

 weavings, with ornament special to brocades, velvets, damasks, and 

 figured silk stuffs, to say nothing of kindred ornament in woolen, 

 linen, and cotton fabrics; (2) tapestries, with their decorative pic- 

 tures of religious, mythological, historical, and domestic subjects; 



(3) carpets, with a number of simple and highly complex patterns; 



(4) embroidery, which is suitable to render almost any sort of orna- 

 mental and pictorial designs; (5) lace, with its textures and ornament 

 distinctly different from those of the foregoing; and (6) stamped, 

 dyed, and printed textiles with a still further variety of pattern and 

 design. 



The ornament of these different classes of textiles is but a chap- 

 ter — an important one, certainly, but still only one chapter — in the 

 story of all ornament, and as textile ornament during, say, 5,000 

 years has derived almost as many of its phases from ornament in 

 other materials as it in turn has contributed to them, I find it neces- 

 sary to take these latter also into some account. In order, then, to 

 keep within the appointed limits, the choice of one or two central 

 or rallying points becomes desirable, and in view of my previous 

 Cantor lectures upon lace, tapestry, and embroidery, I have fixed upon 

 ornament in carpets and in stamped, dyed, and printed textiles for 

 my present course. This ornamentation has successive styles. Style 

 is a convenient word to apply to the results of reviewing ornament 

 designed by historic peoples, of determining various peculiarities or 

 salient features in it, then of grouping them together and naming each 

 group after some nation, locality, or period. In this way rough and 



1 Reprinted, by permission, from Journal of the Society of Arts, London, No. 3008, 

 vol. 58, July 15, 1910. 



2 Lecture 1 (delivered Jan. 17, 1910) of series of three lectures on textile ornamen- 

 tation. Lectures 2 and 3 are on stamped, dyed, and printed textiles. 



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