ern world of hurry, imitation of tapestries
is legitimate, the important question is, what are the best subjects,
and what is the best use for such imitations?

The best use is undoubtedly that of wall-covering; and that was, indeed,
the earliest object for which they were created. They were woven to
cover great empty spaces of unsightly masonry; and they are still
infinitely useful and beautiful in grand apartments whose barren spaces
are too large for modern pictures, and which need the disguise of a
suggestion of scenery or pictorial subject.

If tapestries must be painted, let them by all means follow the style of
the ancient verdure or foliage tapestries, and be used for the same
purpose--to cover an otherwise blank wall. This is legitimate, and even
beautiful, but it is painting, and should be frankly acknowledged to be
such, and no attempt made to have them masquerade as genuine and costly
weavings. It is simply and always painting, although in the style and
spirit of early tapestries. Productions of this sort, where real skill
in textile painting is used, are quite worthy of admiration and respect.

I remember seeing, in the Swedish exhibit of women's work in the Woman's
Building at the Columbian Exposition, a screen which had evidently been
copied from an old bit of verdure tapestry. At the base were
broad-leaved water-plants, each leaf carefully copied in blocks and
patches of colour, with even the effect of the little empty space--where
one thread passes to the back in weaving, to make room for one of
another colour brought forward--imitated by a dot of black to simulate
the tiny shadow-filled pen-point of a hole.

Now whether this was art or not I leave to French critics to decide, but
it was at least admirable imitation; and any one able to cover the wall
spaces between bookcases in a library with such imitation would find
them as richly set as if it were veritable tapestry.

This is a very different thing from a painted tapestry, perhaps enlarged
from a photograph or engraving of a painting the original of which the
tapestry-painter had never even seen--the destiny of which unfortunate
copy, changed in size, colour, and all the qualities which gave value to
the original, is probably to be hung as a picture in the centre of a
space of wall-paper totally antagonistic in colour.

When I see these things I long to curb the ambition of the unfortunate
tapestry-painter until a course of study has taught him