ly embodied in every art suitable to their
employment. As already seen, the peculiar character of textile
construction places great difficulties in the way of introducing
unsymmetric and complex figures like those of natural objects into
fabrics. The idea of so employing them may originally have been
suggested by the application of designs in color to the woven surfaces
or by resemblances between the simpler conventional life form
derivatives and the geometric figures indigenous to the art.

At any rate, the idea of introducing life forms into the texture was
suggested, and in the course of time a great deal of skill was shown
in their delineation, the bolder workmen venturing to employ a wide
range of graphic subjects.

Now, if we examine these woven forms with reference to the
modifications brought about by the textile surveillance, we find that
the figures, as introduced in the cloth, do not at all correspond with
those executed by ordinary graphic methods, either in degree of
elaboration or in truthfulness of expression. They have a style of
their own. Each delineative element upon entering the textile realm is
forced into those peculiar conventional outlines imposed by the
geometric construction, the character of which has already been dwelt
upon at considerable length. We find, however, that the degree of
convention is not uniform throughout all fabrics, but that it varies
with the refinement of the threads or filaments, the compactness of
the mesh, the character of the combination, the graphic skill of the
artist, and the tendencies of his mind; yet we observe that through
all there is still exhibited a distinct and peculiar geometricity.

So pronounced is this technical bias that delineations of a
particular creature--as, for example, a bird--executed by distant and
unrelated peoples, are reduced in corresponding styles of fabric to
almost identical shapes. This conventionalizing force is further
illustrated by the tendency in textile representation to blot out
differences of time and culture, so that when a civilized artisan,
capable of realistic pictorial delineation of a high order, introduces
a figure into a certain form of coarse fabric he arrives at a result
almost identical with that reached by the savage using the same, who
has no graphic language beyond the rudest outline.

A number of examples may be given illustrating this remarkable power
of textile combination over ornament. I select three in wh