tunately, the Gothic passed
through no pallid process of deterioration. The examples that nest
comfortably in the museums of the world or in the homes of certain
fortunate owners, do not contain marks of decadence--only of
transition. It is a style that was replaced, but not one that died the
death of decadence.

It is with reluctance that one who loves the Gothic will leave it for
the more recent art of the Renaissance. Its charm is one that embodies
chasteness, grace, and simplicity, one that is so exquisitely
finished, and so individual that the mind and eye rest lovingly upon
its decorative expressions. It is averred that the introduction of the
revived styles of Greece and Rome into France destroyed an art
superior. One is inclined to this opinion in studying a tapestry of
the highest Gothic expression, a finished product of the artist and
the craftsman, both having given to its execution their honest labour
and highest skill. Unhappily it is often, with the tapestry lover, a
case similar to that of the penniless boy before the bakeshop
window--you may look, but you may not have,--for not often are
tapestries such as these for sale. Only among the experienced
dealer-collectors is one fortunate enough to find these rare remnants
of the past which for colour, design and texture are unsurpassed.

But the Gothic was bound to give way as a fashion in design. Politics
of Europe were at work, and men were more easily moving about from one
country to another. The cities of the various provinces over which the
Burgundian dukes had ruled were prevented by natural causes, from
being united. Arras, Ghent, Liege instead of forming a solidarity,
were separate units of interest. This made the subjugation of one or
the other an easy matter to the tyrant who oppressed. As Arras
declined under the misrule of Charles le Temeraire (whose possessions
at one time outlined the whole northern and eastern border of France)
Brussels came into the highest prominence as a source of the finest
tapestries.

[Illustration: THE CREATION

Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century]

[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL SIN

Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century]

The great change in tapestries that now occurs is the same that
altered all European art and decoration and architecture. Indeed it
cannot be limited to these evidences alone, for it affected
literature, politics, religion, every intellectual evidence.