llection, or the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ series, but
there the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional
Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background dressed in
the fashion of the artist's day.

[Illustration: BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago]

[Illustration: MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon
attributed to Rubens]

The border was evidently inspired by Raphael's classic figures and
arabesques, but the column of design is naively broken by the far
perspective of a formal garden. The Italian cartoonist would have
built his border, figure and arabesque, one above another like a
fantastic column (_vide_ Mr. Blumenthal's _Mercury_ border). The
Fleming saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed the
intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the Flemish examples of
this style that have come to us are thrilling in their beauty of
colour, and borders such as this are an infinite joy. This tapestry
was woven about the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver
named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed by Carlier, a
merchant of Antwerp.

As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened and
deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low Countries, one that was
bound to submerge all others. Rubens appeared and spread his great
decorative surfaces before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This
great scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method in his
voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially adapted to tapestry
weaving. It is not for us to quarrel with the art of so great a
master. The critics of painting scarce do that; but in the lesser art
of tapestry the change brought about by his cartoons was not a happy
one.

His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly from the
canvas, no liberty of line or colour could be allowed the weaver. In
times past, the tapissier--with talent almost as great as that of the
cartoonist--altered at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael
cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work of the master.

But now he was expected to copy without license for change. In other
words, the time was arriving when tapestries were changing from
decorative fabrics into paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a
distaste for the newer method, seeing what rare and beau