te
another affair was this from modern restraint which consists in
pruning down the voluptuous lines following the too high Renaissance.

Faces are serious, but not animated. Dress reveals charming matter
concerning stuffs and modes in that far time. But apart from these
characteristics is the one great feature of the arrangement of the
figures, almost without perspective. And therein lies one immense
superiority of the ancient designs of tapestries over the modern as
pure decorative fabric. Men and women are placed with their
accessories of furniture or architecture all in the foreground, and
each man has as many cubits to his stature as his neighbour, not being
dwarfed for perspective, but only for modesty, as in the case of the
Lady's companion in the _Unicorn_ series--but that series is of a
later Gothic time than the early works of Arras.

A noticeable feature is that the centre of vision is placed high on
the tapestry. The eye must look to the top to find all the strength of
the design. The lower part is covered with the sweeping robes or
finished figures of the folk who are playing their silent parts for
the delight of the eye. This covers well the space with large and
simple motive. No recourse is had to such artifice as distant lands
seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but all is flat, brought
frankly into intimate association with the room that is lived in, so
that these people of other days seem really to enter into our very
presence, to thrust vitally their quaint selves into our company. This
feature of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods of
drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, and deeply satisfied
with its beauty. The purpose of decoration and of furnishing seems to
be most adequately met when the attention is retained within the
chamber and not led out of it by trick of background nor lure of
perspective, no matter how enticing are the distant landscapes or how
noble the far palace of royalty. Thus the Primitives struck a more
intimately human note than the artists of later and more sophisticated
times.

The more archaic the tapestry, the simpler the motive, is the rule.
The early weavers of Arras and of France were telling stories as
naturally as possible, perhaps because the ways of their times were
simple, and brushed aside all filigree with a directness almost
brutal; but also, perhaps, because technique was not highly developed,
either in him who drew with a