aucity of imagination
was replaced by increase in the size of each object used in filling up
the border's allotted space.

After this riot had continued long enough in its inebriety, the
corrective came through the influence of Rubens in the North and of
Lebrun in France. These two geniuses knew how to gather into their
control the art strength of their age, and to train it into
intellectual results. Mere bulk, mere space-filling, had to give way
under the mind force of these two men, who by their superb invention
gave new standards to decorative art in Flanders and in France.
Drawings were made in scale again, and designs were built in harmony,
constructed not merely to catch the eye, but to gratify the logical
mind.

The day was for the grandiose in borders. The petite and _mignonne_ of
Raphael's grotesques was no longer suited to the people, or, to put
it otherwise, the people were not such as seek expression in
refinement, for all art is but the visible evidence of a state of mind
or soul.

The wish to be sumptuous and superb, then, was a force, and so the art
expressed it, but in a way that holds our admiration. A stroll in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows us better than words the
perfection of design at this grandiose era. There one sees _Antony and
Cleopatra_ of Rubens--probably. On these hangings the border has all
the evidences of genius. If there were no picture at all to enclose,
if there were but this decorative frame, a superb inspiration would be
flaunted. From substantial urns at right and left, springs the design
at the sides which mounts higher and higher, design on design, but
always with probability. That is the secret of its beauty, its
probability, yet we are cheated all the time and like it. No vase of
fruit could ever uphold a cupid's frolic, nor could an emblematic bird
support a chalice, yet the artist makes it seem so. Note how he hangs
his swags, and swings his amorini, from the horizontal borders. He
first sets a good strong architectural moulding of classic
egg-and-dart, and leaf, and into this able motive thrusts hooks and
rings. From these solid facts he hangs his happy weight of fruit and
flower and peachy flesh. Nothing could be more simple, nothing could
be more logical. The cartouche at the top, he had no choice but to put
it there, to hold the title of the picture, and at the bottom came a
tiny landscape to balance. So much for fashion well executed.

Colours were