ued, the inability of
the Gobelins ateliers to understand that the two must not be confused.
The same false idea that caused Winterhalter's portraits to be copied,
gave to the modern tapissiers the paintings of the high Renaissance to
reproduce. Titian's most celebrated works were set up on the loom, as
for example the beautiful fancy known as _Sacred and Profane Love_,
which perplexes the loiterer of to-day in the Villa Borghese. Other
paintings copied were Raphael's _Transfiguration_, Guido Rene's
_Aurora_, Andrea del Sarto's _Charity_. There were many more, but this
list gives sufficiently well the condition of inspiration at the
Gobelins up to the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century.

Paul Baudry appeared at about this time striking a clear pure note of
delicate decoration. The few panels that he drew for the Gobelins
charm the eye with happy reminiscences of Lebrun, of Claude Audran, a
potpourri of petals fallen from the roses of yesterday mixed with the
spices of to-day.

But if the work of this talented artist illustrates anything, it is
the change in the uses of tapestries. The modern ones are made to be
framed, as flat as the wall against which they are secured. In a word,
they take the place of frescoes. The pleasure of touching a mobile
fabric is lost. A fold in such a dainty piece would break its beauty.
Almost must a woven panel of our day fit the panel it fills as
exactly as the wood-work of a room fits its dimensions.

The Nineteenth Century at the Gobelins was finished by mistakenly
copying Ghirlandajo, Correggio, others of their time.

In the beginning of this century, the spirit of pure decoration again
became animated. Instead of copying old painters, the Gobelins began
to copy old cartoons. The effect of this is to increase the
responsibility of the weaver, and with responsibility comes strength.

The models of Boucher, and the _Grotesques_ of Italian Renaissance
drawing are given even now to the weavers as a training in both taste
and skill. But better than all is the present wisdom of the Gobelins,
which has directly faced the fact that it were better to copy the
tapestries of old excellence than to copy paintings of no matter what
altitude of art.

Modern cartoons are used, as we know, commanded for various public
buildings in France, but the copying of old tapestries exercises a far
happier influence on the weavers. If this is not an age of creation in
art, at least it need not be an a