called primitives we have almost
finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. The simplicity of the
very early weavers passed. They were content with comparatively few
figures, and these so strongly treated that in composition one scarce
took on more importance than another. When Arras and other Flemish
towns, as well as Paris and certain French towns, developed the
industry and employed more ambitious artists, the designs became more
crowded, and the tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to
crowd as many as possible into the space. When architecture appeared
in the design, towers and battlements were crowded with peeping heads
in delightful lack of proportion, and forests of spears springing from
platoons of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth.
The naive fashion still existed of dressing the characters of an
ancient Biblical or classic drama in costumes which were the mode of
the weaver's time, disregarding the epoch in which the characters
actually lived.

An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early workers continues
noticeable in their quaint way of putting many scenes on one tapestry.
Interiors are readily managed, by dividing--as in _The Sacraments_ set
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York--with slender Gothic
columns, than which nothing could be prettier, especially when framed
in at the top with the Gothic arch. In outdoor scenes the frank
disregard of the probable adds the charm of audacity. Side by side
with a scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying prone, is
inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs are pleasantly
sporting; and adjoining that may be another section cunningly
introduced where a martyred woman is enveloped in flames which spring
from the ground around her as naturally as grass in springtime.

[Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA

Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century]

[Illustration: HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN

Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century]

And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms of the Gothic
with their perennial beauty, they are one of the smiles of that far
time that shed cheer through the centuries. They are not the
grandiose affairs of the Renaissance whose voluptuous development
contains the arrogant assurance of beauty matured. They do not crown a
column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; but are just as Nature
meant them to be, unaffected bits of colour and grace, upspringing
f