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The journal of design and manufactures
(1849)

[Review of patterns:] woven fabrics,   pp. 39-50


Page 39

Metals: Tea and Coffee Service. 
The sugar-basin is by far the best 
of the series.  The plant of the 
sugar-cane which composes it, is ar- 
ranged with much more taste, and 
while growing gracefully and natu- 
rally, is yet so balanced and com- 
bined as to come within the proper 
dominion of ornamental art, and to 
exhibit the regulating influence of a 
dominant mind.     In most of his 
works we have noticed the tendency        - 
of Mr. Bell to what the French 
would call naivet6 in his imitation of nfature ;-neglecting to mould it to
his 
will artificially, it asserts its own supremacy, and rather interferes with
than 
aids the developement of his forms. 
The base of this sugar-basin is much better than the no-base of its compan-
ions, and the root of the plant forms an elegant ornament for it. 
It is right to notice that the foliage of all these specimens is very cleanly
modelled, and the colour and lustre of the plating excellent. 
On the whole, although this service is by no means perfect, it is still so
far 
better than the majority of its precursors that we must rather rejoice in
its 
execution. 
WOVEN FABRICS. 
BROCATZLLES, manufactured by Walters and Son, London, exhibited at 
the Society of Arts. 
In according to Messrs. Walters the very great praise for considerable excel-
lence, both in the weaving of their fabrics, the dye of their silk, and in
their 
power of producing textile surfaces, absorbent and reflective of light, we
cannot 
altogether bring ourselves to sympathise with the patterns, on the elaboration
of 
which they have bestowed so muchi care and labour. In the first place, the
prin- 
ciple of representing leaves and flowers, either natural or conventional,
of a larger 
size than we are accustomed to see, inevitably destroys the relative scale
of any 
objects in their vicinity, and disagreeably interferes with the habit of
recurrence 
to the original type, which may have suggested the pattern. In the second,
the 
lines are too irregular for the dimensions of the material. Where objects
are so 
large and dominant as to inevitably attract the eye to them, as of first
import- 
ance, even in a very large saloon, a certain amount of geometrical rgularity
is 
requisite to compensate for the withdrawal of the sense from the artectural
lines. Where the fabric is small, eccentricity does notmatter, the balance
and 
distribution of larger objects supplying that consciousness of regulated
design 
the educated eye requires. Yet the makers deservedly have obtained the 


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