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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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