DESIGN AND TREATMENT
Chinese rug design and treatment are plainly impressionistic, as contrasted with the infinite detail that marks the high-school weavings of Persia.
COVERING FOR A CHAIR SEAT AND BACK
This fabric is in yellow and blue. The sacred mountain is the chief feature of the design
The Chinese weaver adapted the method to his requirements, and some of the most beautiful effects in the Chinese fabrics are found in absurdly coarse specimens. On the other hand, when he did undertake finer accomplishments, he vindicated all the high artistic traditions of his race. Perhaps the most impressive illustration of the racial skill and deftness is the cut work with which, in the better rugs, many of the patterns are outlined. This consists in the seemingly simple device of cutting away half the knot along the lines of a pattern; such, for example, as a flower or vine, a wave or a bird. The result is to leave the pattern clearly defined and in actual relief, without the interjection of another color. This cutting takes the place of the color outline almost universally used in Persia. In this, as in almost every phase of artistic accomplishment, the Chinese individuality and conservatism are manifest.
When we consider Chinese history and note the multitude of race factors that have gone into China-Arabs, Jews, Nestorians, Hindus, Armenians, and Turks, the wonder is that the Chinese weaving art is not manifestly and obtrusively composite; that is to say, that it does not show on its surface these various elements. But, on the contrary, it has taken the “busy” patterns of the races farther west, stripped them of their masses of confusing detail, and imbued them with the dignity and indefinable calm which seems to be the inevitable Chinese mark.
Anyone familiar with rugs can discern, in a certain school of Chinese fabrics, the Persian characteristics as found in the rugs of Khorassan; but always, and from whatever source derived, these patterns have been touched with the purely Chinese character, laid in the Chinese color, and so in the course of time have become thoroughly localized. China converted the hard octagons of the Turkoman rugs into circular scrolls or medallions, beautifying them meanwhile with some floral character manifestly borrowed from the Persians—and yet by no means Persian. There has been in all the world probably no more perfect example of racial individuality in art.
A COMPOSITE DESIGN
Of a rather late period. In the border are found somewhat overloaded Mohammedan characteristics