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DRYADS AND FAUNS

From Herter Looms, New York, 1910

It is odd that New York should have more tapestry looms at work than has Paris. The Baumgarten looms exceed in number the present Gobelins, and the Herter looms add many more. The ateliers of Albert Herter are in the busiest part of New York, and here are woven by hand many fabrics of varying degrees of excellence. It is not Mr. Herter’s intention to produce only fine wall hangings, but to supply as well floor coverings “a la façon de Perse,” as the ancient documents had it, and to make it possible for persons of taste, but not necessarily fortune, to have hand-woven portières of artistic value.

Apart from this commendable aim, the Herter looms are also given to making copies of the antique in the finest of weaving, and to producing certain original pieces expressing the decorative spirit of our day. Besides this, the work is distinguished by certain combinations of antique and modern style that confuse the seeker after purity of style. That the effect is pleasing must be acknowledged as illustrated in the plate showing a tapestry for the country house of Mrs. E. H. Harriman. (Plate facing page [263].) It is not easy in a review of tapestry weaving of to-day to find any great encouragement.

These are times of commerce more than of art. If art can be made profitable commercially, well and good. If not, it starves in a garret along with the artist. If the demand for modern tapestries was large enough, the art would flourish—perhaps. But it is not a large demand, for many reasons, chief among which is the incontrovertible one that the modern work is seldom pleasing. The whole world is occupied with science and commerce, and art does not create under their influence as in more ideal times. What can the trained eye and the cultivated taste do other than turn back to the products of other days?

We have artists in our own country whose qualities would make of them marvellous composers of cartoons. The imagination and execution of Maxfield Parrish, for example, added to his richness of colouring, would be translatable in wool under the hands of an artist-weaver. And the designs which take the name of “poster” and are characterised by strength, simplicity and few tones, why would they not give the same crispness of detail that constitutes one of the charms of Gothic work? Perhaps the factories existent in America will work out this line of thought, combine it with honesty of material and labour, and give us the honour of prominence in an ancient art’s revival.

FINIS