A COHERENT AND WELL BALANCED DESIGN
The colors are blue and white
Most noticeable in Chinese rug coloring is the wonderful scope and quality of the blues. The highest expression of Persian skill in dyeing has always been found in blue; but even in this art—which, by the way, the Persians have now in a great measure lost—they must yield place to the Chinese. In the older rugs the Chinese blues show a range, a depth, and a luminous quality which are not surpassed in the world, and even the best modern pieces now being produced in Peking are in this respect superior to their Persian contemporaries.
Second, certainly, to the blues in importance come the yellows. While yellow has been used freely in Persian rugs, and more so in those of Kurdistan and Asia Minor, the fact of its royal and semi-religious value in China has caused it to be employed in some of the Chinese fabrics with a frankness not equaled elsewhere. Twenty years ago, before popular taste in America had attained its present appreciative attitude toward all Chinese art, the prevalence of yellow in strong values and large areas in the rugs was one of the chief causes of American dislike for them. It is unpleasant to admit this now, when old Chinese rugs in yellow, and some not so old, are sought with an avidity that disregards the question of price.
IMPERIAL YELLOW
Since Chinese rugs have come into demand we have heard a great deal of “imperial yellow.” Almost any yellow is “imperial” when a sale hangs in the balance. But it should be unnecessary to say that true imperial yellow is quite as rare in Chinese rugs as are imperial persons among the 400,000,000 of Chinese population. Its actual frequency is about equal to that of “inscriptions from the Koran in the modern rugs of Persia.” To describe it would tax the skill of Lafcadio Hearn, who would not have been so rash as to undertake it. Perhaps the most descriptive thing one can say is that it outyellows all the gold that ever shone.
INHARMONIOUS DESIGN
It is too strong for a small fabric. The sacred mountain and the Foo dogs are combined badly with a border stripe derived from India or Khorassan