Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/424

Rh one other of Pteroptochus, all of which are peculiar to Chile or Patagonia. The species of Scytalopus are as small as Wrens, mostly of a dark colour, and inhabit parts of Brazil and Colombia, one of them occurring so far northward as Bogota.

TAPER (probably of Celtic origin, cf. Irish tapar, Welsh tampr, taper, torch), a small thin candle of tallow or wax (see ); from its early shape, in which the circumference of the top was smaller than that of the base, the word came to be used in the sense of “slender,” particularly of something diminishing in size at one end. In architecture the word is used of the gradual diminishing of a spire or column as it rises. The spire tapers almost to a point, where it is terminated by a finial or vane: the column tapers only to a less diameter at the top, and as a general rule the more ancient the column the greater its diminution or taper; thus in one of the early temples at Selinus in Sicily the upper diameter is about half the lower diameter, while in the Parthenon it is about one-fifth.

TAPESTRY. The Gr.  and Lat. tapesium, from which our word “tapestry” is descended, implied a covering to both furniture and floors, as well as curtains or wall hangings, and neither of them really defines the particular way in which such articles were made. The decorations on these, Greek and Roman coverings were effected by painting, printing, embroidery, or a method of weaving with coloured threads; and specimens and other conclusive evidence show that early Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, Indians, Greeks and Romans employed some at least of the means above-named.

The purpose of this article is to give some account of those decorated stuffs which are produced by weaving coloured threads on to warp threads in a manner that differs from shuttle-weaving, and at the present day is called tapestry-weaving, such for instance as is practised at the famous Gobelins and Beauvais tapestry manufactories in France. At the Gobelins, the warp threads are stretched in frames standing vertically (high warp or haute lisse); at Beauvais in frames placed horizontally with the ground (low warp or basse lisse). In the one case the worker sits up to his work, in the other he bends over it. In each he is supplied with the design according to which he weaves, and notwithstanding the varied positions the method of weaving is the same. The thread-supply of each separate colour required in the design is wound upon its appointed peg or bobbin, which is a simpler implement or tool than a loom weaver’s shuttle. Fig. 1 shows a Gobelins high-warp tapestry weaver of the 18th century at work. With his left hand he is pulling above his head a few of the looped strings (lines or lisses) through which the warp threads (chaine) pass, so as to bring forward the particular warp threads, in between and around which he has to place the weft threads of the selected colour. In fig. 2 the workman’s left hand pulls forward groups of warp threads upon the lower part of which the weaving has been finished; and with a comb-like implement in his right hand he presses down and compacts the weaving. In the story of the competition between Minerva and Arachne (Metamorphoses, vi. 55–69), Ovid appears to be-describing this very process, and a great number of specimens of 2nd to 5th century Egypto-Roman workmanship corroborate the presumption of its existence in Ovid’s time. The absence of evidence to show that loom and shuttle weaving was capable at that period of producing elaborate figured fabrics is remarkable, and supports the probability that the tapestry-weaving process was that commonly known and practised for most if not all woven decoration and ornament.

It was certainly as freely used for costumes as for hangings, couch and cushion covers and the like (see ). The frames in which the work was done varied according to size from small and easily handled ones to large and substantially constructed frames. As mentioned in the article , ornament of tapestry-weaving occurs in a fragment of Egyptian work 1450, and Greeks in the 3rd or 4th century B.C. also worked in this method, as is demonstrated by specimens, now in the Hermitage at St Petersburg, which were found in the tomb of the Seven Brothers at Temriouck, formerly a Greek settlement in the province of Kouban on the north-eastern shore of the Black Sea. The simplicity of the process is so obvious that it is found to be widely employed in expressing a variety of primitive textile decoration of which pieces from Borneo, Central Asia, Tibet, the Red Indians of America, and the ancient inhabitants of Peru (see fig. 10) are to be seen in museums.