Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/48

Rh 38 MURAL DECORATION of ecclesiastical and domestic goods frequently contain items such as these: &quot;stayned cloths for hangings,&quot; &quot;paynted FIG. 5. Italian Stamped Leather; 16th century cloths with stories and batailes,&quot; or &quot;paynted cloths of beyond sea work,&quot; or &quot;of Flaunder s work.&quot; Many good artists working at Ghent and Bruges during the first half of the 15th century produced very fine work of this class, as well as designs for real tapestry. Several of the great Italian artists devoted their utmost skill in composition and invention to the painting of these wall-hangings. The most important existing example is the magnificent series of paintings of the triumph of Julius Caesar executed by Andrea Mantegna (1485-1492) for Ludovico Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, and now at Hampton Court. These are usually, but wrongly, called &quot;cartoons,&quot; as if they were designs meant to be executed in tapestry ; this is not the case, as the paintings themselves were used as wall-hangings. They are nine in number, and each compartment, 9 feet square, was separated from the next by a pilaster. They form a continuous procession, with life-sized figures of unrivalled grace and beauty, remarkable alike for their com position, drawing, and delicate colouring, the latter un fortunately much disguised by the most coarse and tasteless &quot; restoration.&quot; Like most of these painted wall-hangings, they are executed in tempera, and rather thinly painted, so that the pigment might not crack off through the cloth falling slightly into folds. 1 Another remarkable series of painted cloth hangings are those at Rheims cathedral, admirable for their noble breadth of design and rich colour ing. 2 In some cases actual dyes were used for this sort of work. A MS. of the 15th century 3 gives receipts for &quot;painted cloth,&quot; showing that sometimes they were dyed in a manner similar to those Indian stuffs which were afterwards printed, and are now called chintzes. These receipts are for real dyes, not for pigments, and among them is the earliest known description of the process called 1 See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in North Italy, i. p. 404, 1871 ; and Waagen, Art Treasures, 1854. 2 Leberthais, Toiles peintes de Reims (Paris). 3 Merrifield, Treatises on Painting, 1849. &quot; setting &quot; the woad or indigo vat, as well as a receipt for removing or &quot; discharging &quot; the colour from a cloth already dyed. Another method employed was a sort of &quot; encaustic &quot; process ; the cloth was rubbed all over with wax, and then painted in tempera ; heat was then applied so that the colours sank into the melting wax, and were thus firmly fixed upon the cloth. 8. Printed Hangings and Wail-Papers. The printing of various textiles with dye-colours and mordants is probably one of the most ancient of the arts. Pliny (H. Jf., xxxv.) clearly describes a dyeing process employed by the ancient Egyptians, in which the pattern was probably formed by printing from blocks. Various methods have been used for this work wood blocks in relief, engraved metal plates, stencil plates, and even hand-painting ; frequently two or more of these methods have been employed for the same pattern. The use of printed stuffs is of great antiquity among the Hindus and Chinese, and was cer tainly practised in western Europe in the 13th century, and perhaps earlier. The South Kensington Museum has 13th-century specimens of block-printed silk made in Sicily, of very beautiful design. Towards the end of the 14th century a great deal of block-printed linen was made in Flanders, and largely imported into England. Wall-papers did not come into common use in Europe till the 18th century, though they appear to have been used much earlier by the Chinese. A few rare examples exist in England which may be as early as the 16th cen tury ; these are imitations, generally in flock, of the fine old Florentine and Genoese cut velvets, and hence the style of the design in no way shows the date of the wall paper, the same traditional patterns being reproduced for many years with little or no change. Machinery enabling paper to be made in long strips was not invented till the end of the last century, and up to that time wall-papers were printed on small square pieces of hand-made paper, difficult to hang, disfigured by numerous joints, and com paratively costly ; on these accounts Avail-papers were slow in superseding the older and more magnificent modes of mural decoration, such as wood-panelling, painting, tapestry, stamped leather, and painted cloth. A little work by Jackson of Battersea, printed in London in 1744, throws some light on the use of Avail-papers at that time. He gives reduced copies of his designs, mostly taken from Italian pictures or antique sculpture during his residence in Venice. Instead of floAving patterns covering the Avail, his designs are all pictures landscapes, architectural scenes, or statues treated as panels, with plain paper or painting betAveen. They are all printed in oil, Avith Avooden blocks worked Avith a rolling press, apparently an invention of his OAVU. They are all in the worst possible taste, and yet are offered as great improvements on the Chinese papers Avhich he says Avere then in fashion. The method of printing Avail-papers of the better sort is probably the same now that it has always been. Wooden blocks with the design cut in relief, one for each colour, are applied by hand, after being dipped in an elastic cloth sieve charged with wet tempera pig ment, great care being taken to lay each block exactly on the right place, so that the various colours may &quot;register&quot; or fit together. In order to suit the productions of the paper-mills these blocks are made, in England 21 inches wide, and in France 18 inches Avide; the length of the block is limited to Avhat the workman can easily lift with one hand, 2 feet being about the limit, as the blocks are necessarily thick, and in many cases made heavier by being inlaid with copper, especially the thin outlines, which, if made of wood, would not stand the wear and tear of printing. In &quot;flock&quot; and gold or silver printing the design is first printed in strong size ; the flock (finely cut wool of the required colour), or metallic powder is then sprinkled by hand all over the paper ; it adheres only to the wet size, and is easily shaken off the ground or unsized part. If the pattern is required to stand out in some relief this process is repeated several times, and the Avhole paper then rolled to com press the flock. Cheaper sorts of paper are printed by machinery, the design being cut on the surface of wooden rollers, under which