TEXTILE ORNAMENT.

DEVELOPMENT OF A GEOMETRIC SYSTEM OF DESIGN WITHIN THE ART.

INTRODUCTION.

Having made a brief study of form and color in the textile art, I
shall now present the great group or family of phenomena whose
exclusive office is that of enhancing beauty. It will be necessary,
however, to present, besides those features of the art properly
expressive of the esthetic culture of the race, all those phenomena
that, being present in the art without man's volition, tend to suggest
decorative conceptions and give shape to them. I shall show how the
latter class of features arise as a necessity of the art, how they
gradually come into notice and are seized upon by the esthetic
faculty, and how under its guidance they assist in the development of
a system of ornament of world wide application.

For convenience of treatment esthetic phenomena may be classed as
_relieved_ and _flat_. Figures or patterns of a relievo nature arise
during construction as a result of the intersections and other more
complex relations--the bindings--of the warp and woof or of inserted
or applied elements. Flat or surface features are manifested in color,
either in unison with or independent of the relieved details. Such is
the nature of the textile art that in its ordinary practice certain
combinations of both classes of features go on as a necessity of the
art and wholly without reference to the desire of the artist or to the
effect of resultant patterns upon the eye. The character of such
figures depends upon the kind of construction and upon the accidental