The conventional style is particularly suitable to carpets, in that it possesses great decorative possibilities, and continually reminds the occupant of a room of beautiful objects in Nature, without deliberately challenging, as in the naturalistic style, comparisons, which can only be disadvantageous. This style reached the summit of its popularity about the first years of the century and has since declined, though it is by no means extinct. Its decline may be regretted, if only for the reason that it is one of the very few styles of design in carpets which can claim to be distinctly British.
It left behind it a successor, however, which enjoyed a few years of public favour. This is the tapestry or verdure style, wherein flowers, fruit, and leaves are treated in a half-conventional manner, generally on a well-covered ground. This really stands half-way between the naturalistic and the conventional styles. It may be the joint offspring of the two, a more exuberant Morris type, or a more chastened floral chintz; while it seems not unlikely that it was introduced from Germany, where it was certainly very popular at one time.
Then we passed into an era of reproductions. Examples of masterpieces of decoration, and especially those of Oriental art, have always, and rightly, been studied by carpet designers, and frequently reproduced by carpet manufacturers in the past; but never to such an extent as during the years preceding the war. The carpet trade of that time was dominated by the cult of the antique Eastern carpet; and a very large proportion of the production of British carpets was upon Persian and Indian styles, while subsequently the Chinese came in for marked attention. From one point of view, this was all to the good; for the birthplace of the carpet was the Orient, and old Eastern carpets are classics, just as the works of Homer, Vergil, Handel, or Velasquez are classics. Competition among manufacturers was keen; and close and beautiful reproductions of the best antique Oriental carpets were offered to the public, distinguished in design, soft in colouring, and lending themselves readily to harmonious schemes of decoration.
But from another aspect this era was less satisfactory. The masterpieces of Persia and Asia Minor, so eagerly sought out, were not studied as models, to be adapted to modern ideas and requirements, as inspirations, or bases for new effects. They were apt to be slavishly copied, line for line and shade for shade, as far as the limitations of the machine-made fabric permitted. A manufacturer would boast: “This is an exact reproduction of the famous carpet of so-and-so, made in the fourteenth century”; not: “This is a beautiful carpet. Persian in feeling.” This sort of thing did not make for progress, nor for originality and initiative in the design, but led to a certain monotony and arrested progress, though the beauty of the productions was incontestable.