Studio: international art (5.1895)

Stencilled Fabrics

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FIG. 7.—STENCILLED WALL-PAPER, "DOLPHIN LEAF
BY A. SILVER

at a comparatively trifling cost; for the cutting of
the thin stencil-plates is out of all proportion to the
heavy expenses incidental to block or roller printing.
In thus permitting the decoration to be varied in
degree according to the taste of the worker, or the
illumination which each portion of his work must
needs receive by the accident of its position, and in
allowing an architect to carry out special designs
for his clients, or to arrange designs already pre-
pared in entirely new combinations, two important
items are secured which justify the introduction of
the new stencilling.

Of the effect of the designs illustrated, a few
words must suffice. Owing, as they do, their
special interest to colour, it is obvious that in
black and white they show no marked superiority
to printed materials. Nor without close study
do you realise how easily new combinations of the
various forms may be obtained. The background
of Fig. 4, for instance, is quite complete and
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independent. True, certain portions may be
stopped out, and figures introduced as they are
in the illustration ; but as you see it in Fig. 1, it
is capable of being used alone. So Fig. 2 may
have figures put in, as they have been in several
cases not illustrated, with excellent effect. Such
figures may be used in special positions, over a door-
head or above an over-mantel, for instance. In
varied colour the possibilities are boundless. The
treatment of Fig. 6 shows the tulips all in different
shades, as diverse as a bed of mixed varieties could
be; or the colour may be varied in a pre-arranged
manner, as, for example, in an impression of Fig. 3,
where the colours passing gradually from rich