Page:Scottishartrevie01unse.djvu/221

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THE EXHIBITION OF DECORATIVE HANDWORK
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old dames, whose white locks were once as golden as the flax upon the distaffs in their hands ; and clocks that have beat for years the march of Time's stately tread. Viewed in this light a collection of furniture such as that gathered together in the galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy possesses an interest which made in the following lines to work out the subject chronologically, and to parallel the various periods of history by a mention of the examples which are the products of such periods. Ignoring the antique, of which no specimen here is worthy of note, we may divide modern furniture into

CORNER IN THE EXHIBITION

appeals to a wider circle than that ot dealers and connoisseurs, and one that, by thus arousing a direct power of association, may possibly lead to just as direct a study of the objects for the sake of their own beauty. Un- fortunately this particular collection is strong only within certain definite limits, but an attempt has been early and late medieval, renaissance, seventeenth and eighteenth century work. Early mediaeval art, in- cluded under the general name of Gothic, continued down to the twelfth century full of Romanesque forms and details, and, like much of the architecture of that period, was a heritage of classic work changed and