I took down from my bookshelf Lewis Mumford's "the City in History" from 1961.

Your comments on the absolutely symmetrical carpets of Europe and the elongated compressed carpets of the 'East' set me thinking of parallel into the Zeitgeist that might be helpful. Mumford deals with the elegnace of the absolute monarchies - Versailles, and the rigid structure of planned cities - Washington a century later. It is a certainty that the societies that built Versailles and Washington would have the medallions in their carpets in the dead center of the piece. The phrase 'dead center' is intentional.

If we had Roman medallion carpets I could well image where the medallions would be. Where would the medallions be if we had Greek carpets from 500 BC?

Again thank you for the thought provoking salon,

Sincerely

Richard Farber

Looking at the 18'th century embroideries at Textile-Art site ( http://www.textile-art.com/lms.html ), it seems the center isn't in the middle. So the weaver had to do it three times over, in order to get the design together in the same embroidery. Something to think about to.....
And, although it's named Flower Power, I can't help looking at insects, spiders, creepy crawlers and I didn't drink any Champagne yet!
But, maybe creepy crawlers are out of style ........

I'll be making a toast, wishing a peaceful 2001 etc. for all.

Regards,
Vincent