ABSTRACT
The dawn of improved taste tended towards a revival of Western medieval art, but the efforts of renaissance were cramped by the difficulty, amounting well nigh to the impossibility, of procuring from among the surrounding chaotic and debased forms, designs, and fabrics, suitable material for reconstruction or development. The soft and clinging, the daintily-coloured, deftly designed, classic draperies of old Japan were welcomed and admired by the leaders of our nineteenth century renaissance. No artificial restrictions due to lack of suitable material restrained the influence of what, as a definition, may perhaps be termed Eastern medievalism, distinct from European medievalism and Saracenic orientalism. The demand originating in appreciation of the merits of the previously unknown Japanese fabrics extended to other Eastern materials which were comparatively well known, and particularly to those of Chinese and Hindoo origin.
