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Title: Needlework As Art
Author: Marian Alford
Release Date: November 14, 2009 [EBook #30472]
Language: English
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reference purposes only.
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NEEDLEWORK AS ART
BY
LADY M. ALFORD
[Illustration]
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1886.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
[Illustration: TELEMACHUS PENELOPE]
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO
THE QUEEN.
TO
THE QUEEN.
_Your Majesty's most gracious acceptance of the Dedication of my book
on "Needlework as Art" casts a light upon the subject that shows its
worthiness, and my inability to do it justice. Still, I hope I may
fill a gap in the artistic literature of our day, and I venture to lay
my work at your Majesty's feet with loyal devotion._
MARIAN M. ALFORD.
PREFACE.
In the Preface to the "Handbook of Art Needlework," which I edited for
the Royal School at South Kensington in 1880, I undertook to write a
second part, to be devoted to design, colour, and the common-sense
modes of treating decorative art, as applied especially to embroidered
hangings, furniture, dress, and the smaller objects of luxury.
Circumstances have, since then, obliged me to reconsider this
intention; and I have found it more practicable to cast the
information which I have collected from Eastern and Western sources
into the form of a separate work, which in no way supersedes or
interferes with the technical instruction supposed to be conveyed in a
handbook. I have found so much amusement in learning for myself the
history of the art of embroidery, and in tracing the beginnings and
the interchanges of national schools, that I cannot but hope that I
may excite a similar interest in some of my readers, and so induce
those who are capable, to help and lift it to a higher place than it
has been allowed in these latter days to occupy. If I have given too
important a position to the art of needlework, I would observe that
while I have been writing, decorative embroidery has come to the
front, and is at this moment one of the hobbies of the day; and I
would point out that it contains in itself all the necessary elements
of art; it may exercise the imagination and the fancy; it needs
education in form, colour, and composition, as well as the craft of a
practised hand, to express its language and perfect its beauty.
I confess that when I undertook this task, I did not anticipate the
time I have had to spend in collecting and epitomizing the many
notices to be found in German, French, and English authors, on what
has been considered among us, at least in this century, as merely a
secondary art, and therefore, as such, of little importance. Cursory
notices of needlework are scattered through almost every book on art;
and under the head of textiles it is usual to find embroidery
acknowledged as being worthy of notice, though not to be named in
company with sculpture, architecture, or painting, however beautifully
or thoughtfully its works may be carried out. I have tried to show
that it deserves higher estimation.
My first intention was simply to consider STYLE, good or bad, as it
influences our embroidery of to-day, and to find some rules by which
to guide that of the future in its next phase. But when we search into
the fluctuations of style, and their causes, we find they have an
historical succession, and that we must begin at the beginning and
trace them through the life of mankind.
This led me to attempt a sketch of consecutive styles, their overlap
and variations.
I then found that DESIGN, PATTERNS, STITCHES, MATERIALS, each require
a separate study.
COLOUR, as applied to dyes, claims to be regarded as differing from
pigments on the painter's palette.
HANGINGS, DRESS, and ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERIES each require
different rules, and the study of the best examples of past centuries.
Finally, it seems natural to dwell on our own proficiency in
decorative work. ENGLISH EMBROIDERY has always excelled; and, as we
have again returned to this occupation, it is worth while to recollect
what we have done of old.
In writing chapters on these subjects, I have found it most convenient
to separate the historical and æsthetic questions from the technical
rules, and the instruction which naturally belongs to a handbook, of
which the purpose should be to teach the easiest and most orthodox
manner of executing the simplest, and elaborating the finest works.
Such questions ought not to be overlaid with archæological inquiries,
or with the information which only profits the designer; though of
course it is best that the knowledge of design should be part of the
education of the craft.
Perhaps I may be found to have written a book too shallow for the
learned, too deep for the frivolous, too technical for the general
public, and too diffuse for the specialist of the craft.[1]
I must deprecate these criticisms by saying that I have written it for
the benefit of those who know nothing of the art, and are too much
engaged to seek information here and there; who yet, being women, have
to select and to execute ornamental needlework; or, being artists, are
vexed at the incongruities and want of intention in the decorations in
daily domestic use; I have also sought to help the designer, that he
or she may know something of the history of patterns and stitches.
If my readers should be aware of repetitions, they must forgive them;
remembering that the same idea has to be looked at sometimes from a
different point of view, according to the use to which it is to be
fitted. The same material may be employed for wall-hangings and dress,
and then the principles which have been formulated have to be varied.
I do not shrink from repetitions if they make my meaning clear,
remembering the Duke of Wellington's direction to his private
secretary, "Never mind repetitions; and _dot_ your i's."
Portions of these chapters have been already published in No. 49 of
the _Nineteenth Century_,[2] in 1881; and more was delivered in three
unpublished lectures the same year.
I have acknowledged and noted on each page my authorities for the
facts I have quoted. The illustrations that are not original, have
been copied from other works by permission of authors and publishers.
To all of these I wish to express my obligations and thanks,
especially to Mr. Villiers Stuart, Dr. Anderson, Sir G. Birdwood, and
Sir H. Layard, for their courtesy in allowing me the use of their
plates. To my old and valued friend, Mr. Newton, I wish to express my
gratitude for his unstinted gifts of time and trouble, bestowed in
criticizing and correcting my book, encouraging me to give it to the
public, and making it more worthy of publication.
I have largely quoted Charles Blanc ("Ornament in Dress," English
translation), Von Bock ("Liturgische Gewänder"), Dr. Rock ("The Church
of our Fathers" and "Introduction to Textiles"), Semper ("Der Stil"),
Yates ("Textrinum Antiquorum"), and Yule ("Marco Polo"), besides many
others. But these authorities often differ, and, after weighing their
arguments, I have ventured to select for my use the facts and
theories which accord with my own views. Facts are often so
interdependent and closely linked, that it requires great care to
distinguish where they have been shaped or coloured (however
unintentionally) to fit each other or the writer's preconceived ideas.
Certain it is that facts are but useless heaps till the thread of a
theory is found on which to hang them. This process, like that of
stringing pearls, has to be often repeated, till each occupies its
right place. Only those who have adopted and cherished a theory can
appreciate the pain of cutting the thread, to displace what appeared
to be a pearl, but which, from its false position as to date or place,
or its doubtful origin, has proved only an empty manufactured glass
bead of error.
This has happened to me more than once; and since I read my lectures I
have had to change my opinions in several instances. If, therefore,
any of my readers should observe such changes, I hope they will give
me credit for trying to convey _now_ what appears to me on each
subject a correct impression.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Besides the art, I have sought to give something of
the archæology of needlework. Now the qualifications for
being a teacher on such subjects are rarely to be met
with, all combined. Mr. Newton, in his "Essays on Art
and Archæology," p. 37, says that "the archæologist
should combine with the æsthetic culture of the artist,
and the trained judgment of the historian and the
philologist, that critical acumen, required for
classification and interpretation; nor should that
habitual suspicion which must ever attend the scrutiny
and precede the warranty of evidence, give too sceptical
a bias to his mind." Such authorities have been
interrogated on each part of my subject.
[2] Quoted by permission of the Editor.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. 1
CHAPTER I.--STYLE.
Definition of style--Development of style--Primitive--
Archaic--Egyptian--Babylonian--Phœnician influences
on early Greek style--Decoration of hangings of the
Tabernacle in the wilderness--Aryan ideas--The Code of
Manu--Indian art--Celtic style--Greek art in dress and
embroideries--Homer's descriptions of embroideries--Pallas
Athene--Shield of Achilles--Roman art--Byzantine art--Art
of Central Asia--Its arrival in Europe--Art of China,
Japan, and Java--Christian art--Scandinavian art--The Dark
Ages--Sicilian textile art--Renaissance--Arabesque--
Grotesque--Spanish Plâteresque--Style of Queen Anne and the
Chippendales--Louis XV. style--Classical revival--Young
England's style--Nineteenth century style 14
CHAPTER II.--DESIGN.
Artist and artisan--Prehistoric design--Naturalistic
design--Egyptian immutability--Slow evolution of
design--Greek perfection--Necessity of following rules--M.
Blanc's laws of ornamentation--Laws of composition--
Repetition--Alternation--Symmetry--Progression--Confusion--
Designs for hangings and dress materials--Floral design--Design
for carpets--The conventional--First principles 54
CHAPTER III.--PATTERNS.
Ancestry of patterns--Classification--Their historical
value--Primitive patterns--The wave--Tartan--Prehistoric
African patterns--The naturalistic--Flowers--Shells--Indian
forms of naturalistic patterns--Egyptian--The lotus--
Sunflower--Celtic Zoomorphic patterns--The human figure on
Greek textiles--Animal forms in Oriental patterns--Symbolical
and conventional patterns--The wave patterns--The palm leaf--
The cone--Gothic--Arab--Moresque--The Sacred Hom--Egg and
tongue--The cross--Swastika--Fylfote--Gammadion--The
crenelated pattern--The Ninevite daisy--Emblematic
patterns--Bestiaria--Volucraria--Lapidaria--Byzantine
patterns--Gothic--Renaissance--The cloud pattern--The
fundata--Italian--French patterns--Radiated patterns--The
shell--Patterns by repetition--Balcony pattern--Chinese
wicker-work--Survival of a pattern--Opus
Alexandrinum--Quilting patterns 82
CHAPTER IV.--MATERIALS.
Raw materials--Revelations of the microscope--Hemp--Jute--
Honduras grass--Spartum--Pinna silk--Hair--Leather--
Feathers--Asbestos--Coral--Pearls--Beads--Wool--Classical
notices of wool--Careful improvement of wool by the
ancients--Tanaquil--Homeric woollen carpets--Crimson
textile fragments--Scandinavian woollen garments--Qualities
of wool--English wool--Goats' hair--Flax--Lake cities--
Byssus--Fine linen of Egypt--The Atrebates--Embroidery on
linen--Cotton--Indian origin--Carbasa--Buckram--Cotton
fabrics--Gold--Silver--Gold brocades--Jewish--Indian--
Chinese--Dress of Darius--Attalus--Attalic textiles--
Agrippina's golden garments--St. Cecilia's mantle--Roman
tombs--Gold wire--Anglo-Saxon tomb--Childeric's tomb--Proba's
gold thread--Golden wrappings from tombs of Henry I. and Henry
III.--Gold embroideries and jewellers' work of Middle
Ages--Spangles--Enamels--Purl--Modern schools of gold
embroidery--Silk--Pamphile of Cos--Early specimens of silk
stuffs--Chinese silks--The Seres--Mela--Seneca--M. Terrien
de la Couperie--Empress Si-ling-chi--Princess of
Khotan--Euripides--Lucan--Pliny--Silk in Rome--Ælius
Lampridius--Flavius Vopiscus--Tailor's bill--Justinian's
codex--Imperial monopoly--Paul the Silentiary--Bede--King
John's apparition--Greek and Sicilian manufactories of
silk--Distinctive marks of different periods--Lyons--Spain--
Italy--Flemish towns--Marco Polo--Satin--Welsh poem, "Lady of
the Fountain"--Chaucer--Velvet--Transference of work to new
materials 118
CHAPTER V.--COLOUR.
Harmony and dissonance--Names of tints--Authorities for
theories--Art of colouring--Expression of colouring--
Purple--Red--Crimson--Blue--Yellow--Pliny--Renouf--Chinese
colours--Indian dyes--Persian colours--Dyes of the
Gauls--Romans--Scotch--Scales of colour--MM. Charton and
Chevreul on tones of colour--Gas colours 175
CHAPTER VI.--STITCHES.
Stitches--Part I.: The needle--Gammer Gurton's needle--Art
of needlework--Lists of stitches--Part II.: Plain work--
The seam--Mrs. Floyer--White embroidery--Nuns' work--
Greek--German--Spanish--Italian white work--Semper's
rules for white work--Part III.: Opus Phrygium--Gold
embroideries--Part IV.: Opus pulvinarium--Cushion stitches--
Mosaic stitches--Traditional decorations from Chaldea and
Assyria--German and Italian pattern-books--Part V.: Opus
plumarium--The Plumarii--Feather-work of India--Islands of
the Pacific--African work--Mexican and Peruvian--Cluny
triptych--Mitre of St. Charles Borromeo--Essay by
Denis--Chinese and Japanese feather-stitches--Part VI.:
Opus consutum or cut work--Patchwork--Egyptian and Greek
examples--Irish cut work--Chaucer--Francis I.'s hangings
at Cluny--Lord Beauchamp's curtains--Spanish examples--
Remarks--Art of application--Part VII.: Lace--Opus
filatorium--Mrs. Palliser--M. Blanc--Guipure--Sir Gardiner
Wilkinson--Netted lace--Homer--Solomon's Temple--Bobbin
laces--Yak--Coloured laces--Venetian sumptuary laws--Golden
laces--Point d'Alençon--Mr. A. Cole's lectures--M. Urbani
de Gheltof on Venice laces--Lace stitches--Revival of lace
school at Burano--English laces--Part VIII.: Tapestry--Opus
pectineum--Modes of weaving tapestry--Its great antiquity--
Egyptian looms--Albert Castel on tapestries--Homeric
picture-weaving--Arachne--A paraphrase by Lord Houghton--
Nomenticum--Sidonius Apollinaris--Saracenic weaving--Arras--
Brussels--Italian tapestries from Florence, Milan, and
Mantua--French tapestries--Cluny Museum collection--Gobelins--
Beauvais--English tapestry--Comnenus--Matthew Paris--Early
trade with Arras--Coventry tapestries--Chaucer--Tapestry
"of verd"--Hatfield tapestries--Armada tapestries--Sir F.
Crane--Mortlake manufactory--Francis Cleyne--Raphael
cartoons--Percy tapestry from Lambeth 194
CHAPTER VII.--HANGINGS.
Classical hangings--Babylonian and Persian--Semper's
theory--Sanctuary in the wilderness--St. Peter's at
Rome--Abulfeda--Akbar's tent--Nadir Shah's tent--Tent
of Khan of Persia--Tents of Alexander the Great at
Alexandria--Roman hangings--Funeral pyres--Kosroes'
tent--Semper's rules for hanging decorations--Ancient
carpets--English and French hangings--Rules for designs
of hangings 260
CHAPTER VIII.--FURNITURE.
Penelope's couch--Chaldean furnished house--The bed--Earl
of Leicester's inventories--State apartment of Alessandri
Palace--Indian embroideries for furniture--The sofa and
chair--The footstool--Furniture stitches--The table
cover--The screen--Book covers--Morris on furniture 280
CHAPTER IX.--DRESS.
Art of dress--Ancient splendour--Persian, Greek, and
Roman--Indian--Homeric--Early Christian--Charlemagne's
mantle and robe--Objects of dress--Embroidered garments 294
CHAPTER X.--ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERY.
Christian art--Dark ages--Greek and Roman ecclesiastical
dress--Northern influence--Continuity of ecclesiastical
art--Authorities--Anglo-Saxon orthodox colours--Veils of
the Temple--Hangings in Pagan temples and Christian
churches--Russian use of veils--Art in the early Church--
Rare examples--Destruction by the iconoclasts--Early
embroiderers--Empress Helena--Bertha, mother of
Charlemagne--His dalmatic--Pluvial of St. Silvester--Pluvial
of museum at Bologna--Daroca cope--Cope of Boniface VIII.--
Style of the twelfth century--Mantle of St. Stephen of
Hungary--Kunigunda's work for Henry II.--The Romanesque--
Movement perfecting Gothic art, thirteenth century--Opus
Anglicanum--Syon cope--Embroidery on the stamp--Pictures in
flat stitches--Flemish work--Renaissance--Work of some royal
ladies--French--Spanish--Sicilian and Neapolitan--German
work--Sacred symbolism--Melito's "The Key"--Mystical
colours--Prehistoric cross--Many forms of the cross--The
roës--The chrysoclavus--Modern decoration--Principles and
motives for church embroideries--The altar-cloth--The
reredos--The pulpit and reading-desk--The ancient
Paschal--The banner of St. Cuthbert--The fringe--Lay
heraldry of the Church--South Kensington Museum 303
CHAPTER XI.--ENGLISH EMBROIDERY.
First glimpse of art in England--Dyeing and weaving in
Britain in early times--Cæsar's invasion--Roman
civilization--Anglo-Saxon times and art--Adhelme's
poem--Icelandic Sagas--Saga or story of Thorgunna--English
work in the eighth century--The Benedictines--Durham
embroideries--Aelfled--St. Dunstan--Queen Emma's
work--William of Poitou--The Bayeux tapestry--Abbess of
Markgate--Gifts to Pope Adrian IV.--Robes of Thomas à
Becket at Sens--Innocent III.--English pre-eminence in
needlework from the Conquest to the Reformation--John
Garland on hand-looms--Blode-bendes and lacs d'amour--Opus
Anglicanum--English peculiarities in ecclesiastical
design--Penalties against luxury in dress--Protection the
bane of art--Dunstable pall--Stoneyhurst cope--Destruction
of fine works at the Reformation--Much on the Continent,
much collected in our old Catholic houses--Field of the
Cloth of Gold--Mary Tudor's Spanish stitches--Queen
Elizabeth's embroideries--Institution of Embroiderers'
Company--East India Company--Oriental taste discouraged on
Protectionist grounds--Decay of the art in England--Style
of James I.--Dutch style--Cushion stitches--Miss Linwood--
Miss Moritt--Mrs. Delany--Mrs. Pawsey--Postscript--Revival
of the art of needlework--"Royal School of Art Needlework" 356
APPENDIX
I. Charles T. Newton on Votive Dresses 400
II. The Moritzburg Feather Hangings 401
III. The Story of Arachne, translated by Earl Cowper 402
IV. Charlemagne's Dalmatic, by Lord Lindsay 405
V. Notices of various Mediæval Embroideries by the Hon.
and Rev. W. Ignatius Clifford 407
VI. Syon Cope, Rock's Introduction, "Textile Fabrics" 408
VII. Assyrian Fringes 412
VIII. Hrothgar's House Furniture: Poem of Beowulf 412
IX. Thorgunna, by Sir G. Dasent 413
X. Pedigree of Aelswith 414
XI. Statutes at Large 414
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CUTS.
Fig.|Page.|
----+-----+
1 | 20 | Egyptian corselet. Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," p.
| | 332.
2 | 25 | Tabernacle of Balawat. Temp. Shalmaneser. British
| | Museum.
3 | 30 | Zoomorphic Celtic pattern.
4 | 32 | Pallas Athene attired in the sacred peplos. Panathenaic
| | vase, British Museum.
5 | 62 | Wave pattern.
6 | 63 | Key pattern.
7 | 63 | Metopes and triglyphs.
8 | 73 | Persian carpet. Egyptian symbolic patterns.
9 | 91 | Gothic sunflower. R. S. A. N.
10 | 98 | Wave.
11 | 104 | Egyptian ally and enemy. Temp. Rameses II. Wilkinson's
| | "Ancient Egyptians," iii. p. 364.
12 | 105 | Assyrian crenelated pattern.
13 | 107 | Gothic type of trees, Bayeux tapestry.
14 | 111 | Radiated pattern.
15 | 111 | Radiated sunflower.
16 | 112 | Shell pattern.
17 | 112 | Balcony pattern.
18 | 115 | Varied adjustments of square and circle.
19 | 146 | Spangles.
20 | 195 | Needles.
21 | 208 | Feather patterns. Egyptian.
22 | 216 | Application. Egyptian. Auberville's "Tissus."
23 | 217 | Embroidered border on mantle. Crimea. "Compte Rendu."
24 | 281 | Babylonian or Chaldean house and furniture.
25 | 311 | Italian fifteenth-century pattern. Celtic type.
26 | 377 | Barbed quatrefoil.
27 | 380 | Holbein pattern. Sampler.
28 | 388 | Arms of Embroiderers' Guild; given by Queen Elizabeth.
29 | 393 | Portion of James II.'s coronation dress; from an old
| | print.
PLATES.
Plate|Page.| Ref.|
-----+-----+-----|
| | | TITLE-PAGE. Penelope at her loom, reproached by her
| | | son Telemachus. From vase found at Chiusi, in
| | | Etruria. "Monum. d. Inst. Arch. Rom." ix. Pl. 42.
1 | 22 | 93 | ASSURBANIPAL (Sardanapalus). Sculptures from Nineveh.
| | | British Museum.
2 | 22 | 93 | Portion of royal Babylonian mantle. From Layard's
| | | "Monuments," Series i. pl. 9.
3 | 29 | | ST. JOHN. From King Alfred's Celtic Book of the
| | | Gospels. Lambeth Palace Library.
4 | 30 | | A PAGE of the Book of St. Cuthbert, or Book of
| | | Lindisfarne.
5 | 33 | | SILVER BOWL from Palestrina. From Clermont Ganneau's
| | | "Journal Asiatique, Syro-Egyptien-Phœnicien."
6 | 40 | 93 | EMPRESS THEODORA. Ravenna Mosaic.
7 | 42 | | ITALIAN EMBROIDERY, fifteenth century. South
| | | Kensington Museum.
8 | 43 | | ITALIAN and SPANISH orphrey, sixteenth century.
9 | 45 | | PLÂTERESQUE DESIGN. Spanish coverlet, green velvet
| | | and gold, sixteenth century. Goa work.
10 | 87 | | WAVE PATTERN. 1, 4, 9, 12, 13. Greek wave pattern.
| | | 2. Key or Mæander Greek wave. 3. Greek broken wave.
| | | 5, 6, 7. Egyptian smooth and rippling wave pattern.
| | | 8. Mediæval wave. 10, 11, 14. Babylonian and
| | | Chaldean. 15. Persian or Greek, from glass bowl,
| | | British Museum. 16. English wave (or cloud). Durham
| | | embroideries, tenth century.
11 | 88 | | SIMPLE PATTERNS. 1. Persian. 2. Lotus border,
| | | Egyptian.
12 | 90 | | LOTUS BORDERS. 1. Indian. 2, 3. Egyptian. 4, 5, Greek.
| | | 6. Indian.
13 | 95 | 102 | INDIAN LOTUS. 1. With Assyrian daisy. 2. Lotus. 3. The
| | | egg and tongue, or Vitruvian scroll from Vignola.
| | | "Regole di Ordine di Architettura."
14 | 91 | | SUNFLOWER PATTERN. R. S. A. N. Nineteenth century.
15 | 92 | | PORTION OF A PAGE of the Book of Kells. Dublin
| | | University Library.
16 | 93 | 114 | DEMETER. Greek fictile vase. British Museum.
17 | 93 | 217 | 1. GREEK EMBROIDERY, 300 B.C. From tomb of the Seven
| | | Brothers, Crimea.
| | | 2. EGYPTIAN painted or embroidered linen. The cone,
| | | bead, daisy, wave. Lotus-under-water patterns are
| | | represented on this fragment.
18 | 93 | | EGYPTIAN Tapestry weaving finished with the needle.
| | | British Museum.
19 | 97 | 114 | EGYPTIAN key patterns. Wilkinson's "Ancient
| | | Egyptians," p. 125.
20 | 99 | 101 | TREES OF LIFE. 1, 2, 3. Assyrian. 4. Sicilian silk.
| | | 5. Mediæval. Birdwood's "Indian Arts."
21 | 101 | | TREES OF LIFE. 1. Sculpture over gate of Mycenæ.
| | | 2. Sicilian silks; Persian type.
22 | 101 | | LOTUS MERGED INTO TREE OF LIFE. 1. Split Chinese
| | | Lotus. 2. Split Persian Lotus, from a frieze by
| | | Benozzo Gozzoli. Ricardi Palace, Florence. 3. Petal
| | | of flower. Greek glass bowl from tomb in Southern
| | | Italy.
23 | 101 | | TREES OF LIFE. Sicilian silks. Auberville. 1, 2, 3,
| | | 4, 5, 10. Persian type. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11. Indian type.
24 | 101 | | TREE OF LIFE transformed into vine. Modern pattern of
| | | work from the Principalities.
25 | 103 | | TYPICAL CROSSES. 1. Swastika fire-stick cross. 2.
| | | From Greek vase, British Museum, 765 B.C. 3.
| | | Sectarial mark of Sakti race. India. 4. Sectarial
| | | mark of Buddhists and Jainis. 5. On early Rhodian
| | | pottery. 6. Egyptian prehistoric cross. 7. Tau
| | | cross. 8. Mark of land, Egyptian and Ninevite.
| | | 9. Mark of land, Egyptian and Ninevite. 10. Clavus,
| | | "nail" or "button," or sun-cross. 11, 12, 13.
| | | Scandinavian sun and moon crosses. 14, 15, 16.
| | | Celtic. 17. Chrysoclavus. 18, 19. Stauracin
| | | patterns. 20. Norwegian. 21. Runic. 22. Cross in
| | | Temple of the Sun, Palenque. 23. Scotch Celtic
| | | cross. 24. Cross at Iona. 25, 26. Runic and
| | | Scandinavian crosses. 27. Cross diapered on
| | | Charlemagne's dalmatic. 28. From mantle of Henry
| | | II., Emperor of Germany.
26 | 103 | | PREHISTORIC CROSSES. 1. Greek. Pallas, with plaited
| | | tunic worked with Swastika. 2. Greek. Ajax playing
| | | at dice with Achilles. Cloak embroidered with
| | | Swastika and other prehistoric patterns. Fictile
| | | vase, Vatican Museum.
27 | 105 | | ASSYRIAN CARPET carved in stone, British Museum.
28 | 107 | | GOTHIC. 1. Dress patterns from old MS. 2, 3. Old
| | | English tiles.
29 | 109 | | CLOUD PATTERNS. 1, 2, 3, 7. Japanese. 5, 8, 9.
| | | Mediæval. 4. Chinese. 6. Badge of Richard II.
30 | 109 | | INDO-CHINESE COVERLET. Hatfield. Supposed to have
| | | belonged to Oliver Cromwell.
31 | 109 | | FUNDATA PATTERNS. 1. On Phœnician silver bowl.
| | | ("L'Imagerie Phénicienne.") 2, 3. From tomb at
| | | Essiout, Egypt. Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians,"
| | | ii. p. 125. 1600 B.C.
32 | 124 | | PART OF BORDER of silk, gold, and pearls. Worked by
| | | Blanche, wife of Charles IV. of Bohemia. Bock's
| | | "Lit. Gew." ii. p. 246.
33 | 147 | | EMBROIDERED WINDOW HANGING from portrait of Mahomet
| | | II., by Gentil Bellini; belonging to Sir Henry
| | | Layard.
34 | 153 | 110 | CLASSICAL SILKS. 1. Greek. 2. Roman.
35 | 163 | | DURHAM RELICS. Persian type of silk weaving.
36 | 164 | | DURHAM RELICS. Norman and Persian types mixed.
37 | 164 | | DURHAM RELICS. Græco-Egyptian type.
38 | 164 | | EGYPTIAN BOAT with embroidered and fringed sails,
| | | and floating scarves. Wilkinson's "Ancient
| | | Egyptians," iii. p. 211.
39 | 200 | | WHITE EMBROIDERY from sculptured tomb of a knight,
| | | fifteenth century. Ara Cœli, Rome.
40 | 201 | | PROCESSIONAL CLOAK, Spanish work, temp. Henry VIII.,
| | | belonging to Lord Arundel of Wardour.
41 | 204 | | OPUS PULVINARIUM. Counted stitches. 1. Italian. 2.
| | | Scandinavian. 3. Ancient Egyptian. Turin Museum.
42 | 206 | | ITALIAN MOSAIC STITCH work, sixteenth century.
| | | Alford House.
43 | 214 | | JAPANESE OPUS PLUMARIUM. White silk.
44 | 216 | 25 | OPUS CONSUTUM. Funeral tent of an Egyptian queen.
45 | 219 | 123 | OPUS CONSUTUM. "Inlaid" and "onlaid." Italian,
| | | seventeenth century.
46 | 235 | | EGYPTIAN GOBELINS finished with the needle.
47 | 236 | | RHEIMS CATHEDRAL TAPESTRY. The Virgin weaving and
| | | embroidering on frame a "basse-lisse."
48 | 243 | | TENT OF CHARLES THE BOLD, taken at Grandson, now in
| | | museum at Berne. The badge is that of the Golden
| | | Fleece.
49 | 252 | | ENGLISH TAPESTRY belonging to Lord Salisbury, at
| | | Hatfield House, temp. Henry VIII.
50 | 294 | | ITALIAN KNIGHT of fifteenth century armed for
| | | conquest. Gentile da Fabriano. Academia, Florence.
51 | 309 | | ST. MARK. Anglo-Saxon Book of the Gospels. York
| | | Minster Library.
52 | 312 | | CLASSICAL PATTERN adapted into Christian art.
53 | 318 | | CHARLEMAGNE'S DALMATIC. Vatican Treasury.
54 | 318 | | CHARLEMAGNE'S DALMATIC. Vatican Treasury.
55 | 318 | | PORTION OF CHARLEMAGNE'S DALMATIC. Half-size.
56 | 319 | | ST. SILVESTER'S PLUVIAL. Treasury of St. John
| | | Lateran, Rome. Opus Anglicanum, thirteenth
| | | century.
57 | 319 | | PORTION OF ST. SILVESTER'S PLUVIAL, showing its
| | | condition.
58 | 319 | | BOLOGNA COPE. Museo del Municipio. Opus Anglicanum.
59 | 319 | | DAROCA COPE. Archæological Museum at Madrid. Opus
| | | Anglicanum.
60 | 319 | | BONIFACE VIII.'S COPE from Anagni, his native place;
| | | now in Vatican Treasury; twelfth century.
61 | 319 | | ALTAR FRONTAL at Anagni, Italy. Italian work,
| | | fourteenth century.
62 | 320 | | WORCESTER RELICS of the tenth century. 1. From tomb
| | | of Walter de Cantilupe. 2. From Aix, in Switzerland.
| | | Same type.
63 | 320 | | 1. MITRE OF THOMAS À BECKET. 2. The cross with twelve
| | | leaves, "for the healing of the nations." Coronation
| | | vestments at Rheims.
64 | 321 | | ANGLO-SAXON WORK, purple and gold, from tomb of
| | | William de Blois, Worcester. He died Bishop in 1236.
65 | 321 | | A PORTION OF ST. STEPHEN OF HUNGARY'S MANTLE, worked
| | | by his Queen Gisela. From Bock's "Kleinodien."
66 | 322 | | PORTION OF MANTLE OF HENRY II., worked by his Empress
| | | Kunigunda. From Bock's "Kleinodien."
67 | 325 | | THE SYON COPE. South Kensington Museum.
68 | 329 | | ITALIAN EMBROIDERIES designed by Pollaiolo; worked by
| | | Paolo da Verona. Sixteenth century.
69 | 330 | | SPANISH ALTAR FRONTAL. THE ARMS OF CASTILE embroidered
| | | in gold with pearls. Ashridge. Plâteresque style,
| | | seventeenth century.
70 | 337 | 113 | CONSULAR IVORIES. Two diptychs. 1. Zurich,
| | | Wasser-Kirche. Inscribed to Consul Areobindus,
| | | A.D. 434. 2. At Halberstadt. No date. From Bock's
| | | "Lit. Gew."
71 | 363 | | AELFLED'S ORPHREY, signed by her. Durham Cathedral
| | | Library.
72 | 363 | | ST. GREGORY AND ST. JOHN (PROPHET), from Aelfled's
| | | orphrey. Durham. English work, tenth century.
73 | 365 | | ST. DUNSTAN in adoration, drawn by himself. Bodleian
| | | Library, Oxford. Tenth century.
74 | 369 | | SMALL PARSEMÉ PATTERNS from Strutt's "Royal and
| | | Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the English from
| | | 1100 to 1530."
75 | 369 | | ENGLISH PATTERNS of embroidery. 1. Panel of a screen
| | | in Hornby Church, Yorkshire. 2. Dress on a painted
| | | window in St. Michael's Church, York. 3. Woven
| | | material of the Towneley Copes.
76 | 375 | | OPUS ANGLICANUM, twelfth century. British Museum.
77 | 376 | | TYPICAL ENGLISH ORNAMENTS for ecclesiastical
| | | embroideries, twelfth century.
78 | 377 | | DUNSTABLE PALL. Temp. Henry VII.
79 | 378 | | VINTNERS' COMPANY PALL. Henry VII.
80 | 378 | | HENRY VII.'S COPE, from Stoneyhurst; designed by
| | | Torrigiano, the sculptor of his tomb.
81 | 382 | | SPANISH WORK. Temp. Henry VIII.
82 | 383 | | ENGLISH "SPANISH WORK." Temp. Henry VIII.
83 | 389 | | CUSHION COVER, Hatfield House. Temp. Elizabeth.
84 | 390 | | ORIENTAL "TREE AND BEAST" PATTERN. Cockayne-Hatley.
| | | Temp. James I.
85 | 391 | | ENGLISH CREWEL WORK. Indian design. Temp. James I.
NEEDLEWORK AS ART.
INTRODUCTION.
The book of the Science of Art has yet to be written. Art has been
called the Flower of Life, and also the Consoler;--adorning the
existence of the strong and bright,--sheltering and comforting the sad
and solitary ones of the earth. But, rather, it resembles a
wide-spreading tree, covered with varied blossoms--bearing many
fruits.
To point out the history and the possibilities in the future of each
branch that shades, refreshes, and gives wholesome fruit to the world,
would be a task worthy of a master-hand and a pen of gold. But less
ambitious labourers in the field of investigation which is only as yet
partly cultivated, may each assist, by carefully collecting a little
heap of ascertained facts; and it is, indeed, the duty of each as he
passes to add his pebble to the slowly accumulating cairn of recorded
human knowledge.
Some one has said, "Build your house of little bricks of facts, and
you will soon find it inhabited by a body of truth; and that truth
will ally itself with other houses of facts, and in time a
well-ordered, cosmical city will arise."
My pebble is not yet polished. It is neither a diamond nor a ruby, but
I think there are a few streaks of golden light in it, which I may
venture to add to the daily accumulating treasure in the house of
human artistic knowledge.
My object in writing this volume is to fill up an empty space in the
English library of art.
The great exponents of poetic thought--verse, sculpture, painting, and
architecture--have long since been well interpreted and appreciated.
Men and women have written much and well on these large subjects, and
we may hope for more ere long. The secondary or smaller arts have been
hitherto neglected by us,--either treated merely as crafts, to which
artistic education may give help, or as the natural or inferior
outcome of the primal arts, having no claim to the possession of
special laws and history. And yet, when Moses wrote and Homer sang,
needlework was no new thing. It was already consecrated by legendary
and traditionary custom to the highest uses. The gods themselves were
honoured by its service, and it preceded written history in recording
heroic deeds and national triumphs.
It may be said that ivory carving is sculpture, and illuminated
manuscripts and coloured glass windows are painting. But for metal
work, whether in iron or gold, a place must be kept apart; and the
same privileges are due to embroidery and to metallurgy. All arts must
of necessity have their own laws and rules, which ensure their beauty
of execution and their special forms of design; these two last, from
the nature of their materials, and the modes of working them, must be
studied independently of any connection with painting, architecture,
or sculpture.
Yet, if the unity of nature is an accepted fact,[3] then the
acceptance of the unity of art must follow. Art must be considered as
the selection of natural phenomena by individual minds capable of
assimilating and reproducing them in certain forms and with certain
materials adapted to the national taste, needs, and power of
appreciation. If man cannot originate materials, he can invent
combinations;--and this is Art.
If proportion, colour, and sound alike depend on certain mathematical
measurements, and on rhythmical vibrations, there must be a real and
tangible relation between these elements, though applied to obtain
different results. In music, as in all art, harmony is, or ought to
be, a first consideration. We have seen by experiment how a note of
our scale can by touch form geometrical figures with sand on a sheet
of glass,--here form obeys the force of harmony. But what is harmony?
By analogy we may argue from the art of music. We who believe that we
have acquired the knowledge of music as a science, beyond all
preceding knowledge of the subject, have in Europe been able to enjoy
only our own musical scales; whereas throughout the East, those
accepted by the human ear are very various, and appear to depart from
what to our senses is harmony. Those Oriental musics have either been
adapted to the Oriental ear, or the ear has been adapted to appreciate
the forms and laws of harmony with which it came in contact.
The same questions occur to us while examining into the different
forms of decorative art; and we are constantly reminded that the laws
which should govern them, are perhaps, infinitely larger and wider
than we with our limited human capacities and experience, have
hitherto been able to appreciate.
"Ars longa--vita brevis" has been so often said, that from a proverb
it has become a truism; but it must continue to be the refrain of
those who write upon art. The subject is so long, and its
ramifications are so intricate, that it is difficult to include them
all under one category.
My furthest aim here is to trace back the art of needlework to its
beginning, without turning my eyes to the right or the left, though I
cannot help feeling myself drawn aside almost irresistibly by casual
glimpses of architecture, sculpture, and painting, which here and
there touch very nearly the history of needlework.
Except where they visibly influence each other, I avoid dealing with
the greater arts, leaving them to the study of the learned in each
special branch.
All art, however, throws reflected lights, and gleaning in the track
of those authors who have preceded us, we often pick up valuable hints
which we accept, and make use of them gladly.
Some writers have thought it incumbent on them to give a local
habitation and an abiding place to needlework, and they have regarded
it as a branch of painting. But I cannot endorse this classification.
According to Semper, indeed, it is the mother-art of sculpture and
painting, instead of being the offspring of either or both, as others
have maintained.[4] They have, indeed, such distinct functions that
each may justly boast its own original sources. Painting is the art of
colour; sculpture is that of form; embroidery is the art of clothing
forms. They are all so ancient, that in seeking to ascertain their
beginnings and dates. It is difficult to fix the precedence of one
over another. We may compare, distinguish, and yet again change our
opinions as fresh facts come under our observation.
The art of needlework reached its climax long ago, and is now very
old. History and faded rags are the only witnesses to its fabulous
glories, in Classical, Oriental, and early Mediæval days. It would
appear that nothing new remains to be invented. Copies of past styles,
and selections from the scraps we retain and value as models, are all
that we can boast of now.
Dr. Rock truly says that few persons of the present day have the
faintest idea of the labour, the money, the time, often bestowed of
old upon embroideries which had been designed as well as wrought by
the hands of men and women, each in their own craft the best and
ablest of their day.
Time is too short, our life too densely crowded, to allow leisure for
the extravagance of what is, after all, only a luxury of art--no
longer a civilizer, as of old, but just an efflorescence of our
culture.
Embroidery is now essentially "decoration," and nothing more. It is
intended to appeal to the sense of beauty of the eye, rather than to
the imagination. The designer for needlework should be an artist, but
he need not be a poet. You may omit this art altogether, and you need
be none the less sumptuously clothed and lodged. Yet it is worthy of
careful study as historical evidence, and that in the present and
future, as in the past, it may be an _art_, and not merely a _craft_.
For the great web of history is composed of many threads of divers
colours, and the warp and the woof are often exchanged, yet so
connected and knotted together that the continuity is never broken. On
this web, Time has drawn the picture of the past--sometimes faintly,
sometimes with indelible tints and pronounced forms. By poetry; by
architecture and its decorations; by dress, which represents and
distinguishes nationalities; by customs, such as the different forms
of burial; or even by such details as painting the eyes; also by the
tradition and outcome of the laws of the tribes that flowed
consecutively over Europe from the East; by the institutions which
remained immutably fixed on their native soil, such as those of the
Code of Manu, and those of Babylon, inscribed on bricks or clay; or by
the words, their form and lettering, in which these are handed down to
us;--out of all these the history of man is being reconstructed.
How valuable is every witness to the ancient records, which were
fading into myths in the memories of men. How joyfully is each little
fact hailed as a landmark, in the general fog of doubt!
Now embroidery may boast that it is a source of landmarks for all
time.
Without presuming to fix a date for its first beginning, that which I
wish to impress on the mind of the reader is the long continuity of
the art of needlework.
The sense of antiquity induces reverence, and I claim for the needle
an older and more illustrious age than can be accorded to the brush.
While the great pendulum of Time has swung art in sculpture, painting,
and architecture, from its cradle as in Mycenæ, to its throne in
Athens in the days of Pericles, and then back again to the basest
poverty of decaying Rome--needle work, continually refreshed from
Eastern inspiration, never has fallen so low, though it had never
aspired as high as its greater sister arts.
The stuffs and fabrics of various materials of the Egyptians, Chinese,
Assyrians, and Chaldeans are named in the earliest records of the
human race. How much these decorations depended on weaving, and how
much on embroidery with the needle, may in each case be disputed. The
products of the Babylonian looms are alluded to in the Book of Joshua.
Their beauty tempted Achan to rescue them when Jericho fell;[5] and
Ezekiel speaks of the embroideries of Canneh, Haran, and Eden, as well
as of their cloths of purple and blue, and their chests of garments of
divers colours[6].
All these fabrics are named as merchandise, and were carried to the
sea-coast, and thence over the ancient world, by the Phœnicians,
the great shipowners and dealers of the East.
Indian needlework and design is 4000 years old; and the long
perspective of Egyptian art, while leading us still further back into
unlimited periods, shows it changing so slowly, that we feel as if it
had been all but stationary from the beginning.
The Chinese claim 5000 years as the life of their history; but if, as
is now suggested, their civilization is Accadian or Proto-Babylonian,
their wonderful artistic and scientific knowledge may have been
fragments of the great dispersal, secreted and preserved behind the
wonderful wall[7] of stone, silence, and law, where it has lain
fossilized ever since. One cannot but wonder at the perfection of the
textile manufactures of the Chinese, their marvellous embroideries,
and the peculiar modes of construction and design throughout their
arts, which have shown but few moments of change in growth--scarcely a
sign of evolution. And we may fairly surmise that this Accadian
culture (if such it be) is reflected from antediluvian tradition.
The archæology of Oriental art is most interesting. We contemplate
with awe the vast splendours of the consecutive civilizations of the
East; the ancient richness and fertility of the whole of the Asiatic
continent; the genius for empire and for commerce; the creative power
which seemed to pour itself forth, unchecked by wars and conquests;
the great dynasties which rose and fell, leaving behind them gigantic
works, and the records of fabulous luxury in the empires of China,
Assyria, India, and Persia, of which the remains have been of late
years excavated, deciphered, and confronted with the historical texts
which we have inherited, and had only partly believed. And studying
these new aspects of history, we are saddened, thinking that the
sunrise comes to us from shining over desert sands or the mounds of
empty cities, where the lion and the jackal "reassert their primeval
possession," or where the European and the Tartar, from the West and
from the East, dispute their rights to suzerainty. We are dazzled and
confused when we look back to those great days when the over-peopled
kingdoms sent forth whole tribes, eastward to the confines of Asia,
southward over India, and westward over Europe; and we bow reverently
before the mighty Power that led the Jews, by a promise and a hope,
across the seething nationalities, through the long passage of time
from Abraham to Solomon; and which is again giving into the hands of
those Oriental-looking men, so much power in shaping the destiny of
mankind through their great riches.
Moses commanded the Hebrew people to lend and never to borrow. They
have obeyed his precept, except in art; to that they have lent or
given nothing. There is no national Jewish art. For music only do they
show artistic genius, and that is European and not Oriental. As
illustrating their lack of intuitive decorative art, one need only
refer to the architecture of the first, second, and third Temple
buildings, which apparently reflected Babylonian and Semitic
influences on an early Chaldean type. The embroideries mentioned by
different writers, from Moses to Josephus, appear to have had always a
Babylonian, or later a Persian inspiration.
This absence of artistic genius is very remarkable in a people that
had its origin in the Eastern centre from whence all art has radiated.
The reason that so little survives of ancient embroidery is evident.
Woollen stuffs and threads decay quickly--the moth and rust do corrupt
them--and the very few ancient bits that remain, have been preserved
by the embalming process, which has kept the contents of tombs from
becoming dust.
As to more modern embroideries, we ought to be thankful that the art
has had its fashions; otherwise, the world would be overwhelmed with
shabby rags. Human nature has a tendency to dislike the
"old-fashioned"--i.e. the fashion of the last generation. That which
our mothers worked or wore, is an object for affectionate sentiment,
and the best specimens alone are preserved. That which belonged to our
grandfathers and grandmothers has receded into the rococo; and a few
more generations take us back to the antique, of which so little
survives, from wear and tear, carelessness and theft, that we put away
and preserve it as being curious and precious. We may hope that the
general law of the survival of the fittest has guarded what is most
remarkable.
Certain works have been consecrated by the hands that executed them,
or by that of the donor, or by the purpose for which they were
bestowed, and are mostly preserved in churches or national museums. Of
these there are vestments and altar decorations worked by royal and
noble ladies; and coronation garments given by Queens and Empresses,
such as Queen Gisela's and the Empress Kunigunda's at Prague and
Bamberg, and Charlemagne's dalmatic at the Vatican, described in the
chapter on ecclesiastical embroideries. Sculptured effigies help us as
to embroidered patterns; for our forefathers often actually copied in
bronze or stone the patterns of the garments in which the body was
buried, or at any rate, those the man had worn in his life. Of these,
King John's monument at Worcester, and the surcoat of the Black Prince
at Canterbury, are remarkable examples.[8]
The succeeding chapters will contain sketches of the history of the
different stitches, and of the best examples of stitch and style
remaining to us; and I shall try to extract from both the best
suggestions for guidance in design and handicraft.
Embroidery from its nature is essentially the woman's art.[9] It needs
a sedentary life, industry and patience. It does not require a room to
itself, and the worker may leave it at any moment between two stitches
when called to other duties. Nunneries produced the finest work of the
dark and middle ages; and their teaching inaugurated the workrooms in
the palaces and castles, where young girls, whether royal, noble, or
gentle, were trained in embroidery as an accomplishment and a
household duty.
The history of domestic embroidery ought to be looked upon as that of
an important factor in the humanizing effect of æsthetic culture.
The woman of the house has always been strong to fulfil her part in
this civilizing influence with the implement which custom has awarded
to her. Every man in the ancient East began his life under the tent or
in the palace adorned by the hands of his mother and her maidens, and
his home was made beautiful by his wife and his sisters and their
slaves. There, as in mediæval homes, lessons of morality and religion,
and the love and fame of noble deeds, were taught by the painting of
the needle to the minds of the young men, who would have scorned more
direct teaching; and the children felt the influence, as the women
wove what the bards sang.
Alas! we have but few specimens of embroideries of which we know the
history, earlier than the tenth and eleventh centuries.[10] Yet from
the days of the books of the Old Testament and the song of the siege
of Troy, down to the present time, the woman of the house has adorned
not only herself and her dear lord, but she has hung the walls, the
seats, the bed, and the tables with her beautiful creations.
Homer's women were all artists with the needle. Venus seeking Helen,--
"Like fair Laodice in form and face,
The loveliest nymph of Priam's royal race,
Here in the palace at her loom she found:
The golden web her own sad story crown'd.
The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize),
And the dire triumph of her fatal eyes."[11]
This must have been intended for hangings.
Hecuba's wardrobe is thus described:--
"The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent;
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art,
Sidonian maids embroider'd every part.
Here, as the queen revolved with careful eyes
The various textures and the various dyes
She chose a web that shone superior far,
And glow'd refulgent as the morning star."[12]
The women of the Middle Ages were great at the loom and frame. From
the Kleine Heldenbuch of the thirteenth century, Rock quotes these
lines:--
"Who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk,
And to sketch and design the wild and tame
Beasts of the forest and field?
Also to picture on plain surfaces;
Round about to place golden borders--
narrow and a broad one--
With stags and hinds, lifelike."
Gudrun, like the women of Homer, embroidered history--that of the
ancestors of Siegfried.
But in the Middle Ages the embroiderers were ambitious artists. The
deeds of Roland and the siege of Troy, all romantic and classical
lore, provided subjects for the needle.
Shakespeare gives a pretty picture of the graceful weaver and
embroiderer:--
* * * "Would ever with Marina be:--
Be't when she weaves the sleided silk,
With fingers long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp neeld wound
The cambric, which she makes more sound
By hurting it....
Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her neeld composes
Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
That even her art sisters the natural roses."[13]
Before closing this Introduction, I will take the opportunity to
protest against the abuse of the phrase "High Art." It is generally
appropriated by that which is the lowest and most feeble.
An old design for a chair or table, by no means remarkable originally,
but cheaply copied, and covered with a quaint and dismal cretonne or
poorly worked pattern, of which the design is neither new nor
artistic, is introduced by the upholsterer as belonging to "High Art
furniture." The epithet has succeeded to what was once "fashionable"
and "elegant." To get rid of carpets, and put down rugs, to hang up
rows of plates instead of family portraits--this also is "high art."
Likewise gowns lumped upon the shoulders, with all the folds drawn
across, instead of hanging draperies. The term is never used when we
speak of the great arts--painting, sculpture, and architecture. It is,
in fact, only the slang of the cabinet-maker, the upholsterer, and
milliner.
All true Art is very high indeed and apparent; and needs not to be
introduced with a puff. It sits enthroned between Poetry and History.
Even those who are ignorant of its laws feel its influence, and the
soothing grace which it sheds, falling like the rain, equally upon the
just and the unjust. Man's nature always responds to the truly high
and beautiful; only the most degraded are deprived of this source of
happiness. And there are but few women, till debased by cruelty,
misery, or drink, that do not try in some humble way (but especially
with their needle) to adorn their own persons, their children, and
their homes; and if their art is not high, it yet has the power to
elevate them.[14] While the most ambitious women try a higher flight,
into the regions of poetry, literature, painting, and even sculpture
(why has no woman ever been an architect?), millions have enjoyed the
art of the needle for thousands of years, and it will continue to be a
solace and a delight as long as the world lasts, for, like all art, it
gives the ever new joy of creation.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] See Duke of Argyll's "Unity of Nature."
[4] Walls, pillars, and roofs were certainly hung with
textile ornament before they were carved or painted.
This is Semper's theory, and though Woltmann and
Woermann ("History of Painting," Eng. Trans., Sidney
Colvin, p. 38) hardly accept this view, they do not
gainsay it. The women who wove hangings for the grove,
or more literally, "coverings for the houses" of the
grove, were probably the priestesses of Astarte, and
wove and worked the hangings of various colours. 2 Kings
xxii.; Ezek. xvi. 16-18.
"It is probable that the earliest kind of pictures were
either woven or embroidered upon figured stuffs of
various colours; and that in these decorations the
Greeks in the first instance imitated the Semitic races,
who had practised them from time immemorial." See
Woltmann and Woermann's "History of Painting" (Eng.
Trans.), p. 38.
[5] Joshua vii.
[6] Ezek. xxvii. 23.
[7] The wall of China, which, both figuratively and
literally, enclosed its civilization, and fenced off
that of the outer world, for thousands of years.
[8] When the tomb of King John was opened, the body was
found wrapped in the same dress as that sculptured on
his effigy. The surcoat of the Black Prince, of
embroidered velvet, still hangs above his monument, on
which it is exactly reproduced.
[9] Yet men, too, have wielded the embroidering needle.
[10] These remnants are not, like the straws in amber,
only precious because they are curious; they are most
suggestive as works of art.
[11] Pope's Homer, Iliad, book iii.
[12] Ibid. book vi.
[13] Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," act iv.
20; v. 5.
[14] Surely it is a humanizing and Christian principle
which in Italy permits artistic work to be done in the
prisons where criminals are confined for life. Sisters
of Mercy teach lace-making to the wretched women who,
having committed great crimes, may never be seen again.
The produce of the work helps to pay the expense of the
prison, and at the same time a very small percentage is
given to the prisoners to send to their friends, or to
spend on little comforts, thus encouraging the poor
human creatures to exercise their best powers. We
believe this is sometimes allowed also in England and
France.
CHAPTER I.
STYLE.
In venturing to approach so great a subject as the history of style, I
would beg my readers to believe how well I am aware that on each point
much more has been already carefully treated by previous writers, than
will fall within the limits of a chapter that is intended only to
throw light on textile art, and especially on embroidery.
I suppose it is the same in all subjects of human speculation which
are worthy of serious study; and therefore I ought not to have been
surprised to find how much has already been written on needlework and
embroidery, and how unconsciously I, at least, have passed by and
ignored these notices, till it struck me that I ought to know
something of the history and principles of the art which with others,
I was striving to revive and improve.
Then new and old facts crowded round me, and became significant and
interesting. I longed to know something of the first worker and the
first needle; and behold the needle has been found!--among the débris
of the life of the Neolithic cave-man, made of bone and very neatly
fashioned.
Alas! the workwoman and her work are gone to dust; but _there_ is the
needle!--proof positive that the craft existed before the last glacial
period in Britain.[15] How long ago this was, we may conjecture, but
can never finally ascertain. Then I find embroidery named by the
earliest historians, by every poet of antiquity, and by the first
travellers in the East; and it has been the subject of laws and
enactments from the date of the Code of Manu in India, to the present
century. One becomes eager to systematize all this information, and to
share with the workers and thinkers of the craft, the pleasure found
in its study.
Perhaps what is here collected may appear somewhat bald and
disjointed; but antiquity, both human and historical, is apt to be
bald; and its dislocation and disjointed condition are owing to the
frequent cataclysms, physical, political, and social, which needlework
has survived, bringing down to us the same stitches which served the
same purposes for decoration under the Code of Manu, and adorned the
Sanctuary in the wilderness; and those stitches probably were not new
then.
I propose to give a slight sketch of the origin of the styles[16] that
have followed each other, noting the national influences that have
displaced or altered them, and the overlap of style caused by outside
events.
First, I would define what "STYLE" means.
Style is the mark impressed on art by a national period, short or
long. It fades, it wanes, and then some historical element enters on
the scene, which carries with it new materials, needs, and tastes
(either imported or springing up under the new conditions). The style
of the day in art and literature alters so perceptibly, that all who
have had any artistic training are at once aware of the difference.
Of late years, the science of history has been greatly assisted by the
science of language. When the mute language of art shall have been
patiently deciphered, the historian will be furnished with new powers
in his researches after truth.
The first "ineffaceable" is a _word_; the second a _pattern_. This is
proved by the history of needlework.
As the world grows old, its youth becomes more interesting. Alas! the
childhood of mankind is so distant, and it was so long before it
learned its letters, that but few facts have come down to us, on which
we may firmly build our theories; yet we must acknowledge the great
stride that has been made in the last few years, in the scientific
mode of extracting history from the ruins and tombs, and even the
dust-heaps, of the past. Whole epochs, which fifty years ago were as
blank as the then maps of Central Africa, are being now gradually
covered with landmarks.
Layard, Rawlinson, C. T. Newton, Botta, Rassam, Schliemann, Birch, G.
Smith, and a crowd of archæologists, and even unscientific explorers,
are collecting the materials from which the history of mankind is
being reconstructed.
From them I have sought information about the art of embroidery, and I
find that Semper gives it a high pre-eminence as to its antiquity,
making it the foundation and starting-point of all art. He clothes not
only man, but architecture, with the products of the loom and the
needle; and derives from them in succession, painting, bas-relief, and
sculpture.[17]
* * * * *
Style has to be considered in two different aspects, from two
different standpoints. First, historically and archæologically,
distinguishing and dating the forms which follow upon each other; and
tracing them back in the order of their natural sequence; so as to
guide us to the root, nay, to the seed[18] of each and all art.
The subsidiary art of embroidery, in its highest form the handmaid of
architecture, is full of suggestion, and may assist us greatly in the
search which culminates in the text of "In the beginning."
The other point of view from which style should be considered is the
æsthetic. This enables us to criticize the works of different periods;
extracting, as far as we may, rules for the beautiful and the
commendable, and seeking to find the "why?" also observing the
operation of the law by which decay follows too soon after the best
and highest efforts of genius, thought, and invention in art.
My present object is the history of consecutive styles, in so far as
they concern needlework.
Alas! nothing endures. This law is acknowledged by Goethe, when he
makes Jove answer Venus, who bewailed that all that is beautiful must
die,--that he had only bestowed beauty on the evanescent.
It seems as if the moment the best is attained, men, ceasing to
struggle for the better, fall back at once hopelessly and become mere
imitators. They no longer follow a type, but copy a model, and then
copy the copy. Imitation is a precipice, a swift descent through
poverty of thought into the chaos of mannerism, in the place of style.
The imitative tendency, as existing in all human minds, cannot be
ignored or despised. In individuals it accompanies enthusiasm for the
beautiful, and the graceful charm of sympathy. It maintains continuity
between specimen and specimen, between artist and artist, between
century and century; and it is this which enables an adept to say with
certainty of consecutive styles, "This is Spanish work of the
sixteenth century; that is Flemish or German work of the seventeenth
century."
The theory of development and of the survival of the fittest has been
worked so hard, that it sometimes breaks down under the task imposed
upon it. It would need to include Death in its procedure. In our
creed, Death, means the moment of entrance into a higher existence;
but in art it means extinction, leaving behind neither a history nor
an artisan--only, perhaps, an infinitely small tradition, like the
grain of corn preserved in the wrappings of a mummy, from which at
first accident, and then care and culture, may evoke a future life.
The various ways in which art has appeared at the beginning cannot
here be discussed; nor how the Chinese and Hindu may have leapt into a
perfection which has stood still for thousands of years, protected
alike from expansion as from destruction, by the swaddling bands of
codified custom; while Greek art rose like the sun, shone over the
civilized world, and set--never again to see another epoch of glory.
These subjects must be left for the study of the anthropological
philosopher, who is working for the assistance and guidance of the
future historian of art.
Style in needlework has passed through many phases since the
aboriginal, prehistoric woman, with the bone needle, drew together the
edges of the skins of the animals she had prepared for food.
For absolute necessity, in forming the garments and covering the tent,
needlework need go no further than the seam. This, however, in the
woven or plaited material, must fray where it is shaped, and become
fringed at the edges. Every long seam is a suggestion, and every
shaped edge a snare.
The fringe lends itself to the tassel, and the shaped seam suggests a
pattern; up-stitches are needed for binding the web, and before she is
aware of it, the worker finds herself adorning, _embroidering_; and
the craft enters the outskirts of the region of art.
The humble early efforts at decoration, called by the French
"primitif," are the first we know and class, and are found in all
savage attempts at ornament. This style consists mainly of straight
lines, zigzags, wavy lines, dots, and little discs.[19]
Gold discs of many sizes, and worked with a variety of patterns, are
found equally in the tomb of the warrior at Mycenæ, and in Ashantee,
accompanied in both cases with gold masks covering the faces of the
dead. The discs or buttons remind us of those found in Etruscan tombs,
though the execution of these last is more advanced. They appear to be
the origin of the "clavus" or nail-headed pattern woven into silks in
the Palace of the Cæsars. The last recorded survival of this pattern
is in woven materials for ecclesiastical purposes in the Middle Ages.
Of very early needlework we only find here and there a fragment,
illustrated occasionally by passing allusions in poetry and history.
The ornamental art of Hissarlik[20] is so primitive that we cannot
feel that it has any resemblance to that described as Trojan by Homer,
who probably adorned his song with the art he had known elsewhere.[21]
We know not what the actual heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey wore; but
we do know that what Homer describes, he must have seen. Was Homer,
therefore, the contemporary of the siege of Troy?--or does he not
rather speak of the customs and costumes of his own time, and apply
them to the traditions of the heroic ages of Greece? Whatever be the
date of Homer himself, we can, with the help of contemporary
survivals, reconstruct the house and the hall, and even furnish them,
and clothe the women and the princes, the beggars and the herdsmen.
From the remains of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian art we can
perceive their differences and their affinities. It is from textile
fragments, found mostly in tombs, that we obtain dates, and can
suggest them for other specimens.
The funeral tent of Shishak's mother-in-law, at Boulac, is most
valuable as showing what was the textile art of that early period.[22]
[Illustration: Fig. 1.
Egyptian corselet. (Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians.")]
The corselet which, according to Herodotus, was given by Amasis, King
of Egypt, to the Temple of Minerva at Lindos, in Rhodes, was possibly
worked in this style; for Babylonian embroidery was greatly prized in
Egypt, and imitated.
The second corselet given by Amasis to the Lacædemonians was worked in
gold and colours, with animals and other decorations. This was of the
seventh century B.C.[23]
Amongst the arms painted on the wall of the tomb of Rameses, at Thebes
(in Egypt), is a corselet, apparently of rich stuff,[24] embroidered
with lions and other devices. (Fig. 1.)
The Phœnicians imbibed and reproduced the styles they met with in
their voyages. The bowls found in Cyprus described and engraved in the
September number of the "Magazine of Art" (1883), are most interesting
illustrations of the meeting of two national styles, the Assyrian and
the Egyptian.[25]
Homer's "Shield of Achilles"[26] must, in general design, have
resembled these bowls (see Pl. 5). They also recall the description by
Josephus of the Temple veils at Jerusalem, which were Babylonian.[27]
Phœnicia, which was the carrier of all art, dropped specimens here
and there, for many hundred years, along the borders of the
Mediterranean and the coasts of Spain. We fancy we can trace her
ocean-path by the western shores of Africa, and even to America;
otherwise, how could it happen that a mummy-wrapping in Peru should so
nearly resemble some of those wrappings found at Saccarah,[28] in
Egypt, woven in precisely the same tapestry fashion?
Among the puzzling phenomena due probably to Phœnician commerce, is
the complete suite of the sacerdotal ornaments of a High Priest, found
in his tomb,[29] now in the Vatican Museum. This reminds us of other
specimens of archaic art from distant sources, that our attention is
forcibly arrested, and we wonder whence they came, and whether they
were collected from alien civilizations by the Phœnicians before
they dispersed them.[30]
Certain Egyptian sculptures of deformed and repulsive
divinities--idols of the baser sort--are most interesting and puzzling
by their affinity in style to the Indo-Dravidian and the art of
Mexico, while they are entirely unlike that of Egypt. If Atlantis and
its arts never existed, it may be suggested that it was the eastern
coast of America that was spoken of under that name by the Egyptian
priest with whom Herodotus conversed.
The Babylonian and Ninevite embroideries, carefully executed on their
bas-reliefs, have a masculine look, which suggests the design of an
artist and the work of slaves. There is no following out of graceful
fancies; one set of selected forms (each probably with a symbolical
intention) following another. The effect, as seen on the sculptures in
the British Museum, is royally gorgeous; and one feels that creatures
inferior to monarchs or satraps could never have aspired to such
splendours. Probably the embroidery on their corselets was executed in
gold wire, treated as thread, and taken through the material; and the
same system was carried out in adorning the trappings of the horses
and the chariots. The solid masses of embroidery may have been
afterwards subjected to the action of the hammer, which would account
for their appearing like jeweller's work in the bas-reliefs (Pl. 1 and
2).
[Illustration: Pl. 1.
Assurbanipal fighting lions.
British Museum.]
[Illustration: Pl. 2.
Portion of a Babylonian Royal Mantle. Layard's "Monuments," series
i., pl. 9.]
The style of the Babylonian embroideries appears to have been
naturalistic though conventionalized. We may judge of their styles for
different purposes by the reliefs in the British Museum. From their
veils and curtains at a later date, when they had crossed their
art with that of India, we may imagine the mystical design of the
Temple curtain as described by Josephus; in fact, as much as possible
embracing all things on the earth and above it, excepting the images
of the heavenly bodies.[31]
Small carpets from Persia of the Middle Ages, as well as those woven
and embroidered even to the present day, are echoes of the ancient
Babylonian style, and most interesting as historical records of the
traditions of human taste. Our artistic interests are stirred when we
read in Ezekiel lists of the fabrics and materials of which Tyre had
become the central depôt, and we enjoy tracing them to the various
looms, named in verse and history, where they were adorned with
embroidery, and then either became articles of commerce, or were
stored away to be kept religiously as heirlooms, or presented as gifts
to the temples or to honoured guests.
Mr. G. Smith, after saying that the Babylonian is without doubt the
oldest of civilizations, continues thus:--"To us the history of
Babylonia has an interest beyond that of Egypt, on account of its more
intimate connection with our own civilization.[32] Babylon was the
centre from which it spread into Assyria, thence to Asia Minor and
Phœnicia, then to Greece and Rome, and so to all Europe. The Jews
brought the traditions of the creation and of early religion from Ur
of the Chaldees,[33] and thus preserved they became the heritage of
all mankind; while the science and civilization of that wonderful
people (the Babylonians) became the basis of modern research and
advancement."[34]
The hangings of the Tabernacle are so carefully described in the book
of Exodus, that we can see in fancy the linen curtains, blue or white,
embroidered in scarlet, purple, blue, and gold; the cherubim in the
woven material; the fringes enriched with flowers, buds, fruit, and
golden bells: and we can appreciate how little of Egyptian art and
style the children of Israel brought back from their long captivity,
and how soon they reverted to their ancient Chaldean proclivities,
after returning to their wandering life of the tent.
On the bronze gates from the mound of Balawat, near Nimroud, set up by
Shalmaneser to celebrate his conquest of Tyre and Sidon,[35] we find a
portable tabernacle, evidently meant to accompany the army on a march.
It is not much larger than a four-post bed, with transverse poles for
drawing the curtains, all fringed with bells and fruit. This is an
illustration of the motive for the Tabernacle of the forty years'
wandering in the desert. (Fig. 2.)
[Illustration: Fig. 2.
Tabernacle on gates of Balawat, time of Shalmaneser II. (British
Museum).]
Egyptian textile art is, perhaps, that of which we have the most early
specimens. These are to be seen at Boulac, at Vienna, Turin, and the
British Museum.[36] The Hieroglyphic, the Archaic, and the
Græco-Egyptian are all unmistakably the consecutive outcome of the
national original style, which had totally disappeared in the
beginning of our era. Few of the embroideries are more than two
thousand five hundred years old. But the great piece of patchwork in
leather, "the funeral tent of an Egyptian queen," as it covered the
remains of a contemporary of Solomon,[37] absolutely exhibits the
proficiency of the designer and the needlework of the eleventh century
B.C. (Pl. 44.)
The connection between Indian and Egyptian early art appears to have
existed only in their use of the lotus as an emblem and a constant
decoration; but their manner of employing it was characteristically
different. (Pl. 12 and 13.)
The Phœnicians carried with them the seeds of the Egyptian style
over the ancient world; but these seeds only took root and flourished
on the soil of Greece. The imitations of Egyptian style reappeared in
Rome, and again in France "under the two Empires." In both cases they
were only imitations, and neither had any permanent influence on the
art of their day.
I shall have to allude very often to our Eastern sources of artistic
culture.
Our own Aryan ancestors were so impregnated with beautiful ideas, that
we must believe that we inherit from them all our graceful
appreciation of naturalistic ornament. But even Aryan art met with
reverses on its Eastern soil, from which it constantly rose again and
renewed itself.
The Mongols crushed for a time the element of beauty in India. They
introduced a barbarous and hideous style which has its only
counterpart in that of Central America. It was the produce of a
religion, superstitious, cruel, and devilish.
The Aryan art of India, which was elegant and spiritual, was revived
by the kindred influence of Persia, and by the Renaissance in Europe.
Italian and other artists were employed in India, and "the spirit of
aerial grace, and the delicate sense of beauty in natural forms,
blossomed afresh and flourished for 300 years. Birds, flowers, fruit,
butterflies, became once more the legitimate ornament of every
material."[38]
I continue to quote from Sir G. Birdwood's "Arts of India." "The Code
of Manu, from 900 to 300 B.C., has secured to the village system of
India a permanent class of hereditary artistic workmen and artisans,
who have through these 2500 years, at least, been trained to the same
manipulations, and who therefore translate any foreign work which is
placed before them to copy, into something characteristically
Indian."[39] Indian art has borrowed freely from all sources without
losing its own individuality. It has been said, "There is nothing
newer in it than of the sixteenth century; and even then nothing was
original, especially in the minor arts." But this is owing to the
Hindu being equally endowed with assimilative and receptive
capacity,[40] so that in the hands of the Indian craftsman everything
assumes the distinctive expression of ancient Indian art.
In India everything is hand-wrought; but as the spirit of its
decorative art "is that of a crystallized tradition, its type has
remained almost unaltered since the Aryan genius culminated in the
Ramâyana and Mahabhârata--and yet each artisan in India is a true
artist."[41] In art, unfortunately, "the letter killeth;" and true
artists as they are, the ancient traditions bind and cramp them,
while the ancient materials, the dyes, and the absolute command of
time are failing: so that the beauty of Indian embroideries and other
decorations is gradually reducing itself to mannerism, which is more
dangerous to art than even had been the vicissitudes of war; for when
peaceful days returned, and the waves of conquest had subsided, the
ancient arts were found again deeply embedded in the traditions of the
people. They gradually returned to their old ways, which are so
indelible in the Hindu mind, that they will perhaps survive even the
fashions of to-day.[42]
From Yates' account it would appear that Europe had been fertilized
with taste in art and manufactures from the East by three different
routes.
The Egyptian civilization, with all its Eastern antecedents and
traditions, came to us by the Mediterranean and the Adriatic; the
Phœnicians being the merchants who brought it through those
channels. The Etruscans, who were the pedlars of Europe, travelled
north, conveying golden ornaments and coral, and bringing back jet and
amber. Their commercial track is to be traced by the contents of tombs
on their path.[43]
[Illustration: Pl. 3.
St. John. From King Alfred's Celtic Book of the Gospels. Lambeth
Palace Library.]
Secondly, there was also a Slavonian route from Eastern Asia, which
conveyed Oriental art to the north of Europe. Celtic art, which
certainly has something of the Indo-Chinese style, came to us probably
by this route. Another branch of the Celtic family was settled on the
north-eastern shores of the Adriatic. Celtic ideas and forms in art
probably crossed Europe from this point,[44] and came to us meeting a
cognate influence,[45] arriving from the north.[46] (Pl. 3.)
Thirdly, Oriental taste and textiles came from the Byzantine Empire in
the early days of Christianity, spreading to Sicily, Italy, Spain, and
finally to France, Germany, and Britain.
Runic art, whether Scandinavian or our own purer Celtic, is so
remarkable for its independence of all other European national and
traditional design, that I cannot omit a brief notice of it, though we
have no ascertained relics of any of its embroideries.[47] It appears
to have received, in addition to its own universal stamp--evidently
derived from one original source--certain influences impressed on it
like a seal by each country through which it flowed.[48] Wherever the
Runes are carved in stone, or worked on bronze, gold, silver, ivory,
or wood, or painted in their splendid illuminations (pl. 4), the
involved serpent, which was the sign of their faith, appears,
sometimes covered with Runic inscriptions; and this inscribed serpent,
later, is twined round or heaped at the foot of the peculiar
Scandinavian-shaped cross, the type of conversion. The serpent was
sometimes altered into the partial semblance of a four-footed animal,
the body and tail being lengthened and twined, and sometimes split, to
give a new turn to the pattern. (Fig. 3.) All these zoomorphic
patterns, as well as the human figures seen in the Book of Kells, the
missal at Lambeth, and the Lindisfarne Book (which is, however, more
English in its style), are yet of an Indo-Chinese type; the
wicker-work motives often replacing the involved serpent design.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.
Celtic Zoomorphic pattern.]
The Paganism of our own Celtic art, when it appears, is an
interpolation between our first and second Christian conversions, and
was brought to us in the incursions of the Vikings over Scotland and
into England.
[Illustration: Page from the Lindisfarne MSS. British Museum]
[Illustration: Pl. 5.
Silver bowl from Palestrina. Ganneau. "Journal Asiatique, Coupe de
Palestrina." 1880.]
Our knowledge of their advanced and most singular art comes out
of their tombs, in which the warrior was laid with all his arms and
his horse and his precious possessions, splendidly clothed according
to his degree--in the belief that he would need them again in a future
world.
This northern tradition was so long-lived, that Frederick Casimir, a
knight of the Teutonic Order, was buried with his sword and his horse
at Treves, in 1781.[49]
Greek embroideries we can perfectly appreciate, by studying Hope's
"Costumes of the Ancients," and the works of Millingen and others;
also the fictile vases in the British Museum and elsewhere. On these
are depicted the Hellenic gods, the wars, and the home life of the
Greeks. The worked or woven patterns on their draperies are infinitely
varied, and range over many centuries of design, and they are almost
always beautiful. It is melancholy to have to confess that in this, as
in all their art, the Greek taste is inimitable; yet we may profit by
the lessons it teaches us. These are: variety without redundancy;
grace without affectation; simplicity without poverty; the
appropriate, the harmonious, and the serene, rather than that which is
astonishing, painful, or awe-inspiring. These principles were carried
into the smallest arts, and we can trace them in the shaping of a cup
or the decoration of a mantle, as in the frieze of the Parthenon.
Homer makes constant mention of the women's work. Penelope's web is
oftenest quoted. This was a shroud for her Father-in-law. Ulysses
brought home a large collection of fine embroidered garments,
contributed by his fair hostesses during his travels.
Pallas Athene patronized the craft of the embroiderers; and the sacred
peplos which robed her statue, and was renewed every year, was
embroidered by noble maidens, under the superintendence of a
priestess of her temple. It represented the battles of the gods and
the giants (fig. 4), till the portraits of living men were profanely
introduced into the design. The new peplos was carried to the temple,
floating like a flag, in procession through the city.
The goddess to whom the Greeks gave the protection of this art was
wise as well as accomplished, and knew that it was good for women
reverently to approach art by painting with their needles. She always
was seen in embroidered garments, and worked as well as wove them
herself. She appeared to Ulysses in the steading of Eumœus, the
swineherd, as a "woman tall and fair, and skilful in splendid
handiwork."[50]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.
Pallas Athene attired in the sacred peplos.
(Panathenaic Vase, British Museum.)]
Homer never tires of praising the women's work, and the chests of
splendid garments laid up in the treasure-houses.[51] Helen gave of
her work to Telemachus: "Helen, the fair lady, stood by the coffer
wherein were her robes of curious needlework which she herself had
wrought. Then Helen, the fair lady, lifted it out, the widest and most
beautifully embroidered of all--and it shone like a star; and this she
sent as a gift to his future wife."[52]
Semper's theory is, that the one chief import of Oriental style being
embroideries, therefore the hangings and dresses arriving from Asia
gave the poetic Greek the motives for his art, his civilization, his
legends, and his gods.[53] This may or may not be; there is no doubt
that they influenced them.[54]
Böttiger accordingly believes that Homer's descriptions of beautiful
dress and furnishings are derived from, or at least influenced by,
what he had learnt of the Babylonian and Chaldean embroideries. This
is very probable, and would account for his poetical design on the
shield of Achilles, in which his own inspiration dictated the
possibilities of the then practised arts of Asia, of which the fame
and occasional glimpses were already drifting westward. (Plate 5.)
The description of the shield of Achilles is as follows: Hephaistos,
"the lame god," "threw bronze that weareth not, into the fire; and
tin, and precious gold and silver." "He fashioned the shield great and
strong, with five folds (or circles) in the shield itself." "Then
wrought he the earth and the sea, and the unwearying sun, and the moon
waxing to its full, and the signs, every one wherewith the heavens are
crowned." "Also he fashioned therein two cities of mortal men; and
here were marriage feasts, and brides led home by the blaze of
torches--young men whirling in the dance, and the women standing each
at her door marvelling." Then a street fight, and the elders sitting
in judgment. The other city was being besieged; and there is a
wonderful description of the battle fought on the river banks, and
"Strife, Tumult, and Death" personified, and mingling in the fight.
Then he set in the shield the labours of the husbandman. This is so
exquisitely beautiful that with difficulty I refrain from quoting it
all. "He wrought thereon a herd of kine with upright horns, and the
kine were fashioned of gold and tin," "and herdsmen of gold were
following after them." "Also did the glorious lame god devise a
dancing-place like unto that which once, in wide Knosos, Daidalos
wrought for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. There were youths dancing
and maidens of costly wooing, their hands upon their waists." "And now
would they run round with deft feet exceedingly lightly"--"and now
would they run in lines to meet each other." "And a great company
stood round the lovely dance in joy; and among them a divine minstrel
was making music on his lyre; and through the midst of them, as he
began his strain, two tumblers whirled. Also he set therein the great
might of the River of Ocean, around the utmost rim of the
cunningly-fashioned shield."[55]
There is, indeed, every proof that Greek art was the joint product of
the Egyptian and Assyrian civilizations. Their amalgamation gave birth
to the archaic style, struggling to express the strength and the
beauty of man--half heroic, half divine. Gradually, all the
surrounding decorations of life assumed as a governing principle and
motive, the worth of noble beauty.
The Greeks were the first artists. They broke away from the ancient
trammels of customary forms, and replaced law with liberty of thought,
and tradition with poetry.
They destroyed no old ideas, but they selected, appropriated, and
evoked beauty from every source. From the great days of Athens we may
date the moment when materials became entirely subservient to art, and
the minds of individual men were stamped on their works and dated
them. Phases indeed followed each other, showing the links of
tradition which still bound men's minds together to a certain extent,
and formed the general style of the day. Yet there was in art from
that time--life, sometimes death,--but then a resurrection.
It appears from classical writers that about 300 B.C. Greek art had
thrown itself into many new forms. Painting, for example, had tried
all themes excepting landscapes. We are told that within the space of
150 years the art had passed through every technical stage; from the
tinted profile system of Polygnotus to the proper pictorial system of
natural scenes, composed with natural backgrounds; and Peiraiïkos is
named as an artist of genre--a painter of barbers and cobblers,
booths, asses, eatables, and such-like realistic subjects.[56]
I suppose there is no doubt that all the Romans knew or felt of art
was borrowed directly or indirectly from Greece,[57] first through
Phœnician and perhaps Etruscan sources, and finally by conquest.
Everything we have of their art shows their imitation of Grecian
models. Their embroideries would certainly have shown the same
impress.
Greece--herself crushed and demoralized--even as late as the Eastern
Empire gave to Rome the fashion of the Byzantine taste, which she at
once adopted, and it was called the Romanesque. This style, which was
partly Arab, still prevails in Eastern Europe, having clung to the
Greek Church. In her best days, Roman poetry, architecture, and
decorative arts were Greek of Greece, imitating its highest types, but
never creating.
It is surely allowable to quote here one of Virgil's Homeric echoes,
which touches upon our especial subject,--
"Mournful at heart at that supreme farewell,
Andromache brings robes of border'd gold;
A Phrygian cloak, too, for Ascanius.
And yielding not the palm in courtesy,
Loads him with woven treasures, and thus speaks:
'Take these gifts, too, to serve as monuments
Of my hand-labour, boy; so may they bear
Their witness to Andromache's long love,
The wife of Hector:--take them, these last gifts
Thy kindred can bestow; in this sad world
Sole image left of my Astyanax!'"[58]
It is sad to mark how not only the refinements of taste, but even the
guiding principles of art, were gradually lost in the humiliation of a
conquered people, the dulness and discouragement which followed on the
expatriation or destruction of their accumulated treasures, and the
deterioration of the Greek artist and artisan, carried prisoners to
Rome, and settled there because it was the seat of luxury and empire.
As the captive Jews hung their harps on the willow-trees by the waters
of Babylon, and refused to sing, so Greek genius succumbed, weighed
down by Roman chains. It sickened and died in exile.
Late Roman art reminds us of the art of Etruria in its archaic days,
except that the freshness and promise are wanting, and that the one
was in its first, the other its second childhood.
Before entering on the subject of Christian art, I must again refer,
however briefly, to the Eastern origin of all art. It is evident that
this had always flowed in streams of many types from that high
watershed of Central Asia, where our human race is said to have been
created, and whence all wisdom and knowledge have emanated. In the
image of the Creator, man issued from thence, endowed with the gift of
the creative power. Wave after wave of fresh and apparently differing
nationalities followed each other; partially submerging those that had
gone before, and spreading till it had reached the furthest shores of
the Northern seas and the Atlantic, and encircled the Mediterranean.
They all followed the same course from east to west. The Greek
civilization was indeed so dazzling and strong, that it lighted the
world all around; and India, Persia, and Assyria felt its influence
reflected back on its old Asian cradle.
But from the same high watershed[59] flowed other tribal types towards
China, Java, and Japan, that had no affinity with any western
civilization; and while the Assyrian, Persian, Indian, and Mongolian
styles mixed and overlapped so near their sources, that it is
sometimes hardly possible to reason out and classify their
resemblances and their differences, the tribes flowing Eastward turned
aside and went their own way, and have remained till now perfectly
distinct.[60]
In spite of their matchless dexterity in the manipulation of their
materials, the infinite variety of their stitches, and exquisite
finish in execution, carrying out to the utmost point the intended
effect, yet Chinese and Japanese textile art differs in its inner
principles from all our accepted canons of taste; so that their want
of harmony, and sometimes their absurdity, is a puzzle of which we
cannot find the key. This I have already alluded to (p. 3).
I purposely avoid the questions suggested by Chinese art. The immense
antiquity it claims cannot be allowed without hesitation. M. Terrien
de la Couperie, however, believes that he has found the actual point
of departure of Chinese civilization, and he considers it to be an
early offshoot from Babylon.[61] He supports his theory on linguistic
grounds, and we must anxiously wait to see if it is corroborated by
further researches into the earliest records of the archaic Chinese
literature. But immobility in art is a Chinese characteristic, and no
national cataclysms seem to have disturbed it. The oldest specimens
known are very like the most modern. Yet an adept, learned in Chinese
art, can detect the signs which mark its different epochs.
In this they differ from the Japanese, who, added to their inherited
exquisite appreciation of natural beauty, have a power of assimilation
that might lead in time to their possessing a school of art which,
being really original, might become the style of the future. The
civilization of Japan is not older than the fifth century A.D., and
was probably then imported from Corea. Some of the earliest specimens
we know of their art are embroidered religious pictures by the son of
a Mikado Sholokutaiski, who was in the seventh century the great
apostle of Buddhism in Japan; and the next earliest works are by the
first nun, Honi, in the eighth century. We have European work as old,
and it is most interesting to compare the differences of their styles
and stitches.
We must now return to the beginning of our era, when we find Greek
taste, such as it was, still influencing and colouring art in Italy,
and throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, wherever Roman colonies were
founded, till the eighth century. It died hard; but by that time the
barbarians had poured from the east and north in successive waves, and
conquered and suppressed the classical civilization.
Nothing is so puzzling in textile art as the mixture of styles during
the first 1000 years A.D. The Græco-Roman, the Byzantine, and the
Egyptian, crossed by the Arabian, Persian, and Indian styles, were
reproduced in the Sicilian looms. Certain stock patterns, such as the
reclining hares or fawns, as we find them on the Shishak pall, or that
of the Tree of Life, approached by worshipping men or animals,
originating in Assyrian art, are employed as borders, and fill up
vacant spaces. The information collected from the tombs in the Crimea
immediately preceding our era, is supplemented by the variety in style
and materials from the Fayoum, now placed by Herr Graf'schen in the
Museum at Vienna.
Christian art, which began in Byzantium, gradually grew, and formed
itself into the Gothic,[62] which in time overcame the general chaos
of style.
Eastern art continued to flow westward, modifying and suggesting.
When the Phœnicians and Carthaginians had laid down their ancient
commercial sceptre, it was taken up by the Greeks, and later by the
Venetians and Genoese, always trading with Asiatic goods. Then the
arts of the Scandinavians[63] and of the Celts (who were the weavers),
though barbaric, still retained and spread certain Oriental
traditions. Luxury was born in Babylon, and Persia became its nurse,
whence all its glories and refinements spread over the world. But if
luxury was Babylonian, art was Greek. Alas! the love of luxury
survived in Rome the taste for art.
[Illustration: Pl. 6.
The Empress Theodora. Mosaic at Ravenna. Church of San. Vitale.]
At Ravenna we learn much of the early Christian period from the
mosaics in the churches. The Empress Theodora and her ladies appear to
be clothed in Indian shawl stuffs. (Plate 6.) These, of course, had
drifted into Rome, as they had long done into the Greek islands, by
the Red Sea or by land through Tyre. Ezekiel (590 B.C.) mentions the
Indian trade through Aden. Theodora's dress has a deep border of gold,
embroidered with classical warriors pursuing each other with
swords.[64] Works enriched with precious stones and pearls now appear
for the first time in European art, and testify to its Oriental
impress.
The Byzantine Christian style was essentially the art of mosaic. Its
patterns for architecture or dress, easily square themselves into
little compartments, suggesting the stitches of "counted" embroideries
("opus pulvinarium").
In the beginning of the fourth century, when Greek influence was still
languishing, we may date the commencement of ecclesiastical art. It
was a new birth, and had to struggle through an infancy of nearly 800
years, ignoring, or unconscious of all rules of drawing, colouring,
and design. Outlines filled in with flat surfaces of colours
represented again the art of painting, which had returned to archaic
types, and in no way differed from the essential properties of the art
of "acu pingere" or needlework, which was in the same phase--being,
fortunately for it, that to which it was best suited.
Therefore fine works of art were then executed by the needle, of which
a very few survive, either in description or copied into more lasting
materials; and showing that, with the minor arts of mosaic and
illumination, it was in a state of higher perfection than the greater
arts, which till the twelfth century were all but in abeyance.
In discussing textile art, I am obliged to pass over a part of the
dark ages, and to approach the period when it must be studied chiefly
in Sicily, which became the half-way house on the high road to the
East, and later the resting-place of the Crusaders to and from the
Holy Land.
Sicily, which had succeeded to Constantinople as being the great
manufacturing mart during the Middle Ages, was in the hands of the
Moors, the origin and source of all European Gothic textile art. Yet
even at Palermo and Messina this art was long controlled by the
traditions of Greece, ancient and modern, while fertilized by Persian
and Indian forms and traditional symbolisms.
The next European phase was the Gothic.[65] This was Arab and Moresque
steeped in northern ideas; and finding its congenial soil, it grew
into the most splendid, thoughtful, and finished style, far
transcending anything that it had borrowed from eastern or southern
sources.
All its traditions were carried out in the smaller decorative
arts--mosaics, ivories, and metal works; and, last and not least,
beautiful embroideries, to adorn the altars and the dresses of
monarchs and nobles. (Plate 7.)
When taste was imperfect or declined, then the decorations were all
rude, and the embroideries shared in the general rudeness or poverty;
but as these crafts rose again, adding to themselves grace and beauty
by study and experience, then needlework in England, Germany, France,
Italy, and Spain grew and flourished.[66]
[Illustration: Italian embroidery XV. Century
Kensington Museum]
[Illustration: Italian orphreys XVI. Century
South Kensington Museum]
[Illustration: Orphreys French and Spanish
XVI. Century]
Then came the Reformation, which, in Germany and England especially,
gave a blow to the arts which had reserved their best efforts for the
Church; and the change of style effected by the Renaissance was not
suited to the solemnity of ecclesiastical decoration.
The styles of the fifteenth and sixteenth century embroideries are
better adapted for secular purposes; though their extreme beauty as
architectural ornament in Italy, reconciles one to their want of
religious character, on the principle that it was allowable to
dedicate to the Church all that in its day was brightest and best.
(Plate 8.)
We possess much domestic embroidery of the Renaissance which is
exceedingly beautiful--Italian, Spanish, and German. English
needlework had lost its prestige from the time of the Reformation.[67]
The best efforts of the German schools of embroidery preceded the
Reformation, while those of Belgium never lost their excellence,[68]
and still hold their high position among the workers of golden
orphreys. In Italy they always retained much of the classical element.
Probably the ancient frescoes which served as models were originally
painted by Greek artists and their Roman imitators. This style
flourished for a hundred years. The French adopted and modified it.
The decorative style of that period is sometimes called the Arabesque,
and sometimes the Grotesque. The fashion was really copied from the
excavated palaces and tombs of the best Roman era. Raphael admired,
and caused his pupils to imitate and copy them; and they influenced
all decorative art for a considerable period. As long as beautiful
forms of flowers, fruit, birds, and animals were adhered to, the
Arabesque was a charming decoration, gay and brilliant; but when the
beautiful was set aside, and the ugly ideas were reproduced, the style
became the Grotesque, which word only means the grotto, cave, or tomb
style, and is as undescriptive to us as the word Arabesque, which has
nothing to do with the Arabs or their arts.
It would appear that if the beautiful only is permissible in
decorative art, and that if without beauty there is no reason that it
should exist at all, then the Grotesque should not be allowed, except
as a scherzo of the pencil; to be relegated, like all other
caricatures, to the portfolio.
A grotesque is something startling, laughable, perhaps ridiculous. A
woman with the head of a goose and a flowery tail may be a symbolical,
but it never can be an agreeable object. When the idea conveyed is a
great one, then it is excusable. The Ninevite bull, with a human head
and five legs, is a grotesque, but it is also a symbol of majesty and
might. A Satyr is a grotesque, but he has been so long recorded and
accepted that he has ceased to surprise us; and the Greeks spent so
much genius in making him a graceful creature, that he has become
picturesque, if not beautiful.
Arabesques and Grotesques have now so long prevailed in decoration,
that we have ceased to criticize them on principle, and accept them
gratefully, in proportion to the gay fancy and reticent genius of the
designer. Most Arabesques are, in fact, only graceful nonsense.
[Illustration: Pl. 9.
Spanish Coverlet, from Goa. Velvet and gold, Plâteresque style,
seventeenth century.]
Vitruvius (writing first century B.C.) says, that "in his time, on the
covering of the walls were painted rather monstrosities than images
of known things. Thus, instead of columns you will see reeds with
crisp foliage, and candlesticks supporting temples; and on the top of
these there are rods and twisted ornaments, and in the volutes
senseless little figures sitting there; likewise flowers with figures
growing out of their calyxes. Here a human head, there an
animal's."[69] Evidently Vitruvius did not approve of grotesques, and
his contemporary criticism is most valuable and amusing.
In the Louis Quatorze period, a species of vegetable grotesque was the
fashion, from which we suffer even now, and it deserves censure.
Leaves and flowers of different plants were made to grow from the same
stem, as only artificial flowers could do. The Greeks introduced into
their decorations sprays and wreaths of bay, olive, oak, ivy, and
vine, with their fruits; which are exquisitely composed and carefully
studied from nature. It is true that they sometimes invented flowers
of different shapes, following each other on the same stem, and
untrammelled by any natural laws. These classical freaks of fancy are
so graceful that their want of truth does not shock us, but they are
more safely copied than imitated.
The Renaissance was particularly marked in Spain and Portugal by the
embroideries which the latter drew from their Indian possessions in
Goa, whilst we in England were sedulously thrusting from our shores
any beautiful Indian textiles that we imagined could injure our own
home manufactures. It was, consequently, the worst phase of needlework
with us, while Spanish and Portuguese embroideries of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries are especially fine, their designs being
European, and their needlework Oriental. Their Renaissance, which went
by the name of the Plâteresque, is a style apart. (Pl. 9.) The reason
of its name is that it seems to have been originally intended for, and
is best suited to, the shapes and decorations of gold and silver
plate. It is extremely rich and ornate; not so appropriate to
architecture as to the smaller arts, and wanting, perhaps, the
simplicity which gives dignity. The style called Louis Quatorze
following on the Renaissance in Germany, England, Spain, Italy, and
France, assumed in each of these countries distinguishing
characteristics, into which we have not time to enter now. In this
style France took the lead and appropriated it, and rightly named it
after the magnificent monarch who fostered it. This was a splendid
era; and its furniture and wall decorations, dress, plate, and books
shine in all the fertile richness and grace of French artistic
ingenuity.[70] The new style asserted itself everywhere, and
remodelled every art; but the long reign of Louis Quatorze gave the
fashion time to wane and change. Under Louis XV. the defects increased
and the beauties diminished. The fine heavy borders were broken up
into fragmentary forms; all flow and strength were eliminated; and
what remained of the Louis Quatorze style became, under its next
phase, only remarkable for the sparkling prettiness which is inherent
in all French art.
In Italy this very ornate style was distinguished as the
"Sette-cento," and was a chastened imitation or appropriation of the
Spanish Plâteresque and the French Louis Quatorze. In Germany it was a
decided heavy copy of both, of which there are splendid examples in
the adornment of the German palaces, royal and episcopal. In England
the Continental taste was faintly reflected during the reign of Queen
Anne and the first Georges; but except in the characteristic
upholstery of the Chippendales, and one or two palaces, such as
Blenheim and Castle Howard, we did not produce much that was original
in the style of that day.
Under Louis XV., Boucher and Watteau, in France, produced designs that
were well suited to tapestries and embroideries. All the heathen gods,
with Cupids, garlands, floating ribbons, crowns, and cyphers were
everywhere carved, gilded, and worked. It was the visible tide of the
frivolity in which poor Marie Antoinette was drowned; though before
the Revolution she had somewhat simplified the forms of decoration,
and straight lines instead of curves, and delicacy rather than
splendour, had superseded, at least at court, the extravagant richness
of palatial furniture.
This was followed by the Revolution; and then came the attempt at
classical severity (so contrary to the French nature) which the
Republic affected.[71] Dress was adorned with embroidered spots and
Etruscan borders, and the ladies wore diadems, and tried to be as like
as possible to the Greek women painted in fictile art. Napoleon
attempted a dress which was supposed to be Roman at his coronation.
Trophies were woven and embroidered, and the "honeysuckle," "key," and
"egg and anchor" patterns were everywhere. With the fall of the Empire
the classical taste collapsed, and the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman
furniture were handed over to hotels and lodging-houses. In most of
the palaces on the Continent an apartment is still to be seen,
furnished in this style. It was the necessary tribute of flattery to
the great conqueror, who in that character inhabited so many of them
for a short time. But there was no sign of the style being taken up
enthusiastically anywhere out of France.
After the fall of the Empire, all pretence of style was in abeyance,
and it was then gradually replaced by a general craving for the
"antique," the "rococo," and finally the "baroc," as the outcome of
that part of a gentleman's education called the "grand tour." Every
one bought up old furniture; Italy and Spain were ransacked; and
foreign works of all ages were added to the hereditary house
furnishings. Every wealthy home became a museum. Now the numerous
exhibitions of the last few years, bringing together the works of all
Europe and other continents, have enabled us to continue to collect
and compare and furnish, without any reference to a particular style.
Meantime "Young England" had become æsthetic. Bohemianism was the
fashion, and the studio had to be furnished as a picturesque
lounge:--ragged tapestries for backgrounds; antique chairs and bits of
colour as cushions and draperies; shiny earthenware pots to hold a
flower and to catch a high light. All these bridged the space between
the new æstheticism and the old family museums; and from their
combination arose the style called by courtesy the "Queen Anne"--a
style which can be brought within the reach of the most moderate
fortunes. In humble mansions you will be aware of the grouping of the
old pieces of furniture, culminating perhaps in "my grandmother's
cabinet," and her portrait by Hogarth; or "my great-grandfather's
sword and pistols, which he carried at Culloden;" and his father's
clock, a relic perhaps of the Scotch Dutch.
The English style of to-day is really a conglomerate of the preceding
two hundred years, and it is formed from the débris of our family
life. It belongs mostly to the period of the pigtail; but it
stretches back, and includes all that followed the Protectorate, and
is therefore coeval with the wig. The name of "Queen Anne" would
really do as well as any other, only that the style of her reign,
which was heavy Louis Quatorze, is looked upon with suspicion, and
never admitted for imitation. The "Nineteenth Century" would be a
better name, for it has formed itself only within the last thirty
years, in the very heart of the century, and is, in fact, a fortunate
result of preceding conditions. It owes its existence, as I have said,
partly to the archæological tendencies of the day.
The maimed tables and chairs, which had painfully ascended from saloon
to bedroom, nursery, and attic, till they reposed in the garret (the
Bedlam of crazy furniture), now have descended in all the prestige of
antiquarian and family interest. Their history is recorded; the old
embroideries are restored, named, and honoured. What is not beautiful,
is credited with being "quaint"--the "quaint" is more easily imitated
than the beautiful; and we have elected this for the characteristic of
our new decorations. To be quaint, is really to be funny without
intending it, and its claim to prettiness is its _naïveté_, which is
sometimes touching as well as amusing: this was the special
characteristic of the revival in the Middle Ages. To imitate
quaintness must be a mistake in art; as in life it is absurd to
imitate innocence.
The nineteenth century "Queen Anne" has its merits.[72] It combines
simplicity, roominess and comfort, colour, light and shade. Soft
colouring to harmonize the new furniture with the tender tints of the
faded quaintnesses just restored to society; care in grouping even the
commonest objects, so as to give pleasure to the eye; a revived taste
for embroidered instead of woven materials, giving scope to the
talents of the women of the house;--all these are so much gained in
every-day domestic decoration. The poorest and most trivial
arrangements are striving to attain to a something artistic and
agreeable. This is still confined to the educated classes; but as good
and bad alike have to begin on the surface, and gradually filter
through to the dregs of society, we may hope that the women who wore
the last chignon and the last crinoline may yet solace their sordid
lives in flowing or tight woollen garments, adorned with their own
needlework; and that the dark-stained floor of the cottage or humble
lodging will set off the shining brass kettle, and the flower in a
brown or blue pot, consciously selected with a view to the
picturesque, and enjoyed accordingly.
From what we know, it would seem that a vital change in a national
style is never produced by the inspiration of one individual genius or
great original inventor. It invariably evolves itself slowly, by the
patient, persistent efforts of generations, polishing and touching up
the same motive, and at last reaching human perfection.
The annihilation of a style is oftenest caused by war passing over the
land, or revolution breaking up the fountains of social life, and
swamping the art and the artist.
But another cause of such an extinction--perhaps the saddest--is that
having reached perfection as far as it may, it deteriorates, sickens,
corrupts, and finally is thrown aside--superseded, hidden, and
overlapped by a newer fashion; and the worst and latest effort
discredits in the eyes of men, the splendid successes that preceded
its fall. Though the next succeeding phase may be less worthy to live
than the last, yet, carrying with it the freshness of a new spring, it
is acceptable for the time being.
The moral I should draw from this is, that you cannot force style; you
may prune, direct, and polish it, but you must accept that of your
day, and only in accordance with that taste can your work be useful.
Not accepting it idly or wearily, but cheerfully, on principle,
seeking to raise it; refusing by word or deed to truckle to the false,
the base, or the lawless in your art, or to act against the
acknowledged canons of good taste. Not for a moment should ambition be
checked, but it should always be accompanied by the grace of modesty.
To the young decorator or artist who feels the glow of original design
prompting him to reject old lines, and follow his own new and perhaps
crude ideas, a few words of warning, and encouragement also, may be of
use.
In art, as in poetry, we may recognize the Psalmist's experience: "My
heart burned within me, and at the last I spake with my tongue."
In small as in great things, crude ideas should not be brought to the
front. No one should give his thoughts to the world till his heart has
_burned_ within him, and he has been _forced_ to express himself.
Another wise saying, "Read yourself full, and then write yourself
empty," also applies to art. Knowledge must first be accumulated
before you can originate.
Wait till your experience and your thoughts insist on expression;
then subject the expressed idea to cultivated criticism, and profit by
the opinion you would respect if another's work, and not your own,
were under discussion.
It is true that taste is surprisingly various. Some will dislike your
design, because its style is a reflection of the Gothic; another may
be objected to as being frivolously Oriental-looking and brilliant,
whereas the critic likes only the sober and the dull. Few are
sufficiently educated to appreciate style: and we cannot rule our own
by anybody's opinion; but we can generalize and find something that
shall be agreeable to all--something approaching to a golden mean. The
artist for decoration should be sensitively alive to any suggestion
from the style of that which he is to adorn, remembering the
antecedent motives of its form, its history, and its date. He should
try to make his new work harmonize with the old; but of one thing he
may be certain--unless he absolutely copies an old design, his own
will carry the visible and unmistakable stamp of his day.
Even while suggesting copies this difficulty arises--how can a perfect
facsimile be obtained? No reproduction is ever really exact, unless
cast off by the hundred, stamped or printed by a machine.
It has been said that the translator of a poem adds to, or takes from
the original, that which he has or has not of the same poetical power;
and in art the copy requires the same qualities to guide the hand that
transmits the original motive to another material. An artist usually
carries out his own ideas from the first sketch blocked out on the
canvas, or scribbled on the bit of waste paper, to the last finishing
touch. It is, as far as it can be in human art, the visible transcript
of his own thought. In needlework this can hardly ever be. The
designer, whether he be St. Dunstan, Pollaiolo, Torrigiano, or Walter
Crane, only executes a drawing which leaves his hands for good, and is
translated into embroidery by the patient needlewoman who simply fills
in an outline, ignorant of art, unappreciative of its subtleties, and
incapable of giving life and expression, even when she is aware that
they are indicated in the original design. This is almost always the
case; but there are exceptions. Charlemagne's dalmatic, for instance,
shows signs of having been either the work of the artist himself, or
else carried out under his immediate supervision.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," p. 285. See
also chapter on stitches (_post_), p. 195.
[16] Some of these styles survive; some are still
perceptible as traditions or echoes; some have totally
disappeared in our modern art, such as the Primitive or
the Egyptian.
[17] See Semper, "Der Stil."
[18] The history of Gaul begins in the 7th, and that of
Britain in the 1st century B.C., while the civilization
of Egypt dates back to more than 4000 B.C.; therefore
the historical overlap is very great. It is probable
that a large portion of Europe was in its neolithic age,
while the scribes were composing their records of war
and commerce in the great cities on the Nile, and that
the neolithic civilization lingered in remote regions
while the voice of Pericles was heard in Athens, and the
name of Hannibal was a terror in Italy.--See Boyd
Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," p. 481.
[19] See chapter on patterns.
[20] In the Troad.
[21] Some of the Egyptian arts we know are pre-Homeric
(if Homer really sang 800 B.C.), and Asiatic art was
then in its highest development.
[22] See chapter on stitches, cut work (_post_). This
funeral tent is a monumental work, inasmuch as the
inscription inwrought on it gives us the name and title
of her in whose honour it was made, and whose remains it
covered. See Villiers Stewart's "Funeral Tent of an
Egyptian Queen."
[23] Herodotus, book ii. c. 182; book iii. c. 47
(Rawlinson's Trans.). See Rock's Introduction, p. xiv.
[24] Homer mentions "Sidonian stuffs and Phœnician
skill" (Iliad, v. 170); also "Sidonian Embroidery."
Ibid. vi. 287-295.
[25] The Assyrian designs are such as are now still
worked at Benares, and being full of animals, they are
called Shikurgah, or "happy hunting-grounds." See Sir G.
Birdwood's "Industrial Arts of India," p. 236. See also
Plate 4.
[26] See Perrot and Chipiez (pp. 737-757); also Clermont
Ganneau's Histoire de l'Art, "L'Imagerie Phénicienne,"
Plate 1, pt. 1. Coupe de Palestrina. He says that
certain scenes from the "Shield of Achilles" are
literally to be found on Phœnician vases that have
come down to us--vases of which Homer himself must have
seen some of analogous design.
[27] Homer speaks of Sidonian embroideries, "Iliad,"
vi., 287-295.
[28] See Egyptian fragments in the British Museum, and
the specimens of Peruvian textiles; and Reiss and
Stübel's "Necropolis of Ancon in Peru."
[29] At Cervetri, Dennis' "Etruria," ed. 1878, i. p.
268.
[30] The restless activity of the Phœnicians has
often helped to confuse our æsthetic knowledge, and has
caused the waste of much speculation in ascertaining how
certain objects of luxury, belonging to distant
civilizations, can possibly have arrived at the places
where we find them.
[31] "The Beautiful Gate of the Temple was covered all
over with gold. It had also golden vines above it, from
which hung clusters of grapes as tall as a man's
height.... It had golden doors of 55 cubits altitude,
and 16 in breadth: but before these doors there was a
veil of equal largeness with the doors. It was a
Babylonian curtain of blue, fine linen, and scarlet and
purple; of an admixture that was truly wonderful. Nor
was the mixture without its mystical interpretation; but
was a kind of image of the universe. For by the scarlet
was to be enigmatically signified fire; by the fine
flax, the earth; by the blue, the air, and by the
purple, the sea;--two of them having their colours for
the foundation of this resemblance; but the fine flax
and the purple have their own origin for this
foundation, the earth producing the one, and the sea the
other. This curtain had also embroidered upon it all
that was mystical in the heavens excepting the twelve
signs of the zodiac, representing living creatures."
Josephus (Trans. by Whiston), p. 895.
[32] See also M. E. Harkness and Stuart Poole, "Assyrian
Life and History," p. 66.
[33] The visions of Ezekiel and St. John remind us of
the composite figures and animals in Ninevite
sculptures, and the prophetic poetry helps us to
interpret their symbolism.
[34] G. Smith's "Ancient History of the Monuments,"
Babylonia, p. 33. Edited by Sayce.
[35] In the British Museum. See "Bronze Ornaments of
Palace Gates, Balawat," pl. E 5.
[36] See Auberville's "Ornement des Tissus," pl. 1.
[37] The Egyptian queen in question was mother-in-law to
Shishak, whose daughter married Solomon. After his
son-in-law's death, Shishak plundered the "King's
House," and carried to Egypt the golden shields or
panels (1 Kings xiv. 26). The golden vessels went to
Babylon later, and the golden candlesticks to Rome.
[38] Sir G. Birdwood repeatedly points out that the
Vedic was the art that worshipped and served nature. The
Puranic is the ideal and distorted. The Moguls, about
700 B.C., introduced their ugly Dravidian art. Through
the Sassanian art of Persia, that of India was
influenced. Possibly the very forms which in India are
copied from Assyrian temples and palaces, may have
travelled first to Assyria upon Indian stuffs and
jewellery (Sir G. Birdwood's "Industrial Arts of India,"
i. p. 236).
[39] Ibid., p. 130 (ed. 1884).
[40] Nearchus (Strabo, XV. i. 67) says that the people
of India had such a genius for imitation that they
counterfeited sponges, which they saw used by the
Macedonians, and produced perfect imitations of the real
object. See Sir G. Birdwood's "Industrial Arts of
India," ii. p. 133 (ed. 1884).
[41] Ibid., ii. p. 131 (ed. 1884).
[42] See Sir G. Birdwood, p. 129 (ed. 1884). If
Fergusson is right in suggesting that the art of Central
America was planted there in the third or fourth century
of our era, it would, perhaps, appear to have taken
refuge in America when it was driven out of India by the
Sassanians, and was really Dravidian. He gives to the
Turanian races all the mound buildings, as well as the
fylfot or mystic cross, and he looks in Central India
for the discovery of some remains that will give us the
secret of the origin of the Indo-Aryan style. He thinks
the Archaic Dravidian is allied with the Chinese. See
Fergusson's "Architecture."
[43] Etruscan and Indian golden ornaments, including the
"Bolla" and the "Trichinopoly" chains and coral, are to
be found throughout Scandinavia and in Ireland. See
"Atlas de l'Archéologie du Nord," par la Société Royale
des Antiquaires du Nord. Copenhagen, 1857.
[44] Arrian tells us of the Celts, "a people near the
Great Ionian Bay," who sent an embassy to Alexander
before the battle of the Granicus--"a people strong and
of a haughty spirit." Alexander asked them if they
feared anything. They answered that they feared the "sky
might fall upon their heads." He dismissed them,
observing that the Celts were an arrogant nation
(Arrian, i. 4, 10).
[45] According to Yates, the merchandise of Eastern Asia
passed through Slavonia to the north of Europe in the
Middle Ages, without the intervention of Greece or
Italy. This may account for certain terms of
nomenclature which evidently came with goods transported
straight to the north. Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum,"
vol. i. p. 225-246.
[46] These northern ideas, spreading over Germany,
England, and France, flourished especially on German
soil; and Oriental-patterned embroideries for hangings
and dress were worked in every stitch, on every
material, as may be seen in the museums and printed
catalogues of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, &c.
[47] Except, perhaps, the Serpent and Tree cope in
Bock's Kleinodien.
[48] The different Celtic nationalities are always
recognizable. There was found in a grave-mound at Hof,
in Norway, a brooch, showing at a glance that it was
Christian and Celtic, though taken from the grave of a
pagan Viking. Another at Berdal, in Norway, was at once
recognized by M. Lorange as being undoubtedly Irish.
There are many other instances of evident Celtic
Christian art found on the west coast of Norway under
similar conditions--probably spoil from the British
Islands, which were subject to the descents of the pagan
Vikings for centuries after the time of St. Columba's
preaching of Christianity in Scotland. For information
on the subject, see G. Stephen's "Monuments of Runic
Art," and F. Anderson's "Pagan Art in Scotland."
[49] "Scotland in Pagan Times," by J. Anderson, pp. 3-7.
[50] On a vase in the British Museum, Minerva appears
with her ægis on her breast, and clothed in a petticoat
and upper tunic worked in sprays, and a border of
kneeling lions. On another Panathenaic vase she has a
gown bordered with fighting men, evidently the sacred
peplos. (Fig. 4.)
[51] See the account of the veil of Herè in the Iliad,
and that of the mantle of Ulysses in the Odyssey.
[52] See Butcher and Lang's Odyssey.
[53] "Der Stil."
[54] The Greeks collected into one focus all that they
found of beauty in art from many distant
sources--Egyptian, Indian, Assyrian--and thus fired
their inborn genius, which thenceforth radiated its
splendour over the whole civilized world.
[55] Homer's Iliad, xviii. 480-617 (Butcher and Lang).
[56] See "Woltmann and Woermann." Trans. Sidney Colvin,
p. 64.
[57] Except, perhaps, the keystone arch.
[58] Virg. Æneid iii. Trans. G.L.G.
[59] The Indian Cush.
[60] Except in the art of the Celts, whose Indo-Chinese
style shows evidence of Mongolian importation, and later
we find traces of a similar influence: for instance,
"Yarkand rugs are semi-Chinese, semi-Tartar, resembling
also the works of India and Persia. It is easy to
distinguish from what source each comes, as one
perceives the influence of the neighbouring native art"
("On Japan," by Dresser, p. 322).
[61] See a paper by M. Terrien de la Couperie in the
Journal of the Society of Arts, 1881.
[62] "Rome had to be overthrown that the new religion
and the new civilization might be established.
Christianity did its work in winning to it those
Teutonic conquerors, but how vast was the cost to the
world, occasioned by the necessity of casting into the
boiling cauldron of barbarous warfare, that noble
civilization and the treasures which Rome had gathered
in the spoil of a conquered universe! Had any old Roman,
or Christian father been gifted with Jeremiah's
prescience, he might have seen the fire blazing amidst
the forests of Germany, and the cauldron settling down
with its mouth turned towards the south, and would have
uttered his lamentation in plaintive tones, such as
Jeremiah's, and in the same melancholy key" ("Holy
Bible," with Commentary by Canon Cook, Introduction to
Jeremiah, vol. i. p. 319).
[63] Scandinavian art became strongly tinctured with
that of Byzantium. The Varangian Guards were, probably,
answerable for this, by their intercourse between Greece
and their native land, which lasted so many centuries.
There have come down to us, as witnesses of this
intercourse, many coins and much jewellery, in which all
that is Oriental in its style has been leavened by its
passage through Byzantine and Romanesque channels.
Gibbon, writing of this period, says: "The habits of
pilgrimage and piracy had approximated the countries of
the earth" (see Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," chap. lv.).
Greek embroidered patterns and Greek forms of dress
still linger in Iceland. There was lately brought to
England a bride's dress, which might have belonged to
the Greek wife of a Varangian guardsman. It is
embroidered with a border in gold of the classical
honeysuckle pattern; and the bridal wreath of gilt metal
flowers might, from its style, be supposed to have been
taken from a Greek tomb.
[64] Evidently an imitation of the peplos of Minerva
(see fig. 4, p. 32).
[65] The descent from the Persian of Arab or Moorish
art, as we generally call it when speaking of its
Spanish development, is to be accounted for by the
presence of a considerable colony of Persians in Spain
in the time of the Moors, as attested by numerous
documents still in existence. See Col. Murdoch Smith's
"Preface to Persian Art," Series of Art Handbooks of the
Kensington Museum.
[66] Ronsard, poet, politician, and diplomatist,
compares the Queen of Navarre to Pallas Athene:--
"Elle adonnait son courage
A mainte bel ouvrage
Dessus la toile, et encor
A joindre la soie et l'or.
Vous d'un pareil exercise
Mariez par artifice
Dessus la toile en mainte traits
L'or et la soie en pourtraict."
[67] Mary de Medici brought back with her from Italy
Federigo Vinciolo as her designer for embroideries.
[68] See "Art Needlework," by E. Maxse, and "Manuel de
la Broderie," by Madame E. F. Celnart.
[69] From the Italian translation by Signor Minghetti.
[70] Gaston, Duke of Orleans (died 1660), kept hothouses
on purpose to supply models for floral textile designs.
Le Brun often drew the embroideries for the hangings in
rooms he had himself designed and decorated.
[71] We have all seen the dining-room wine-coolers
modelled in imitation of Roman tombs; and there is a
drawing-room in a splendid mansion still furnished with
cinerary urns covering the walls, while curule chairs
most uncomfortably furnish the seats.
[72] In his designs for papers and textiles, Mr. Morris'
poetical and artistic feeling--his admiration and
sensitiveness for all that is beautiful and graceful (as
well as quaint)--his respect for precedent, added to his
own fanciful originality,--have given a colour and seal
to the whole decorative art of England of to-day. It is
a step towards a new school. The sobriety and tenderness
of his colouring gives a sense of harmony, and
reconciles us to his repetitions of large vegetable
forms, which remind us sometimes of a kitchen-garden in
a tornado. For domestic decoration we should, as far as
possible, adhere to reposing forms and colours. Our
flowers should lie in their allotted spaces, quiet and
undisturbed by elemental struggles, which have no
business in our windowed and glass-protected rooms.
CHAPTER II.
DESIGN.
_Gorgo._ Behold these 'broideries! Finer saw you never.
_Praxinoè._ Ye gods! What artists work'd these pictures in?
What kind of painter could these clear lines limn?
How true they stand! nay, lifelike, moving ever;
Not worked--_created!_ Woman, thou art clever!
(Scene at a Festival) _Theocritus_, Idyll xv. line 78.
The word design, as applied to needlework, includes the principles and
laws of the art: the motives and their hereditary outcome; the art
creating the principles; the laws controlling the art.
Design means intention, motive, and should as such be applied to the
smallest as to the greatest efforts of art. That which results from
it, either as picture or pattern, is a record of the thoughts which
produced it, and by its style fixes the date, of its production.
I will first consider the principles of design, and afterwards, in
another chapter, inquire into the origin of patterns; investigating
their motives, and using them as examples, and also as warnings.
The individual genius of the artist works first in design, though his
work is for the use of the craftsman or artisan, his collaborator; for
the two, head and hands, must work together, or else will render each
other inoperative or ineffective.
The artisan, by right of his title, claims a part in the art itself;
the craftsman, by his name, points out that he, too, has to work out
the craft, the mystery, the inner meaning, of the design or intention.
The designer himself is subject to the prejudices called the taste of
his day. He is necessarily under the influence which that taste has
imposed upon him, and from which no spontaneous efforts of genius can
entirely emancipate him. Whether he is conceiving a temple for the
worship of a national faith, or the edging for the robe of a fair
votaress, or the pattern on the border of a cup of gold or brass, he
cannot avoid the force of tradition and of custom, which comes from
afar, weighted with the power of long descent, and which crushes
individuality, unless it is of the most robust nature.
Of very early design we have most curious and mysterious glimpses. The
cave man was an artist. The few scratches on a bone, cleverly showing
the forms of a dog or a stag, a whale or a seal, nay, the figure of a
man, have enabled us to ascertain and to classify the Palæolithic cave
man; from whom his less civilized successor, the Neolithic man, may be
distinguished by his absence of all animal design.[73]
These fragmentary scraps of information, pieced together only in these
later years, teach us the value of very small facts which time and
care are now accumulating, and which, being the remains of lives and
nations passed away, still serve as the soil in which history can be
fertilized.
We have no means of judging whether the cave man was an artist on a
greater or more advanced scale than is actually shown by the
bone-scratchings; the only other relic of his handiwork is the
needle.[74]
It is evident that a direct imitation of nature, such as is seen in
these "graffiti," and at an immense distance in advance of them, in
the earliest known Egyptian sculptures, preceded all conventional art.
Some of the earliest portrait statues in the Museum at Boulac exhibit
a high degree of naturalistic design before it became subservient to
the expression of the faith of the people. As soon as art was found to
be the fittest conveyance of symbolism, it became the consecrated
medium for transmitting language, thought, and history, and was
reduced to forms in which it was contented to remain petrified for
many centuries, entirely foregoing the study or imitation of
nature.[75] It recorded customs, historical events, and religious
beliefs; receiving from the last the impress of the unchangeable and
the absolute, which it gave to the other subjects on which it touched.
It ceased to be a creative art (if it had ever aspired to such a
function), and was never the embodiment of individual thought. This
phase prevailed under different manifestations in Assyria and China.
Pictorial art had, in fact, become merely the nursing mother of the
alphabet, guiding its first steps--the hieroglyphic delineation or
expression of thoughts and facts.[76]
In Egypt, the change from the first period of actual imitation of
nature was succeeded by many centuries of the very slowest progress.
Renouf speaks,[77] however, of "the astonishing identity that is
visible through all the periods of Egyptian art" (for you could never
mistake anything Egyptian for the produce of any other country). "This
identity and slow movement," he says, "are not inconsistent with an
immense amount of change, which must exist if there is any real life."
In fact, there were periods of relative progress, repose, and decay,
and every age had its peculiar character. Birch, Lepsius, or Marriette
could at once tell you the age of a statue, inscription, or
manuscript, by the characteristic signs which actually fix[78] the
date.
Design, unconsciously has a slowly altering and persistently onward
movement, which but seldom repeats itself. It is one of the most
remarkable instances of evolution. But it also has its cataclysms
(however we may account for them), of which the Greek apotheosis of
all art is a shining example, and the total disappearance of classical
influence in Europe before the Renaissance is another.
I will instance one prevailing habit of Egyptian art.[79] In the long
processional subjects, and in individual separate figures, it was
usual to draw the head in perfect profile, the body facing you, but
not completely--a sort of compromise with a three-quarter view of
it--and the feet following each other, on the same line as the
profile. This mode of representing the human figure was only effaced
gradually by the introduction of Greek art, and continued to be the
conventional and decorative method even in the latest days of Egyptian
art; and it is curious to observe, that in the Dark ages European
design fell into the same habit. We cannot imagine that this distorted
way of drawing the human figure could have any intentional meaning,
and therefore may simply believe that it had become a custom; and that
when art has so stiffened and consolidated itself by precedent and
long tradition, as in Egypt and in India, certain errors as well as
certain truths become, as it were, ingrained into it. Plato remarked
of Egyptian art, that "the pictures and statues they made ten thousand
years ago were in no particular better than those they make now."[80]
One day, however, the Greek broke away from the ancient bonds of
custom. The body was made to accompany the head, and the feet followed
suit. But the strange fact remains that for several thousand years men
walked in profile, all out of drawing. Evidently originality was not
in much estimation among the Egyptian patrons of art. Design seemed to
have restricted itself to effective adaptations in a few permitted
forms in architecture and painting, and the illumination of the
papyrus MSS.
Egyptian elasticity of design found some scope in its domestic
ornamentation, in jewellery and hangings, but especially in its
embroideries for dress. Here much ingenuity was shown, and the
patterns on walls and the ceilings of tombs give us the designs which
Semper considers as having been originally intended for textile
purposes. He strains to a point to which I can hardly follow him, the
theory that all decorations were originally textile (except such as
proceeded in China from the lattice-work motive); though I willingly
accept the idea that textile decoration was one of the first and most
active promoters of design.
It is not possible for us to trace systematically the different points
at which Egyptian and Asiatic art touch, but we can see that they were
always acting and reacting on each other in the later centuries before
our era, and that Greece profited by them. The first efforts of both
to break through this chrysalis stage, resulted in the early Greek
archaic style. Its strongly marked, muscular humanity reminds one of
all the conflicting impressions struggling in the conception of the
great artist who first embodied them. They appear to be breaking out
from the trammels of Egyptian and Assyrian styles, which by meeting
had engendered life; and Greek art was the child of their union. Then
art, having shaken off symbolism as its only purpose, and seeking to
represent the forms of men, yet possessed by a guiding spirit, first
sought to convey the idea of expression. The worship of humanity,
mingling with that of their gods, produced the Heroic ideal; and all
the attributes of their heroes--majesty, beauty, grace, and
passion--had to be depicted; as well as rage, sorrow, despair, and
revenge. These were soon to be surrounded with all the splendours of
the arts of decoration.
Greece had prepared for this outburst of excellence and the perfect
science of art, by collecting the traditions, the symbols, the
experience in colouring, and the knowledge of beautiful forms, human
and ideal. All that was needed for the advent of the man who could
design and create types of beauty for all ages was thus accumulated,
and the man came, and his name was Pheidias. A crowd followed him, all
steeped in the same flood of poetry and art; and for several
centuries they filled the world with the sense and science of beauty.
Then the function of the designer--the artist--was changed and
elevated, and he became, through the great days of Greek and Roman
Pagan art, and afterwards through the rise of that of Christianity,
the exponent of all that was poetical and ennobling in the life of
man.
But though the Greek artist had broken the chains of prescribed form,
he still adhered to the "motive"--the inner symbolical thought--and
strove to express it as it had never been expressed before.[81] New
principles were evoked, and the artist, while revelling in the
"sweetness and light" of freedom, framed for himself standards of
taste and refinement, which he left as a heritage to all succeeding
generations.
I fear that I am repeating a platitude when insisting that freedom in
all design, but especially that employed in decoration, must be kept
within certain boundaries; otherwise it becomes lawless. Rules, like
all other controlling circumstances, are of the greatest service to
the artist, as they suggest what he can do, as well as decide what he
ought not to attempt. All boundaries are highly suggestive; the size
of a sheet of paper--the form of a panel--the colours in the box of
pigments--even the touch of the brush which comes to hand,--all these
help to shape the idea to our ends, and assist us in giving to the
original motive the form which is most suitable. These restrictions
are often regarded as impediments by the impatient artist; whereas he
ought to look on them as hints and suggestions, and claim their
assistance, instead of struggling against them. Let us accept the
principle that it is good for each of our efforts at decoration that
we are controlled by the space allotted to its composition. The
relative size (small, perhaps, for a table-cover, but large for that
of a book) and the shape to which we are limited, alter all the
conditions of a design. Whether it is square or oblong, or lengthened
into a frieze; whether it must be divided into parts, including more
than one motive, or be grouped round one centre; whether it is to be
repeated more than once within the range of the eye, or whether it is
to disappear into space upwards or horizontally; and whether it is to
stand alone, or be framed with lines or a border,--all these
restrictions must govern the design, or, in its highest phase, the
composition.
The composition must consist of supporting lines well balanced, and
"values" filling up the whole surface of the space, which is to
contain it, and beyond which it must not seek to extend. As we have in
embroidery no distances--only a foreground--the design must be placed
all on one plane. The title of "composition" cannot be granted to a
bouquet or a bird cast on one corner of a square of linen, however
gracefully it may be drawn. It does not cover the space allotted to
it.
If we carefully study the great and guiding principles that have been
distinctly formulated by some of the Continental authorities on
decorative art, we shall find much help in composing our designs.
Nothing is more interesting than to search for the foundation of the
structure which centuries have helped to raise, and to dig out, as it
were, the original plan or thought of the founder. So it is most
instructive to learn the fundamental rules by which such results are
secured.
M. Blanc[82] says of the general laws of ornamentation: "There can be
no nobler satisfaction to the mind, than to be able to unravel what is
beyond measure complicated, to diminish what is apparently immense,
and to reduce to a few clear points what has been till now involved in
a haze of obscurity. Just as the twenty-six letters of the alphabet
have been, and always will be sufficient to form the expression of the
words necessary for all human thought, so certain elements susceptible
of combination among themselves have sufficed, and will suffice, to
create ornament, whose variety may be indefinitely multiplied."
He reduces ornamental design to five principles, Repetition,
Alternation, Symmetry, Progression, and Confusion.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.
Wave Pattern.]
First, Repetition. "You may act on the mind, through sight, by the
same means as those that will excite physical sensations. A single
prick of a pin is nothing, but a hundred such will be intolerably
painful. Repetition produces pleasurable sensations, as well as
painful ones." An insignificant form can become interesting by
repetition, and by the suggestion which, singly, it could not
originate. For example, the rolling of the Greek scroll or wave
pattern awakens in us the idea of one object following another. "It
also suggests the waves of the ocean; or the poet may see in it a
troop of maidens pursuing each other in space, not frivolously, but in
cadence, as if executing a mystic dance." Change the curves into
angular forms, as making the key pattern, and it will no longer flow,
but become as severe as the other was graceful. No principle gives
greater pleasure than repetition, and next to it, _alternation_.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.
Key Pattern.]
Variety is here added to the law of repetition. "There can be
repetition without alternation, but no alternation without
repetition." Alternation is, then, a succession of two objects
recurring regularly in turn; and the cadence of appearance and
disappearance gives pleasure to the senses, whether it be addressed to
taste, hearing, or sight. Alternate rhymes, and even short and long
lines, soothe the ear in verse. In form, the alternations are the more
agreeable, the more they differ. Such are, in architecture, a
succession of metopes and triglyphs on a Doric frieze, where the
circle and the straight lines relieve each other.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.
Metopes and Triglyphs.]
Symmetry. The correspondence of two parts opposite to each other is
symmetrical. "A living being, man or animal, is composed of two parts,
which appear to have been united down one central line. Without being
identical, if you folded them down the line, they would overlap and
perfectly cover each other. Man is born with the sense of symmetry, to
match his outward form; and he appreciates its existence, and
instinctively feels the want of it. Symmetry is another word for
justness of proportion. The Greeks understood by symmetry, the
condition of a body of which the members have a common measure among
themselves. We expect the two sides of a living being to correspond,
and we look for these proportions in the living body to balance each
other, which we do not expect to find in any other natural object. A
large leaf at the end of a slender stem may be as appropriate, and
give as much pleasure, as a small leaf in the same position; but a
huge hand at the end of an arm is not so agreeable to our sense of
symmetry as one of the size and outline which we naturally expect to
see.
"The mind of man expects to find, outside of himself and his own
proportions, something which he feels is proportionate and
symmetrical; in fact, he at once detects the want of it. The Japanese,
with delicacy and taste, often substitute for symmetry its
corollary--balance. The Chinese or Japanese vase will often have an
appreciable affinity and resemblance to a Greek one, each preserving a
secret balance, even in the extremest whimsicality of its composition.
Proportion is another corollary to symmetry, if it is not another word
for some of its qualities."
"Progression. In this principle are included long perspectives,
pyramidal forms in architecture, and certain processional
compositions."
"For pyramidal surfaces, such as pediments, a progressive ornament is
the fittest. All the buildings in the East, and in the ancient cities
of Central America, which are raised on pyramids of steps, show the
tendency to this species of effect in giving dignity to the buildings
placed on such platforms."
"Perspectives are highly attractive specimens of progression, which,
when made use of in the decorations of a theatre, produce delightful
illusions."
M. Blanc quotes Bernardin de St. Pierre, who says: "When the
branches of a plant are disposed in a uniform plan of diminishing
size, as in the pyramidal shape of a pine, there is progression; and
if these trees be planted in long avenues, diminishing in height and
colour, as each tree does in itself, our pleasure is redoubled,
because progression here becomes infinite. It is owing to this
feeling of infinity that we take pleasure in looking at anything that
presents progression, such as nurseries in different stages of
growth, the slopes of hills retreating to the horizon at different
levels--interminable perspectives."
All floral compositions which give the effect or impression of growth
may be included in the progressive principle. A composition which,
beginning as it were with a stem, spreads and floreates equally on
each side; thrusting outwards and upwards, and ending in a topmost
twig or bud, is governed by this principle.
Confusion. Boileau is quoted by M. Blanc as saying, "A fine disorder
is often the effect of art;" and he adds, "But before he said it,
nature had shown it." Here we must observe that the confusions or
disorders of nature are all subject to certain laws; and it is in
adopting this idea, that an artistic confusion may give us the sense
of its being ordered by, and subject to definite rules. These rules
act as the frame affects the picture, circumscribing its
irregularities, and restricting them to a certain area. "The
artist-painter is, in a small space, permitted to employ confusion,
because the art of the cabinet-maker will keep the geometrical effect
in view." When the Japanese throw their ornaments, apparently without
rule, here and there on the japanned box, they reckon on the square
shape being sufficiently marked to the eye by its shining surface and
sharp corners.
The confusion in a Japanese landscape is so beautiful that one
appreciates the innate sense of balance, which modifies the
confusion--rules and orders it.
"In the hands of the designer, confusion is only a method of rendering
order visible in a happy disorder. Here contraries meet and touch....
Admit these as the principles of all decoration, and you will find
that, by following and combining them, you may produce varieties as
numberless as the sands of the sea, and that a latent equilibrium will
reduce nearly every complication and confusion to perfect harmony."
Each of the five principles we have discussed has its corollary, which
adds to the resources of the decorative artist. These are as
follows:--To Repetition belongs harmony, or consonance; to
Alternation, contrast; to Symmetry, radiation; to Progression,
gradation; to balanced Confusion, deliberate complication.[83]
_Harmonies_ in form and in colour are produced in different
ways--sometimes by repetition with variation; sometimes by the
different parts being rather reflected on each than repeated. This
explains the harmony that may be called consonance, if I rightly
understand M. Blanc's theory.
_Contrast_ is most generally understood as a common resource in the
hands of the artist for producing strong effects; but M. Blanc
cleverly expresses the reticence needed to ensure contrast being
pleasurable, not painful. "To adorn persons or things," he says, "is
not simply for the purpose of causing them to be conspicuous; it is
that they may be admired. It is not simply to draw attention to them,
but that they may be regarded with feelings of pleasure.... If
contrast be needed, let it be used as the means of rendering the whole
more powerful, brilliant, and striking. For instance, if orange is
intended to predominate in a decoration, let blue be mingled with it,
but sparingly. Let the complementary colour be its auxiliary, and not
its rival." Contrasts are always unpleasant, if the two forces
struggle with each other for pre-eminence, whether it be in form or in
colour. The rule to be observed in all ornamental design is this:
"that contrasting objects, instead of disturbing unity, should assist
it by giving most effect to that we wish to bring forward and
display."
_Radiation_ belongs to the principle of symmetry, starting from a
centre from which all lines diverge, and to which all lines point.
This is to be found throughout nature, from the rays of the sun to the
petals of the daisy. All decorative art employs and illustrates it.
"_Gradation_ in colour, as in form, is not quite synonymous with
progression, but expresses a series of adroitly managed transitions.
The English intermingle in their decoration, colours very finely
blended; nor do they find any transition too delicate. This, as in all
principles of ornament, has to be employed according to the feelings
intended to be produced on the mind of the spectator--whether for
absolute contrast or for imperceptible progression, when the tenderest
colours are needed."
_Complication_ is illustrated by M. Blanc, by a quotation from
"Ziegler."[84] "Complication is another aspect of the art which owns
the same sentiment as that expressed by Dædalus in his labyrinth,
Solomon in his mysterious seal, the Greeks in their interlacing and
winding ornaments, the Byzantines, the Moors, and the architects of
our cathedrals in their finest works. Intertwined mosaics, and
intersection of arches and ribs, all spring from complication."
To follow the interlacing line of an ornament, gives the mind the
pleasure of untying the Gordian knot, without cutting it. It gives the
excitement of curiosity, pursuit, and discovery. "When we see these
traceries so skilfully plaited, in which straight lines and curves
intermingle, cross, branch out, disappear and recur, we experience a
high pleasure in unravelling a puzzle which at first, perhaps,
appeared to be undecipherable; and in acknowledging that a latent
arrangement may be recognized in what at first, and at a distance,
seems an inextricable confusion." The Celtic, Moorish, and Gothic
styles illustrate and are explained by these remarks; and they are
well worthy the attention of the designer.
Having so freely borrowed from M. Blanc's chapter on the general laws
of ornamentation, I will finish my quotations with the words with
which he concludes: "There is no decoration in the works of nature or
the inventions of men which does not owe its birth to one of the
original principles here enumerated, viz. Repetition, Alternation,
Symmetry, Progression, and Balanced Confusion; or else to one of their
secondary causes, consonance, contrast, radiation, gradation, and
complication; or lastly, to a combination of these different elements,
which all finally lose themselves in a primordial cause--the origin of
the movements of the universe--ORDER."[85]
The extracts from M. Blanc's works I have carefully placed between
commas, being most anxious to express my obligation to him for his
carefully formulated epitome of the laws of design. But though I have
largely quoted, there remains still much most interesting and
suggestive matter, which I recommend the reader to seek in his book.
Though we should call to our aid the general laws of design for all
art, we must select from them what is specially appropriate for the
needs of our craft. From the art of needlework we should eliminate
as much as possible all ideas of _roundness_, all variety of surface
and effects of light and shadow and contrasting colours. Unity,
softness, grace, refinement, brightness, cheerfulness, pleasant
suggestions,--these should be the objects in view when we design the
panels for the drawing-room or boudoir, the hangings for the bed, or
the cover for the table--harmony which will satisfy the eye, thoughts
that shall please the mind.
The objects in nature that give us the most unalloyed pleasure--birds
and flowers--are those that from all time have served as the materials
for decorative design, and therefore have been moulded into the
traditional patterns which have descended to us from the earliest
times. Design must follow the scientific laws of art, and shape the
variations of traditional forms from which we cannot escape. In our
present search after these inner truths, I repeat that we have nothing
to do with the rules of painting, sculpture, and architecture, or any
other of the secondary arts, such as wood carving, metal work, &c.;
these having each their own intrinsic principles, which must be worked
out as corollaries from the general laws of composition which govern
all Aryan art.[86]
It is curious that in drawing on the flat, in ancient frescoes, there
appear to be no acknowledged rules of perspective--hardly more in
Pompeii, than on early Chinese screens and plates; or than later in
the Bayeux tapestries. And yet the Greeks, with their unerring
instinct, actually made use of false architectural perspectives to add
to the effects of height and depth in their colonnaded buildings.[87]
They sensibly diminished the circumference of the columns, and used
other means in their designs for this purpose. They understood the
principle, but they did not carry it into flat decorative art. They
did not attempt, when they painted a landscape on the wall, to do more
than recall the idea they were sketching; and never thought of vying
in scientific or naturalistic imitation with the real landscape they
saw through the window; they did not wish to interfere with the effect
of the statue, or the human figures grouped in front of it, to which
the wall served as a background. Those threw shadows and cast lights;
but in the flat there were no shadows, no perspective--all was
flat.[88] We must draw from this the deduction that the Greeks held
that flatness was an essential quality of wall decoration (except in
friezes) as well as of all textile ornament; and for every reason we
must accept this flatness as a general law for designs in embroidery.
In hangings and dress materials, flatness is more agreeable than a
complicated shaded design, especially when it is further confused by
folds, disturbing and interrupting the flow of the lines of the
pattern.
The reader will perceive that the laws of composition for textiles
quoted from M. Blanc, apply perfectly to designs on the flat, and to
outlined sketches in black and white, as well as to the most
elaborate compositions for pictures, either historical or "genre."
They are rules which should be understood and employed by the man who
draws for a wall-paper or an area railing; and certainly by him who
makes patterns for our schools of design.
It may therefore be laid down as a general rule, that all designs for
embroidery should be considered first as outlined drawings, covering a
flat surface, and then filled in with colour. The outlines should as
little as possible overlap one another, as flatness is one of the
first objects to be remembered; and this, of course, will be disturbed
by the parts passing over or under each other. Indian designs in
flowers have invariably a wonderful flatness, in the absence of all
light and shadow; joined to a naturalistic suggestion of detail, which
is accounted for by their traditional mode of copying from nature. The
branch or blossom to be copied, is laid on the ground and pegged down
with care, to eliminate every variety of surface, and every branch and
twig so arranged that they may not cross or touch each other. This
conventional composition is then drawn, and every natural distinction
in the form carefully copied. I would suggest that this idea should be
accepted as useful for imitation among ourselves in certain
conventional compositions of vegetable forms. Perhaps it is our Aryan
ancestry that has given us a prevailing taste for such decorations;
and it is worth while to consider how best to manipulate them.[89]
Clinging as we do to these floral designs, we can see that they are
the only ones that bear repetition, whether covering the surface of
the material in the rich irregularity of the flowers in a field, or
conventionalized into a form or a pattern.
The eye is never shocked or fatigued by such repetitions in orderly
confusion, or trained by the hand into artistic shapes or meanderings
of tracery. But when embroidery or weaving attempts to represent
animals or typical human figures, repetition immediately becomes
tiresome. A Madonna surrounded by angels, comes in badly, repeated
over and over again as a pattern, broken up by folds, cut up by a
seam, dislocated in the joining, and repeated in tiers. Such a design
is figured in Auberville's book.[90] The drawing is beautiful, but by
repetition it becomes ridiculous. I therefore deprecate this kind of
ornament in textile work. For this reason embroidery, which can be
fitted to each space that is to be covered, is preferable to woven
designs, however richly or perfectly they may be carried out.
Another class of design, which must be considered apart, is the
conventional-geometrical, of which the special distinction appears to
be that it consists of echoes or fragments of what we have seen
elsewhere. These conventional patterns are often merely the _detritus_
of past styles or motives crushed and placed by time in a sort of
kaleidoscope. They remind one of the little wreaths of broken shells
and coloured sea-weeds left on the sands by the retiring waves after a
storm, and are sometimes full of beauty and suggestion. (Pl. 17.) We
trace in these fragmentary patterns forgotten links with different
civilizations; and we ponder on the historical events which have
brought them into juxtaposition. These kaleidoscope patterns are to be
seen in Persian and Turkish carpets of the present day, and we find,
on examination, little bits which can only be the remnants of a
broken-up motive, probably as much lost now to the designer who
inherits the traditional form, as to us who can only see the vague
results.
I illustrate this remark by giving the border of a modern Persian
carpet which has certainly had Egyptian ancestry. The boat, the
beetle, and the prehistoric cross are to be found in it.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.
Persian Carpet.]
Many conventional patterns of to-day are descendants of the
lattice-work of Chinese art, and of the zigzags, lines, and discs of
barbarous primitive ornamentation.
The traceries in Indian stone windows show some of the most charming
geometrical forms, and are akin to the Persian and Russian modes of
composing conventional patterns. They appear on very ancient metal
work, and are the motives of all the embroideries in the Greek islands
and the principalities, and of the linen embroideries of Russia. Their
Byzantine origin gave its impress to the European schools of the
Middle Ages, and the pattern-books of Germany and Venice of the
sixteenth century are full of them. They are best suited for the
mosaic stitches, and, kept in their places as decoration, they are
useful for carpets and borders.
It should be impressed on our young artists, that, in composing their
designs, they must be influenced by the materials to be employed, and
the purpose for which the decoration is intended. Thus in textile
design for dress and hangings (excepting for tapestries) the fact must
never be lost sight of that they will be subject to disturbance by
crossing folds and crumplings, which will break up the lines of the
pattern. It is therefore evident that a design fitted for a rigid
material in a fixed place, such as an architectural decoration in
wood, stone, or stucco, must be subject to a treatment different from
that which befits an embroidered curtain or panel.
Stone and wood, being materials of uniform colour, require all the
help of recessed shadows and projections to catch the light; whereas
in textiles, form is assisted by colour, and smoothness of surface is
a primary consideration. The strongly accentuated design for
wood-carving becomes poor and lifeless when deprived of its essential
conditions and _raison d'être_, and the pattern which looks charming,
outlined and filled in with colour, could be hardly seen incised on a
flat stone surface. This seems a truism, but the neglect of these
plain axioms causes many mistakes in decorative art. Mr. Redgrave
says: "A design must be bad which applies the same treatment to
different materials." He further says: "The position of the ornament
requires special consideration. The varied quantities, bolder relief,
and coarser execution are not only allowable, but absolutely
necessary, at heights considerably above the eye. Moreover, each
fabric has its own peculiar lustre, texture, &c. Thus, in the use of
hangings, curtains, &c., the design might be suitable in silk, and
coarse or dull in woollen."[91]
Here I venture to differ from Mr. Redgrave. Perspective is as much to
be respected in decoration as in pictures, near to the eye; and the
gradation in size and colour, as the ornament travels up into height
or fades into distance, is a phase of pleasure which should not be
checked by enlargement of form or reinforcement of colouring.
It is hardly necessary to warn our artists against a sort of design
which is conventional, yet had its own meaning in the beginning. This
is to be found in Indian carvings and embroideries of a certain date,
or imitating the works of that distant period. It proceeded from a
hideous worship of monstrous Dravidian divinities. Their statues are
to be found, surrounded by coarsely designed patterns, in the temple
architecture of the first and second centuries. Its characteristics
are idols in niches or shrines, distorted in form or attitude; foliage
of unnatural, twisted plants, added to the recurring of the lotus and
tree of life; or animals destroying each other, or kneeling in worship
to the idols. These ugly designs are purely conventional. Fergusson
suggests that they were introduced into Mexico in the fourth or fifth
centuries A.D. by Buddhism.[92]
Those many-armed, sometimes many-faced divinities drove out the
beautiful Aryan types, which, however, resumed their sway when the
wave of the Renaissance flowed back to India, and was remodelled by
Oriental taste to the lovely designs we find in the Taj Mahal.
In M. Blanc's classification of ornament, he has placed Gothic design
under the head of deliberate complication. The whole of the Gothic
decorations, which are a gradual growth in one direction, arose from
the study of interlacing boughs and stems, employed as the enrichment
of the newly-grown forms of the vaulted roofs. The possibilities of
great size and height covered these designs and inspired all their
decoration; and the effect of reiteration and long recurring lines in
perspective was essentially the motive of these avenues in stone.[93]
Here enter the principles of repetition and progression, and you will
find how carefully the designers of the twelfth, thirteenth, and
fourteenth centuries worked up to these ideas. You will see in their
embroideries, shining figures or pictures in gold, silver, and
coloured silks, shimmering on dark velvet backgrounds, each design
terminating a perspective of architectural forms which enhances their
brilliancy. The most effective, probably, were generally employed for
the adornment of the high altar, so as to be seen from a great
distance. The smaller and less distinct and more delicate ornaments
were reserved for the side chapels or for smaller churches, where such
distant effects were inappropriate. But the motives of ecclesiastical
embroidery will be discussed in a future chapter.
All attempts at pictorial art are a mistake in textiles. It does not
enter into such designs; and when by chance it is allowed to be so
used, it is an error of judgment, and only exhibits a laborious and
useless ingenuity. It is no longer an artistic delineation of a
natural object, but becomes an imitation of another way of rendering
such objects.
Mr. Redgrave says that pictorial art in our manufactures is one of our
great mistakes. "The picture must be independent of the material, the
thought alone should govern it; whereas in decoration the material
must be one of the suggestors of the thought, its use must govern the
design."
Perhaps it will appear to my readers that here I repeat, in different
forms, what has been said in a previous chapter on the history of
style. I think that it is better to do so, than to omit to show where
style and design must accompany each other. Style, without any
reference to design, would be but a barren subject; and design,
without reference to style, would become lawless, and soon be lost in
the mazes of bad taste and mannerism. Both subjects are of so large
and important a nature that I do not attempt to do more than point out
how, in their history and their influence, they belong to the craft of
embroidery.
Such influences belong to all art; and though I am anxious to confine
myself to only one section of it, I find it difficult to resist the
temptation to generalize and stray from the prescribed path, when
large and important views are opened on every side, as I travel on
from point to point.
In sketching the history of design, as well as I may in so short a
space, it is only considered in the light in which it illustrates our
craft.
I repeat that the design should be informed by the motive which
suggested it, and by the need which has called it forth; and it must
be moulded to the space it has to fill, and the position it will
occupy. The design must be modified into different outward forms,
according to whether it is to be fitted to the edge of a building
against the sky; to a high panelled wall; to be applied as a frieze,
or round the capital of a pillar; to the embroidered cover of an
altar, or the silken hangings of a bed, or the framed flat spaces on
the walls of a saloon. In fact, "intention," "place," and "shape" are
necessary motives and limits to a flat design.
Leaving aside all architectural ornamentation, and adhering only to my
own subject, embroidery, I will limit my observations to the three
purposes here suggested. Firstly, as the central effect of the holiest
part of a church; secondly, in the domestic and comfortable room, to
be adorned and made cheerful; and thirdly, as decking the refined and
gay saloon or banqueting-hall.
To the church we should devote the most splendid and effective
contrasts, to blaze unframed against dark empty backgrounds, or amidst
stone and marble decorations; something set apart from its
surroundings, and asserting that separation, is the desirable effect
to be attained.
A totally different set of rules come into play when we have to select
the decorations of a bedroom. Here a background does not exist. We are
surrounded by four walls very near to the eye, so that perspectives
are a secondary interest, if indeed they can claim any consideration;
severe and magnificent ornamentation is out of place, except perhaps
in that time-honoured institution--to be found in every great house
possessing a suite of reception-rooms--the State bedroom, where the
display of hangings and embroideries was the first motive of the
decoration of the past, clothing and garnishing the bare spaces on the
lofty walls. Space and separateness are not the object or aim of the
bedroom of to-day; but lightness, snugness, and cheerful comfort, with
which the design of the textile ornaments have much to do. This will
in a later chapter come under the head of furniture.
For the saloon we may accept any splendour of rich and costly design,
and the variously shaped panels assist in suggesting the form of the
decoration. The plain or moulded panels, called in Italian "targhe,"
or shields, seem to be descended from the actual shields of gold which
Solomon hung on the walls of the king's house in the Forest of
Lebanon.[94] The motive was apparently Tyrian, and traces of it are
also to be found in Assyrian sculpture.[95]
The practice of framing the design gives opportunities for change of
materials, colour, and pattern, permitting the employment of different
flat surfaces laid on each other, and scope for endless enrichment;
the framed picture being, perhaps, the central culminating attraction,
crowning, as it were, the textile ornamentation.
I merely give these instances as illustrating the rule that we have
more than once laid down, that a design cannot fitly be employed
except in the position for which the artist has composed it. I will,
however, add that though it is right to give due consideration to the
preparation of each work for its intended use, yet we often have
charming suggestions offered to us, by the chance acquisition of a
beautiful artistic specimen, which finds its own place and
accommodates itself to the surrounding colours and forms. These are
the happy accidents of which the cultivated artistic eye takes
advantage, adding them to the experience which may help those who are
seeking for the rules of harmony and contrast in design.
Research into the mysteries and principles of design applies to woven
arabesques and patterns, and must include machine-made textile
ornament, and all decorative needlework. It is, in fact, the fabric
for the million which most especially needs the careful study of
guiding rules. When a plant sends forth hundreds of winged, wind-blown
seeds, like the thistle, it spreads itself over wide fields, and is
more mischievous than a more noxious growth, such as the deadly
nightshade, which only drops an occasional berry into the earth. So a
common cheap chintz or carpet, with a poor, gaudy, motiveless design,
carries a bad style into thousands of homes wherever our commerce
extends; disgracing us, while it corrupts the taste of other nations.
In addressing our young designers, I would remind them that in art the
race is not always to the strong. Prudence and educated powers,
thoughtfulness and study, often carry us where unassisted and
uncultivated genius has signally failed. Even such facilities as are
afforded by the acquirement of freehand drawing, as taught in our
schools of art, are not to be despised. The workman should thoroughly
master his tools, or they will hamper him. The first step towards
design is that you should learn to draw. After this, appreciation and
observation are necessary, and due balance in outline and colour
should be studied; and all this is as much needed in drawing a
pattern as in composing a picture. The difference lies in our art
being only decorative, wherein beauty and fitness are to be
remembered, and nothing else; whereas the picture may have to record
historical facts, or to inspire poetical thoughts--to awe or to touch
the beholder. A decorative design is only asked to delight him.
Intelligent delight, however, can only be evoked by intelligent art,
and to this, decoration must be subjected.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] The earliest art we know (the bone-scratching) is
naturalistic and imitative. We are unaware of any
attempt at a pattern of the prehistoric period. The lake
cities are of so vague a date that their ornaments on
pottery are puzzling rather than instructive. The
earliest Hellenic pottery was scratched or painted.
Cuttle-fish, repeated over and over again, are among the
earliest attempts at a pattern, by repetition of a
natural object. Naturalism soon fell into symbolism,
which appropriated it and all art, and the upheaval of a
new culture was needed to lift it once more into the
region of individual creation. See Boyd Dawkins' "Early
Man in Britain;" also General Pitt Rivers's Museum of
Prehistoric Art, lately presented to the University of
Oxford.
[74] See Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain."
[75] "I hope, indeed, to enable them" (the members of
his class) "to read, above all, the minds of
semi-barbarous nations in the only language by which
their feelings were capable of expression; and those
whose temper inclines them to take a pleasure in mythic
symbols, will not probably be induced to quit the
profound fields of investigation which early art will
open to them, and which belong to it alone. For this is
a general law, that supposing the intellect of the
workman the same, the more imitatively complete his art,
the less he will mean by it, and the ruder the symbol,
the deeper the intention."--Ruskin's "Oxford Lectures on
Art," 1870, p. 19.
[76] See Isaac Taylor's "History of the Alphabet."
[77] Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, 1879, p. 67.
[78] Now there is a point of view in which we may regard
the imitative art of all races, the most civilized as
well as the most barbarous--in reference to the power of
correctly representing animal and vegetable forms, such
as they exist in nature. The perfection of such
imitation depends not so much on the manual dexterity of
the artist as on his intelligence and comprehension of
the type of the essential qualities of the form he
desires to represent. See Ch. T. Newton's "Essays on Art
and Archæology," p. 17.
[79] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians."
[80] Plato's Second Book of Laws, p. 656.
[81] "The religion of the Greeks penetrated into their
institutions and daily life. The myth was not only
embodied in the sculptures of Pheidias on the Parthenon,
and portrayed in the paintings of Polygnotus in the Stoa
Poikile; it was repeated in a more compendious and
abbreviated form on the fictile vase of the Athenian
household, on the coin circulated in the market-place,
on the mirror in which the Aspasia of the day beheld her
charms. Every domestic implement was made the vehicle of
figurative language, or fashioned into a
symbol."--Newton's "Essays on Art and Archæology," p.
23.
[82] "Art in Ornament and Dress," by M. Charles Blanc,
formerly Director of the French Institute. Eng. Trans.,
Chapman and Hall, London.
[83] See Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," p.
31.
[84] Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," p. 43.
[85] Charles Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress," pp.
43, 45, 46.
[86] Chinese design shows naturalistic art arrested and
perpetuated on totally different principles. Their
representations are all equally allied to their art of
picture-painting, whether on china with the brush, or on
textiles with the needle. The flatness of the picture is
still preserved by their ignorance of perspective. When
they attempted to express different distances, they did
so by placing them one above another, so that in reading
the composition the eye first takes in the distant
horizon; next below it, the middle distance; and being
thus prepared, it comes down to the actual living
foreground, on which rests the dramatic action and
interest addressed to the spectator. The Chinese
understood many of the secrets of art, yet never
achieved perspective.
[87] See Mr. Penrose's work on the measurements of the
Parthenon at Athens. Published by the Society of the
Dilettanti.
[88] Marked outlines in embroidery add to the flatness,
and enable us to omit cast shadows. In this it differs
entirely from pictorial art, where one of the great
objects is to avoid flatness.
[89] Semper's theory, already mentioned, is that textile
design was certainly flat; that it was the first form of
decoration, and was followed by bas-relief, which could
not at once rid itself of the original motive.
[90] Auberville's "Ornamentation des Tissus" (eleventh
century).
[91] Redgrave's "Manual of Design," pp. 43-45.
[92] This idolatrous type was introduced into England by
the Buccaneers, and reflected on our carvings and
embroideries of the time of James I., slightly modified
by the Italian Renaissance of that period. As this sort
of vulgar ornamentation has once prevailed, let us
protect ourselves against its possible recurrence.
[93] While making this passing allusion to the theory
that the origin of all Gothic decoration is mainly
founded on the motive of interlacing stems and foliage,
I wish to guard myself against being supposed in any way
to argue against other beginnings, whenever they can be
proved. I have said before that most decorations have a
mixed ancestry. But when I see single or clustered
columns starting from the ground--spreading at the base
like the gnarled root, and growing till they culminate
in crowns of foliage, forming symmetrical capitals, like
the first clusters of leaves on a strong young
sapling--then the branches spreading and interlacing,
only checked at equal intervals by a lovely leaf or
burgeon, till they meet in blossoms on the highest point
of the arch,--I cannot but adhere to the old idea that
rows of trees meeting overhead suggested Gothic ornament
as well as Gothic Architecture. The Spanish or Moresque
Gothic was overloaded with leaves and flowers, and the
German Gothic was enriched with fantastic trees and
flowers, each according to its national taste and
fashion. A Gothic tree is a very conventional plant; and
generally carries only one leaf on each branch. I have
given a specimen of archaic trees from the Bayeux
tapestry. They are typical of the Gothic botanical idea
and style down to the fourteenth century. (Fig. 13.)
Nor is this interpretation of Gothic design other than a
result of its descent from the Egyptian ancestral
motive, where the temple columns represented the single
stem of the lotus with one large blossom for its
capital, or else a bundle of stems of the lotus, palm,
and convolvulus flowering together into a beautiful
cluster. Even the gigantic columns of the great
hypæthral hall at Karnac are only a stupendous
exaggeration of the same stalk and flower motive. From
these were derived the forms of the early Greek
column--soon enriched by substituting the Acanthus for
the Lotus, but often retaining the convolvulus.
[94] 1 Kings x.; Ezek. xxvii. 10, 11. See Stanley's
"Lectures on the Jewish Church."
[95] Layard's "Nineveh and its Remains," vol. ii. p.
388; Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," vol. ii. p. 2.
CHAPTER III.
PATTERNS.
In the last chapter on design I have described patterns as the
examples or illustrations of the art of decoration, and as being the
records of the motives which produced them in different eras. My
present object is to class and define patterns as decorative art.
It is argued by some archæologists that the recurrence of a pattern,
for instance the "wave," over the whole world, proves that it really
came from many sources, under the same conditions of life and art;
showing also that a pattern is a thing that, like a flower, must grow,
if the culture of the race be equal. I do not believe this. We can
nearly always trace the family history of a pattern to its original
motive; and in the very few cases where we are unable to do so, it is
hardly necessary to cover our ignorance by stretching the fashionable
theory of development over the few instances that are as yet
unaccountable.
I have been repeatedly asked to procure or to invent a new pattern.
Such is my respect for the decorative achievement called a "pattern,"
that I cannot hope for the moment of inspiration in which I might
create such a thing. If any one has in his lifetime invented a
pattern, he has done something truly remarkable, and as rare as is a
really original thought on any subject. Patterns are commonly, like
men, the result of many centuries of long descent from ancestors of
remote antiquity.
Individuals differ from their ancestors through inherited and
surrounding conditions, and through the modifying powers of evolution,
climate, and education. So also a pattern has, besides its ancestry
and descent, the unconscious mark or seal of its day; and it is easy
to trace whence it comes, if we set ourselves to examine the style of
it seriously.
The patterns of which we can nearly always name at once the
nationality, are the Assyrian, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Hindu
(Aryan and Turanian), the Persian, the Archaic and the highly
developed Grecian; the Roman, the Celtic, the Byzantine, the Arabian,
the Gothic, the Renaissance, the Spanish Plâteresque, the Louis
Quatorze, and those of the art of Central America.
The pattern cannot exist without design. Design means intention and
motive. Many of the motives in Oriental textile decorations are
suggestive of intention, as is shown by their names. Among Indian
patterns we meet with "ripples of silver," "sunshine and shade,"
"pigeon's eye," "peacock's neck," &c.[96]
Patterns must be classed either by their dates, when ascertained, or
according to their style, which must generally be allowed to cover
vast areas and periods irregularly drifting down, overlapping, or
being absorbed or effaced by the circumstances they have encountered.
Only when a national style has been obstinately fixed, as in China,
and bound down by strict laws and religious formulas, suited exactly
to the people for whom they were evolved out of the national life, and
imprinted on it by their own lawgivers, philosophers, and priests; and
neither imposed by conquerors, nor swept over by the waves of a new
civilization;--only in such cases can we find a continuity of
decorative art which leads us far back on its traces. Then, on this
long track, we learn how little, man, the decorating animal, has
really advanced in his powers of creation. He has gone more than once
to a certain point, and has then either been petrified by law and
custom--turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, because he has
looked back instead of striving to advance, or else through poverty or
satiety has fallen into the last stage of the Seven Ages, "_sans_
eyes, _sans_ teeth--_sans_ everything." When what is good is neither
perceived nor desired, then the arts, small and great, dwindle and
disappear, and nothing remains to show that they have been, but a
name, and perhaps a pattern.
Chinese design is the most striking example of the first of these
phases; and the extinction of all classical art with the fall of
Paganism in Rome is an instance of the second.
In the chapter on style it is said that a pattern is as ineffaceable
as a word. But one will occasionally disappear for a time, till the
ruin that covers it is cleared away, and the lost design recovered and
employed simply as a decoration, if it is beautiful; or perhaps fitted
with a new meaning, and so it makes a fresh start.
The importance of patterns, when traceable to their origin, as a means
of investigating historical influences cannot be too much insisted on,
and their history is full of suggestion as a guide to the decorator.
Much has been argued and much ascertained from the evidence of these
fragments of national civilizations, showing how an idea or a myth has
been, as it were, engrafted into the essence of another national idea,
partly altering what it finds, and changing to fit itself to its new
surroundings. Eastern patterns have travelled far, and lasted long;
and continue still to hold the fancy, and exercise the ingenuity, of
the artist and decorator. When we find a pattern of which the
nationality is strongly marked, it is worth our while to ascertain its
date and history, which will help us to recognize cognate design
wherever we may meet it. However, this is often not to be done; and
then it is best to set these puzzling examples aside, and to await
patiently the elucidation, which may come from some source of which we
are as yet ignorant.
In very early art we have little remaining but patterns, on which we
may found theories by tracing them home to their original source. The
oldest patterns had each a meaning and an intention. When a pattern
has been enduring and far spread, it is because it was originally the
expression of an idea or a symbol.
In the earliest dawn of civilization, the arts were the repositories
of the myths and mysteries of national faiths. Embroidery was one of
these arts, and the border which edged the garment of a divinity, the
veil which covered the grave of a loved one, or the flower-buds and
fruit which fringed the hangings and curtains in the sanctuary, each
had a meaning, and therefore a use. These symbolical designs and forms
were constantly reproduced; and all human ingenuity was exercised in
reforming, remodelling, and adding perfect grace to the expression of
the same idea.
* * * * *
Patterns may be ranged under four heads--the Primitive, the
Naturalistic, the Conventional, and the Geometrical.
The primitive are those of which we know not the ancestry, and rarely
can guess the motive. To us they are, in general, simply rude
decorations. The naturalistic are those which are borrowed from
natural forms, and are either only imitative, or else convey some
hidden meaning. The conventional are those which, by long descent,
have come to be accepted simply as ornamental art, with or without
reference to an original motive, now lost. The geometrical or
symmetrical are founded on form only, and in so far resemble our
experience of the primitive; they express no meaning, and only serve
to satisfy the eye by their balance and their ingenuity.
PRIMITIVE.
The first patterned forms with which we are acquainted are the
primitive. They are found in all parts of the inhabited world. In our
present ignorance as to the beginnings of the scattered tribes of men,
we cannot judge if these are the remains of an earlier art or the
first germs of a new one. Of one thing there is no doubt: this
primitive decoration consists entirely of pattern; that is to say, of
the repetition of certain (to us) inexpressive forms, which by
reiteration assume importance and in some degree express beauty--the
beauty of what Monsieur Blanc calls "cadence."
After these first unintelligible forms, which simply by repetition
become accepted patterns, come those called the Prehistoric, of which
we know or guess something as to their original meaning, and which,
having been reduced from the hieroglyphic-symbolical to the
conventional, have thus crystallized themselves, by constant use, into
a pattern. Such, for instance, is the simplest form of the "wave"
pattern, which in very early art was a representation of water.
The prehistoric water or wave patterns had other forms; for instance,
zigzags, upright or horizontal, and undulating lines which are
intelligible as expressing smooth or rough water. In general, however,
the primitive and prehistoric patterns convey no idea, and consist, as
we have said elsewhere, of lines, straight or wavy, sometimes
intersected; of angles, zigzags, groups of dots, rings and little
discs, and crosses of the Swastika shape. (Plate 10.)
[Illustration: Pl. 10.
WAVE PATTERNS.
1, 4, 9, 12, 13. Greek Wave Patterns. 2. Key or Mæander, Greek
Wave. 3. Greek Broken Wave. 5, 6, 7. Egyptian Smooth and
Rippling Water Patterns. 8. Mediæval Wave. 10, 11, 14.
Assyrian. 15. Persian or Greek (from Glass Bowl, British
Museum). 16. English Waves (Durham Embroideries.)]
Where shall the tartan be placed? It is certainly primitive, and
apparently had no intention beyond that of employing as many coloured
threads as there were dyes, so as to form the brightest contrasts, or
else to be as invisible as possible either in the sunshine or in the
shade. The Gauls brought this kind of weaving with them from the East,
and probably invented the pattern, if such a motiveless design can be
so called. It had its classical name, "Polymita," and was admired in
Rome when newly imported, as being something original and barbaric.
The Romans found it in Britain, and Boadicea wore a tartan dress on
the day of her defeat. Perhaps even then fashions came from France,
and it may have been her best tunic from across the Channel. This
fabric may have been imported by the Belgic Gauls, and was so easily
woven on house looms, that it became in time the feudal dress of the
Scottish tribes and clans, and the colours were ingeniously arranged
to show the most different effects. The tartan has always been a
resource for the woollen trade, and the fashion constantly recurs in
France, either from sentiment or the actually inherited Gallic taste;
but it remains a primitive pattern, and nothing can make it artistic.
No embroidery can soften the constantly recurring angles, and only
fringes can be employed to decorate a tartan costume. Pliny tells us
of the ingenuity of Zeuxis, who, to show his wealth, had his name
embroidered in gold in the squared compartments of his outer
garment.[97]
Primitive patterns still linger in many savage nations, but especially
throughout uncivilized Africa. Curious to say, the very ancient
fossilized early art of Egypt does not assist us to trace it back to
a prehistoric style, though it may lead us into prehistoric times.
NATURALISTIC.
The phases of the naturalistic patterns are constantly recurring. Art
is always tending to realism, in the laudable effort to reach the
motive without the shackles of rules. Each phase has fallen a prey to
symbolism, to conventionalism, or to mannerism, which last symptom
marks the decline and fall of art. We shall find these phases
everywhere in the design of patterns.
Naturalism has always striven, by simple repetition, to reduce to
patterns the forms of flowers, fruits, animals, birds, insects,
reptiles, and other natural objects.
In flower patterns the simplest forms by repetition make sometimes the
richest patterns, and the most effective. (Plate 11, Nos. 1 and 2.)
It is remarkable that one very beautiful class of natural objects is
rarely employed in ancient decoration[98]--shells and corals. The
barbarous tribes of the West Coast of Africa alone seem to have
appreciated their forms, and added them to their small repertory of
naturalistic patterns. They do not appear in any European or Asiatic
textiles till the seventeenth century, when shells were much used in
the decorations of the reigns of Queen Anne and Louis Quatorze.
The first change from naturalism into the conventional was through
symbolism, and belonged to the time when unwritten thought was first
recorded by pictured signs, which then ceased to be merely decoration.
We find that the naturalism of the earliest Egyptians and Asiatics was
soon entirely absorbed by the effort to express some hidden meaning or
mystery, and then to fit the representation to a special place and
purpose, and to restore it, as it were, to decorative art.
[Illustration: Pl. 11.
1. Persian Flower Border.
2. Egyptian Border, composed of Head-dress of the god Nile
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians").
3. Assyrian.
4. Assyrian.]
The lotus and the patterns founded on its forms, and the many
emblematic meanings attached to them, are notable examples of these
transmutations in style and intention, and of the value given to their
intention and use in Egypt and India, where each development was
immediately crystallized into a recognized pattern, and given its
place and language. It received its "_mot d'ordre_," and continued to
act upon it long after the meaning was forgotten or out of date.
The rolling pattern which had so long represented only the "wave," was
given to the really straight stem of the lotus, and its blossom,
substituted for the wave's crest, now filled many a frieze in Indian
temple architecture; whereas the lotus stems in Egypt were still bound
in sheaves to form columns, and the flowers, buds, and leaves spread
and blossomed into capitals. Here we have symbolism and
conventionalized naturalism, all combined, showing how their
principles, though quite distinct, can mix and unite. The conventional
form often superseded and effaced the naturalistic, and became the
sign of an idea, or the hieroglyphic picture of a thing; immovable and
unalterable in Egypt, where every effort was made to secure eternity
on earth, but continually returning to naturalism in India, where the
Aryan tendency, with the assistance of the "Code of Manu," always
recurred to the restoration of the ancient naturalistic motive.
In the India Museum we may see the "wave" motive converted into a
lotus pattern by rolling the long stems, and filling up the spaces
between with the full-faced blossom. Sometimes the pattern is started
by the figure of an elephant, from whose mouth the stem of the flower
of the sun proceeds. This occurs so often that it must originally
have had a meaning. Sometimes the sacred convolvulus takes the place
of the lotus. (Plate 12.)
On an Egyptian mural painting are seen parties of men snaring ducks
among papyrus and lotus plants. These are entirely conventional, and
are, in fact, a sort of recognized hieroglyphic representing the idea
of a lotus.[99]
The lotus was the accepted emblem of the sun, and reduced to a
many-leaved radiating pattern may be found as an architectural
ornament on the outside of the Buddhist "topes," of which the models
are on the staircase of the British Museum.[100] (Plate 13.)
We have Sir G. Birdwood's authority for believing that, though the
actual lotus was a native of India, and carried thence to Egypt, its
decorative use as a pattern was Egyptian, and so returned to India.
Both accepted it as their "sunflower."[101]
[Illustration: Pl. 12.
1. Indian Rolling Lotus Pattern.
2, 3. Indian Lotus Patterns.
4, 5. Egyptian Lotus Patterns.
6. Sacred Convolvulus. Indian (seventeenth century).]
[Illustration: Pl. 13.
1, 2. Indian Designs of Assyrian Daisy and Egyptian Lotus.
3. Vitruvian Scroll. Vignola. Architecture.]
Can it be our Aryan descent which induces in us the earnest adoration,
in our art of to-day, of our northern prototype of the sun's emblem? I
fear that we must acknowledge that our æsthetic worship of our
sunflowers is somewhat false and affected. Æstheticism is not art.
Sunflowers, painted or embroidered as decoration, do not "take" if
they are ordered and ranged, and reduced to a pattern like those of
Egypt. They must be naturalistic, and, if possible, remind us of a
disorderly cottage garden; whereas in India they were adapted
from nature on fixed principles, which immediately reduced them to
the conventional.
[Illustration: Sunflower pattern, R. S. A. N.
XIX. Century]
I give an illustration of a Gothic sunflower resembling a transfigured
rose; and another of an ordered naturalistic sunflower pattern, from a
design of the Royal School of Art Needlework. (Plate 14.)
[Illustration: Fig. 9.
Gothic Sunflower. From Christ's College Chapel, Cambridge.]
I have given this account of the patterns founded on the lotus, as we
can almost from this distance of time take a bird's-eye view of its
rise in naturalism, its spread, dispersion, and its crystallization
into conventional forms; also we can trace how the lotus patterns of
Indian art have resulted, when accepted in Europe, in nothing but the
rolling wave, carrying flower forms which no longer represent a lotus;
and how the lotus bud and flower pattern has become in time the
classical "egg and tongue;" which, however, may have resulted also
from a combination of other motives.
Representations of animal forms are sometimes very remarkable in
phases of naturalism. The few remains of Celtic art that have survived
are entirely animal, or very nearly so. In their stone, gold, silver,
and bronze work, and in illuminated MSS., we meet with only animal
forms; never a flower or a leaf.
Besides the Indo-Chinese patterns in Celtic art, which suggest the
Chinese lattice-work (so strongly insisted on by Semper as a constant
motive), we also find in all their decorations compartments containing
involved patterns of cords or strings knitted or plaited, suggesting
the entrails of animals, which by these hunting people were consulted
as being mysteriously prophetic of approaching events, especially
success or failure in the chase, and impending warlike raids.[102]
There is no other way of accounting for these designs, which are
peculiar to the race, unless we believe they always represent snakes.
(Pl. 15.)
In England much that was characteristic of the style was lost as soon
as the Saxons drove out the Celts, who carried it to Ireland, as may
be seen in the Book of Kells, and the carving of the Harp of Tara, and
the Celtic jewels in the Irish museums; but the interlacing patterns
survived throughout Anglo-Saxon art, and were marvellously ingenious
and beautiful; witness the Durham Book of St. Cuthbert.
We have no Celtic textiles remaining to us, unless some embroidery in
the Marien-Kirche collection at Dantzic may be of that style and time.
This is suggested by its altogether Indo-Chinese and very barbarous
character;[103] and one of the coronation mantles in Bock's
"Kleinodien" is Runic in its peculiar serpent design.
[Illustration: Illumination from the Lindisfarne Gospels, about A.D.
700]
[Illustration: Pl. 16.
Demeter. From a Greek Vase in the British Museum.]
"Judging from their illuminated MSS.," it is said, "the elements
borrowed from textile art by the Celts are plaits, bows, zigzags,
knots, geometrical figures in various symmetrically developed
combinations, crosses, whorls, and lattice-work; next, those taken from
metal work, such as spirals and nail-heads let into borders; thirdly,
simple or composite zoomorphic forms, such as bodies of snakes, birds'
heads on long necks, lizards, dogs, dragons, and the like."[104] They
well understood how to make a pattern by the repetition of objects of
any class.
[Illustration: Pl. 17.
1. Embroidery on a Greek Mantle, third century B.C., from the Tomb
of the Seven Brothers, Crimea.
2. Egyptian Painted and Embroidered Linen. The cone, the bead, the
daisy, the wave, the lotus under water, are all shown on this
fragment.]
[Illustration: Pl. 18.
EGYPTIAN TAPESTRY.
1. Woven and embroidered on a Sleeve. 2. Woven and embroidered. 3.
Painted and embroidered.]
Representations of human figures in embroideries probably originated
in hangings for the wall; but have been treated as decorative forms,
both by the Indians and the Greeks, for wearing apparel. The peplos of
Minerva was bordered with fighting gods and giants, and the Empress
Theodora's dress in the Ravenna mosaic repeats exactly the same
motive. (See Fig. 4, and Pl. 6.)
There are two other examples of such Greek patterns. The mantle of
Demeter on a Greek vase in the British Museum, of the best period (Pl.
16), is embroidered with flying genii and victorious chariots; and the
embroidered mantle lately found in a Crimean tomb, is of precisely the
same style of design, and the one illustrates the other. These
instances are so exceptional, that it is curious that here, as in the
case of the peplos, in each case there should happen to be a
duplicate. (Plates 16 and 17, No. 1.)
In Babylonian, Assyrian, and Chaldean art we constantly find animal
forms in patterns. The lion and the hare, birds and insects, are the
commonest; and there are some instances of human figures reduced to a
pattern in these sculptured representations of textiles. (Plate 2.)
There are curiously woven little human figures finished with the
needle on the sleeve of an Egyptian dress in the British Museum, from
Saccarah (Pl. 18), and, of course, when such a design is small, it
ceases to be very objectionable. On the whole, however, naturalistic
designs for embroideries are more safely confined to floral
decorations, excepting always flat tapestries for walls, which,
representing pictures, may be as naturalistic as their purpose and
style will admit.
Animal forms are often reduced to patterns by repetition in Indian
and Persian embroidery.[105] The drawing is naturalistic, but the
colouring is fanciful. We may see any day, on Persian rugs, scarlet
lions pursuing and capturing blue or yellow hares. The flatness and
want of all shadows tends to the conventional. Lions, bulls, cats,
beetles, and serpents abound especially in Egyptian design; insects,
reptiles, and fish in Asiatic patterns, where animals are sometimes
made to walk in pairs, with their heads and tails twisted into a
pattern.
Though landscapes are so rarely worked that the subject is, perhaps,
hardly worthy of notice, yet such mistaken specimens of ingenuity have
occurred. An altar frontal was exhibited at Zurich, in 1883,
containing some really exquisitely worked landscapes, which were quite
out of place, both as art and as decoration, for an ecclesiastical
purpose. This was of the beginning of the last century.[106]
While we appreciate and should take advantage of our national tendency
to naturalistic design, we must beware of looking on fixed rules as
bonds which cramp our liberty, and of thinking that nature should be
our only guide to an otherwise unassisted and unfettered inspiration.
Without the wholesome checks of experience and educated taste, and the
knowledge which teaches us what to avoid, as well as what to imitate,
founded on the successes and failures of others, we fall into weak
imitations of natural objects.
Mr. Redgrave points out how unpleasant and jarring to our sense of
what is appropriate, and therefore how offensive to good taste and
common sense, it is to tread on a carpet of water-lilies swimming in
blue pools, or on fruits and flowers heaped up and casting shadows
probably towards the light.[107] Woollen lions and tigers, as large as
life, basking before the fire in a wreath of roses, are alarming
rather than agreeable, and are of the nature of a practical joke in
art. It is the search for novelty in naturalism that leads to such
astonishing compositions; and these, being successively rejected in
the heart of our civilization and culture, are drifted away to
vulgarize our colonies, or to be sold cheap to furnish Continental
hotels, and make the English traveller blush for his home
manufactures.
SYMBOLICAL AND CONVENTIONAL.
Though it is true that the highest art, pictorial and sculptural, is
always struggling towards naturalism, the art of decoration is, by its
nature, constantly tending to conventionalism. Patterns, if not
absolutely geometrical or naturalistic, must be classed under this
principle. Let us examine what is meant by a conventional pattern.
It may be said that the conventional includes every form--the
symbolic, the naturalistic, or even the hieroglyphic--that is selected
and consecrated to convey a certain idea. The lily of Florence, which
is something between a lily and an iris, but unlike either, is a
conventional form; likewise the lily of France, which it is said was
once a conventional frog. The rose of England, the shamrock, and the
thistle have always been more naturalistic than is usual in such
heraldic designs; but the parti-coloured rose of York and Lancaster
was decidedly conventional, and heraldic.
Conventional patterns now are those which, having been originally
naturalistic in style, but perhaps emblematic as to their motive, have
been repeated till the meaning and form have been lost; or else, as in
the case of the lotus, the emblem is forgotten, and nothing remains
but the recognized conventional form.
One conventional pattern which, having commenced by being a symbol,
has been repeated and varied till it has allowed the original
essential meaning to escape, is the "palm-leaf" or "cone" pattern on
French or Paisley shawls, which, having been a sacred emblem--the tree
of life--in Persia, became in Europe, when the religious myth was
lost, only a shawl pattern--merely a leaf, with plant painted within
its outlines. (Plate 23, Nos. 10, 11.)
Decorative designs become conventional in spite of the intention of
the designer. He is overruled by the spaces to be covered and the
materials to be employed. His design must produce a flat pattern; he
must repeat it again and again; he must give it a strong outline; he
must distribute it regularly at certain intervals. Repetition at once
conventionalizes the most naturalistic drawing, and the most sacred
and mysterious emblem. Alternation is equally a source of
conventionalism. There is no motive that cannot be conventionalized
into a pattern by repetition. A Gothic crown and a true lily,
repeated, will make an ecclesiastical conventional pattern. Then come
all the Arabian and Moresque forms (which are mostly geometric), and
also the Gothic (which are partly geometric and partly naturalistic,
especially those in German and debased Spanish and Portuguese Gothic
design).
[Illustration: Pl. 19.
1. Key Pattern.
2. Broken-up Key.
3. Beads.
4. Key and sign of Land.
5. Wave and Babylonian Daisy.
6. Key and Fundata.
7. Wave and Bead.
8. Wave and Daisy.
9. Key and Sun Cross.
These Key Patterns from Ceiling of a Tomb at Saccarah, in Egypt.
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians.")]
Then we must accept as conventional all those which may be called
kaleidoscope patterns, which are broken fragments of old motives,
repeated or "radiated" so as to become partly geometrical, wholly
conventional. (See Pl. 17, No. 2.)
Conventional patterns may be reduced into three kinds.
First, the naturalistic, which have by repetition been adapted for
decorative art.
Secondly, the symbolical--Pagan or Christian, religious or historical,
including the Heraldic.
Thirdly, those conventional forms which may never have had any inner
meaning, or else, having originally had one, have lost it.
All these exist, sometimes apart and sometimes mingled; so that some
thought must be expended in seeking the motive which has brought them
together, and finding in each the internal evidence of its descent.
It is evident that patterns, conventionalized and brought from distant
sources, sometimes meet and amalgamate. When the origin of a
conventional pattern is disputed, it is worth while to examine if it
has a double parentage. Let me give, as an instance, the key pattern.
It may have been, as Semper believes, originally Chinese, and derived
from wicker-work design. It represents also the broken or dislocated
"wave," the symbol of the River Mæander,[108] and for water generally.
We find it everywhere in company with the wave, which never could have
had any connection with wicker-work, not only in China, but in Persia,
India, Egypt, Arabia, Greece, Rome, and Central America. (Pl. 19.)
Can any invention of man show a more symbolical intention than the
wave pattern? The airy leap drawn downwards by the force of
gravitation; controlled, and again made to return, but strong to
insist on its own curve of predilection, rushing back under the same
circle; strengthened by the downward movement to spring again from its
original plane; beginning afresh its Sisyphus labour, and facing the
next effort with the same grace and agility. Undying force, and
eternal flowing unrest--these are the evident intention and symbol of
the wave pattern. Though I believe the key pattern to be a
modification of the wave form, yet the locking and unlocking movement
suggests a repetition of the Tau, or key of life.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
When we admire the friezes of garlands hung between the skulls of oxen
and goats, we cannot for a moment doubt the sacrificial idea on which
the design was founded. When the wreaths are carried by dancing
children, we recognize the impersonation of the rejoicing of the dædal
earth.
The Greeks, however strongly they exerted themselves to throw off the
shackles of conventionality in sculpture, painting, and architecture,
yet yielded to the traditional force of the symbolical pattern, and
accepted most of the Oriental forms, merely remodelling them for their
own use, and adding to their significance what their culture required;
at the same time giving infinite variety, as their perfect taste
dictated.
[Illustration: Pl. 20.
TREES OF LIFE.
1, 2, 3, 5. Assyrian. 4. Sicilian Silk. (Birdwood's "Indian Arts,"
pp. 331, 335, 336, 337.)]
Aristophanes, in "The Frogs," laughs at the Persian carpet
patterns--their unnatural birds and beasts and flowers--whilst he
claims for his own frogs, that they at least have the merit of being
natural.[109] This little touch of art throws a gleam of inner
light on the struggle towards originality and truth which
characterized the Greek principles of beauty and fitness in literature
and art, in direct contrast to that which was always turning back to
those fossil forms which were only respectable on account of their age
and their mystery, but of which the tradition and intention were
already lost.
Roman patterns were merely Greek adaptations with an Etruscan flavour,
which was a survival of the earliest Italian art. Perhaps the
indigenous element had been already modified by Phœnician
influence.
In taking stock of Oriental symbolical patterns, we find that one of
those of the widest ancestry and longest continuity is the "Sacred
Hom."[110] (Pl. 20-24.) This is to be found in Babylonian,
Persian,[111] Indian, Greek, and Roman art; and consequently it
prevails in all European decoration (except the Gothic), where it was
reduced to unrecognizable forms.
Sir George Birdwood says the Hom or Homa was the Sanskrit Soma, used
as an intoxicating drink by the early Brahmins, and was extracted from
the plant of that name, an almost leafless succulent Asclepiad. It
appears to have changed its conventional form as other plants by
fermentation came to the front, containing what appeared to be the
"spirit of life"--the _aqua vitæ_.
The palm, with its wonderful fruit, which is convertible into
intoxicating drinks, and afterwards the vine itself, were each of them
moulded into analogous conventional fruit forms, which keep as much as
possible within the limits of the original cone shape. (Pl. 21.)
[Illustration: Pl. 21.
1. Tree of Life and Lions. Gate of Mycenæ. 2. Persian or Sicilian
Silk. Tree of Life and Leopards.]
[Illustration: Pl. 22.
1. Split Lotus Fruit on Chinese Bowl. 2. Split Lotus resembling
Tree of Life. Frieze by Benozzo Gozzoli, Ricardi Palace,
Florence. 3. Petal of Flower on Glass Bowl from Southern
Italy. British Museum.]
There is a palm-tree which absolutely carries a cone in the heart of
its crown of fronds.[112] This may have helped to preserve the
original motive of the sacred tree of life. The cone form in classical
art was drawn from the pine cone and the artichoke; and in mediæval
art these were sometimes replaced by the pomegranate, and in the late
Renaissance by the pine-apple, newly arrived from the West
Indies.[113] It is a good example of the blending of one vegetable
form into another, making the sequence, of which each phase in the
East had an historical cause or a symbolical meaning,[114] but which
in Europe had gradually lost all motive, and was simply an
acknowledged decorative form.[115] In architectural ornament it is
called the honeysuckle,[116] which it had grown to resemble in the
days of Greece.
[Illustration: Pl. 23.
Different forms of Tree of Life, from Sicilian Silks.]
[Illustration: Pl. 24.
Modern Embroidery from the Principalities, in which the cone-shaped
tree grows into a vine, and the two animals at the foot have
lost their shape and intention.]
This sacred tree, the Homa of Zoroaster and of the later Persians, has
so early a beginning that we find it on Assyrian monuments.[117] Rock
says "that, perhaps, it stood for the tree of life, which grew in
Paradise." It is represented as a subject of homage to men and
animals, and it invariably stands between priests and kings, or beasts
kneeling to it. It is figured on the small bucket for religious rites,
carried in the hands, or embroidered in the upper sleeve of the
monarch's tunic. It always represents a shrub, sometimes bearing a
series of umbels of seven flowers each. (Pl. 2, 20.)
Sometimes the expression of the symbol is reduced to the cone-fruit of
the homa alone; or even to a blossom, as in the two glass bowls in the
Slade collection in the British Museum, from a tomb at Chiusi, in
Etruria. Here the design is a flower, of which each petal contains the
essential emblem--a plant within a plant. These bowls, pronounced to
be Greek of the fourth century B.C., have yet to me a strong Oriental
character. (Pl. 22, No. 3.)
I have spoken of the lotus as a naturalistic pattern. One mode of
drawing and embroidering its flower in India, is to cut it in two;
half the blossom is then carefully and almost botanically copied, thus
conveying the inner meaning of the sacred flower. (Pl. 22, No. 3.)
Another conventional pattern, common to all times of art and all
nations, is that called in architecture the "egg and tongue" pattern.
(Pl. 13.) This, as I have already said, is supposed to be derived
directly from the lotus. The Egyptians formed it from the bud and
blossom; and the pattern is found in India, Greece, and Rome, changing
continually and yet retaining its identity. Vitruvius claimed to have
given it the last touch and finish, so that in Italy it was called the
Vitruvian scroll; and it is common to all decoration, even in
textiles, though it is hardly suited for weaving or embroidery. This
is one of the earliest patterns which, having ceased long ago to be a
religious emblem or sign, still survives by its decorative fitness,
and perpetuates the echoes of its origin.
[Illustration: Pl. 25.
TYPICAL CROSSES.
1. Swastika. 2. From a Greek Vase, 765 B.C. 3. Indian Sectarial
Mark of Sakti race. 4. Buddhist and Jainis mark. 5. Early
Rhodian Pottery. 6. Egyptian prehistoric Cross. 7. Tau Cross.
8. Mark of land, Egyptian and Ninevite. 9. Ditto. 10. Clavus.
11, 12, 13. Scandinavian Sun and Moon Crosses. 14, 15, 16.
Celtic. 17. Chrysoclavus. 18, 19. Stauracin patterns. 20.
Scandinavian, from Norway. 21. Runic Cross. 22. Cross at
Palenque, in Temple of the Sun. 23. Scotch Celtic Cross. 24.
Cross from Iona. 25, 26. Runic Crosses. 27. Cross on the
Dalmatic of Charlemagne. 28. From the Mantle of Henry II.,
Emperor of Germany.]
Of the conventional symbolical forms of the early Christian Church I
shall speak more fully in the chapter on ecclesiastical art, and
therefore would only point out here, while touching on symbolical
decoration, how that phase of Christian art is a great historical
instance of the deep ancient meanings it illustrates; showing the
motive to be often in accordance with the inherited pagan symbol, and
yet differing from it. Pre-eminent among these is the emblem of the
Cross, so early and universally used, full of mysterious secret
allusions to the groping faiths of idolatrous nations, before the
great fundamental idea of the "Word" was attached to it. This was one
of the old signs used as a pattern, and transfigured into a fresh
type, of which the radiance reflected back light upon all that
preceded it, even as Chinese ancestors are ennobled by the deeds
of their descendants.
[Illustration: Pl. 26.
1. Pallas Athene, from a vase in Lord Northampton's Collection.
2. Ajax in a cloak embroidered with swastika, sun cross, and
prehistoric water patterns. Etruscan Museum. Vatican.]
The cross (Pl. 25), was a sign and a pattern in prehistoric art. It
was the double of the Tau, the Egyptian emblem of life; and while the
Jews reject the Christian cross, they still claim to have warned off
the destroying angel by this sign in blood over the lintels of their
doors in the first Passover.
But the most ancient and universal form of the cross is that of the
Swastika, or Fylfote. This "prehistoric cross" is said to be formed of
two fire-sticks, belonging to the ancient worship of the sun, laid
across each other ready for friction; but losing that meaning, from an
emblem they fell into a pattern, and this you will still find, utterly
meaningless, on Persian carpets of to-day.
Sir G. Birdwood gives the Swastika as the sectarial mark of the Sakti
sects in India. Fergusson names it with the mound buildings, as
belonging to all Buddhist art; and examples of the Swastika are to be
found on Rhodian pottery from the Necropolis of Kamiros, where we find
also the key pattern.
In early Greek art the Swastika and Gammadion are everywhere,
especially as embroidery on dress. Minerva's petticoats are sometimes
worked all over with the latter. On an early Greek vase in the Museo
Gregoriano, are painted Ajax and Achilles playing at dice; and the
mantle of Ajax is squared into an embroidered pattern that alternately
represents a sun or star and a Gammadion (Pl. 26, No. 2). But it is
unnecessary to multiply classical examples, which are endless.
The Christian Cross was often formed by converting the Tau into the
Gamma, the sacred letter of the Greeks. It is said to have been the
emblem of the corner-stone, and as a pattern, was called, down to the
thirteenth century, the "Gammadion;" and though it had lost its
original motive, it continued to preserve the idea of a secret and
mystical meaning.
The Gammadion, as well as the Swastika, enters largely into the
illuminations of the Celtic Book of Kells and those of the Lindisfarne
MSS.; also it is to be found on the Celtic shields in the British
Museum, together with the Swastika. Both appear in the Persian carpets
of to-day, and as patterns were, in ecclesiastical decoration,
employed down to the fifteenth century, both for European and British
textiles. The Swastika, as well as the wave pattern, is of mysterious
and universal antiquity, and has certainly traversed four thousand
years,--how much more we dare not say. It is to be found throughout
Egyptian and Indian art--never in that of Assyria.
Of the time of Rameses the Second we have two figures in a mural
painting, an ally and an enemy, a guest and a prisoner, both clothed
in embroidered garments, _parsemés_ with the prehistoric cross.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.
Egyptian Enemy and Ally.]
In the chapter on ecclesiastical art I shall again refer to this
immemorial symbolical and conventional pattern. I much regret that, in
the absence of a translation, I am prevented from availing myself of
the accumulated learning on the subject of "The Prehistoric Cross," by
Baron Ernest de Bunsen.
[Illustration: Pl. 27.
Imitation of a Carpet carved in stone, from Nineveh, showing the
Indian Lotus and the Assyrian Daisy. (In the British Museum.)]
There was a pattern called the "crenelated" which apparently was
derived from the Assyrian battlement, and is found throughout classic
art, somewhat conventionalized.[118] It is named as an embroidered
pattern in the inscription recording votive offerings of dresses in
the temple of Athene at Athens.[119]
[Illustration: Fig. 12.
Crenelated Pattern.]
We know something of the conventional and symbolical embroideries of
Nineveh, which are quite unlike those of India, except in the adoption
of the lotus for decoration.[120] These are best understood by
illustrations; and, therefore, I give one of the beautiful sculptured
carpets from Nineveh, in the British Museum (Pl. 27), showing the
Assyrian use of the lotus and cone, and the embroidered garment of a
king from one of the sculptures in low relief (Plate 1). These are
very stately--perfectly conventional and decorative; and we feel that
they have grown where we find them, and are not borrowed from another
civilization. What strikes us most, is the constant repetition and the
little variety of ornament in these patterns. The forms are strongly
marked--wheels or whorls, or daisies, often repeated. (The daisy
belongs to Assyria as the lotus to Egypt.) The flowers are simply
leafless blossoms. Splendid embroideries of sacred emblematical
designs are, however, occasionally found, such as those from Layard's
"Monuments" (Plate 2).
Much has been written on the early symbolism of plants and flowers.
The sun-myths have enlisted all floral legendary lore, and
conventional ornament was largely drawn from them.
Many symbols are present to us when we name certain plants. The lily
is the acknowledged sign of purity, the rose of love, the honeysuckle
of enduring faith, the laurel of poetry, and the palm of victory; the
oak of strength, the olive of peace. Some plants have accumulated more
than one meaning. The vine has many attributes. It is an emblem of the
mysteries of the Christian Church. It symbolizes plenty, joy, the
family. Ivy means friendship, conviviality, remembrance.
The symbolism of beasts (_bestiaria_),[121] of birds (_volucraria_),
and of stones (_lapidaria_) filled many volumes in the mediæval ages,
and are well worthy of the study of the decorative artist. The
symbolism of animals and birds especially, constantly attracts our
attention in the Oriental and Sicilian textiles of the early Christian
times, and to the end of the thirteenth century. Later, in European
textile decoration, most animals were accepted as emblematic in
Christian art, beginning with the symbols of the four Evangelists. All
the virtues and all the vices found their animal emblems
conventionalized, and were thus woven, embroidered, and painted.[122]
Reptiles and insects are included under the head of "beasts," and
perhaps fishes also. Each was dowered with a symbolical meaning; and
thus admitted into art, they were conventionalized by being strongly
outlined, coloured flat; and by repetition without variation, were
converted into patterns.
[Illustration: Pl. 28.
1, 2. Gothic Tiles. 3. Gothic Border of a Dress. 4. Gothic Vine.
Westminster Abbey.]
When the use of heraldic illustration was added to the already
accepted symbolism, animal decoration became very common, and soon
forgot its symbolical motives, which were succeeded by Renaissance
fanciful patterns; and then the conventionalized beast and its
symbolism disappeared from European decoration, except when it was
a direct copy of an Oriental design.
Certain symbolical forms have, however, survived. The eagle has always
meant empire, and the double-headed eagle, a double royalty.[123]
Ezekiel represents Babylon and Egypt, symbolically, as two
eagles.[124] But here we approach the subject of heraldry, which
became a science in mediæval days; and every man and woman in any way
remarkable, every chivalrous action and national event, became a
subject for textile art, and was woven or worked with the needle on
banner, hanging, or dress. The altar decorations received a new
stimulus as historical records, as well as religious symbols, and
pride and piety were equally enlisted in these gifts to the Church.
Byzantine patterns have a barbaric stamp, and yet have much of the
grandiose about them; but they are to the last degree conventional. In
the early mosaics, both in Constantinople and Rome, every face and
head, every flower and animal, represents a type and not an
individual.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.
Gothic Trees, from Bayeux tapestry.]
Gothic foliage patterns, in England and elsewhere, are a struggle
between the naturalistic and the conventional. The Norman style and
the Romanesque, which preceded it, and from which it was modified and
elevated, show their vegetable forms thick-stemmed and few-leaved,
whereas the Gothic aspired to a developed gracefulness; and the
Renaissance, which succeeded it, assumed all the freedom of natural
flowers and plants, floating in the breeze, on their delicate stems.
(Pl. 28.)
All the Renaissance patterns, which, as their name denotes, were born
again, like butterflies to frolic for a day of gay enjoyment, are
purely decorative. Their generally charming, graceful forms group
together to cover empty spaces with every regard to the rules of
design and composition, but without any inner meaning. If we take
these arabesques to pieces, we generally find the parts come from
various sources; and having served last in pagan Rome for pagan
purposes, had been slightly refashioned for Christian decorative
art,[125] before the Byzantine inartistic taste, and barbaric
splendour of metal-work patterns, had extinguished all the gay fancy
of the arts of Southern Europe.
The mediæval revival was a return to the light and fantastic, and a
protest against the solemnity of all Gothic art, which had had its
great day, had culminated, and died out. The patterns of the
Renaissance are all guided by the principles of repetition and
duplication, or that of doubling the pattern, which repeats itself to
right and left, as if folded down the middle.
The principal lines thus echoed one another; but the artist was
permitted to vary the conventionalism of the general forms of figures,
flowers, fruit, or butterflies, so as to balance and yet differ in
every detail.
[Illustration: Pl. 29.
CLOUD PATTERNS.
1, 2, 3, 7. Japanese.
4. Chinese.
5, 8, 9. Mediæval.
6. Badge of Richard II.]
[Illustration: Pl. 30.
Indo-Chinese Coverlet, supposed to have belonged to Oliver
Cromwell. Hatfield House.]
Amongst the conventional patterns which have descended to us, and are
in general use without any particular symbolical meaning being
attached to them, we must instance those derived from the Cloud
pattern. This is to be found in early Chinese and Indian art, but I do
not recognize it in Egyptian or Greek decoration. It came through
Byzantium, and took its place amongst early Christian patterns. (Pl.
29.)
[Illustration: Pl. 31.
THE FUNDATA OR NETTED PATTERN.
Portion of a Phœnician Bowl from Cyprus.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.]
The cloud pattern is also Japanese, and is supposed to have been
originally derived from Central Asia. It varies in shape, and is found
as an ornament on the head of the sceptre in the collection at Nara,
in Japan, which is twelve or thirteen hundred years old. There is an
example of the cloud pattern in Aelfled's embroidery at Durham; and it
is often found under the feet of saints in painted glass and
embroideries before the fourteenth century. A curious Indian example
exists in a coverlet belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, said to
have been the property of Oliver Cromwell, on which the central
medallion is filled with white horses careering amidst the cloud
pattern.[126] (Pl. 30.)
The _netted_ pattern called Fundata is extremely ancient. We find it
in Egyptian mural paintings, as well as in the centre of a
Phœnician bowl from Cyprus, now in the Louvre. The mediæval Fundata
was a silk material, covered with what appeared to be a gold network
covering the stuff. It is supposed to be the same as that worn by
Constantine,[127] and is named in ecclesiastical inventories as late
as the fifteenth century. (Pl. 31.)
All the wheel patterns are very ancient, and appear to be simply
conventional wheels. In France they were called _roés_. There is a
fine instance of this wheel pattern in Auberville's "Tissus." The
wheels sometime enclose triumphal cars and other pictorial subjects.
(Pl. 34.)
The patterns which are apparently composed with the intention of
avoiding all meaning, are the Moorish. They are neither animal,
vegetable, nor anything else. They show no motive in their complicated
domes, their honeycombing, and their ingenious conventional forms; but
cover equally textile fabrics or stucco ceilings without suggesting
any idea, religious or symbolical.
All the splendid Italian brocades and velvet damasks were of
conventional patterns, and like their Arab and Sicilian models, and
also like their Spanish contemporaries, represented, and sought to
represent nothing on earth. It was all floreated and meandering
design; the motive reminding one of the pine-apple and the acanthus,
or of vine stems meeting or parting, but never anything naturalistic
for a moment. When animals were introduced it was always as a pattern
doubled face to face, as if folded down a straight line.
We may say the same of the succeeding Louis Quatorze and the Louis
Quinze styles, which were of the culminating period of clever and
fantastic conventional decoration.
Our modern designs have phases of imitation, and the patterns of rich
brocades which our great-grandmothers wore, came into fashion again
about the third decade of this century. Now we have been trying to
find our inspirations further back, and some of our copies of the
simpler Sicilian patterns, with an occasional pair of birds, or a
conventional plant, imitating the motive of the tree of life, have
been very pretty. The only defect is the poverty which results from
the absence of any active and informing motive. It is, however, easier
to criticize than to create.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.
Radiated Pattern.]
I would venture here to find fault with a very common method of
converting a natural object into a conventional pattern, by radiation.
Certain modes of repetition are very objectionable. A pattern, for
instance, repeated four times round a centre, or a natural flower
repeated exactly, but lying north, south, east, and west, are more or
less inartistic, we may say vulgar. (Fig. 14.)
[Illustration: Fig. 15.
Radiated Sunflower.]
A natural flower may be conventionalized and radiated by placing it in
the centre of the composition facing you; and the leaves arranged
surrounding it, so as to formalize the design, though there is nothing
really unnatural in the way in which they are made to grow. The
illustration of a radiated sunflower explains my meaning.
It has been already observed that by repetition almost any object may
be reduced to a pattern, but taste must be exercised in the selection
of what is appropriate and beautiful. Radiation is also really a
useful factor in conventional art, but common sense must guide the
artist here as well as taste. In radiating the forms of a flower,
nature gives endless hints of beauty; but a radiating pattern of human
figures would be ridiculous, and even the branches of a tree cannot be
so treated.
The awning of the classic hypæthral hall or court was often reproduced
in Roman arabesques. Sometimes we find it in a classical tomb, painted
over the ceiling, and recalling its original use. This was revived in
the Cinque-cento Renaissance; and again in Adams' "Eighteenth Century
Decorations," it became an accepted pattern, called "the shell,"
losing its original motive, and descending to fill up the panels of
tea-caddies and surround keyholes. When thus reduced to the appearance
of a little ruff, it needs some thought to recognize it, and give it
credit for its first motive.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
It is amusing to find how a form which it seems impossible to reduce
to a pattern, will yet fall into one by a judicious arrangement of
light and shadow, and by repetition. There is a little frieze in one
of the Indian cases on the staircase in the British Museum, which is
extremely pretty and effective. It consists of a repetition of little
balconies with recesses and pillars and figures in pairs. I give it as
illustrating the way conventional patterns grow. This balcony pattern
is of the sixth century, A.D.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.
Indian Balcony Pattern, from steps of tope of Jamal-Zartri,
Afghanistan. British Museum.]
The ancient palmated pattern called Chrysoclavus, from the beginning
of our era to the thirteenth century was partly a nail-headed design,
and had become a Christian symbol. It was, probably, originally the
primitive spot pattern; afterwards promoted to being an ornament of
discs in colour or metal: this was Assyrian, Etruscan, and
Mycenæan.[128] (Pl. 70.)
Among the conventional patterns which have apparently no hidden
meaning, but which clearly show their descent, are the Chinese and
Japanese wicker and lattice-work designs. The beauty of these is
wonderful.
Semper shows that wicker (including bamboo work) was the foundation of
all Chinese civilized life, for constructing houses, bridges,
utensils, and for decoration. He gives this wicker-work origin to the
universal key pattern, which may, however, have a double source--the
wave, and the wicker-work.
We find the Key pattern in a tomb at Essiout, in Egypt, painted
perhaps about 1600 B.C., in company with some other very old
friends,[129] the Tuscan border, the Egg and Tongue, and the Bead, the
Daisy, and the Wave. (Pl. 17, No. 2.) We meet it everywhere in ancient
and modern decoration. There are several forms of it on a large
terra-cotta vase in the British Museum from Kameiros in Rhodes, and on
Chinese fictiles and embroideries. It is found also on garments in
Iceland, whither the Greek patterns must have drifted through Norway,
and, as they could go no further, there they remained.
I have often spoken of the extraordinary survival of a pattern. This
is easy to account for when fashion, "the disturber," had not yet
existed. Then the ancient motive told its own tale, and its great age
was its claim to perpetual youth; but it is more remarkable where we
meet with revivals at distant periods, and apparently without any
connecting link of ancestry or style.
For instance, the women of Genoa wore large cotton veils, printed with
the Indian conventional tree and beast pattern, down to thirty years
ago, when the fashion changed, and winter bonnets and summer muslin
veils displaced the old costume. These patterns are now being printed
in England on scores of cotton curtains for beds and windows.
GEOMETRICAL.
Geometrical patterns may be reduced to a very few primitive elements.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.
Varied adjustments of Square and Circle.]
1. The Line, including straight and wavy lines.
2. The Angular Forms, including squares, oblongs, cubes, &c.
3. The Triangular, including zigzags, diamonds, &c.
4. The Circular, including all spots, discs, and radiations.
All these can be blended or mixed so as to form endless varieties. For
instance, the square and the circle can intersect each other in
different proportions, so as to give an entirely new effect to the
pattern, each time the balance is altered or the phase of the
repetition varied. The illustration will explain this. (Fig. 18.)
Right angles may intersect each other so as to produce the whole gamut
of Chinese lattice-work decoration, and all the Celtic and
Scandinavian entwined patterns, from which so many of the embroideries
in the Italian pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are
probably descended.
The Moorish patterns are geometrical, and are created on the principle
of avoiding in art the representation of any created thing. They show
much ingenuity in keeping clear of any possible meaning. Most of these
conventional patterns are founded on the ogee-arch and a kind of
honeycomb pattern, involved and inverted. Their tiles, which nearest
approach textile design, have, indeed, certain vegetable forms added
to the others, but always geometrically arranged as no vegetables ever
grew.
Geometrical patterns begin with primitive forms, and come down to the
floor-cloth designs of to-day. They can be extracted in endless
variety from the combinations of the kaleidoscope. This style is well
suited for pavements in mosaic--either secular or ecclesiastical.
The Opus Alexandrinum furnishes us with most beautiful examples and
adaptations for large or small spaces, so as to form the richest or
the simplest floor decorations. How worthily a church may be thus
adorned may be seen on the vast area of the floor of Santa Maria
Maggiore in Rome, or that of the Church of St. Mark in Venice.
The nearest approach to the Opus Alexandrinum in textiles has been in
Patchwork, of which a more artistic use may yet be made. We might
exercise ingenuity in this direction, giving really fine and effective
designs to our workers in patches, whose productions are, in general,
simply alarming.
The fine quilting patterns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
are almost always geometrical, and make the best background to more
resplendent embroideries overlying them, which is partly owing to
their being only forms, and conveying no idea or inherited meaning.
These expressionless designs are well fitted for spaces and borders in
which the centres are elaborated, and require enclosing or framing;
likewise, they are suited for large areas, which must not be perfectly
plain, and yet not too disturbing to the eye, so as to distract it
from the more important ornaments on the wall or ceiling. They suit
carpets in passages or on staircases much better than any other kind
of design, and form the best figured backgrounds for pictures. Both
eye and mind often need repose, and therefore the simpler the
geometrical pattern is, the better. Complicated and too ingenious
combinations are painfully fatiguing. Simplicity and flatness are the
greatest merits in such forms, as in shadowless patterns for textiles,
and especially for embroideries.
If we turn to nature to assist us with new geometrical patterns, we
shall find the most exquisite forms in the crystals of every
newly-fallen snowflake, and in the nodal-points on a plate of metal or
glass, covered with sand, and struck by sound. We shall hardly ever
find in these a repetition of exactly the same combination, and their
variety is only equalled by their beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] Sir G. Birdwood tells us of patterns of an Indian
brocade called "Chundtara" (moon and stars), figured all
over with representations of heavenly bodies.
[97] Pliny, "Natural History," lib. xxx. c. 8, § 34.
[98] There is a shell pattern in gold on a twelfth
century fragment of a Bishop's garment at Worcester.
[99] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. pp.
132, 133, 350, 553.
[100] Bötticher, in his "Tektonik," will allow of but
one origin for the "egg and tongue" pattern. I cannot
give up the evident descent from the lotus flower and
bud; but I have said before that a pattern has sometimes
a double parentage, and it may be so in this case.
[101] The lotus is almost entirely lost as a native
growth in India, and is fast disappearing in Egypt. The
lotus blossom in Egypt was not only a sacred emblem, but
also an _objet de luxe_. At their feasts, the honoured
guests were presented with the flowers, and as they
faded, slaves carried round baskets of fresh blossoms.
See Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians."
[102] See the Book of Lindisfarne, and the two Celtic
bronze shields in the British Museum. These last are
very curious. The long involved lines show their origin,
and the shields are enriched with enamel and corals, in
repetitions of the prehistoric cross.
[103] See "Album of Photographs of the Marien-Kirche,
Dantzic," Taf. 31.
[104] Woltmann and Woermann, Eng. Trans., p. 202.
[105] Charlemagne's dress, in his tomb, was covered with
golden elephants. This must have been Indian. His mantle
was "_parsemé_" with golden bees.
[106] Elsewhere there is a notice of Miss Morritt's
really beautifully embroidered landscapes at Rokeby; and
all who saw them will remember the extremely clever and
effective pictures in crewels by an accomplished
American lady, Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, exhibited in
London a few years ago. These exceptional cases do not,
however, disprove the objections against employing the
most unfit and unmanageable materials for producing
subjects alien to the art of embroidery.
[107] See Redgrave's "Manual of Design," pp. 50-61.
[108] See Appendix 21, by Ch. T. Newton, to the first
edition of Ruskin's "Stones of Venice." He gives, as
instances of this pattern, certain coins from Prienè,
where the River Mæander is symbolized by the angular key
pattern. Appendix, No. 1.
[109] "(Euripides _loquitur_) Not horse-cocks, nor yet
goat-stags, such as they depict on Persian carpets"
(Aristophanes, "The Frogs," v. 939-944). The Persian
carpets, which are the legitimate descendants of
Babylonian art, are curiously fragmentary. In a modern
design are to be seen birds, indicated by a head, bill,
and eyes; little coffee-pots, and flowers broken off at
the stalks, and small quadrupeds without any particular
form; also the prehistoric cross, the Tau, and bits of
broken-up wave and key patterns. All these, repeated
into a pattern, remind us of scraps in a kaleidoscope,
thrown together accidentally, or else taken up by chance
where history and art have dropped them.
[110] "Soma" or "Homa" ("Sarcostemma Viminale vel
Brevistigma"), from Cashmere and the Hindu Cush, still
used by the Brahmins, and the juice of which was the
first intoxicant of the human race. See Birdwood's
"Indian Art," vol. ii. pp. 336, 337.
[111] "The Hom, the sacred Persian tree, is constantly
placed between two animals, chained to it." See Pl. 23,
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
[112] The Hom or Homa, the sacred tree of Assyrian and
Persian sculpture and textiles, is accounted for as a
pattern by Dr. Rock, who says: "From the earliest
antiquity a tradition came down through middle Asia, of
some holy tree, perhaps the tree of life spoken of as
growing in Paradise." It is always represented as
something like a shrub, and is a conventional portrait
of a palm; but Rock says it has every look of having
belonged to the family of the Asclepiadeæ. For its last
transformation into a vine, see Pl. 24.
[113] Rock's "Introduction," p. cxxxi.
[114] Sir George Birdwood says: "The intimate absorption
of Hindu life in the unseen realities of man's spiritual
consciousness is seldom sufficiently acknowledged by
Europeans, and, indeed, cannot be fully comprehended by
men whose belief in the supernatural has been destroyed
by the prevailing material ideas of modern society.
Every thought, wish, and deed of the Hindu belongs to
the world of the unseen as well as the seen; and nothing
shows this more strikingly than the traditionary works
of India. Everything that is made has a direct religious
use, or some religious symbolism. The materials of which
different articles are fashioned, their weight, and the
colours with which they are painted, are fixed by
religious rule. An obscured symbolism of material and
colour is to be traced also in the forms of things, even
for the most domestic uses. Every detail of Indian
decoration, Aryan or Turanian, has a religious meaning,
and the arts of India will never be rightly understood
until there are brought to their study, a familiar
acquaintance with the character and subjects of the
religious poetry, national legends, and mythological
scriptures that have always been their inspiration, and
of which they are the perfected imagery." See Sir George
Birdwood's "Indian Arts," part i. p. 2.
[115] The Persian tree of life was not alien to the
worship of the Zoroastrian religion of the Sassanides,
and is said to have been the origin of the worship of
Bacchus. It was introduced by Oriental weavers into
Sicilian and Spanish stuffs.
[116] Sir G. Birdwood suggests that the honeysuckle
pattern is derived from the Tree of Life, cone, and
palm, refashioned and combined with the graceful
ingenuity of Greek art, and covering a mixture of sacred
traditional emblems.
[117] Haug, in his "Essays on the Sacred Writings of the
Parsees" (pp. 132, 239), tells us that these people
still hold the homa to be sacred, and from it squeeze a
juice used by them in their religious ceremonies.
[118] See Perrot et Chipiez, "Histoire de l'Art," vol.
ii. pp. 260, 267, Pl. xiv.
[119] See Appendix, No. 1.
[120] India, in return, afterwards influenced Persia,
the successor of Babylon.
[121] In India, the elephant is a very common element in
a pattern; in Egypt, the serpent; in Persia, the lion.
In animal patterns, certain emblems were grouped
together. The lion and the goose represent strength and
prudence; the lion and eagle, strength and dominion; the
lion and dove, strength and gentleness. We may see these
double emblems on Sicilian textiles.
[122] Chinese art is crowded with symbolisms.
[123] The double-headed eagle was the badge of Saladin,
as well as that of the Holy Roman Empire.
[124] Ezekiel xvii.
[125] In the earliest days of Christianity.
[126] "A cloud pattern from which issue two clasped
hands is the device of Guizot Marchand or Guido
Mercator, printer, in 1498. He lived at the College of
Navarre."--Dibdin's "Decameron," ii. pp. 33-36.
[127] See Gori (tom. iii. pp. 20, 84), as cited by Rock,
Introduction, p. liii. The same netted pattern was found
in the grave of an Archbishop of York of about the end
of the thirteenth century. Its name, _fundata_, is
derived from _funda_, the fisherman's net; also, in
later times, it was called _laqueata_. See Rock's
Introduction (p. liv.). See also M. Ch. Clermont
Ganneau's "L'Imagerie Phénicienne," Coupe de Palestrina;
and Chaldée et Assyrie, in Perrot and Chipiez, ii. p.
736. Another instance is shown here of the fundata
occurring in the bronze flat bowl copied from Layard's
"Monuments," 2nd series, plate 62. The whole design of
the bowl is Babylonian, consisting of a rich border of
repetitions of the tree of life; each has the peculiar
ornament of little knobs often seen on their
head-dresses.
[128] See Bock's "L. Gewänder," p. 129; Gori, "Thes.
Dipt." ii. pp. 20, 275; Marquardt, "Handbuch Röm. Alt."
vii. pp. 527-31 (Eng. Trans.). Authorities differ in
describing the Chrysoclavus. Sir G. Birdwood calls it a
button pattern ("Indian Arts," vol. ii. p. 241). The
"Chrysoclavus" was the name given to the palmated or
triumphal pattern with which the consular robes are
invariably embroidered in the Roman Consular ivories at
Zurich, Halberstadt, and in the South Kensington Museum.
The tenacious life of this pattern is curiously shown in
the way it appears in the fifteenth century on Italian
playing-cards. (See "Cartes à Jouer," an anonymous
French book in the print-room of the British Museum.)
The kings and knaves wear the Byzantine humeral, and the
Chrysoclavus pattern is carved on their chairs. Till
lately English playing-cards showed the same
dress-pattern. I shall discuss the Latin Clavus and the
Chrysoclavus amongst ecclesiastical embroideries, pp.
308, 336 (_post_).
[129] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," i. p. 125.
The date of these mural paintings may, however, be even
as late as the time of Alexander the Great.
CHAPTER IV.
MATERIALS.
1. RAW MATERIALS.
The history of an art must, more or less, include that of its raw
material.
This is too true to be disputed, but in the art of embroidery it opens
out such endless avenues, through such vast regions of technical
study, that we must acknowledge the difficulty, or rather the
impossibility, of including in one volume even a tithe of the
information already collected.
I shall, therefore, only dedicate a few pages to the history of those
fibres which have always been most important in the different phases
of our civilization.
Among books on textile materials, I must again name the "Textrinum
Antiquorum," by Yates. His premature death, and the loss that the
world of art and manufacture has sustained by the chain of his
invaluable researches being broken, cannot be appreciated but through
the study of the first and only volume of this already rare book, from
which I venture to quote largely.
Semper's "Der Stil" is a work of reference on this subject, so
valuable that it should, by a good translation, be placed within the
reach of non-German scholars.
From Colonel Yule's "Marco Polo," and his abundant notes, we learn
much of Asiatic textile art in the thirteenth century, and its early
traditions in the immutable East, and Sir G. Birdwood's books on this
Indian art are most instructive.
Egyptian textiles are splendidly illustrated by Sir Gardiner
Wilkinson. All these modern writers quote Pliny and the Periplus;[130]
and Pliny quotes all the classic authors, from Homer to his day. Here
is a wide field for gathering information regarding the materials for
embroidery in past ages.
When we use the phrase "raw material" so glibly, with an æsthetic
contempt for that which the art of man has neither manipulated nor
reorganized, we show our own coarse appreciation, if not ignorance, of
the wonderful inherent beauty and microscopic delicacy of form,
colour, and substance of those materials which we fashion for our own
uses.
Few know the structure of the tender filaments of wool, flax, cotton,
and silk; or that each has its peculiar form and attributes, and its
individual capabilities for the purposes for which they appear to us
to have been created, i.e. the clothing and adornment of man's dress
and his home.
I should like to draw attention to these well-attested facts.
Seen through a microscope, the forms of these raw materials differ
greatly.
Flax is difficult to describe, as it varies according to the soil and
climate it comes from. Its fibre, however, has always a shiny outer
surface, and is transparent, cylindrical, and pipe-like; apparently
with breaks or joints like those of a cane.
Cotton also varies so much in its own kind, that every description is
different and somewhat puzzling. Semper says that it approaches the
ribbon form, with thickened edges, and is like a half-cylinder twisted
spirally; but when wetted with oil, it swells into a complete
cylinder.[131]
Wool and hair are hollow pipes without joints. Woollen fibres look
like cylindrical snakes with a scaly surface. This roughness gives
wool a clinging power which exceeds that of any other material, except
the hair of some few animals.[132]
Silk threads consist of twin pipes laid parallel, and held together by
the varnish with which they are glazed. Silk is tough and elastic.
The qualities needed for textile materials may be thus enumerated:
Pliability, toughness (i.e. tensile strength), and intrinsic
durability.
Of course, the material must to a certain degree influence the style
of the fabric, and its selection must be according to the effect
intended to be produced.[133] The fashions of the day, and the needs
of the special manufacture, must greatly modify the choice of
materials, which fluctuate, often disappear, and sometimes revive
again.
Certain materials which have been, at one period, much admired, have
been entirely lost; and indeed we may say that the only permanently
employed textiles are wool, flax, cotton, and silk, which apparently
never can be superseded. With them, all domestic requirements can be
satisfied, and all artistic and decorative fabrics produced, varied,
and perfected; and these, from all time recorded in history, have been
enriched and glorified with gold, either inwoven or embroidered.
The game of "animal, vegetable, or mineral" might well be played with
textiles only. Nothing has been alien to the crafts which from time
immemorial have spun, woven, felted, netted, and embroidered.
The materials now in general use, and which, once known, have never
been abandoned, I have already named, and shall discuss their history
separately; they are wool, flax, cotton, and silk. To these I must add
hemp, both wild and cultivated.
Hemp is a kind of nettle. It was grown in Colchis, and in those cool
regions which did not produce flax. Hemp is hardly grown in India,
except to extract from it the narcotic, Cannabis Indica. It was a
northern production used throughout Scandinavia. Herodotus (iv. 14)
says, "Hemp grows in the land of the Scythians, in a wild state, but
it is now cultivated." From its Latin name, _cannabis_, comes our
canvas, which has always been much used as a ground for counted
stitches and backing for embroidery, its stiffness being its
qualification for such purposes.[134]
Jute (a rough sort of hemp) has been long an article of commercial
importance for the manufacture of coarse-figured fabrics, dyed and
woven, sometimes embroidered.
The fibre of the Aloe has been used in the Riviera for laces and
"macrami" (knotted fringes).
The fibres of grasses, such as the "Honduras silk grass" (Rhea or
Ramie), valuable for beauty, fineness, and toughness, have been worked
or woven into stuffs.[135] This material is now coming into notice.
Spartum is often named for coarse weaving;[136] also the fibres of
barks, especially those of palm branches.[137]
Another substance of classic use, and even now employed, though rather
as a curiosity than as an article of commerce, is the silky filament
produced by the shell-fish pinna; and also the fibres of certain
sea-weeds.
Fur and hair, especially that of camels and goats, has always been
much prized.[138] We have seen both African and Indian striped or
primitively decorated rugs of wool, touched here and there with scraps
of cotton or silk, or some other odd material; and amongst them, tufts
of human hair. The sentiment that motived the use of human hair has
been either love or hate--the votive or the triumphal. We know that
Delilah was not a stranger to this art. She wove into her web Samson's
seven locks of strength, and "fastened them with a pin" (Judges xvi.).
In the thirteenth century it was the custom for ladies to weave their
own hair into their gifts to favoured knights. King Ris, if he had
received any such token from his lady-love, returned it with
interest; for he sent her a mantle in which were inwoven the beards of
nine conquered kings, a tenth space being left for that of King
Arthur, which he promised to add in course of time.[139]
Leather has been from the remotest antiquity employed for the art of
embroidery, either for the ground, as in the mantle of Boadicea, made
of skins with the fur turned inwards and the leather outside, dressed,
and embroidered on the seams;[140] or else as fine inlaid and onlaid
application, as in the "funeral tent of an Egyptian queen" in the
museum at Boulac, which is certainly the earliest specimen of
needlework decoration that exists.[141] (Pl. 44.) The old Indian
embroideries in leather are generally applied one on another. The
North American Indians also embroider on leather.[142]
Feather work will be discussed under the heading of "Opus
Plumarium."[143]
On the surface of textiles many substances have been fastened down, in
order to give brilliancy to the general effect--skins of insects,
beetles' wings, the claws and teeth of various animals.[144]
Asbestos linen is the only mineral substance, besides gold, silver,
and tin,[145] that has been employed in embroidery. It has the
remarkable quality of indestructibility by fire. Asbestos linen can be
cleansed by fire instead of water.[146] It is a soapy crystal, found
in veins of serpentine and cipolino in Cyprus, and other Greek
islands. Pliny says it was woven for the funeral obsequies of
monarchs, as it preserved the ashes apart, being itself unharmed by
the fires of cremation. There are several fragments existing, found in
tombs. One of these is in the British Museum.[147]
Marco Polo speaks of a stone fibre found at Chinchin, which answers in
description to asbestos. It was spun by mixing it with threads of flax
soaked in oil; and when woven, was passed through the fire to remove
the flax and the oil.[148]
A miraculous napkin of asbestos was long kept at Monte Casino.
Coral, pearls, and beads of many forms have been used for the
enrichment of embroideries, and for decorating textiles. The whole
surface of the original fabric has often been entirely covered with
them, or the pattern itself has been worked in nothing else. Pearls
are constantly seen worked on dress, coats-of-arms, and embroidered
portraits. Seed pearls, large coarse pearls, and sometimes fine and
precious ones, were surrounded with gold thread embroidery. Coral was
so much used in Sicilian embroideries, and so little elsewhere, that
one gives the name of "Sicilian" to all such work; but occasionally we
find coral embroideries in Spain and elsewhere (Pl. 32).
[Illustration: Pl. 32.
Portion of Dalmatic embroidered by Blanche, Queen of Charles IV.
of Bohemia (fifteenth century). The figures in pearls, on a
background of beaten gold. Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder."
Vol. i. taf. xi.]
Beads of glass were common in Egypt from the earliest times, strung
together by threads so as to form breastplates rather than necklaces.
Whence beads originally came we cannot tell, but it seems that the
Phœnicians dropped them on all the shores of the world. Then, as
now, savages had a passion for beads, and civilized men and women
still admire them as trimmings. In the Middle Ages they were sometimes
worked into pictures.[149]
In as far as materials are essential to the art of embroidery, I must
restrict myself to the history of silk, wool, flax, cotton, and gold.
With these all the finest works have been executed for the artistic
adornment of dress and hangings. All other materials have been
occasional experiments, or else were resorted to in the absence or
ignorance of the above five most important factors in our domestic
civilization. The history of wool must take precedence as being that
of the original, if not the first, of textile materials.
2. WOOL.
The wool of sheep and the hair of goats were used very early in the
world's history for clothing, and probably also for hangings. The
earliest civilizations plaited, span,[150] wove, and felted them.
There is no reason to suppose that goats and sheep preceded the
creation of man. No early fossils record them. Our sheep are supposed
by zoologists to be descended from the Argali or Ovis Ammon of
Linnæus, inhabiting the central regions of Asia.[151]
It is possible that plaited grasses may have preceded wool. But though
certain prehistoric specimens are supposed to have been found in
Spain, yet of this there is but imperfect proof.
The pastoral tribes wandering over those fair regions that extend from
Khotan to Arabia, following their flocks and herds, and studying where
best to feed, increase, and multiply them, and obtain from them the
finest texture of wool, are spoken of nowhere more than in the
collected books of the Old Testament, open to us all; and there we
learn how important a place these shepherds held in the world's
civilization. "Watching their flocks by night," they watched the stars
also, and they were astronomers; seeking the best pastures and fodder,
they learned to be botanists, florists, and agriculturalists. They
became also philosophers, poets, prophets, and kings.[152] Job and his
country were enriched through the breeding of sheep. The seven
daughters of Jethro, the High-priest, tended their father's flocks.
The Arabians were always great breeders of sheep. The Greeks and
Romans, from Homer to Virgil, sang of the herdsman's life. Our Lord
Himself did not disdain to be called "the Good Shepherd."[153]
The merchants who traded from the Arabian Gulf to Egypt, and across
thence to the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Phœnicians of
Sidon who brought overland their bales of raw material and
manufactured Oriental fabrics, knew well where to find the best goods
for their customers; and we hear frequently whence came this or that
coloured wool. Chemmis, the city of Pan, retained its celebrity in the
woollen trade down to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans. Nineveh and
Babylon encouraged the manufactures and commerce in woollen tents,
wall-hangings, and carpets. Nowhere were they so richly
embroidered.[154]
Solomon purchased woollens from Egypt. Damascus supplied the Tyrians
with wool for their rugs. The stuffs and textile fabrics of wool, of
the Chinese, Assyrians, and Chaldeans, are recorded in the earliest
writings of the human race. How much their decoration depended on
weaving, and how much on embroidery, we cannot tell. The products of
the Babylonian looms are alluded to in the Book of Joshua,[155] and
also by Ezekiel.[156]
Assyrian stuffs were always celebrated for their splendid colours and
various designs; among which were hunting scenes, battles, and special
emblematic adornments.[157]
From Miletus came the wool valued most highly by the Greeks. Spain
produced the best black, and the north of Italy the best white wool.
The Narbonensian and Egyptian wools were supposed to be the most
durable, and when they became shabby, were dipped again and served
another generation.
From Yates' account of the great variety of wools, remarkable for
their fine texture, their whiteness,[158] their blackness,[159] or
their redness, their cool or their warm tints, it is evident that the
ancients valued highly these different qualities.[160] The cloths that
were of greatest account were of the finest or the warmest kinds. The
sheep of Miletus, Attica, Megaris, and Tarentum were clothed in
jackets, in order to preserve the fineness and whiteness of their own
coats, and to protect them from being torn by the thorny bushes in
their pastures. Columella calls them the "covered" and the "soft," and
says they were often kept in the house.
We find notices of the peculiarities of the various national breeds,
caused by the soil on which their pasture grew, and the rivers and
streams at which they drank, and these peculiarities were, if
possible, encouraged. There is evidence also that some improvement of
the breeds by crossing was practised in early times.
As in all the life of the Greeks, the religious element had much
influence in perfecting their flocks of sheep--only the most beautiful
animals were considered worthy of sacrifice to the gods.
A few of the rare specimens of stuffs which have been rescued from
tombs, especially in the Crimea, and in the Fayoum, in Egypt, show a
wool so fine and shining that it might be taken for silk, and the
beauty of the weaving is marvellous, and much varied in style.
A warrior's tomb in the district of Kuban contained a funeral pall,
covering the sarcophagus, measuring at least three metres and a half
each way, woven of brown wool, in twelve narrow strips sewn together
and afterwards painted. The ground is yellowish, the design brown. The
figures repeat mythical subjects, and alternate with patterns, and
there is a border. One strip contains a scene from the story of Peleus
and Thetis. Apparently this is Attic design. The coloured dresses worn
by women of rank, and hung on the statues of the gods, were sometimes
painted, sometimes stamped, and often embroidered, and they were
nearly all of woollen fabrics.
One of the great advantages of wool is its power of absorbing colour,
as the pigment sinks into its very fibre, instead of clinging to the
surface. It can be dyed of deeper colours than flax, cotton, or silk.
Pliny tells us that Tanaquil combed, span, and wove her wool, and she
herself made the royal mantle which Servius Tullius used to wear, and
it was covered with a wavy pattern (undulata). Thence came the custom
that when a maiden became a bride, her attendants carried a distaff
trimmed with combed wool, and a spindle with yarn upon it. The robes
worked by Tanaquil were dedicated by Servius Tullius to the statue of
Fortune in her temple at Rome, and were still hanging there in the
days of Tiberius.[161] Pliny remarks that it was a wonder that it
neither fell from the image, nor was eaten by the moths, during five
hundred and sixty years.
He gives us interesting details of the weaving of woollen cloths, and
speaks of the thick coarse wool with "great thick hair," used for
carpets from the time of Homer. The same passage mentions felt. He
tells us of the cloths with a curly nap, used in the days of Augustus;
of the "papaverata" woven with flowers resembling poppies; and we hear
from him of the cloth of divers colours woven in Babylon, and called
thence Babylonica; and the Alexandrian webs, with many-coloured
threads (polymita)[162], comparing them with those made in Gaul; and
those woven by the Parthians.[163]
We have already said that the wool of Miletus was a proverbial
favourite with the Greeks. Eustathius speaks of the excellence of the
Milesian carpets and hangings. Virgil represents the virgins of Cyrene
spinning Milesian wool dyed of a deep sea-green.[164]
In the British Museum is a fragment of Egyptian woollen or worsted
embroidery on white linen, discoloured by its use as mummy wrapping;
but the stitches of worsted remain a perfectly clear bright crimson
and indigo blue. This shows how wool absorbs the colour and retains
it. Even when the surface is faded, it can be made to emit it again by
chemical processes.
In tombs in the Crimea have been found variously woven and adorned
woollen fabrics. There are fragments resembling in their texture a
fine rep--a sort of corded stuff; another material resembling a
woollen crêpe, or fine "nun's gauze." This veiled a golden wreath.
Then there is a stuff like what is now called "atlas"--a kind of
woollen satin. Some woollens are woven simply like linen; some are
wide, some very narrow, sewn together in strips, woven in meandering
designs. One, like a piece of Gobelin tapestry, has a border of ducks
with yellow wings and dark green heads and throats,[165] and then
another with a pattern of stags' heads. This description recalls the
specimens on plate 16 and plate 39.
From these tombs are collected stuffs of wool, woven and embroidered
in gold with combinations of many colours; and, in fact, through this
collection, now placed in the Museum at St. Petersburg, we become
aware that 300 B.C. the Greeks had learned all the secrets of the art
of weaving wool. They, however, lost it, and it is only in India that
its continuity was never broken. Indian looms still weave, of the
finest fleeces, such shawls of Babylonian design as repeat the texture
of the ancient Greek garments. But were they Greek? or did those
beautiful woven fabrics come from Persia or India?[166]
The first we know of Scandinavian wool for dress, is a fragment from a
Celtic barrow in Yorkshire--a woollen plaited shroud. This fabric was
an advance upon the original northern savage costume--a sheep-skin
fashioned and sewn with a fish-bone for a needle, sinews for thread,
and a thorn for a pin. But we must imagine that some use was made,
besides plaiting, of the spun wool, of which the early northern women
have left us evidence, in the whorls of their spindles, from
prehistoric times.
Wool has always appeared to be a natural material for dress. It is
warm in winter, light in summer, and is always beautiful as it hangs
in lovely soft draperies, heavy enough to draw the fabric into
graceful curved lines, and yet capable of yielding to each movement
in little rippling folds, covering, but not concealing the forms to
which they cling. Classical draperies are explained by it. What the
Italians call the "eyes of the folds," are particularly beautiful in
woollens, and lend themselves to sculpturesque art.
The other natural use of wool is for carpets. We have the evidence of
the imitations, in mosaic, of carpets from the stone floors in Nineveh
(now in the British Museum), that the art of weaving large and small
rugs, and the principles of composition for such purposes was at that
date well understood. The carpet-weaving traditions of Babylon appear
to have been inherited by the occupiers of the soil, as it is supposed
that the Saracens learned from Persia the art of weaving pile carpets,
and imported thence craftsmen into Spain. We can trace Persian carpet
patterns in Indian floor coverings. The Greeks called them _tapetes_;
and the Latins adopted the name; and hence the Italian _tapeti_,
French _tapis_, and our word tapestry.
As artistic material, to which the world owes much beauty and comfort,
woollens have always played a great part in the decorations of our
houses, as of our garments. Fabrics have been made of them of every
description, from the cheapest and commonest to the most refined; but
if woollen stuffs are to be beautiful, they must be _fine_, and worked
or embroidered by hand.
Woollens brocaded or figured are not so effective as silken hangings.
Woollen velvets are without light, dull and heavy. Still, even amongst
our English fabrics, there have always been varieties of texture[167]
and adaptations to different effects, and some are beautiful.
Worsted thread, so called from Worsted, in Norfolk, where the
materials for weaving and embroidering are manufactured, has always
been very important in embroidery. Worsteds after a time gave way to a
very beautiful material, called "German wool," which again has yielded
the supremacy to "crewels"[168] (resembling the old worsteds). These
crewels are nearly the same in substance and in their loose texture as
the threads prepared from wool for tapestry weaving.
We may claim, in England, the superiority in this manufacture, though
we are constantly receiving from France novelties which give us good
hints, and urge us to keep pace with the science of the Gobelins in
their woollen dyes. The French, in return, employ our wools,
especially those of Lincolnshire, in their tapestry workshops.
The wool and hair of goats should be a study by itself. They have from
the earliest times been used in India for the finest and softest
fabrics, such as the lovely shawls of Cashmere and the neighbouring
provinces. Cloth of Tars in the Middle Ages is supposed to be what is
now called Cashmere.
3. FLAX.
Boyd Dawkins tells us that "The art of spinning and the manufacture of
linen were introduced into Europe in the Neolithic age, and have been
preserved with little variation from that period to the present day,
in certain remote parts of Europe, having only been superseded in
modern times by the complicated machinery so familiar to us. The
spindle and distaff, or perforated spindle whorls, are of stone,
pottery, or bone, such as are constantly found in Neolithic tombs and
habitations. Thread from the Swiss lake cities is proved to be of
flax, and there is evidence of weaving in some sort of loom."[169]
The meaning of the word Byssus has been disputed; some authorities
asserting that it includes both flax and cotton fabrics. Without the
aid of the microscope, the dispute as to whether the material of the
Egyptian mummy wrappings was cotton or flax, or a mixture of the two,
would never have been settled; but now that the difference of the
structure of each has been clearly ascertained, we know that cotton
was never employed in Egypt, except for certain domestic uses. The
mummy wrappings are entirely linen. Cotton was forbidden for the
priests' dress in the temple, though they might wear it when not on
duty.[170]
There are specimens of Egyptian painted or printed patterns on fine
linen in the British Museum;[171] and it is curious to see in Egyptian
mural paintings the same patterned chintzes on furniture that were
common a hundred years ago in England. Both must have come from India,
and therefore were certainly cotton fabrics.
Herodotus says the mummy cloths were of "byssine sindon," which may be
translated "linen cloth."[172] Cotton he calls "tree wool."
Yates has carefully argued the whole question, and, we think, has
proved that byssus was flax, and not cotton.[173] He quotes Philo,
who certainly must have believed that it was made of flax, from the
description he gives of its appearance and qualities, which in no way
apply to cotton or hemp. He says that "The Jewish high priests wore a
linen garment of the purest byssus--which was a symbol of firmness,
incorruption, and of the clearest splendour, for fine linen is very
difficult to tear. It is made of nothing mortal, and becomes brighter
and more resembling light, the more it is cleansed by washing."[174]
Here is another quotation: "Cloth of byssus symbolizes firm faith. Its
threads surpass even ropes of broom in firmness and strength."[175]
Pliny says the flax grown in Egypt was superior to any other, and it
was exported to Arabia and India.[176] The first known existing
fragment of flax linen in Europe was taken from the tomb of the Seven
Brothers in the Crimea. Its date is 300 B.C.
In Solomon's time the Jews evidently depended upon Egypt for their
fine linen. Herodotus describes the corselet of Amasis, the fineness
of the linen, and the embroidered decorations of men and animals,
partly gold and partly tree wool (i.e. cotton).[177]
All the finest linen certainly came then from Egypt, and was much
finer than any that is now made. That we call cambric, was woven there
many centuries before it was made in Cambray.[178]
Through the Phœnicians the fine linen came to Rome, as appears
from the following notice of embroidery on linen by Flavius Vopiscus,
in his "Life of the Emperor Carinus:" "Why should I mention the linen
cloths brought from Tyre and Sidon, which are so thin as to be
transparent, which glow with purple, or are prized on account of their
laborious embroideries?"[179]
The history of a fine embroidered linen curtain for a Roman house
might have been this:--Grown in Egypt; carried to Nomenticum (Artois),
and there woven; taken to India to be embroidered, and thence as
merchandise to Rome.
While flax was making its way northward, the Celts must also have
taken it across Europe from their resting-place, after emigrating from
the East. The word _linen_--_lin-white_--is a Celtic epithet, whereas
_flax_ is an Anglo-Saxon word.[180]
The Atrebates wove linen in Artois, 1800 years ago. Jerome speaks of
their "indumenta," or shirts of fine linen; and the great weavers of
to-day are still the Flemish descendants of the Atrebates. Their
Celtic descent is witnessed in the Irish by their superiority in the
crafts of the loom.
The fine laces of Venice, France, and Belgium are all of linen, i.e.
flaxen thread. Clearness and strength in these delicate fabrics cannot
be obtained with cotton, which, especially when it is washed, swells
and fluffs, and never has the radiant appearance and purity of flax.
Embroidery is always a natural accompaniment of fine linen. Those that
are still preserved to us from early and Middle-Age times are nearly
all on linen, if not on silk. The woollen fragments are very few and
imperfect. They have been invariably "fretted" by the moth.
White needle embroidery is mostly worked in linen-thread, though
cotton-thread has been used a great deal, and is very fit for the
purpose.
4. COTTON.
Cotton was native to India,[181] as flax was to Egypt. It not only was
grown, woven, and printed there from the remotest antiquity, but was
cultivated nowhere else. The Egyptians do not appear to have grown it
till the fourteenth century A.D., though they had long imported it as
raw material, and as plain and printed webs.[182] It was called
tree-wool.
It was first woven in Italy in the thirteenth century, and used for
making paper; and in the sixteenth, the plant was grown in the south
of Europe. From Italy it was carried into the Low Countries, and only
reached England in the seventeenth century,[183] so lately has the
great staple of our manufactures first belonged to us.
The fibre of cotton has neither the strength nor the durability of
flax or silk, but it is the third in the group of the most universally
qualified materials for all purposes of domestic textile art, ranging
from carpets and sails, to fine chintzes for dress, and filmy muslins.
The cloudy effect of these delicate fabrics is their own peculiar
beauty. Muslins for hangings, printed or embroidered, have always
been a luxury from India; they were called "carbasa," and were much
esteemed in Rome as a protection against the sun.[184]
But we have much earlier notice of them, as being the curtains
described in the Book of Esther, hung with silver rings to the pillars
of marble in the banqueting hall at Susa or Shushan: "blue and white
muslin" (i.e. carpas,[185] mistranslated "green" in the Authorized
Version), "fastened with cords of fine linen and purple."
The word "carbasina" occurs in a play by Statius, evidently translated
from a writer of the new Greek comedy period. It may be inferred,
therefore, that the Greeks used cotton 200 B.C.[186] A century before,
Nearchus (one of Alexander's admirals) speaks of the cotton-trees in
India as if they were a new discovery. Yates gives us many quotations
from Latin classical authors, proving the common use of cotton. Its
Latin name was _bambacinum_, from _bombax_, hence the Italian
_bambagio_, _bambagino_, _bambasino_.
The variety of cotton fabrics in India is very numerous, each having
its distinctive beauties and qualities inherited by tradition from
early times. They are enumerated and described in Sir G. Birdwood's
"Arts of India." Almost all of them have been made to carry
embroideries--the transparent muslins,[187] as well as the fine
cloths, and the stronger and thicker fabrics.[188]
Most old English houses contain some hangings of thickly woven cotton,
probably Indian, worked in crewel or worsted, of the time of James I.,
or a little earlier; and beautiful patterns wrought in silk or thread,
on fine cotton linen, reminding one of the arabesques of the Taj
Mahal, succeeded those of the Jacobean style.
Transparent muslins were often embroidered in gold and silver, or
spangled and embossed with beetles' wings; and gold, silver, and silk
were lavished on Indian cotton grounds, as well as on silken stuffs.
Linen was not much embroidered in India, but often printed like
chintz.
Buckram, or plush of cotton, was certainly imported from the East to
England, from the thirteenth century to the time of Elizabeth. There
is at Ashridge, in Hertfordshire, a small jacket of very fine
cotton-plush amongst the baby linen prepared by Elizabeth for the
expected heir of Philip and Mary, and there are other small dresses of
this material of the date of James I. A similar material called
fustian is also named by Marco Polo as a cotton fabric; it is supposed
to have been made in Egypt by the Arabs. This sort of cotton-plush,
variously manipulated, is repeatedly mentioned by Herr Graf'schen in
his "Catalogue of Egyptian Textiles from the Fayoum."
Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were "bacramo," or else
of baudichin (cloth of gold). Falstaff's "men in buckram" may be thus
explained.[189]
I have already said that cotton is inferior in its qualities to silk
and flax, except in the production of transparent muslins. Its
peculiarity is its tendency to "crinkle" or crumple in wearing,
therefore it does not present a smooth flat surface, except by means
of dressing, which unfits it for clinging effects but suits printed
patterns. Such stuffs as workhouse sheeting, imitating certain fabrics
of the sixteenth century, and which it has been the fashion of late to
cover with embroidery, do not repay, by effective beauty, the trouble
bestowed upon them.
5. GOLD.
A somewhat profane French writer, giving his ideas on the Creation,
says that gold, the latest metal, was expressly created for the
demoralization of mankind. This is an ugly version of the fact that it
is found on the surface of the earth's crust, and that its beauty and
worth makes it a desirable possession for which men will ever contend.
Gold adorns every work of the artistic animal--man. It is the most
becoming setting to all other beautiful things, the most gorgeous
reflection of light and colour, the richest and softest background,
the most harmonious medium for high lights. In all works of decoration
it represents sunshine where it is not, and doubles it where it is.
The word "illumination" in books belongs to the gilded illustrations
of immortal thoughts.
In embroideries, as grounding or as pattern, gold gives the glory:
"Her clothing is of wrought gold." The raiment of needlework is
comparatively ineffective without golden lights or background. As
colour, it never can offend the eye, except when used to accentuate
aggressively a vulgar pattern, or when it flashes and dazzles from
over-polish and too lavish expenditure.
Silver follows gold as a splendid element in decoration,[190] but it
is not of such universal application and use; and when employed
together, the proportion of gold should preponderate. Golden tissues
belong to the earliest civilizations.
Sir G. Birdwood says that "The art of gold brocades is older than the
Code of Manu.... The excellence of the art passed in the long course
of ages, from one place to another; and Babylon, Tarsus, Alexandria,
Baghdad, Damascus, Antioch, Tabriz, Sicily, and Tripoli successively
became celebrated for their gold and silver-wrought tissues, silks,
and brocades.... Through every disguise (and mingling of style) it is
not impossible to infer the essential identity of the brocades with
the fabrics of blue, purple, and scarlet, worked in gold, of ancient
Babylonian art."[191]
The Israelites wove gold with their coloured woollens for the use of
the sanctuary, and probably brought the art from Egypt; though I am
not aware of any gold-woven stuffs from Egyptian tombs.[192]
Indian and Chinese stuffs were from time immemorial woven with gold.
The historians of Alexander the Great continually name gold as a
material in dress.[193] Arrian, Justin, and Quintus Curtius, all speak
of golden tissues as part of the luxury of the East.
We hear of Darius' dress woven with golden hawks; and of the golden
spoils of Persepolis; the dresses worn by Alexander's generals, and
all his attendants clothed in purple and gold. Then, perhaps, the
Babylonian tradition was brought to Europe; and ever after, purple and
gold became the state apparel for courtiers as well as kings.[194]
The hangings of scarlet, purple, and gold used at the nuptials of
Alexander, and at his funeral, and his pall of the same material, point
to the fact that gold was a recognized element in splendid textile
weaving, as well as in the earliest ornamental embroideries.[195]
Attalus II., king of Pergamus, was credited with being the inventor of
gold weaving, but this must have been a mistake, as it was practised
long before his time; but he may have devised some splendid golden
tissues, which were called "Attalic," in honour of the king's
patronage.[196] As, however, the gold flat plate or wire was probably
that woven before his time,[197] it is possible that he may have
invented or patronized the making of thread of gold, by twining it
round flax or cotton.[198]
Pliny says gold may be woven or spun like wool without any admixture
of wool or flax,[199] and he quotes as examples the golden garment of
Agrippina, and that worn by Tarquinius Priscus, mentioned by Verrius.
It appears that the Egyptians knew the art of drawing gold wire, as
some pieces have been found in their jewellery;[200] but we know not
by what process it was worked, either then, or in the dark ages.
A mechanic of Nuremberg, in the fourteenth century, invented a machine
for the purpose; and this art of drawing wire was introduced into
England 200 years later, in 1560.
The pure cut gold was in use in Rome to a late date.[201] St. Cecilia,
martyred 230 A.D., was buried with her golden mantle lying at her
feet; and in 821, when Pope Pascal opened her grave, he found the
evidence of her martyrdom in that splendid garment, showing that it
had been soaked in blood.[202]
There were found under the foundations of the new Basilica of St.
Peter's, the bodies of Probus Anicius and his wife, Proba Faltonia, in
a wrapping of gold.
Dr. Rock gives us more examples,[203] but we will only add that of the
wife of the Emperor Honorius, who in the year 400 A.D. was buried in
a golden dress, which in 1544 was removed from her grave, and being
melted, weighed 36 lbs.[204]
The Anglo-Saxon tomb opened at Chessell Down, in the Isle of Wight,
contained fragments of a garment or wrapping woven with flat gold
"plate." These remains are now in the British Museum.
Childeric was buried at Tournai, 485 A.D., and his dress of strips of
pure gold was discovered and melted in 1653. But gold _thread_ also
was then very generally used in weaving gold tissues.
Claudian describes a Christian lady, Proba, in the fourth century,
preparing the consular robes for her two sons on their being raised to
the consulate:[205]--
"The joyful mother plies her knowing hands,
And works on all the trabea golden bands;
Draws the thin strips to all the length of gold,
_To make the metal meaner threads enfold_."
Pure gold was woven in the dark ages in England. St. Cuthbert's
maniple at Durham is of pure gold thread. John Garland says the ladies
wove golden cingulæ in the thirteenth century; and Henry I., according
to Hoveden, was clothed in a robe of state of woven gold and gems of
almost "divine splendour."[206]
A wrapping of beautiful gold brocade covered the coffin of Henry III.
when his tomb was opened in 1871.[207]
The cope of St. Andrew at Aix, in Switzerland, is embroidered in a
very simple pattern, with large circles containing St. Andrew's
crosses.[208] This is worked in silver wire gilt, and is Byzantine of
the twelfth century.
In the writings of the Middle Ages we find constant reference to
different golden fabrics. Among them are "samit" or "examitur" (a
six-thread silk stuff, preciously inwoven with gold threads);[209] and
"ciclatoun,"[210] which was remarkable for the lightness of its
texture, and was woven with shining gold threads--but though light, it
was stiff enough to carry heavy embroidery. We hear also of
"baudekin," "nak," and cloth of pall. "Camoca" is "kincob."
There appears to be a link between embroidery in gold and the
jewellers' work which in the Dark and Middle Ages was so often applied
to ecclesiastical and royal dress and hangings. This link was beaten
gold work, "aurobacutos," "beaten work," or "batony."[211] Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI., went over to France, having
a "coat for my lord's body, beat with fine gold (probably heraldic
designs). For his ship, a streamer forty yards long and eight broad,
with a great bear and griffin, and 400 'pencils' with the 'ragged
staff' in silver." This mode lasted some time; for in 1538, Barbara
Mason bequeathed to a church a "vestment of green silk beaten with
gold." Probably this beaten gold was really very thick gold-leaf laid
on the silk or linen ground, as we see still in some Sicilian and Arab
tissues. The embroidered banners taken from Charles le Téméraire, at
Grandson, are finished with broad borders of gilded inscriptions, such
as might be called beaten gold work.[212]
But besides this thick gold-leaf, there was another mode of enriching
embroideries. Laminæ of gold were cut into shapes, and finished the
work by accentuating the design in Eastern embroideries; They are
found also in Greek tombs, and in the Middle Ages they varied from the
little golden spangle to many other forms--circular rings, stars,
crescents, moons, leaves, and solid pendant wedges of gold, all which
approached the art of the goldsmith.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.
Spangles.]
Enamel was soon added to the enrichment of these golden spangles,
plates, or discs, which were enlarged to receive a design.[213] Of
this style of embellishment we know none so striking as the saddle in
the Museum at Munich, said to have been taken from a Turkish general
in the fifteenth century. This is Italian of the finest cinque-cento
style: blue velvet, covered with beautiful gold embroidery, and
every vacant space filled with spangles of endless forms, and of
precious goldsmiths' and enamellers' work. The Persian stirrups
attached to it are of a totally different style of enamelling and
jewellery, and speak for themselves, and for the school they came
from.[214]
[Illustration: Pl. 33.
Window Hanging, by Gentil Bellini, from a Portrait of Mahomet II.,
property of Sir H. Layard.]
Dr. Rock describes part of a chasuble wrought by Isabella of Spain and
her maids of honour, in which the flowing design is worked out in
small moulded spangles of gold and silver, set so as to overlap each
other and give the effect of scales.
To a late period, gold and silver embroideries, enriched with
spangles, have been lavished on the head-dresses and stomachers of the
peasantry throughout the north of Europe and Switzerland.[215]
Pearls and gems, either threaded like beads, or in golden settings,
are to be studied in the early pictures of the German and French
schools; and the Anglo-Saxons excelled in such enrichments.
Sir Henry Layard has a portrait of the fifteenth century, of the
Sultan Mahomet II., by Gentil Bellini, from which has been copied the
accompanying beautiful embroidered design of a window-hanging.[216]
The grace of the lines, and the delicate taste with which the gems are
set in the work, are a lesson in art (pl. 33).
India sent to Europe more art in gold thread than has ever been
produced amongst us from our own workshops.[217]
The people of Goa, mostly Arabs, embroidered for the Portuguese those
wonderful fabrics, glittering with gold and radiant with colours,
which cover the beds and hang the rooms throughout Portugal and
Spain.[218] The precious metals (often forming the whole grounding)
were employed without stint; the patterns being either embroidered in
coloured silks and gold; or on velvets or satins, with gold alone or
mixed with silver.
The fine gold threads for embroidery, which have preserved their
brilliancy for so many centuries, such as we find worked in
Charlemagne's dalmatic, in Aelfled's maniple, and in the mitres of
Thomas à Becket, are certainly Oriental. To England they came in the
bales of the merchants who brought us our silk, and even our needles,
from India. Later we imported and copied the different ways of giving
effect to inferior metals, and the Spaniard's gilt parchment thread
reached us from their Moorish manufactories.[219]
Designs were sometimes, in the sixteenth century, worked in gold
twisted with coloured silks, sometimes only stitched down with them.
The badges of the Order of the Dragon, instituted by the Emperor
Sigismund, were thus embroidered, and placed on the cloaks of the
knights. The work was so perfect that it resembled jewels of enamelled
gold. Two ancient ones are in the Museum at Munich.
Gold or silver or base metal wire was, in the later Middle Ages and
down to our own times, much employed in the form of what is called
"purl," i.e. coiled wire cut into short lengths, threaded on silk, and
sewn down. German, Italian, and English embroideries were often
enriched with this fabric. Sometimes the wire was twisted with
coloured silks before it was coiled. There are beautiful specimens of
this work of the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Still, throughout Europe the best works were carried out with the best
materials, and these always came from the East. But we sometimes find
that the pressure of circumstances has for a time caused the
employment of adulterated metals that have perished; and thus many
fine works of art have been spoiled.[220]
The use of bad materials has therefore been as unfortunate for art as
that of pure gold, which has tempted so many ignorant persons to burn
golden embroideries and tapestries, and melt down the ore they
contain. How little of all that human skill and invention have
carefully elaborated is now preserved to us! To gold and silver
textiles their materials have been often a fatal dower.
It has sometimes puzzled any but the most experienced embroiderers to
distinguish between the stuffs woven with the golden threads on the
surface, and finely brocaded or patterned in the loom; and those other
cloths, embroidered by hand, which have been so manipulated that
hardly an atom of the gold can be detected at the back. This is done
by a technical mode of treating the surface, which is more easily
shown than described. The gold is really drawn into the spaces between
the threads of the canvas or linen grounding, but never pulled
through. For many reasons this is an advantage, and when executed
cunningly, as it was in England in the twelfth century, it is rich,
beautiful, lasting, and economical. It is a peculiar mark of the "opus
Anglicanum," and it is to be seen in the mitre at Munich, where this
stitch is employed on a white satin ground;[221] also in the working
of the two pluvials at San Giovanni Laterano at Rome, and at the
Museum at Bologna, as well as that at Madrid, which are all three
English of the thirteenth century, by design as well as by stitches.
I cannot close this chapter without naming the many schools of gold
embroidery in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The King of
Bavaria has an establishment for gold work, and this is very finely
carried out, highly raised, and richly designed.[222] In Spain there
is also a Royal School, where stately works are executed.
It is to be regretted that the modern designs are motiveless, and not
so beautiful as the old ones, and it is very difficult to have any
ancient piece of work copied exactly. Little modernisms creep in
wherever the pattern has to be fitted into a new shape; for the
accomplished needlewoman is seldom an artist.
All honour is due to certain manufacturers at Lyons who are working in
the spirit of the old masters, and have been seriously considering how
best to reproduce the beautiful soft surface of the gold thread of
which the secret was lost in the fifteenth century.[223]
The old Chinese flat gold was, about the sixteenth century, superseded
by what was manufactured in Spain, and is no longer imported or,
perhaps, even made.
6. SILK.
The origin and history of silk is learnedly and elaborately discussed
in Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum." He gives us his authorities, and
literal translations for the benefit of the unlearned, who cannot read
the original texts. I have availed myself without hesitation of his
quotations, and of the carefully considered opinions he has drawn from
them.
It has been already said that wool and flax preceded silk in Egyptian,
Greek, and Roman manufactures. There is no certain mention of silk in
the Books of the Old Testament.[224] Silk is, however, named in the
Code of Manu.[225]
No shred of silk has been found in any Egyptian tomb, nor till
lately, and with one exception only, in those of the Greeks.
Auberville says, "La soie ne fit son apparition en Europe que 300 ans
avant notre ère."[226]
Pamphile, daughter of Plates, of Cos, is said by Aristotle to have
there first woven silk (300 B.C.). Probably raw silk was brought to
Cos from the interior of Asia, and Pamphile is by some supposed to
have "effilèd" the solid manufactured silks, and woven them again into
gauzy webs. Yates suggests that it is possible that Pamphile obtained
cocoons and unwound them, as the passage in Aristotle may be so
interpreted.
The specimen of early silk-weaving which we have above alluded to, was
taken out of the "Tomb of the Seven Brothers" at Kertch, in the
Crimea, and is of the third century B.C. It consists of several bits
of very transparent painted silk. These fragments are an actual and
yet a contemporary witness to the truth of the tradition of Pamphile's
Coan webs, which are of the same date: possibly they were her
handiwork.
[Illustration: Pl. 34.
1. Classical Silk. Greek. (Semper's "Der Stil," p. 192.) 2.
Classical Silk. Roman. (Auberville, pl. 4.)]
Whether Pamphile's silk gauzes were the only fine webs of Cos,[227] is
a disputed question. She has the credit of being the first to clothe
victorious generals in triumphal garments, and she has been
immortalized by her cleverness and industry. Both Aristotle and Pliny
assert that she first invented the Coan webs, and that some of them
were of silk is undoubted. The question is, How came it there?
whence and by what route? and what country was its original home and
birthplace?
After stating the _pros_ and _cons_ of the question, how and where did
silk first make its appearance, Sir G. Birdwood concludes that both
the worm and the cocoon were known to the Greeks and Romans, by report
and rare specimens, from the time of Alexander's return from his
Indian campaign.[228]
Of course the remains of these fabrics are extremely scarce; and, in
fact, only two are at present known to me besides the Kertch specimen.
The first is given in Semper's "Der Stil," and is evidently classical
Greek or Roman; but the silk material might have been effilèd from an
Oriental stuff (pl. 34, No. 1). The second must have been originally a
Roman pattern, modified by the Persian loom in which it was woven.
This may have been a Roman triumphal robe of the date of Julius Cæsar
(pl. 34, No. 2).
It is clear that Chinese silken stuffs were not generally known in
Southern Europe till the time of Julius Cæsar, who displayed a
profusion of silks in some of his splendid theatrical representations.
How silk first arrived from the East is disputed; some say it came by
the Red Sea, and other authorities believe it was brought from China,
_viâ_ Persia, by land.
But it is not necessary that it should have entered our civilization
by only one gate. The Periplus Maris Erythræi makes frequent mention
of the trade in silks, through India, by the Indus to the coasts of
the Erythrean Sea. They were also brought through Bactria to Barygaza,
near Surat, from a city called Thina (China?). The author of the
Periplus, of course, refers to some place in the country vaguely
called Serica.[229]
That the trade which brought it into Europe was difficult and
limited, is proved by the fact that silk continued, even as late as
the third century of our era, to be an article of luxury, of which the
manufacture and use continued to be the subject of legal enactments
and restrictions, for 600 years after Pamphile's first essay in
silk-weaving in Cos.
"The Seres" was the name given by the ancients to the nation which
produced silk; and it was undoubtedly that accepted for the distant
region now called China, including Corea, and later, the kingdom of
Khotan. The first mention of these people as a distinct nation is by
Mela (iii. 7), who speaks of them as an "honest people, who bring what
they have to sell, and return for their payments."[230]
The prevailing idea amongst the Greeks was that silk was combed from
the trees. Seneca says:--
"Nor with Mæonian needle mark the web,
Gathered by Eastern Seres from the trees."
Seneca the Tragedian, "Herc. Ætæus," 644.[231]
This was, till lately, believed to be only a fiction, intended to hide
the truth and enhance the value of the new Coan material. But it is
now ascertained that some of the wild silk in China is carried by the
silkworm round the trees, wrapping them up, as it were, in large,
untidy cocoons; so that, as usual, tradition had truth for its
foundation.
There was always much mysterious report about the new material.
Dionysius Periegetes tells of a barbarous people called the Seres,
who "renounce the care of sheep and oxen, but who comb the coloured
flowers of the desert, and with them produce woven precious stuffs, of
which they make figured garments, resembling the flowers of the field
in beauty, and in texture the web of the spider."[232]
There is no doubt that as Egypt was the first to weave linen, and
India to produce cotton textiles, so in China originated the material
of silk and its manufacture.
M. Terrien de la Couperie, who has deciphered the Archaic books of the
Chinese Records, sees there excellent linguistic proofs that the
Chinese nation was originally a fragment of the first Babylonian
civilization. He there finds that when these Accadians arrived on the
furthest eastern coast of Asia, they met with and enslaved an
aboriginal race, who already cultivated the silkworm, and wove and
worked its produce, and were called by them "the Embroiderers."[233]
This is supposed to have been an historical event contemporary with
the life of Abraham, and, therefore, 5000 years old.
The Chinese say that Tekin or Sin, the son of Japhet, instructed his
children in painting, sculpture, and embroidery, and in the art of
preparing _silk_ for different woven fabrics.[234]
Whether we are justified or not in believing in so very early a date,
at any rate we must remember that it is now ascertained that silk was
used in China 2600 years before our era.
Auberville says there is a legend that the Empress Si-ling-chi[235]
(2600 B.C.) had the happy inspiration to invent the unwinding of the
cocoon before the insect cut the threads; and for this discovery she
was placed among the divinities.
Before her time, they had certainly for more than 300 years used the
precious material in its mutilated condition.[236]
Some centuries later the Emperor Chan received tribute in linens and
silken stuffs. Tissues of many colours were painted or richly
embroidered.[237]
In the second century A.D., a prince of Khotan,[238] Kiu-sa-tan-na,
was desirous of obtaining from China the eggs of the silkworm, but his
request was refused; and it was prohibited that either eggs of the
silkworm or seed of mulberry-trees should cross the border.
Then the King of Khotan asked for a Chinese princess in marriage, and
this favour being granted, he found means to inform the lady privately
that in her future kingdom she would find no silk to weave or work.
The dread of such an aimless life roused all her womanly instincts.
Defiance of the law, love of smuggling, and the wish to please her
husband and benefit her future people, gave her courage to conceal the
eggs and seeds in the folds of her dress and the meshes of her
beautiful hair, and so she carried a most precious dower into her
adopted country.[239] Thus was broken the spell which for more than
3000 years had confined the secret of China within the fence of its
wonderful wall; and later on, A.D. 530, the eggs were brought to
Byzantium.[240]
From China, therefore, comes our silk.[241] We may say it is traced to
the beginning; but how far back had the archæologist to grope before
he could find it!
I transcribe a few more quotations from Yates' translations and
authorities.[242]
In the Hippolytus of Euripides, 383, Phædra _loquitur_:--
"Remove, ye maids, the vests whose tissue glares
With purple and with gold; far be the red
Of Syrian murex; this the shining thread
Which furthest Seres gathers from the boughs."
Lucan describes the transparent material which veiled Cleopatra's
form:--
"Her snowy breast shines through Sidonian threads,
First by the comb of distant Seres struck;
Divided then by Egypt's skilful hand,
And with embroidery transparent made."
Pliny's account of silk and its manufacture is mostly fanciful, though
founded on half-known facts.
The Latin poets of the Augustan age speak of silk attire with other
luxurious customs from the East.[243] The Roman senate, in the reign
of Tiberius, decreed that only women should wear silk, on account of
its effeminacy.
Silk was accumulated for the wardrobes of the empresses till A.D.
176, when Marcus Aurelius, "the Philosopher," sold all the imperial
ornaments and the silken robes of his empress by auction in the Forum
of Trajan.[244]
We learn that silk was precious and fabulously esteemed to the end of
the second century A.D.; but it is seldom mentioned in the third
century.
Ælius Lampridius speaks of a silken cord with which to hang himself,
as an imperial extravagance on the part of Heliogabalus (and of this
only one strand was silk); and he mentions that Alexander Severus
rarely allowed himself a dress of silk (holosericum), and only gave
away robes of partly silken substance.
Flavius Vopiscus says that Aurelian had no dress wholly of silk
(holosericum).[245] His wife begged him to allow her a shawl of purple
silk, and he replied, "Far be it from me to permit thread to be
reckoned worth its weight in gold!"--for a pound of gold was then
worth a pound of silk.
Flavius Vopiscus further states that the Emperor Carinus, however,
gave away silken garments, as well as dresses of gold and silver, to
Greek artificers, players, wrestlers, and musicians.[246]
Yates gives us a translation of an edict of Diocletian, giving a
maximum of prices for articles in common use in the Roman empire. It
reads like a tailor's or a dress-maker's bill of to-day:--
DENARII.
To the tailor, for lining a fine vest 6
To the same, for an opening of an edging of silk 50
To the same, for an opening and an edging of a mixed
tissue of silk and flax 30
For an edging of a coarser vest 4[247]
A monument at Tivoli is erected to the memory of his estimable wife,
Valeria Chrysis, by "M. N. Poculus, silk manufacturer." This was
probably an imperial office in the fourth century.[248]
From the first to the sixth centuries, poets and historians
continually speak of silk,[249] praising its beauty or blaming it as
extravagance or luxury; but according to Yates, all the information we
collect from these sources requires to be tested as to accuracy, and
is often erroneous.
I have spoken of the first silk-weaving in Cos, 300 B.C. The first
arrival of the silkworm in Europe was in the sixth century, 900 years
later. Cosmas Indicopleustes and another monk brought eggs from China
in the hollow staves they carried in their hands. This was a great
event in European commerce. The eggs were solemnly presented to the
Emperor Justinian, and the monopoly of their cultivation is to be
found in his law-ordaining codex.[250]
The monopoly of the silk manufactures was confined to the area of the
imperial palace of Constantinople, but the cultivation of the worm
gradually spread over Greece, Asia Minor, and India.
The first allusion to the use of silk in the Christian Church is by
Gregory Nazianzen (A.D. 370), "Ad Hellenium pro Monarchis Carmen:"
"Silver and gold some bring to God, or the fine thread by Seres
spun."[251] Basil illustrates the idea of the resurrection by the
birth of the butterfly from the cocoon.[252]
Paul the Silentiary (A.D. 562) alludes to the frequent use of silk in
the priests' vestments at the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople.
Bede relates that the first Abbot of Wearmouth went to Rome for the
fifth time in A.D. 685, and brought back with him two scarves or palls
of incomparable workmanship, and entirely of silk, with which he
purchased land of three families at the mouth of the Wear. Bede's own
remains were wrapped in silk.
Auberville gives us, in his "Tissus," specimens of Roman silks between
the first and seventh centuries, but he cannot fix their exact
date.[253]
The finest webs of Holosericum from the imperial looms were generally
bestowed upon the Church, and thus consecrated, the earliest
ascertained specimens that have survived have been preserved; and of
these, most have been found in the tombs of saints, bishops, and kings
who were buried in priestly as well as in royal garments.[254]
Among the silk and satin fabrics, the tissue called "Imperial" is
mentioned by several early English authors. Roger de Wendover and
Matthew Paris describe the apparition of King John as clad in "royal
robes of Imperial."[255] William de Magna Villa brought from Greece,
in 1170, a stuff called Imperial, "marbled" or variegated, and covered
with lions woven in gold.
In the Eastern Empire, this industry after a time fell into the hands
of the Jews; and in 1161, Benjamin of Tudela says the city of Thebes
contained about 2000 Jewish silk-weavers.
The breeding of the worm in Europe seems to have been confined to
Greece from the time of Justinian to the twelfth century; but in 1148,
Roger, King of Sicily, brought as prisoners of war, from Corinth,
Thebes, and Athens, many silk-weavers, and settled them at Palermo.
"Then might be seen Corinthians and Thebans of both sexes, employed in
weaving velvet stoles interwoven with gold, and serving like the
Eretrians of old among the Persians."[256]
Hugh Falcandus[257] has left a description of the Royal manufactory at
Palermo, and the Hotel de Tiraz which absorbed all the smaller
Saracenic factories already started. The Hotel de Tiraz had four
great workshops, in which were separately carried on the weaving of
plain tissues, velvets, examits and satins, and flowered stuffs
(damasks), and lastly, gold brocades and embroideries. It was from the
last that proceeded the real works of art, and the embroideries with
pearls and precious stones.[258] The highest efforts of the loom were
apparently finished with the needle,[259] as in the figured textiles
of Egypt.
The continuity of Sicilian textile designs from the sixth to the
sixteenth centuries (a thousand years) is very remarkable. Owing to
its originally strongly stamped Oriental character, great knowledge of
the arts of weaving, spinning, and dyeing silk is required to enable
any one to assign an exact date to materials which only remodelled
their style three times.
Dr. Rock's rules for deciphering these three dates may, however, be
easily learned, as they are broad and simple. In his comprehensive
"Introduction to the Textiles in the Kensington Museum" (p. lxvii) he
says that the three defined periods of silk-weaving in Sicily are:
First, from the time of Justinian to the Hohenstaufen (from the sixth
to the twelfth century); secondly, from the accession of Frederick I.
(Barbarossa), 1152, to Charles IV., 1347 (twelfth to fourteenth
centuries); the third period is of one century only, from 1347 to
1456.
The first period especially shows African animals, such as the giraffe
and the different kinds of antelopes, mixed with Arabian mottoes; and
the patterns are generally woven with gold. This is merely gilt
parchment, the silk being mingled with cotton.
[Illustration: Pl. 35.
Peacock Pattern. Silk Wrapping on the body of St. Cuthbert. Durham.]
The second period, beginning in the twelfth century, shows the arrival
of Count Roger's Persian and Greek workmen, captives from Thebes,
Corinth, and Athens. The fresh designs show fragments of Greek taste,
such as masks and foliage, and give one a slight foretaste of the
Renaissance.[260]
These semi-classical echoes are contemporary in the Sicilian looms
with such Norman motives as a crowned sovereign riding with a hawk
upon his wrist.
This description singularly applies to the relics removed from the
tomb of St. Cuthbert, at Durham, in 1827; among which are fragments of
three wrappings, or garments of silk, so suggestive of the artistic
traditions of many nationalities, and the long descent of patterns,
recognizable after the lapse of centuries, that a description of them,
accompanied by illustrations, can hardly fail to be interesting. They
are all now reduced by time to a rich golden brown, though there are
indications that blue, green, and red have been woven into their
fabric, and there are also on one of them traces of gilding. The first
(plate 35) shows Oriental conventional peacocks, double-headed and
collared, framed within circles which slightly intersect each other,
thus giving the opportunity for varying the original motive by
breaking up the rolling arabesqued pattern, and uniting the stems and
flowers contained in the border. The spaces between the circles are
filled in with gryphons in pairs, of the Babylonian stamp, thick
limbed with strongly-marked muscles. There is a border or guimp,
Persian in character, in which are small crosses surmounting
repetitions of the crenelated pattern found in Assyrian ornament.
The second piece of silk contains a large rosace. Scattered about it
are repetitions of the Persian leaf or tree of life, and the border
consists of kneeling hares or fawns between a Persian arabesque and a
corded line. The mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian styles is remarkable
throughout, till we come to the centre of the rosace, where we find a
most incongruous man in armour on horseback with a hawk on his wrist,
giving the Norman stamp of the reigning house and influence in Sicily.
The central subject is exactly repeated on an embroidered twelfth
century chasuble in the treasury of the Cathedral of Bamberg, only
that a royal crown and robes are worn by the horseman (pl. 36).[261]
The third specimen is the most noteworthy (plate 37). There is nothing
of Assyrian here, but it reminds one of Egyptian and Greek art, and at
once suggests Count Roger's Greek slaves at the Sicilian looms, but
the design is probably of a much earlier date, and the subject is
puzzling. A piece of drapery resembling an Egyptian sail with its
fringes[262] (pl. 38) is looped up on each side to the head of a
thyrsus, and above it hangs a large cluster of fruits. The lower part
of the drapery rests upon water, and is somewhat like a boat, with
ducks swimming towards it, and fish disporting themselves in the
rippling waves. Between the circles the ducks are repeated, facing a
shield enriched with rows of the crenelated pattern surmounted by a
vine.
These fragments have belonged each to a very large and freely woven
silk shawl or mantle. The circles are about two feet across. There is
a different arrangement of the threads in each web, giving different
fine diapers, and the last described has a raised pattern which might
have been intended to represent water.
[Illustration: Pl. 36.
NORMAN AND PERSIAN TYPE.
A Silk Wrapping on the body of St. Cuthbert. Durham.]
[Illustration: Pl. 37.
GRÆCO-EGYPTIAN STYLE.
A Silk Wrapping on the body of St. Cuthbert. Durham.]
[Illustration: Pl. 38.
Boat with coloured sail, from the tomb of Rameses III. at Thebes.
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," iii. p. 211.) Explanatory of
the design on St. Cuthbert's silk shroud, pl. 37.]
It is most likely that in the twelfth century, or even a little
later, the body of St. Cuthbert was wrapped in these shawls, and so
left when at the Reformation, his shrine was destroyed, and the coffer
containing his remains buried in the same place, and piously concealed
till our own day. I shall describe the beautiful embroideries in which
the body had been clothed in the tenth century when I come to the
subject of English work.
The third period of silk-weaving art is unmistakably Sicilian. At the
end of the thirteenth century and beginning of the fourteenth, Palermo
struck out her own line. The Greek cross appears in various forms. The
designs are of a wonderful richness and capricious ingenuity. They
show alike Asiatic, African, and European animals, and every kind of
mythological creature--griffins, dragons, dogs, and harts, with large
wings; swans, pheasants, and eagles, single or double-headed, often
pecking at the sun's rays; beautifully drawn foliage and flowers, and
heraldic emblems and coats-of-arms. One peculiarity of the third
period is the frequent use of green patterns on "murrey"-coloured
grounds.
All this splendour of design was commonly lavished on poor material.
The silks continued to be mixed with cotton, and the gold, or rather
the gilding, was so base that it has almost always become black on the
foundation strips of parchment or paper.[263]
The heraldic silks are mostly of the time of the Crusades, when the
distinguished pilgrims and warriors, especially the English, made
Sicily their half-way house to the Holy Land, and brought from thence
fabrics woven to suit their tastes. In Auberville's book we find,
under the dates of many centuries, the most remarkable fragments now
known. On portrait-tombs and in some very ancient pictures are figured
beautiful silks woven in gold, which are recognizable at once by their
Arab-Sicilian style. Of this type, the remarkable fragment of the
dress of Richard II., in the Kensington Museum, dates itself, by
carrying the cognizances of his grandfather and his mother, and the
portrait of his dog Math.[264]
The last period of the Sicilian silks is especially marked by the
inscriptions being mostly nonsense, and only woven in as ornament,
with the forms of Arab lettering.[265]
Sir G. Birdwood says that whether the Saracens found the manufacture
of silk already established in India or not, they certainly influenced
the decorative designs. He adds that kincobs are now woven at
Ahmedabad and Benares, identical in design with the old Sicilian
brocades; while the Saracenic Sicilian silks abound in patterns which
prove their origin in Assyrian, Sassanian, or Indian art.
We know that the Saracens introduced colonies of Persian, and probably
Indian workmen into Spain, after the beginning of the ninth century,
to assist them in their architecture and textile manufactures, and in
return the Mogul emperors of Delhi invited many Italian and French
designers into India.
The Taj and other buildings in Rajpootana are decorated with exquisite
mosaics coeval with those of Austin of Bordeaux. Their styles of art
in textiles, and in other materials, have acted and reacted upon each
other; and nothing throws more light on the affinities and the
development of the modern decorative arts of Europe than the history
of the introduction, under Justinian, of the silk manufactures from
the East into the West.[266]
From Palermo, all the stages of the manufacture of silk spread
themselves over Italy and into Spain. According to Nicolo Tegrini, the
flourishing silk-weavers of Lucca having been ejected from the city in
the early part of the fourteenth century, carried their art elsewhere,
and even to Germany, France, and Britain.[267]
Italian weavers went to Lyons in 1450, and so started the silk
industry that it has steadily increased till now. It gives employment
to about 31,000 looms and 240,000 workpeople of both sexes.
The Moors, when they overflowed into Iberia, carried with them all
their Orientalisms, traditions, manufactures, and designs; thus
disobeying their prophet, who forbade the use of silk except to women.
Senhor F. de Riano tells us that from the ninth to the eleventh
centuries, Spain was producing fine silk tissues. The Moorish
Cordovese writer, Ash-Shakandi, who lived in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, says, "Malaga is famous for its manufactures of
silks of all colours and patterns, some of which are so rich that a
suit made of them will cost many thousands. Such are the brocades with
beautiful designs and the names of the Caliphs, Ameers, and other
wealthy people woven into them."[268]
The same author, speaking of the manufactures of silk at Almeria, says
that thence came the brightest colours; and Al-Makhari adds a list of
precious silk tissues, naming the "Tiraz," the "Iscalaton," and the
robes called each by its own special name.[269] Ash-Shakandi also
mentions the looms of Murcia, and its carpets.[270]
When the Moors were driven from Spain, the silk works of Malaga and
Almeria were ruined. But those of Valencia became famous, and flourish
to this day. Talavera della Reina also produces fine ecclesiastical
fabrics, and at Toledo the ancient traditions are preserved, and they
still weave sixteenth-century designs.
In Italy, Genoa, Florence, and Milan followed the Sicilian silk
manufactures, and each has left specimens of the craft, of which Rock
has pointed out the marked individualities.
The rich stuffs with inscriptions inwoven in gold, in the Middle Ages,
were called "literatis."
The designs of Lucca at first imitated the Moorish Sicilian type; and
introduced as their speciality, white figures, such as angels in white
garments, and exchanged the Oriental intricate patterns for a bolder
and simpler style.
Venice, of course, also showed at first the Oriental impress; but she
soon struck out a line of her own; and her especial invention was
shown in weaving, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries,
square pieces of silken tissue, representing sacred subjects.
Florentine tissues, especially their velvet and gold brocades, were
particularly splendid, and can be recognized by the loops of gold
thread drawn to the surface and left there. Of these early Florentine
gold brocades we have still beautiful examples in the palls of our
City companies and in ancient ecclesiastical vestments. The loops of
gold have been the custom since the thirteenth century, and still
prevail in certain traditional fabrics, for instance, in the banners
woven annually for the prizes at the horse races in Florence. The
Corsini family, who have for many generations and for hundreds of
years competed in these races, had, in their princely palace at Rome,
a room entirely hung with the silk of these gorgeous banners.
In Hungary, Queen Gisela, in the eleventh century, established looms
for weaving silk; and many convents throughout Europe and in England
wove silken tissues for the service of the Church, till the great
manufactures absorbed these partially private enterprises.[271]
Individual exertion produced copies, or motives that are taken from
Eastern, Southern, or Northern inspirations; but it is only in large
national schools of arts or crafts that an absolutely recognizable
style becomes apparent. For example, the early French silks from
monastic establishments are not remarkable for either style or texture
till the sixteenth century, when they came to the front as a national
manufacture, and have held the highest place in silk-weaving ever
since.
The Flemish towns of Ypres, Ghent, and Mechlin were known for their
silken webs in the thirteenth century, and at that time innumerable
small schools of the craft seem to have covered Europe. They are
constantly named in the lists of fine furnishings in Germany. In
England, France, and Germany, as well as in the Low Countries, each
convent had, besides its silk-weaving looms, its workshops for
embroideries on silk, woollens, and linens, borrowing from the
Byzantine Empire, Sicily, and Spain, their designs and patterns.
About this time (the thirteenth century), Marco Polo resided and
travelled in Asia. He visited the principal cities of Syria, Persia,
Khotan, and Cathay, and from him we have information of the different
Asiatic textiles, generally bearing the name of the city where they
were woven. He names, for instance, the mediæval "baudas" and
"baudakin" (with endless modifications in the spelling), from Baghdad.
This afterwards gave the word baldachino to the awning or canopy over
the altar, which it retained even when textiles had given place to
marbles and mosaics.[272]
Satin is only found named in catalogues about the fourteenth century.
But the dalmatic of Charlemagne, at Rome, is embroidered on a stout
blue satin, and has never been transferred; and at Constantinople,
Baldwin II., at his coronation in 1204, was shod and clothed in
vermilion satin embroidered with jewels; while all the Venetian and
French barons present were clad in satin.[273] Semper and Bock believe
that it had been a Chinese material long before it reached Europe.
Satin was often called "blattin," in connection with the colour of the
cochineal insect (blatta), whose dye was invariably used for satin. We
cannot tell, however, which was certainly named from the other.[274]
In the poem of "The Lady of the Fountain," translated by Lady
Charlotte Guest from the Welsh ballads of the thirteenth century, silk
and satin are often named. At the opening of the poem, King Arthur is
described seated on a throne of rushes, covered with a flame-coloured
satin cloth, and with a red satin cushion under his elbow.
Fiery red was the orthodox colour for satin. In old German poems we
find it described as "pfellat," always as being fiery. One kind of
pfellat was called salamander.[275] Bruges satins were the most
esteemed in the Middle Ages. Chaucer speaks of "satin riche and
newe."[276]
Satin and velvet are the contrasting silken materials. In satin the
threads are laid along so that the shining surface ripples with every
ray of sunshine, and the shadows are melted into half-lights by the
reflections from every fold. It makes a dazzling garment, splendid in
its radiant sheen; whereas in velvet, where each thread is placed
upright and shorn smoothly, all light is absorbed and there are no
reflections, and the whole effects are solemn, rich, and deep.[277]
Some of the oldest velvets resemble plush in the length of their pile,
and have not the dignity of velvet.
Semper, from the different derivations that have been suggested,
selects the connection of the word "velvet" (German, _Felbert_) with
"welf," the skin or fur of an animal.[278]
Among the gifts to Charlemagne (ninth century) from Haroun el Raschid
were velvets; and the earliest existing specimen we know of is named
by Bock as being in the Pergament Codex at Le Puy, in Vendôme, where,
amongst other curious interleaved specimens of weaving, is a fine
piece of shorn silk velvet.[279]
Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, frequently speaks of velvet as
an Asiatic fabric. It is first known as a European textile in Lucca,
about 1295, and we may therefore say that it was imported from the
East.[280]
In the next chapter on colour I have noticed the curious fact that the
word purple was sometimes used to mean colour, and sometimes to
express the texture of velvet, thus confounding the two; but I have
also pointed out that it had other meanings, and had become a very
comprehensive word for everything that expressed richness and warmth.
While examining and judging embroideries, we must be careful not to
be deceived by the different dates often occurring in the grounding
and the applied materials. Much embroidery was worked on fabrics that
were already old and even worn out; and others have been transferred
centuries ago, and perhaps more than once, to fresh grounds.[281]
This sometimes causes a good deal of difficulty in dating specimens.
One should begin by ascertaining whether the needlework was originally
intended to be cut out (_opus consutum_), and so laid on a ground of
another material, and worked down and finished there.
Of course it is always evident and easily ascertained, whether the
work has been transferred at all. If so--and from each succeeding
transference--small fragments may be found showing on the cut edges.
You will often see remains of two or more of these layers, reminding
you of the three Trojan cities dug up at different depths under each
other at Hissarlik.
In judging each specimen the acumen of the expert is needed to obtain
a correct opinion, and he should not only be an archæologist, but a
botanist and a herald besides;[282] and, in fact, no kind of knowledge
is useless in deciphering the secrets of human art. But even when so
armed, he is often checked and puzzled by some accidental caprice of
design or mode of weaving, and after wasting trouble and time, has to
cast it aside as defying classification.
It is, however, as well to note these exceptions, as, when compared,
they sometimes explain each other.
What I have said regards, of course, the historical and archæological
side of the study of textiles, and I have treated of them as being
either the origin or the imitations of different styles of embroidery,
and so inseparably connected with the art which is the subject and
motive of this book; and not only in this does the connection between
them exist, but in the fact that as embroideries always need a ground,
silken and other textiles are an absolute necessity to their
existence.
For these reasons alone I have given this chapter on materials, short
and imperfect, but suggesting further research into the writings of
the authors I have quoted, and, I hope, exciting the interest of the
reader.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.
[131] It is described by Yates as having the appearance
of a flat ribbon, with the edges thickened like a hem.
[132] This rough bark is probably the reason that it
absorbs colour into its substance (perhaps under the
scales); and it may also account for its being capable
of felting.
[133] It may be laid down as a fundamental rule in
technical style, that the product shall preserve the
peculiar characteristics of the raw material.
Unfortunately, the artist is often ignorant of the
qualities of the fabric for which he is designing, and
the workman who has to carry it out is a mechanic, in
these days, instead of a craftsman.
[134] Molochinus, or malva silvestris (wild hemp),
Yates, pp. 292-317, is sometimes spoken of as a mallow,
sometimes as a nettle. In the Vocabulary of Papias (A.D.
1050) it is said that the cloth called molocina is made
from thread of mallow, and used for dress in Egypt.
Garments of molochinus were brought from India,
according to the Periplus (see Pliny, 146, 166, 170,
171). It was seldom used by the ancients, but both
Greeks and Romans made it serve for mats and ropes. The
Thracians wove of it garments and sheets. It is not
named in the Scriptures.
[135] See Gibbs' "British Honduras."
[136] Spartum was a rush. Pliny says it was used for the
rigging of ships.
[137] The bark of trees such as the Hybiscus Tiliaceus,
and that of the Birch (see Yates, p. 305-6). Birch bark
was embroidered, till latterly, by the Indian women in
North America with porcupines' quills. Pigafetta says
(writing in the sixteenth century) that in the kingdom
of Congo many different kinds of stuff were manufactured
from the palm-tree fibre. He instances cloths on which
patterns were wrought, and likewise a material
resembling "velvet on both sides."
[138] "Camoca" or caman in the Middle Ages is supposed
to have been of camels' hair, mixed with silk. Edward
the Black Prince left to his confessor his bed of red
caman, with his arms embroidered on each corner. Rock
(p. xliv) gives us information about the tents and
garments of camels' hair found throughout the East,
wherever the camel flourishes and has a fine hairy
winter coat, which it sheds in the heat. The coarser
parts are used for common purposes, and the finest serve
for beautiful fabrics, especially shawls. Marco Polo
tells of beautiful camelots manufactured from the hair
of camels; and of the Egyptian coarse and very fine
fabrics woven of the same materials.
[139] "Le Chevalier à Deux Epées" (quoted by Dr. Rock),
and Lady Wilton, "Art of Needlework," p. 128.
[140] See p. 359, _post_, for Boadicea's dress.
[141] See Mr. Villiers Stuart's "Funeral Tent of an
Egyptian Queen."
[142] The Moors in Spain excelled in leather-work and
embroidery upon it; and Marco Polo describes the
beautiful productions of the province of Guzerat, of
leather inlaid and embroidered with gold and silver
wire. Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 383.
[143] See chapter on Stitches.
[144] See Chardin, vol. i. p. 31.
[145] Tin, called "laton," was used to debase the metal
threads in the Middle Ages. It is also named as a
legitimate material for metal embroideries.
[146] For all information about asbestos, see Yates, pp.
356, 565.
[147] There is one at the Barberini Palace at Rome. A
sheet, woven of asbestos, found in a tomb outside the
Porta Maggiore, is described by Sir J. E. Smith in his
"Tour on the Continent" (vol. ii. p. 201) as being
coarsely spun, but as soft and pliant as silk. "We set
fire to it, and the same part being repeatedly burnt,
was not at all injured."
[148] See Yule's "Marco Polo," vol. i. pp. 215, 218, and
Yates, p. 361.
[149] There are specimens of bead-work pictures at St.
Stephen's at Coire, in the Marien-Kirche at Dantzic, and
elsewhere. See Rock, p. cv. This is, in fact, mosaic in
textiles, without cement.
[150] Witness the stone whorls for the spindles in our
prehistoric barrows, and the "heaps" of the lake cities.
[151] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 129.
[152] An Egyptian Dynasty called themselves the Shepherd
Kings.
[153] Yates gives endless quotations to show how ancient
and how honourable an occupation was that of tending
sheep.
[154] Semper, i. p. 139. The cover of the bed on which
was laid the golden coffin in the tomb of Cyrus was of
Babylonian tapestry of wool; the carpet beneath it was
woven of the finest wrought purple. Plautus mentions
Babylonian hangings and embroidered tapestries. See
Birdwood's "Indian Arts," i. p. 286.
[155] Joshua vii.
[156] Ezekiel xxvii. 22.
[157] Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 138.
[158] Yates, pp. 79, 91, 93, 99, 102, 445. Lanæ Albæ.
"The first, Apulia's; next is Parma's boast;
And the third fleece Altinum has engrossed."
Martial, xiv. Ep. 155.
Martial also speaks of the matchless Tarentine togæ, a
present from Parthenius:--
"With thee the lily and the privet pale
Compared, and Tibur's whitest ivory fail;
The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore
Their hue, and pearls on the Erythrean shore."
Martial, viii. Ep. 28.
[159] The sheep of Tarentum, from the days of the Greek
colonists, were famed, as they are still, for the warm
brown tints on their black wool. Pliny says that this is
caused by the weed _fumio_, on which they browsed.
Swinburne says, in his "Travels in the Two Sicilies,"
that there the wool is so tinged by the plant now called
_fumolo_, which grows on the coast.
[160] See Blümner's "Technologie," p. 92; also "Comptes
Rendus de la Commission Impériale Archéologique" of St.
Petersburg, 1881; also the Catalogue Raisonnée of Herr
Graf'schen's Egyptian Collection of Textiles at Vienna.
[161] See Pliny's "Natural History," viii. 74, § 191.
Tanaquil is credited with the first invention of the
seamless coat or cassock.
[162] The Gauls in Britain wove plaids or tartans. See
Rock, p. xii; Blümner, pp. 152-54; Birdwood, p. 286.
[163] Pliny, "Natural History," book viii., 73, 74.
[164] "Georgics," iv. 334; Yates, p. 35.
[165] "Comptes Rendus de la Commission Impériale
Archéologique," St. Petersburg, 1881. Much of this
Gobelin weaving has lately been found in Egypt. See
"Katalog der Teodor Graf'schen Fünde in Ægypten," von
Dr. J. Karabacek.
[166] Semper considers that the famous Babylonian and
Phrygian stuffs were all woollen, and that gold was
woven or embroidered on them. See "Der Stil," i. p. 138.
[167] Worcester cloth was forbidden to the Benedictines
by a Chapter of that Order at Westminster Abbey in 1422,
as being fine enough for soldiers, and therefore too
good for monks. See Rock's Introduction, p. lxxviii.
[168] Both these fabrics are represented in Egyptian and
Greek fragments, and are equally well preserved.
[169] Boyd Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," pp. 268,
275.
[170] See Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p.
116; Yates, p. 23.
[171] It appears that the art of printing textiles was
known in Egypt in the time of Pliny. See Yates, p. 272,
quoting Apuleius, Met. l. xi.; also see Wilkinson,
"Ancient Egyptians," vol. ii. p. 196, pl. xii.
[172] See Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 268, 335;
Herodotus, ii. 86. Herodotus and Strabo speak of
Babylonian linen, cited by Yates, p. 281.
[173] "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 267-80. A peculiarity
of Egyptian linen is that it was often woven with more
threads in the warp than in the woof. A specimen in the
Indian Museum, South Kensington, shows in its delicate
texture 140 threads in the inch to the warp, and 64 to
the woof. Another piece of fine linen has 270 to the
warp, and 110 to the woof. Generally there are twice or
three times as many threads, but sometimes even four
times the number. Wilkinson gives a probable reason for
this peculiarity. See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians,"
vol. i. chap. ix. pp. 121-226. See Rock's Introduction,
p. xiv.
[174] De Somniis, vol. i. p. 653. Yates, p. 271.
[175] Philo, cited by Yates, p. 271.
[176] Paulinus ad Cytherium, cited by Yates, p. 273.
[177] Herodotus, l. ii. c. 182, l. iii. c. 47.
Rawlinson's Trans.
[178] Proverbs vii. 16.
[179] Yates, p. 291. Denon describes a tunic found in a
sarcophagus, which he examined, and says: "The weaving
was extremely loose, of thread as fine as a hair, of two
strands of twisted flax fibre."--Auberville's "Ornement
des Tissus," p. 4. Some marvellously fine specimens of
such cambric may be seen at the South Kensington Museum
and the British Museum.
[180] Not that we have any remains of flax linen from
their tombs.
[181] It was carried thence, at a prehistoric date, to
Assyria and Egypt.
[182] There is no proof that it was grown in Egypt till
the fourteenth century A.D., when it is mentioned for
the first time in a MS. of that date of the "Codex
Antwerpianus." See Yates, Appendix E, p. 470.
[183] Birdwood, p. 241.
[184] Puggaree. Yates says that cotton has always been
supposed to be the best preserver against sunstroke, p.
341.
[185] _Carpas_, the proper Oriental name for cotton, is
found in the same sense in the Sanskrit, Arabic, and
Persian languages. Yates, p. 341.
[186] In the Æneid, the garment of Chloreus the Phrygian
is thus described:--
"His saffron chlamys, and each rustling fold
Of muslin (_carpas_), was confined with glittering gold."
Æneid, xi. 775.
[187] Dakka muslins are the most esteemed. Their poetic
names, "running water," "woven air," "evening dew," are
more descriptive than pages of prose. See Birdwood, ii.
p. 259.
[188] Chintzes, calicoes, fine cloths, and strong
tent-cloths, cotton carpets, &c., &c. Forbes Watson
classifies the calicoes as being white, bleached and
unbleached, striped, &c., printed chintzes, or
pintadoes. See Birdwood, p. 260.
[189] For Buckram and Fustian, see Rock, pp. lxxxv,
lxxxvi. In Lady Burgeweny's (Abergavenny) will, 1434,
she leaves as part of the furnishings of her bed "of
gold of swan," two pairs of sheets of Raine (Rennes),
and a pair of fustian. Anne Boleyn's list of clothes
contains "Bokerams, for lining and taynting," gowns,
sleeves, cloaks, and beds. Rock, lxxxvi. Renouard, in
his "Romaunce Dictionary," quotes the following: "Vestæ
de Polpia e de Bisso qui est bacaram." For the antiquity
of this fabric, see Herr Graf'schen's Catalogue of
Textiles from the Fayoum.
[190] See Yates, p. 300, citing "Herod's silver
apparel."
[191] "Indian Arts," ii. p. 237.
[192] Rock, p. xxv. Yates (p. 3) says they cut their
gold for wearing apparel into thin plates, and did not
draw it into wire, as it is translated in the Vulgate
(Exodus xxxix.). The ephod made by Bezaleel was of fine
linen, gold, violet, purple, and scarlet, twice dyed,
with embroidered work. This tradition must have guided
the artist who designed the ephod in the National Museum
at Munich, in the seventeenth century, for a prince
boy-bishop.
[193] Quintus Curtius says that many thousands, clothed
in these costly materials, crowded out of Damascus to
meet Alexander.
[194] There is a very ancient local tradition at Shŭsh,
that A.D. 640, in the reign of the Kaliph Omar, the body
of the prophet Daniel was found, wrapped in cloth of
gold, in a stone coffin; and, by order of the victorious
general, it was placed in one of glass, and moored to
the bridge which spanned the branch of the Euphrates
flowing between the two halves of the city, so that the
waters flowed over it. See "Chaldea and Susiana," by
Loftus, and Sir G. W. Gore Ouseley's translation of a
Persian version of "The Book of Victories." Alexander is
said to have been buried in a glass coffin. (See
Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," ii. p. 102, note †.)
[195] Yates, pp. 367-70; Rock, p. xxvi.
[196] "Aura intexere eadem Asiâ invenit Attalus Rex unde
nomen Attalicis."--Pliny, viii. c. 48, and Yates, p.
371. The reign of Attalus II. was B.C. 159-188.
[197] "And they did beat the gold into plates, and cut
it into wires, and work it into the blue, and the
purple, and the fine linen."--Exod. xxxix.
[198] See Yates, p. 371; and Bock, xxxiii.
[199] Pliny, xxxiii. In the Museum at Leyden there is a
shred of gold cloth found in a tomb at Tarquinia, in
Etruria. This is a compactly woven covering over bright
yellow silk.
[200] Gold wire is still worked through leather at
Guzerat. See Birdwood, p. 284, Ed. 1880. Marco Polo
mentions this embroidery 600 years ago. Bk. iii. chap.
xxvi. (Yule). The hunting cuirass of Assurbanipal (pl.
1) appears to be so worked, and of such materials. Also
see Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. p. 130.
This gold for weaving was beaten into shape with
hammers.
[201] Pope Eutichinus, in the third century, buried many
martyrs in golden robes.
[202] "Liber Pontificalis," t. ii. p. 332.
[203] See Rock, pp. xxvii, xxxv; and Parker's "Use of
the Levitical Colours," p. 49.
[204] See Yates, p. 376.
[205] Rock, p. xxxv. The toga picta, or trabea, part of
the official dress of her sons.
[206] Hoveden's "Annal." p. 481, Ed. Savile; Rock, p.
xxx.
[207] See "Archæologia," 1880, pp. 317, 322; also Pl.
74, No. 20 (_post_).
[208] Bock, "L. Gewänder," taf. ix. vol. i.
[209] Rock, p. xxxvii.
[210] Ciclatoun, according to Rock, p. xxxix, is a
common Persian name for such tissues in the East. This,
in common with nasick, nak, and many other beautiful
tissues, was wrought in gold with figures of birds and
beasts.--Yule's "Marco Polo," ed. 1875, i. p. 65.
Dr. Rock quotes the old ballad,--
"In a robe right royall bowne,
Of a red ciclatoune,
Be her fader's syde;
A coronall on her hede sett,
Her clothes with byrdes of gold were bette
All about for pryde."
[211] In St. Paul's in London there was formerly an
amice adorned with the figures of two bishops and a
king, hammered out of silver, and gilt. Dugdale, ed.
1818, p. 318. See also Rock, pp. xxix-xxxii.
[212] Museum at Berne.
[213] A piece of Venetian work to be seen at the South
Kensington Museum is an altar frontal, worked in coral,
gold beads, seed pearls, and spangles. All jewellers'
work, including enamel, was much admired and introduced
into their embroideries. (See Rock's Introduction to
Catalogue of the Kensington Museum, pp. civ-cviii, ed.
1870.)
[214] On this gorgeous piece of Italian art there are
added a number of buttons (for we can give them no other
name), with crosses and hearts under crystal, which seem
to have belonged to another period and workmanship, or
else are to be attributed to a superstitious feeling on
the part of the maker, who placed these Christian signs,
perhaps, surreptitiously, and for the good of his own
soul.
[215] The Museum of National Art at Munich has a fine
collection of gold and silver, spangled, and black bead
head-dresses, now mostly antiquated, though in peasant
dress it yet survives.
[216] It is embroidered in gold, with red silk and gems;
and I have elsewhere said that it probably issued from
the Hotel de Tiraz at Messina.
[217] Terry, in his "Voyage to the East Indies," speaks
of the rich carpets (p. 128): "The ground of some of
these is silver or gold, about which such arabesques in
flowers and figures as I have before named are most
excellently disposed."
[218] These of late years have been the most gorgeous
objects at exhibitions of old needlework, and the
ambition and despair of collectors.
[219] Gold thread was also made of gilt paper, equally
by the Moors and the Japanese.
[220] In Aikin's "Life of James I.," p. 205, we have a
curious account of the monopoly of gold thread, that had
been granted, with others, to George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham. The thread was so scandalously debased with
copper as to corrode the hands of the artificers, and
even the flesh of those who wore it. This adulterated
article they sold at an exorbitant price, and if they
detected any one making a cheaper or better article,
they were empowered to fine or imprison them, while a
clause in their patent protected themselves. The
manufacturers of this base metal thread were two
Frenchmen, Mompesson and Michel, and Edward Villiers,
the Marquis' brother, was one of the firm. Doubtless
they drove for a time a roaring trade, as gold
embroideries were then universally worn, both by men and
women; but the House of Commons interfered, and the
monopoly was abolished.
[221] Mitre of white satin, with two figure subjects in
flat gold--the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and that of St.
Thomas of Canterbury.
[222] The School of Gold Embroidery at Munich produces
work of a richness and precision which has, perhaps,
never been excelled. The raised parts of the design are
first cast in soft hollow "carton," and the gold is
worked on it and into the recesses with the help of a
fine stiletto, which pioneers the needle for each
stitch. This is embroidery "on the stamp," but without
padding.
[223] Bock, "L. Gewänder," vol. i. p. 48. Prizes are
offered at Lyons for the best mode of manufacturing gold
and silver thread that will not tarnish.
[224] Yates says, pp. 160-162: "Whether silk was
mentioned in the Old Testament cannot, perhaps, be
determined. After fully considering the subject,
Braunius decides against silk being known to the Hebrews
in ancient times ('De Vestitu Heb. Sacerdotum,' i. c.
viii.)." The contrary opinion is founded on the passage,
"I clothed thee with broidered work, and shod thee with
badger-skins. I girded thee about with fine linen, and
covered thee with silk" (_meshi_).--Ezekiel xvi. But the
translation is disputed.
[225] "Code of Manu," xi. 168; xii. 64. Yates,
"Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 204.
[226] Auberville, "Ornement des Tissus," p. ii.
[227] Yates (pp. 173, 174) believes that "Cos" should
always be read for Cios, about which there seems to be
some confusion. Chios has also been substituted for the
name of "Cos," the island.
There is no doubt that the Roman ladies obtained their
most splendid garments from Cos--perhaps of wool as well
as of silk.
[228] Birdwood, "Textile Arts of India," ii. p. 269.
[229] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 204.
[230] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," note (*), p. 184.
Aristotle (fourth century B.C.), however, had already
given evidence respecting the use of silk, which was
adopted and repeated by Pliny, Clemens Alexandrinus, and
Basil. Aristotle tells the story of Pamphile. One
thousand years later Procopius (sixth century A.D.) says
the raw material was then brought from the East, and
woven in the Phœnician cities of Tyre and Berytus.
See Yates, pp. 163, 164.
[231] Ibid., note (*), p. 184.
[232] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 181.
[233] I have mentioned this already, to prove the
antiquity of the art of embroidery. Here I repeat it in
reference to the first mention of silk. (See p. 38
_ante_.)
[234] "Bibliothèque Orientale de M. Herbelot," ed. 1778,
vol. iii. p. 19.
[235] Auberville, p. 2; Yates (pp. 172, 173) calls her
Si-ling, wife of Hoang-ti, and quotes the "Resumé des
Principaux Tractes Chinois," traduits par Stanislas
Julien, 1837, pp. 67, 68.
[236] Auberville, "Histoire des Tissus," pp. 2-4; "Du
Halde," vol. ii. pp. 355, 356 (8vo edition, London,
1736).
[237] Related by Klaproth, the Russian Orientalist.
[238] Yates, p. 238. "History of Khotan," translated by
M. Abel Rémusat, pp. 55, 56.
[239] Khotan or Little Bucharia would, in common
parlance, be included in Serica; and therefore silk
exported thence to Europe would have been perfectly
described as coming from the Seres. Yates, p. 231, 232.
[240] Yates, p. 231.
[241] While in Europe the arts of daily use and
decoration were struggling for life after many
interruptions and revolutions, the civilization of
Japan, which is nearly contemporary with Christianity,
spent itself in perfecting to the most exquisite finish
the arts which had been imported from China and Corea.
Japan also inherited the power and the tradition of
concealment, and so Europe remained unconscious, until
the last century, of the miraculous arts which a
semi-barbarous people were cultivating--_not_ for
commercial purposes. Auberville, "Tissus," pp. 2-4.
[242] Yates, pp. 175-184.
[243] Yates, p. 176. The silken flags attached to the
gilt standards of the Parthians inflamed the cupidity of
the army of Crassus. The conflict between them took
place 54 B.C. About thirty years after this date, Roman
luxury had reached its zenith--
"The insatiate Roman spreads his conquering arm
O'er land and sea, where'er heaven's light extends."
"Petronius Arbiter," c. cxix.
After these words he says that among the richest
productions of distant climes, the Seres sent their "new
fleeces."
[244] Yates, p. 183.
[245] "Holosericum," whole silk; "subsericum," partly
cotton, hemp, or flax. The longitudinal threads or warp,
cotton; the cross threads, silk. Rock, "Textile
Fabrics," p. xxxvii (ed. 1870).
[246] Yates, p. 195.
[247] Yates, p. 198. For the value of the denarius, see
Waddington, "Edit. de Diocletien," p. 3.
[248] Gruter, tom. iii. p. 645; Yates, p. 205.
[249] Yates, p. 246. The words "silk" and "satin" are
spoken of by Yates as having two derivations--the one
imported to us through Greece and Italy, the other from
Eastern Asia, through Slavonia, by the north of Europe.
[250] Yates, p. 231; who remarks, p. 203, that the laws
of Justinian are not directed against the use of silk as
a luxury, but rather as appropriating it as an imperial
monopoly and source of revenue.
[251] Tom. ii. p. 106 (ed. 1630). See Yates, p. 213.
[252] Yates, p. 214.
[253] Auberville, Plate 4. Amongst these are what he
calls "Consular silks." These are, or may be, included
in the palmated class, as they are evidently woven for
triumphal occasions. One of the most remarkable has
every mark of Oriental design. It represents a picture
in a circle, repeated over and over again, of a warrior
in his quadriga. Black or coloured slaves drive the
horses, either running beside them or standing upon
them; and other slaves carry beasts on their shoulders,
and are stooping to give them drink at a trough. The
space between the circles is filled in with the tree of
life, growing out of its two horns. The colours are
purple and gold. He places this between the first and
seventh centuries (see pl. 34).
[254] There are, however, a few that have not had the
security of the tomb, and yet have survived, such as the
chasuble and maniple at Bayeux, of the seventh century,
and Charlemagne's dalmatic.
[255] Roger de Wendover, "Chronica," t. iv. p. 127, ed.
Coxe. Quoted by Rock from Ralph, Dean of St. Paul's. See
Rock, Introduction, p. lv.
[256] Roger de Wendover, "Chronica," t. iv., ed. Coxe;
also Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 243, 244.
[257] In the twelfth century. Semper, i. p. 38.
[258] See illustration from the portrait of Sultan
Mahomet II., by Gentil Bellini. _Ante_, p. 146, Plate
33.
[259] See Semper, p. 157.
[260] The Sicilian type of design in silk-weaving was
carried into Germany about the end of the second period.
We are informed by Auberville that there existed at that
time a manufacture of ecclesiastical stuffs at Leipzig,
from which he gives us fine examples.
[261] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," vol. ii. Taf.
xxxiii. The pattern is twelfth century "metal work,"
embroidered in gold.
[262] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," iii., pl.
xvi.; v., pl. xxxiv. In general, a scarf floats from the
prow or from the oars.
[263] The Crusaders carried away splendid booty from the
towns they took and ransacked. As it was the great
gathering-place of all Eastern and Western nations,
Jerusalem was a mart for rich merchandise from Persia,
Arabia, Syria, and Phœnicia, till the times of the
Latin kings. Antioch, as well as Jerusalem, yielded the
richest plunder. Matthew Paris (a contemporary
historian), speaking of what was taken at Antioch, 1098,
says, "At the division of costly vessels, crosses,
weavings, and silken stuffs, every beggar in the
crusading army was enriched." Alexandria, as early as
the middle of the sixth century, A.D., had been the
depôt for the silken stuffs of Libya and Morocco. Here
is a wide area opened to us for suggestions as to the
origin and traditions of patterns in silk textile art.
See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," vol. i. pp. 29, 30.
[264] Rock, Introduction, p. ccxlviii, and p. 268, No.
8710.
[265] The weaving of inscriptions in textiles is not a
Saracenic invention. Pliny says it was a custom among
the Parthians. See Rock's "Textile Fabrics," p. lxi.
"In allusion to lettered garments, Ausonius thus
celebrates Sabina, of whom we otherwise know nothing:--
"'They who both webs and verses weave,
The first to thee, oh chaste Minerva, leave;
The latter to the Muses they devote.
To me, Sabina, it appears a sin
To separate two things so near akin;
So I have writ these verses on my coat.'"
See Lady Wilton on "Needlework," p. 53.
[266] Birdwood, "Indian Arts," p. 274.
[267] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 244; Tegrini,
"Vita Castruccii," in Muratore, "Ital. Script.," t. xi.
p. 1320.
[268] Riano, "Cat. of Loan Exhibition of Spanish Art in
South Kensington Museum," 1882, p. 46.
[269] In Hoveden's account of the fleet of Richard I.
coasting the shores of Spain, he speaks of the delicate
and valuable textures of the silks of Almeria. Rog.
Hoveden, Ann., ed. Savile, p. 382. Rock, p. xx.
[270] Bock, pp. 39, 40, quotes from Anastasius and the
Abbot of Fontenelle, proving that silken rugs were
manufactured in Spain by the Moors.
[271] Auberville, "Histoire des Tissus," p. 14.
[272] Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 224. "Baudakin" from
Baghdad, "damask" from Damascus. "Baudakin" was woven
with beasts, birds, and flowers in gold.
[273] "Récit de Robert Clari." He was one of the
companions of Ville d'Hardouin, and a witness to the
coronation of Baldwin II. See Auberville's "Histoire des
Tissus," p. 21.
[274] Satin is called by Marco Polo "zettani," and he
says it came from Syria. The French called it "zatony;"
the Spaniards named it "aceytuni," which is probably
derived from "zaituniah," the product of Zaiton. Yates
(p. 246) gives the derivations of the words satin and
silk; the one imported to us through Greece and Italy,
the other from Eastern Asia, through Slavonia and
Northern Europe.
[275] Ibid. In the Wigalois, a story is told of a cavern
in Asia full of everlasting flames, where costly fellat
was made by the Salamanders, which was fireproof and
indestructible.
[276] "Man of Lawe's Tale: Canterbury Pilgrims."
[277] "Ohitos terciopelos" (three-piled-velvet eyes) is
a pretty Spanish phrase, describing the soft, dark,
shadowy eyes of the Spanish girls.
[278] The Italian word _velluto_ means "shaggy."
[279] Bock, i. pp. 99-101.
[280] Buckram was sometimes a silken plush, but
generally was woven with cotton. This was also Asiatic,
and named by travellers of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. I have already mentioned it as a textile in
the chapter on cotton. When woven of silk it belongs to
the class of velvets.
[281] Elsewhere I have spoken of the embroideries of the
early Christian times found in the Fayoum, in Egypt.
These afford notable examples of the ancient method in
putting in patches on a worn or frayed garment. They
invariably embroidered them, and so added a grace to the
old and honoured vestment, and justified the classical
appellation, "Healer of clothes" for a darner. The
comparatively modern additions of the restorer, are in
ancient as in later specimens, often a puzzle to the
archæologist.
[282] The specimens in the South Kensington Museum,
where Dr. Rock gives their approximate dates, are most
useful to the student of this subject.
CHAPTER V.
COLOUR.
"My soul, what gracious glorious powers
To hue and radiance God has given!"
Cautley, "Emblems," p. 21.
It is my intention to confine myself to the discussion of colour, in
as far as it belongs to the dyes of textiles and the materials for
embroidery. I will adhere as closely as I can to this part of what is
a great and most interesting subject--one which the science of to-day
has opened out, and by the test of experiment, cleared of erroneous
theories; revealing to us all its beauty and fitness for the use and
delight of man.
As through all ages the eye has been gradually educated to appreciate
_harmony_ in colour, so _dissonance_--that is, what errs against
harmony--hurts us, without apparently a sufficient reason; and we have
to seek the causes of our sensations in the scientific works and
lectures of Professor Tyndall and others.
There is no doubt that the appreciation of colour has belonged in
different degrees to the eye of every animal, but especially to that
of man, ever since light first painted the flowers of the field. The
eye is created to see colour, as well as form. But we know that men,
being accustomed to acquiesce in the powers with which they find
themselves gifted by nature, enjoy and use them, long before they
begin to study, classify, and name them.
When we recollect that the circulation of the blood was not known
within the last three hundred years, and that Albert Dürer painted
the skeleton Death on the bridge of Lucerne, with one bone in the
upper and one in the lower arm, we shall be surprised to find that the
ancients had named the colours they saw, with some degree of
descriptive and scientific precision. The word "purple," for instance,
covered a multitude of tints, which had not as yet been
differentiated, either in common parlance or in poetry,[283] though as
articles of commerce the purple tints had been early distinguished.
What names have we now, in this present advanced day, for defining
tastes or smells? We say that something smells like a violet, or a
rose, or a sea breeze, or a frosted cabbage. We say a smell is nice or
nasty, that a taste is delicious or nauseous; but beyond calling it
sweet or sour, we have no descriptive words for either smells or
tastes, whereas the nations who traded in the materials for dyes
exchanged their nomenclatures, which we can recognize from the
descriptive remarks of different authors.
Colour, as an art, was born in those lands which cluster round the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean--the northern coasts of Syria and
Arabia, and the isles of Greece. All art grew in that area, and all
its adjuncts and materials there came to perfection, though often
imported from more southern and eastern sources.[284]
E. Curtius says that the science of colour came into Europe with the
Phœnicians and accompanied the worship of Astarte. This, of course,
applies to artistic textiles, as the Greeks had already acquired the
art of dyeing for plain weaving. Numa, in his regulations for
necessary weaving, refers also to colour. The Italians therefore
must at that time have made some advance in the art, especially the
Etruscans.[285]
The infinity of variation in colour is difficult to imagine. The
chemists of the Gobelins have fixed and catalogued 4480 tones.
Besides, we must not forget that it is now all but ascertained that
the same colour is probably appreciated differently by nearly every
eye.[286]
How the eye accepts colours and conveys them to the mind is still a
question in dispute, though the theories of Tyndall, Helmholz, Hering,
Charpentier, and others, aided by experiments, are drawing ascertained
facts into a circle, which will ere long be complete, and the
mysteries of colour may be ascertained.
Probably the effects of colour on educated minds are as various as the
tints and shades of tones of the many substances which receive
them,--reflected from all surrounding objects, blazing in light, or
softened by shadow,--fresh and glowing, or permanently faded--shining
with modern varnish, or sobered by the dust of ages.
It is the art of the colourist, whether he paints pictures, or dyes
textiles, or embroiders them, to reduce the tints of the prism to an
endurable and delightful lowness of tone, while preserving as far as
possible all their light and purity.
Prismatic colours are so radiantly glorious, that when we see the
rainbow in the sky it is each time a joyful surprise. The most stolid
natures are moved by it; we have even seen our dog staring at it.
When, in experiments on light, the shafts of colour are thrown on the
wall, they are greeted with shouts of admiration; but these glories
are veiled to us by the fact that the eye cannot dissect the prismatic
ray without the assistance of the instrument that has revealed it.
This is a merciful arrangement; for we are not fitted to live in a
prismatic display, any more than in a continuity of lightning flashes.
We should go mad or blind if exposed to either.
Science has shown us the perfect beauty of colour without form, the
soothing pleasures of its harmonies, and the delightful surprises of
its contrasts. From the glimpses we have of its nature and laws, we
may hope for fresh inspiration for the art of the colourist.
Though it is true that each eye, even when educated, retains its own
special appreciation of the colours that gratify its seeing nerve, yet
there are certain standards which give almost universal pleasure.[287]
The blind and the colour-blind must remain exceptions for all time;
and there are many gradations in colour-blindness, till we come to the
normal class of seeing eyes; and passing them by, reach to those few
men, gifted beyond all others with that fund of sensitive eye-nerve
and mental power, which enables them to create new thoughts in
colour.[288] Titian and his school arose from the inherited science
and tradition, and carefully prepared pigments of his immediate
predecessors, acting on an exceptional eye and mind, imbued with the
splendours of the early mornings and the sunsets in the glowing
atmosphere of Venice.
Colour has long been supposed to convey certain impressions to the
mind. The absence of all colour, which we call "black," symbolizes in
dress, grief, pride, or dignity; according as it drapes the mourner,
the Spanish grandee, or the priest.[289] Yellow being the colour of
the sun and of corn and gold, represents riches, generosity, and
light. Red stands between the dark and the lively colours, and
represents warmth and animation, dignity, splendour, life, love, and
joy.
The expression of blue is that of purity. It recalls the distant sky,
the calm ocean, and has an immortal and celestial character. It
ascends to the highest and descends to the lowest tones of
_chiaro-oscuro_. Nothing so nearly approaches pure white as the palest
blue; nothing is so nearly black as the darkest.
Green has been assigned by nature the place of the universal
background. It is the complementary colour of red, softening and
assimilating it by reflected shadows, and setting off the glory of
every flower and fruit. The expression of green is gaiety and modesty,
light and tenderness, shadow and repose, to both the eye and the
mind.[290]
It must be allowed that it is by the earliest associations of the
individual, or by those derived from the family, the tribe or the
nation, that colours are connected with such attributes welded by art
and time into traditional meanings, which they absolutely
possess,[291] and from which fashion cannot disconnect them; such,
for instance, is the royalty of purple.
The word purple is so indiscriminately used as a poetic epithet,
rather than as a distinctive appellation, that much confusion has been
caused by it. Historically, among the Persians, Greeks, and Romans it
appears to have been simply the royal colour, varying from the purest
blue, through every shade of violet, down to the deepest crimson.
Sometimes, poetically, "purple" seems to have described only a
surface. The breezy or stormy sea was purple; the sky was purple; the
hyacinthine locks of Narcissus, the rosy lips of Venus were purple. As
a textile, velvet was purple, even when it was white.[292]
The epithets "purple" and "wine-coloured" are often bestowed on the
Mediterranean Sea, and are justified by its occasional hue:--
"As from the clouds, deep-bosom'd, swell'd with showers,
A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps,
Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps."
Pope's Homer, "Iliad," b. xi. v. 383.
Professor Tyndall suggests that the soft green of the sea, shadowed by
clouds, assumes a subjective purple hue. Homer must have observed this
before he became blind.
Pliny gives us much information about this colour; he enumerates the
different sea-shores and coasts, Egyptian, Asiatic, and European,
whence came the shell-fish (the murex and pelagia) that produced the
so-called Tyrian purple dyes.[293]
He says that Romulus wore the purple, and that the dyed garments, all
purple, were sacred to the gods in those days. After saying that it
was still a colour of distinction, he continues: "Let us be prepared
to excuse the frantic passion for purple, though we are impelled to
inquire why such a high value is placed on the produce of this fish,
seeing that in the dye the smell of it is offensive, and the colour,
of a greenish hue, resembles the sea when tempestuous." He describes
purples[294] as being differently coloured according as to whether
these "conchylia" inhabited the sea mud, the reefs, or the pebbly
shores, the last being the most valuable.[295] This purple, said to
have been imported from the coasts of Tyre, was till lately sold in
Rome for its weight in gold; it gave the burning rosy red dye of the
Cardinal's robes, and was called "Porpora encarnadina," purple
incarnadine. It is full of light and freshness, and never fades; in
fact, it has all the qualities ascribed to it by Pliny. It intensifies
in the light.[296]
After purple, scarlet was the colour most esteemed by the ancients.
The Israelites must have carried with them the dyes which coloured the
hangings, woven or embroidered, belonging to the sanctuary in the
wilderness, of which the outer covering of rams' skins was dyed
scarlet, and was probably of the nature of red morocco.[297]
There was the mineral dye, (cinnabar or red sulphate of mercury), and
the insect dye; the first was probably used in mural painting. It is
translated in our Bible as vermilion, in the account given by Jeremiah
of a "house, ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion."[298] Also
Ezekiel gives us another instance of house-painting in vermilion.[299]
Homer, who as a rule does not describe colouring, says the Greek ships
were painted red.
It is probable that cinnabar was tempered, by admixture of white or
other colours, for the monochrome painting of the Egyptians and
Greeks. It was called by the Greeks miltos, by the Romans minium.
The dye of the red portions of the funeral tent of Queen Isi-em-Kheb,
Shishak's mother-in-law, is found by analysis to be composed of
hematite (peroxyde of iron) tempered with lime. This is a beautiful
pink red.[300]
The mineral red now called vermilion must have borrowed its name from
the insect dye which the Greeks and Romans called "kermes." In the
Middle Ages the dye from the kermes was still called "vermiculata," of
which the word vermilion is a literal translation.
We should be fortunate if we could find how the Greeks and Romans
prepared the cinnabar for mural painting, of which we find remnants in
ruins and tombs--a lovely and pure red, with a tender bloom on it like
a fragment of the rainbow, and not the slightest shade of yellow.
One of the most beautiful specimens of this scarlet that I am
acquainted with, is a small drinking-cup (a "rhyton") at the British
Museum, in the form of a sphinx, with a white face, gilded hair, and a
little cap of pure cinnabar, which is so soft in tone that it suggests
the texture of scarlet velvet.
Cochineal, which was first brought from America in the sixteenth
century, has now replaced almost every other scarlet dye for textiles.
Crimson is once mentioned in Chronicles as karmel,[301] which may mean
the dye of the kermes insect;[302] and from this the word crimson is
legitimately derived. Whether the scarlet coupled with it is a
vegetable, mineral, or insect colour, we have no means of
ascertaining. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white
as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool."[303]
From what Pliny says, it appears that some green dyes were produced
from a green clay; others from metals. Copper furnished the most
beautiful shades.
Blue has always been extracted from indigo. Pliny tells us that the
Phœnicians brought it from Barbarike, in the Indies, to Egypt; and
he quotes the "Periplus" on this subject. He gives an amusing report
that indigo is a froth collected round the stems of certain reeds; but
he was aware of its characteristic property, that of emitting a
beautiful purple vapour when submitted to great heat; and he says it
smells like the sea. The Egyptians likewise extracted blues from
copper.
Yellow was anciently, in Egypt, sometimes a vegetable and sometimes a
mineral dye. Browns and blacks were prepared from several substances,
especially pine wood and the contents of tombs burned into a kind of
charcoal.
We find that lime, chalk, white lead, and other mineral substances
were employed by the ancients for the different approaches to dazzling
whiteness. That of the lily, the emblem of purity, can only be
emulated in textile or pictorial art by opaque substances reduced as
much as possible by bleaching to the last expression of the colour of
the raw material. Nothing that is transparent can be really white, as
colours are seen through it, as well as the reflected lights on the
two surfaces.
In painting, we can produce the effect of whiteness in different ways,
leading by the gradation of tender colours and shadows up to a high
light. But in textile art, which is essentially flat, it is necessary
to pursue a different method, and that of isolation is the most simple
and effective, and was well understood in Egypt, Greece, and India.
The white pattern, or flower, is surrounded with a fine dark line
(black is the best), which effectually separates it from all the
surrounding colours, and gives it the effect of light, even when the
whiteness retains enough of the natural colour of the raw material to
tone it down very perceptibly. The eye accepts it as white, and
ignores the tint that pervades it, and is hardly to be expelled from
silk or wool. Linen and cotton are the whitest of materials, after
passing through the hands of the chemist or the bleacher.
It is amusing to observe that Pliny regarded colours, whether
vegetable or mineral, rather as useful for the pharmacopeia of his
day, than as dyes or artistic pigments. He speaks contemptuously of
the art of his time, and yet he gives some curious hints that are well
worth collecting for experiment. His fragmentary information, though
often inaccurate, is most valuable to those who are seeking once more
to find lasting colours, and despair of discovering mordants that will
fix the aniline tints. From him we learn more of the Egyptian
colouring materials than of any others, as he named their sources,
European, Asiatic, or African; and there is no doubt of the perfection
of their mural pigments and textile dyes, which have remained
unimpaired to the present time.
Renouf says that "painting, as it is now understood, was totally
unknown to the Egyptians; but they understood harmony of colour,[304]
and formulated in it certain principles for decorative uses. They made
the primary colours predominate over the secondary by quantity and
position. They introduced fillets of white or yellow in their
embroideries, as well as in their paintings, between reds and greens,
to isolate them; and they balanced masses of yellow with a due
proportion of black." They never blended their colours, and had no
sense of the harmony of prismatic gradations, or the melting of one
tint into another; each was worked up to a hard and fast edge line. If
in one part of a building, one set of colours predominated, they
placed a greater proportion of other colours elsewhere, within the
range of sight, so as to readjust the balance. Those they employed
were mostly earthy mineral colours (used alike for frescoes and for
painting cotton cloths, though vegetable dyes were needed for woollens
and linens). These were: for _white_, pure chalk; for _black_,
bone-black mixed with gum; for _yellow_, yellow ochre; for _green_, a
mixture of yellow ochre and powdered blue glass; for _blue_, this same
blue glass mixed with white chalk; for _red_, an earthy pigment
containing iron and aluminium.[305] They understood the chemistry of
bleaching, and the use of mordants in dyeing.[306]
The statistical records of China of the time of Hias (2205 B.C.),
according to Semper, mention colours as being of five tints, and all
the produce of the Chinese Empire.[307]
In the unchanging art of India, the ancient colours are used now.
Therefore, when we give the following list, we must suppose that it
embraces all that have been known from the beginning.
Indian dyes are mostly vegetable. For _yellow_, akalbir, the root of
the Datiscus Canabinus; also yellow is dyed with asbarg, the flower of
the Cabul larkspur (_Delphinium sp._).
_Orange._ Soneri dyed with narsingar, the honey-scented flower of
nyclanthes (_Arbor Tristis_).
_Scarlet_ is first dyed with cochineal (formerly with kermes), which
gives a crimson colour; next with narsingar, which turns it vermilion.
_Purple_ is dyed first with cochineal (formerly kermes), afterwards
with indigo.
_Lilac._ Ditto, only paler.
_Blue._ All shades of indigo.
_Green._ With indigo first, and next the various yellow dyes.
_Brown._ Sandal-wood, called "sandali;" almond colour (Badami).
_Grey._ Sulphate of iron and gold.
_Black._ Deepest shade of indigo.[308]
Speaking of Indian coloured textiles, Sir G. Birdwood says: "All
violent contrasts are avoided. The richest colours are used, but are
so arranged as to produce the effect of a neutral bloom, which tones
down every detail almost to the softness and transparency of the
atmosphere." He says that in their apparel both the colouring and the
ornaments are adapted to the effect which the fabrics will produce
when worn and in motion. "It is only through generations of patient
practice that men attain to the mystery of such subtleties."
An outline, in black or some dark colour that harmonizes with the
ground, or else worked in gold, is common in Indian work, not only for
the purpose of isolating the colours of the design, but also to give a
uniform tone to the whole surface of the texture. Their traditional
arrangements of tints were thoroughly satisfying to the eye. But
degenerated by European commerce, the artistic sense of beauty itself
is disappearing throughout our Indian Empire.
Persian carpets (the fine old ones of the fourteenth to the
seventeenth centuries) give us lessons in the art of isolating
colours. In these, a flower will lie upon a surface which contains two
or more other tints, and as the design passes over them, the outline
colour is changed, so as to isolate the flower equally on the
different grounds. This is done with such art that the eye ignores the
transition till it is called to remark it. For instance, as a white,
or no-coloured pattern, wanders over a green and red ground, the
outline changes suddenly from green to red, and again to green as it
leaves the opposite colour on the ground pattern.
Mr. Floyer speaks of the brilliancy and lasting qualities of the dyes
which the Persians, by slow and tedious processes, extract from
plants; from the "runaschk" (madder), a fine red; from the "zarili"
(the golden), which is a yellow flower from Khorasan, and also from
the leaves of the vine, a bright yellow.[309] They import indigo from
Shastra (or from India), by the Khurum river. He says these dyes are
perfectly fast, leaving no trace on a wetted rubber, whereas the
European dyes they sometimes use come off freely.
Pliny says the Gauls had invented dyes counterfeiting the purple of
Tyre; also scarlet, violet, and green, all of these were dipped in the
juices of herbs.[310]
Vitruvius says the Romans extracted dyes from flowers and fruits, but
he neither specifies nor describes them.
The ancient Highland tartans were dyed with bark of alder for black,
bark of willow for flesh colour. A lichen growing on stones supplied
their violets and crimson.[311] The lichen on the birch-tree gives a
good brown; heather gives red, purple, and green.[312]
Thus we see that pure colours for dyeing textiles have been extracted
from vegetable substances--herbs, wood, seeds, flowers and fruits,
mosses and sea-weeds;[313] mineral substances--earths, sands, ores,
metals, rusts, and stones; animal substances--both of land, water, and
air; beasts, fishes, shells, birds, and insects.
It is evident, from the derivation of the word, that there were
chromatic scales in colour before the phrase was ever applied to
music.
The Greeks and Romans are supposed to have understood chromatic scales
of tints--animal, vegetable, and mineral--and except with the
intention of producing startling effects, they did not mix them. They
felt that each was harmonious as a whole, and, unlike the Egyptians,
they studied harmony. They arranged their scales according to the
materials from which they were extracted, and kept those from
different chemical sources apart, as being discordant.[314] One scale
was that of the iodine colours, of and from the sea. Marine products
are mostly iridescent. To comprehend this, think of the harmonious
interchange of delicate tints, called by the ancients "purple," on a
string of pearls. Shells and shell-fish, sea-weeds and fish, furnished
these dyes. They were called "conchiliata."
The chemistry of the arts of bleaching was not unknown to the
ancients; but they reserved and regulated it for certain purposes,
preferring to retain at least a part of the original colouring, as
shades of grounding which served, as a surface glaze does in painting,
to connect and harmonize the superinduced tints.
Experiments with the object of reviving this mode of producing
harmonious combinations, have been made lately at the Wilton Carpet
Works, by dyeing shades of colour on unbleached goat's and camel's
hair, and sheep's wool; and the tones produced are beautifully soft
and rich.
M. Edouard Charton ascribes the great change in the modern scales of
colours to the discovery by the French, in the Gobelins, of a pure
scarlet dye, the use of which made it necessary to raise the tone of
all other colours. He says that scarlet was formerly represented by
the dye called kermes, which indeed was not scarlet, but altered from
crimson to something approaching it by the addition of narsingar, of
which the bright yellow gave the scarlet effect.
M. Chevreul, director of the dyeing department of the Gobelins, has
succeeded in composing the chromatic prism, to which I have already
alluded, containing 4420 different tones. We may take it for granted,
that from these may be selected any possible scale of tints required
for decorative work. This vast area for choice of our material will
impose on the artist of the future fresh responsibilities.
In the typical Oriental colouring, the whole arrangement was
traditional, and it was irreligious to depart from what had been fixed
by statute many centuries before, and only perfected by the experience
of many generations of men; and this veneration for traditional custom
has hitherto been prevalent in European art to a certain point. But
the old conservative perfection of unadulterated colour has already
been done away with. The freedom of experimental art is chartered, and
mercantile interests now, as ever, govern the supply of materials.
Our normal bad taste and carelessness has been cast back on the lands
which were the cradle of art, and we receive, to our surprise, gaudy,
vulgar, and discordant combinations from the East, whence we drew our
first inspirations. For the future we shall have to study ancient
specimens, and correct our errors by the help of their teaching to the
eye and mind.
Gas colours are at present our worst snares. They are in general very
beautiful; but they are so evanescent, and fade into such unexpected
and contradictory tones, that we cannot reckon upon them. When
embroidering with the coloured materials of the day, we are in
constant dread of what disastrous effect may be produced by the first
shaft of sunshine that may fall from our moderately illuminated sky,
through the uncurtained window.
The trade in colours can hardly be an honest one, till the means of
fixing each tint permanently is ascertained.[315] At any rate,
something should be done towards grouping them, with respect to their
enduring qualities, so that when they fade, if fade they must, they
may do so harmoniously, and in sympathy with each other; and while
they are in their first glow they should be selected, as much as
possible, from what Pliny calls natural colours,[316] which recall the
exquisite effects of nature, searched out and displayed by every sunny
gleam, reflected on each other in lovely tones, and subdued and veiled
by passing shadows. It is said that Mr. Wardle, of Leek, is now
seeking for dyes of pure unadulterated colours, and mordants to fix
them. He deserves all success.
The reason I have entered, in even so cursory a manner, into the
history of colours is my desire to point out the great value placed,
long ago, on the careful preparation of those used in ancient textile
art; and to show how our forefathers sought them out in many lands
and waters; how they noted their varieties; how they classed and
prized them for their endurance as well as for their pristine beauty;
how they paid their weight in gold or silver for certain culminating
tints; and how they, therefore, produced works which became matters of
history and landmarks in civilization.
FOOTNOTES:
[283] "Seeing, they saw not, neither did they
understand."
[284] See Pliny's "Natural History," which gives much
information on the subject.
[285] E. Curtius, "Greek History;" Engl. Trans., i. p.
438; Blümner's "Technologie," p. 216.
[286] Charpentier "differentiates in every normal eye a
sensibility for light, a sensibility for colour, and a
sensibility for form (a visual sensibility)."--See
"Modern Theories of Colour," _The Lancet_, August 19th,
1882, p. 276. We can perceive, by studying works of art,
how variously these gifts are distributed, or, at any
rate, how differently they are received and acted upon
by individual minds.
[287] The effect of colour on the brain is a subject
only just now beginning to attract attention.
Experiments on the insane have been made in Italy,
especially, I believe, at Venice; and it is said to be
ascertained that red and green are irritants, whereas
windows glazed with blue glass alternating with white
have sensibly calmed the nerves of the patients.
[288] Let us compare the beautiful creations of the
Venetian school with the demoralizing brightness of
aniline colours, or the opaque, earthy tints which some
call beautiful, mistaking their dulness for softness and
sobriety of colouring. But they, too, have their uses.
[289] Black and red are, in ecclesiastical work, the
emblems of mourning.
[290] The Bardic rules in early Britain enjoined three
simple colours: sky blue, the emblem of peace, for the
bard and poet; green, for the master of natural history
and woodcraft; spotless white (the symbol of holiness),
for the priest and Druid.
[291] The blind man said that red was like the sound of
a trumpet, which shows what a soul-stirring colour it
was in his mind's eye.
[292] "Purpura" is supposed to mean crimson velvet. It
came, like "cramoisi," to be a name for a tissue. Fr.
Michell quotes velvet of Vermeil-cramoisi, "violet and
blue cramoisi, and pourpre of divers colours," but he
says he never met with "pourpre blanche." Yule, ed.
1875, i. p. 67. Plano Carpini (p. 755) says the
courtiers of Karakorum were clad in "white purpura;" and
that on the first day of the great festival in honour of
the inauguration of Kuyuk Khan, all the Mogul nobles
were clad in pourpre blanche, the second day in ruby
purple, and the third in blue purple: on the fourth day
they appeared in Baudichin (cloth of gold). (Yule,
"Marco Polo," vol. i. p. 376.) White purple is also
named in the inventories of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome,
and those of Notre Dame in Paris. "Histoire du Tissu
Ancien, à l'Exposition de l'Union Générale des Arts
Décoratifs."
[293] François Le Normant, in his "Grande Grèce," tells
of the dye of the purple of Tarentum from the murex,
found in the Mare Piccolo. He says that Tarentine
muslins, woven from the filaments of the pinna dipped in
the dye of the murex, rivalled those of Cos. Le Normant
laments the total neglect of the murex in these days
(could its trade be revived?) Plutarch says that
Alexander the Great, having made himself master of Susa
(Shushan), found, amongst other riches of marvellous
value, "purple of Hermione" worth forty thousand talents
(Quintus Curtius says fifty thousand), which, though it
had been stored 190 years, retained all its freshness
and beauty. See Plutarch's "Lives," edited by J. and W.
Langhorne, vol. ii. p. 739; Blümner, i. p. 224-240. The
reason assigned for their dye being so perfect was that
the Susanians knew how to comb the wool to be dipped,
and prepare it with honey. According to Aristotle the
dress of Alcisthenes, the Sybarite, was dyed with this
purple from Shushan (Ciampini, Vet. Mon.).
[294] Semper gives us an account of iodine colours.
Some, he says, were extracted from sea-weeds, green and
yellow; the purples, when finest, from the shell-fish.
The Phœnician coasts gave the best purples; those of
the Atlantic the best blacks and browns. And thus he
completes the scale of iodine colours. See Semper, "Der
Stil," i. p. 206.
[295] Heaps of the shells of this "murex trunculus" have
been found at Pompeii, near the dyers' works. Hardouin
says that in his time they were found at Otranto, and
similar remains have been noticed at Sidon. Sir James
Lacaita informs me that the living shells are still
found along the shores of the Adriatic, as well as on
the wash near Argos. No doubt the Phœnicians traded
first in the produce of the Sidonian and Tyrian coasts,
though they afterwards went farther afield in collecting
their dyes. Auberville says that the purple of the
Romans was a deep violet (double dyed, purpuræ dibaphæ),
and that this colour was Asiatic. The Phœnicians
traded in it, and sold it for its weight in silver.
Instead of fading in the sunshine, its colour
intensified. The enduring nature of this colour is
proved by the purple fragments from a Greek tomb in the
Crimea of about 300 B.C., described in chapter on
stitches, p. 217. See "Histoire du Tissu Ancien, à
l'Exposition de l'Union Générale des Arts Décoratifs."
[296] Though really red of the purest colour, it
doubtless received its name of Tyrian purple as being
one of the materials of the amethystine double dye. The
web or fleece was first dipped in the dye of Purpura,
and then in that of the Buccinum, or they reversed the
process to give a different tint. This is Pliny's
account of the process of dyeing, which is very simple,
and gives no details. Semper says that the ancients
called black and white the two extremes of purple--white
the thinnest, and black the thickest or most solid layer
of colour. Both were thus considered as colour. (Semper,
i. pp. 205-7.) As long as there is light, black always
appears to be either blue, or brown, or green, till with
darkness all colour disappears.
[297] Exod. xxv. Semper (i. p. 103) suggests that these
rams' skins were dyed with the periploca secamone--a
plant still used for this purpose in Egypt.
[298] Jeremiah xxii. 14.
[299] Ezekiel xxiii. 14: "The images of the Chaldeans."
"The men portrayed in vermilion on the wall."
[300] Villiers Stuart, "Funeral Tent of an Egyptian
Queen." See Appendix.
[301] 2 Chron. ii. 7.
[302] The Arabs received the kermis from Armenia, and
the name was originally "Quer-més," "oak-apple." Sardis
was famed for its kermes dye. See Birdwood, "Indian
Arts," p. 238, ed. 1880, and Yule's "Marco Polo," i. p.
67.
[303] Isa. ii. 18.
[304] Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, p. 67-69. It may be
called balance, rather than harmony.
[305] Wilkinson, "Manners of the Ancient Egyptians,"
vol. iii. pp. 301-3.
[306] Blümner, p. 220. See Pliny, "Natural History,"
xxxv. 42.
[307] Semper, i. p. 248.
[308] See Birdwood's "Indian Arts," p. 272. In the Code
of Manu, black garments are sacred to the Indian Saturn,
yellow to Venus, and red to Mars. See Birdwood, p. 235.
[309] See Floyer's "Unexplored Baluchistan," pp. 278,
373, 406. The Persians produce their deep yellow from
the skin of the pomegranate, by boiling it in alum.
Major Murdoch Smith describes the Persian processes for
dyeing patterns red and black in textiles. The Italian
women dye their own dresses in the pomegranate yellow;
also in turmeric yellow, and other vegetable dyes.
[310] Pliny, "Natural History," xxii. 3. Unfortunately,
Pliny seldom condescends to give us the recipes for
dyeing processes.
[311] Logan's "Scottish Garb."
[312] See Elton's "Origins of English History."
[313] The Cretan tincture was extracted from a plant
which Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny respectively
name. The last calls it the _Phycos thalassion_. This
was not a sea-weed, but a lichen--probably the same from
which the orchid purple of modern art is prepared. See
Birdwood, "Indian Arts," i. p. 238.
[314] The same scale of colour varies as much on the
different textiles employed, as it does from the colours
extracted from other chemicals. Silk, wool, cotton,
flax, give very different results. The colouring matter
may be identical, yet you cannot place them side by side
without being aware that they may be repellant, instead
of harmonious in tone. The scale is sometimes removed to
another pitch, and they will no more harmonize than
instruments that have not been attuned to the same
diapason. See Redgrave's Report on Textile Fabrics.
[315] With the changes in colouring materials has arisen
the necessity for discovering new mordants. The gas
colour of madder is exactly the same chemically as that
extracted from the vegetable, but the old mordant does
not fix it, and it changes very soon to a dull
blackish-purple hue.
[316] Pliny, "Natural History," ix. 12. The most
unnatural, and the most disagreeable dyes, are the
magentas. Sir G. Birdwood tells us that the Maharajah of
Cashmere has adopted a most efficient plan for the
suppression of magenta dyes within his dominions--first,
a duty of 45 per cent. on entering the country, and at a
certain distance within the frontier, they are
confiscated and destroyed.
CHAPTER VI.
_Part 1._
STITCHES.
Stitches in needlework correspond to the touches of the pencil or
brush in drawing or painting, or to the strokes of the chisel in
sculpture. The needle is the one implement of the craft by which
endless forms of surface-work are executed. With a thread through its
one eye, it blindly follows each effort of its pointed foot, urged by
the intelligent or mechanical hand grouping the stitches, which, being
long or short, single or mixed, slanting, upright, or crossed, are
selected as the best fitted for the design and purpose in hand. The
word "stitches" does not, however, in this chapter represent merely
the plural of one particular process of needle insertion, but the
produce and effect of each different kind of stitch by grouping and
repetition, according to its most ancient nomenclature. That which is
astonishing is the endless variety of surface, of design, of hints and
suggestions, of startling effects, and of lovely combinations,
resulting from the direction of the needle and manipulation of the
materials, and differing from each other according to the power or the
caprice of the worker. But the machine is always the same--the
threaded needle strikes the same interval, forming the "stitch."
This venerable implement, _the needle_, has, through the ages, varied
but little in form. The attenuated body, the sharp foot, the rounded
head, and the eye to hold the thread, are the same in principle,
whether it is found in the cave-man's grave, formed of a fish's bone
or shaped from that of a larger animal; hammered of the finest bronze,
as from Egypt, or of gold, like those found in Scandinavia. A bronze
needle was lately discovered in the tomb of a woman of the Vikings in
Scotland, and its value is shown by its being placed in a silver case.
Steel needles were first made in England in 1545, by a native of
India. His successor, Christopher Greening, established a workshop in
1560 at Long Crendon, in Bucks, which existed there as a needle
factory till quite lately. The rustic poetic drama, entitled "Gammer
Gurton's Needle," performed at Ch. Coll., Cambridge, in 1566, was a
regular comedy, of which a lost needle was the hero. In those days the
village needle was evidently still a rare and precious possession.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Bronze needles from Egyptian tombs now in British
Museum. 6. Cave-man's needle from the Pinhole, Churchfield,
Ereswell Crag. 7. Bone needle from La Madeleine, Dordogne.]
The art of embroidery consists of a design, which includes the
pattern, and the handicraft or stitches--the "motive" and the
"needlework."
In painting, as in sculpture, the first idea, as well as the last
touch, must come from the same head and hand. But in needlework it is
not so. The pattern is the result of tradition. It is almost always
simply a variation of old forms, altered and renewed by surrounding
circumstances and sudden or gradual periods of change.
However much the design may alter, rising often to the highest point
of decorative art, and as often falling back to the lowest and most
meaningless repetitions and imitations, the _stitches_ themselves vary
but little. The same are to be found in Egyptian and Greek specimens,
and the classical names are those used by mediæval writers, and have
come down to us, "floating like bubbles on the waves of time."
Sir George Birdwood[317] thinks that every kind of stitch is found in
traditional Indian work. I confess that I have not been able hitherto
to trace any of the "mosaic" stitches to India, nor do we ever see
them in Chinese or Japanese embroidery, which shows every other
variety. They are, however, occasionally found in Egyptian work.
The following is a list of stitches, under the nomenclature of
classical, Roman and mediæval authors:--
Opus Phrygionium or Phrygium. Passing or metal thread work.
Opus Pulvinarium. Shrine or cushion work.
Opus Plumarium. Plumage or feather work.
Opus Consutum. Cut work.
Opus Araneum or Filatorium. Net or lace work.
Opus Pectineum. Tapestry or combed work.
Here are two English lists of stitches; their quaintness must be my
excuse for copying them. The first is from Taylor, the water-poet's
"Praise of the Needle" (sixteenth century):--
"Tent work, raised work, laid work, prest work,
Net work, most curious pearl or rare Italian cut work,
Fine fern stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch,
Brave bred stitch, fisher stitch, Irish stitch, and queen's stitch,
The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch, and maw stitch,
The smarting whip stitch, back stitch, and the cross stitch.--
All these are good, and these we must allow,
And these are everywhere in practice now."
The second list is from Rees' "Cyclopædia" (Stitches), 1819:--
"Spanish stitch,
Tent stitch on the finger,
Tent stitch in the tent or frame,
Irish stitch,
Fore stitch,
Gold stitch,
Twist stitch,
Fern stitch,
Broad stitch,
Rosemary stitch,
Chip stitch,
Raised work,
Geneva work,
Cut work,
Laid work,
Back stitch,
Queen's stitch,
Satin stitch,
Finny stitch,
Chain stitch,
Fisher's stitch,
Bow stitch,
Cross stitch,
Needlework purl,
Virgin's device,
Open cut work,
Stitch work,
Through stitch,
Rock work,
Net work, and
Lent work.
"All which are swete manners of work wroughte by the
needle with silke of all natures, purls, wyres, and weft
or foreign bread ('braid'), etc., etc."
_Part 2._
PLAIN WORK AND WHITE WORK.
We are told that the primal man and woman sewed in Paradise.
To "sew," in contradistinction to the word to "embroider," is derived
from the Sanskrit _su_, _suchi_, and thence imported into Latin,
_suo_.[318] To prove how highly esteemed needlework was among the
Romans, I may mention that the equivalent of the phrase "to hit the
right nail on the head" was _rem acu tangere_, "to touch the question
with the point of the needle."
"Plain work" is that which is necessary. As soon as textiles are
needed for covering and clothing, the means are invented for drawing
the cut edges together, and for preventing the fraying where the
material is lacerated by the shaping process. Hence the "seam," the
"hem," and all the forms of stitches that bind and plait. These
necessary stitches constitute plain needlework, and are closely
followed by decorative stitches, which in gradation cover the space
between plain needlework and embroidery.
Semper has given us his archæological theories for the origin of
needlework and its stitches.
These are his arguments, if not always his words. He says: "The seam
is one of the first human successful efforts to conquer
difficulties."[319]
A string, a ribbon, a band, may serve to keep together several loose
things; but by means of the seam, small things actually become large
ones. For example: a full-grown man can, by its help, cover himself
with a garment made of the skins of many small animals. When Eve sewed
fig-leaves together, she made of these small pieces a garment of
patchwork.
Acting on the principle of making a virtue of necessity, accepting and
adorning the severe facts of life, seams came to be an important
vehicle of ornament. The Gauls and Britons embroidered the seams of
their fur garments. "We may judge of the antiquity of the seam by its
universal and mythological meaning. The seam, the tie, the knot, the
plait, and the mesh are the earliest symbols of fate uniting
events."[320]
We find but little mention of plain work in mediæval writings. When
linen was worked for some honourable purpose, such as a gift to a
friend or a royal personage, it was generally embroidered or stitched
in some fancy fashion. Queen Elizabeth presented Edward VI., on his
second birthday, with a smock made by herself. Fine linen was about
this time constantly edged with bone laces.
Mrs. Floyer has written so well, and given us so much practical
information on plain needlework, that I feel it unnecessary to enter
at any length into the principles of plain sewing, as my theme is
needlework as decorative art.
Mrs. Floyer has, as it were, unpicked and unravelled every stitch in
plain work, till she has discovered and laid bare its intention, its
construction, and effect. She, has also given us rules made clear to
the dullest understanding, instructing us how to teach the young and
ignorant. She shows us the quickest and most perfect way of working
different materials for different purposes, and tells us how to select
them. I will, therefore, refer my readers to her most useful and
instructive books,[321] and pass on at once from the craft of plain
needlework, to stitches as the art of embroidery.
The link between plain and decorative work deserves attention. This
link is "white embroidery." I imagine it was not a very ancient form
of the art, and was practised first in mediæval days; when we begin to
have constant notices of it. The first white laces appear to have
followed close upon the first white embroideries.
There is a tomb of the fourteenth century in the Church of the Ara
Cœli at Rome, where the effigy of a knight lies on his bed, draped
with a sheet and a coverlet, both embroidered. These are evidently of
linen worked in white.[322] I give a drawing of them in illustration
(pl. 39).
From that date we find continually mention of such work by nuns and
ladies.[323] In England it was especially called "nuns' work" (plate
42). There is a great survival of this stitchery in Italy amongst the
peasantry. They have always adorned their smocks and aprons, and their
linen head-coverings, and the borders of sheets for great occasions,
with patterns in "flat stitches," "cut stitches," and "drawn work."
The Greek peasants do the same. In Germany will be found much curious
white embroidery, of designs which show their antiquity; and from
Spain we get "Spanish work" in black, on white linen, which is nearly
allied to the stitches of white work.
[Illustration: Pl. 39.
Embroidery imitated in marble on the tomb of a knight, in the Church
of the Ara Cœli, Rome.]
Lord Arundel of Wardour possesses a linen cover for a tabernacle (or
else it is a processional cloak) which is of the purest
Hispano-Moorish design, and unrivalled in beauty. It is
embroidered in Spanish stitches in white thread, on the finest linen,
and is intersected with fine lace insertion (pl. 40). It is said to
have been found in the time of Elizabeth with some other articles in a
dry well; among them a little satin shoe, of which the shape proves
its date to be of the end of Henry VIII.'s reign. Russian embroidery,
consisting of geometrical patterns in red, blue, and black thread, is
of this class.
[Illustration: Pl. 40.
Processional Cloak, time of Henry VIII., belonging to Lord Arundel
of Wardour.]
In England alone, the peasantry do no white work for home use, and we
must suppose it has never been a domestic occupation. Indeed, the love
of the needle is by no means an English national tendency, in the
lower classes. Nothing but the plainest work is taught in our schools.
Anything approaching to decorative art, with us, has been the
accomplishment of educated women, and not the employment of leisure
moments in the houses of the poor.
Semper, in "Der Stil,"[324] gives rules for white embroidery, and the
reasons from which he deduces them are good. He says, that allowing it
as a maxim that each textile has its own uses and its own beauties, we
should place nothing on linen which would militate against its
inherent qualities and merits; and that, as the great beauty of flax
is its smoothness and purity, all projections and roughnesses should
be avoided which would catch dust or throw a shadow. Carrying out this
idea, it would appear that satin, and not lace stitches are therefore,
the most suitable for this kind of decoration. The accepted rule for
selecting the stitch for each piece of work is this: on stout grounds
the thread should be round and rich, whereas delicate materials carry
best the most refined and shining thread work; and in embroidering the
smooth surface of linen fabrics, the flattest stitches are the most
appropriate.
_Part 3._
OPUS PHRYGIUM (_or gold work_).
Gold embroideries were by the Romans attributed to the Phrygians. All
gold work was vaguely supposed to be theirs, as all other embroidery
was included in the craft of the Plumarii in Rome.
It has been disputed whether needlework in gold preceded the weaving
of flat gold or thread into stuffs, or whether it was an
after-thought, and an enrichment of such textiles. I imagine that the
embroidery was the first, and that the after-thought was the art of
weaving gold. Babylonian embroideries appear to be of gold wire, as we
see them in the Ninevite marbles.
An instance of the way golden embroideries were displayed among the
Greeks is that of the Athenian peplos, which, as I have already said
(p. 32), was worked by embroideresses under the superintendence of two
Arrhephoræ of noble birth. It was either scarlet or saffron colour,
and blazed with golden representations of the battles of the giants,
or local myths and events in the history of Athens.[325]
The art of the Phrygians, who gave their name in Rome to all golden
thread-work, has come down to us through the classic "auriphrygium"
and the "orphreys" of the Middle Ages. Semper thinks that the flat
gold embroidery was the first invented.[326]
The Phrygians had attained to the utmost perfection in tissue ornament
when the Romans conquered them, and finding their art congenial to the
growing luxury of Rome, they imported and domesticated it; both the
people and their work retaining their national designation. Pliny,
ignorant of the claims of the Chinese, gave to the Phrygians the
credit of being the inventors of all embroidery.[327] The garments
they thus decorated were called "phrygionæ," and the work itself "opus
Phrygium." The term "auriphrygium," at first given to work in gold
only, was in time applied to all embroidery that admitted gold into
its composition; and hence the English mediæval term, "orphreys."
All the gold stitches now called "passing" came from Phrygia; Semper
attributes all the "mosaic stitches" to the Phrygians, calling them
"opus Phrygionium."[328] Gold stitches are splendidly exemplified in
the embroidered mantle of St. Stephen, of the ninth century. The only
somewhat earlier piece of mediæval gold embroidery with which I am
acquainted is the dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Vatican, richly
embroidered in fine gold thread; and the mantle of the Emperor Henry
II. in the Museum at Munich, worked by his Empress Kunigunda, who
appears to have been somewhat parsimonious in her use of the precious
material.
Almost all ecclesiastical and royal ancient embroideries were
illuminated with golden grounds--golden outlines or golden flat
embroideries. Later still, raised gold thread work has imitated gilt
carvings or goldsmiths' jewellery; and we feel that it was at once
removed from its place as embroidery, and became an elaborate
imitation of what should belong to another craft.[329] Such
deviations from the proper office and motive of needlework are so
dangerously near to bad style and bad taste, that they always and
inevitably have fallen into disrepute.
_Part 4._
OPUS PULVINARIUM (_or cushion work_).
This "opus pulvinarium" is not only to be found in Oriental work, but
it has also survived in a very few fragments from Egypt.[330] One of
these, in the British Museum, is worked on canvas, in wool and flax;
another in a white shining thread, resembling asbestos, on linen or
fine canvas. They are regular "canvas" or "cross" stitches, and
therefore, under mediæval nomenclature, would be classed as "opus
pulvinarium." This name must include all stitches in gold, silk, and
wool, whether Phrygian, Egyptian, or Babylonian in their origin,
excepting the flat and lace stitches (plate 41).
[Illustration: Pl. 41.
MOSAIC STITCHES.
1. Italian Pattern, sixteenth century. From Frida Lipperheide's
Musterbuch. 2. Scandinavian. Bock, i. taf. xi. 3. Egyptian.
From Auberville's "Tissus," p. 1.]
Semper's term, "mosaic" stitches, is a good one, as it covers all that
are relegated into patterns in small square spaces, counted by the
threads of the textile on which they are laid.[331] He believes that
the mosaic patterns and cross stitches in needlework preceded the
tesselated pavements, and formed their first motive, though the stitch
now refers itself back to the mosaic, at least in name.
It is remarkable that in Chaldea and Assyria there still exist some
ruined walls, which are adorned with pilasters, panels, and other
architectural forms, covered with some sort of encaustic, imitating
textile patterns.[332] The effect is produced by means of a kind of
mosaic work of small nails or wedges of baked clay, with china or
glazed coloured heads. These are inlaid into the unbaked clay or
earth, of which the walls are constructed, and while binding it
together, give the effect of the surface being hung with a material
which has a pattern worked all over in cross stitch.
The Chinese, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians long continued to show
in their buildings the tradition of this style of decoration. In Egypt
there has been found some unfinished mural painting where the plaster
has been previously prepared by dividing it into small rectangular
spaces, apparently on the principle of the canvas ground for cross
stitches.
The name "mosaic" stitch does not interfere with, or militate against
the classical appellation of _opus pulvinarium_, which means "shrine
work" or "cushion stitches." These appear to have been from the first
considered as the best suited for adorning cushions, chairs,
footstools, and the beds on which men reclined at their feasts, as
they are firmly-set stitches which will stand friction.
Most of the work now done in Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the
Principalities, shows different forms of the mosaic stitches; so also
does the national Russian work, which is Byzantine. All these designs
are conventional and mostly geometrical.
This work, in the East, is generally the same on both sides. We may
infer that the spoil anticipated by Sisera's mother, "the garments
embroidered on both sides, fit for the necks of those who divide the
spoil," was of this kind.
Thus we see that the "opus pulvinarium" has a very respectable
ancestry; and though it had somewhat degenerated in the early part of
our century, and had languished and almost died out under the name of
Berlin wool work, yet it has done good service through the days of
mediæval art down to the present time, both in England and throughout
Europe (pl. 42); and it will probably revive and continue to be
generally used.
Though the least available for historical or pictorial work, and not
by any means the best for flower-pieces (as the squareness of the
stitches refuses to lend itself to flowing lines or gradations of
colour, unless the stitches are extremely fine, and the work, in
consequence, very laborious), yet it finds its especial fitness in all
geometrical designs. It is also particularly well suited to heraldic
subjects.
A remarkable example of the use of cross stitches exists in the
borders of the Syon cope, in which the coats-of-arms are so executed.
This is of the thirteenth century; and besides these cushion stitches,
it exhibits all those which are grouped in the style called opus
Anglicum or Anglicanum.
[Illustration: Pl. 42.
Italian "Nun's Work," from a pyx cloth, sixteenth century.]
Many charming designs for this kind of stitch may be found in the old
German pattern-books of the Renaissance (Spitzen Musterbücher), and
also in those Venetian "Corone di Vertuose Donne" lately reprinted by
the Venetian publisher Organia. These are worthy of a place in every
library of art.
It would seem best to place the chain stitch named "tambour" in this
class, as it naturally assimilates with the plaited and cross
stitches. It is so called from the drum-shaped frame of the last
century in which it was usually worked.
_Part 5._
OPUS PLUMARIUM (_or plumage work_).
The "Opus Plumarium" is one of the most ancient groups, and includes
all flat stitches, of which the distinguishing mark is, that they
_pass_ each other, overlap, and blend together. "Stem," "twist,"
"Japanese stitch," and "long and short" or "embroidery stitch," belong
to this class, to which I propose to restore its original title of
plumage work.
The origin of the name is much disputed, but it is supposed to have
pointed to a decoration of plumage work, and we find that feathers
have been an element in artistic design from the earliest times. There
were patterns in Egyptian painting which certainly had feathers for
their motive (fig. 21, p. 208).
Semper, finding that birds'-skins were a recognized article for trade
in China, 2205 B.C.,[333] believes that they were used as onlaid
application for architectural decoration; and this is possible, for we
still obtain from thence specimens of work in different materials
partly onlaid in whole feathers, whereas sometimes the longer threads
of the feathers are woven by the needle into the ground web. In Her
Majesty's collection there are some specimens from Burmah--creatures
resembling sphinxes or deformed cherubim, executed in feathers,
applied on silk and outlined in gold. We have likewise from Burmah, in
the Indian Museum, two peacocks[334] similarly worked; the legs and
beaks are solidly raised in gold thread; and the outlines also are
raised in gold, giving the appearance of enamelling. The _cloisonné_
effect of brilliant colours, contrasted and enhanced by the separation
of the gold outlines, can be seen to perfection in specimens of the
beautiful Pekin jewellers' work, where the feathers are inlaid in gold
ornaments for the head and in the handles of fans. Nothing but gems
can be more resplendent.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.
Feather patterns, Egyptian.]
These survivals help us to understand the casual mention we find in
classical authors, of the works of the Plumarii, which appellation was
given at last to all embroiderers who were not Phrygians.[335]
We have other glimpses of Oriental feather-work in different parts of
India.[336]
The use of feathers is common in the islands of the Pacific. It is
native to the Sandwich islanders; and M. Jules Remy describes the
Hawaiian royal mantle, which was being constructed of yellow birds'
feathers through seven consecutive reigns, and was valued in Hawaii at
5,000,000 francs. A mantle of this description is the property of Lady
Brassey.
In Africa, ancient Egyptian art furnishes us with traditional feather
patterns and head-dresses; and Pigafetta tells us of costumes of
birds' skins, worn in the kingdom of Congo in the sixteenth century
for their warmth; sea-birds' feathers being highly esteemed.[337]
In America, where birds are most splendid, the art of the feather
worker was carried to the greatest perfection. It was found there by
the Spaniards, and recorded in all their writings for its beauty of
design and execution, and for its great value, equal to that of gold
and precious stones.
Though now looked down upon, as being a semi-barbarous style of
decoration, because it exists no longer except in semi-barbarous
countries, we must consider feather work as a relic of a past higher
civilization which has died out, rather than simply as the effort of
the savage to deck himself in the brightest colours attainable.
Feather-work is a lost art, but the name of "opus plumarium" remains,
and proves that it was still recognized as such in the days of Roman
luxury. The name survived when the practice was all but forgotten in
Europe,[338] and the art itself disused, probably, because the birds
of our continent rarely have any lovely plumage to tempt the eye.
But the glory of feather-work was found again in Mexico and Peru, and
the surrounding nations, in the sixteenth century--praised, exalted,
demoralized, and crushed out by the cruelties of conquest. The
Spaniards at first brought home beautiful garments and hangings,
representing gods and heroes, all worked in feathers.[339] Under their
rule the natives produced pictures agreeable to the taste of their
masters. Pope Sixtus V. accepted a head of St. Francis, which had been
executed by one of the ablest of the "amantecas" (the name for an
artist in feathers). Sixtus was struck with surprise and admiration at
the beauty and artistic cleverness of the work, and, until he had
touched and examined it closely, would not believe that plumage was
the only material used.
There are beautiful hangings and bed furniture at Moritzburg, near
Dresden, said to have belonged to Montezuma. They were given to
Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, by a king of Spain.
In the seventeenth century, and later, feather work was still an art
in Mexico, the convents continuing to preserve its traditions.
Bustamente says that this industry was still in operation in the
beginning of our century. The Mexican Museum preserves specimens of
the last three hundred years, from the time of the conquest of Mexico.
There is in the Cluny Museum, in Paris, a beautiful triptych,
evidently of the sixteenth century. It is worked in feathers, with
delicate outlines in fine gold thread. Nothing can exceed the
tenderness and harmony of the colouring in shades of blue, and warm
and cool brown tints. This is probably a survival of that lost art of
Mexico which was carried on in their convents, and may have been a
copy of a treasured relic of European art.
Among the few noteworthy specimens that have survived, is the mitre of
St. Carlo Borromeo at Milan, described by M. F. Denis as being both
artistic and beautiful. He tells us in his Appendix that even now, a
tissue of feathers is woven in France, as soft and flexible as a silk
damask; and rivalling the Mexican scarlet feather fabric, which the
Spaniards admired so greatly. He also speaks of the inlaid feather
work, invented by M. Le Normant of Rouen, in the last century, and
afterwards continued in Paris by his English pupil, Mr. Levet, who
sold two of his works to the then Duke of Leeds, in 1735. The first is
a vase of flowers, the second a peacock, designed by M. Oudry (peintre
du Roi). Both of these, framed as screens, are now at Hornby Castle.
Unfortunately feathers are, by their nature, most attractive to that
greatest destroyer, next to Attila--the moth. Ghirlandajo called
mosaic in marble and glass, "painting for eternity;" we may call
feather work, "painting for a day."
From the essays of M. Ferdinand Denis,[340] much may be learned of the
_arte plumaria_ of the Mexicans and their neighbours of Brazil,
Guatemala, Peru, and Yucatan, and the land of the Zapotecas, &c.,
where it was also cultivated. He says that their civilization is so
mysterious that we have as yet no means of judging whence came their
art.
Fergusson suggests the similarity between Central Asian and Central
American art, both in architectural forms and plastic and sculptured
remains. He thinks that its tradition was transmitted from Asia to
America in the third and fourth centuries of our era. If so, it was an
unlucky moment for the recipients, as the art of Asia, as well as that
of Europe, was then at its lowest and most debased phase; perhaps,
however, the more fit for the fertilization of that of a perfectly
barbarous people. There is something fascinating in the suggestions on
this subject in Mr. Donelly's "Atlantis;" but when conjecture is only
founded on tradition, and without proof, we must not take it into
serious consideration.
Having proved the universal use of feathers, it is not difficult to
appreciate the causes which suggested everywhere the transfer of this
decorative art to another craft, employing less perishable materials.
Embroidery probably followed it closely and absorbed it throughout
Asia and in Egypt; and the survivals now are only an accidental
specimen, a tradition, and a name.[341]
The name "Plumarii," for the embroideries, is thus fully accounted
for, and we need seek no further elucidation. It was commonly used in
classical Roman times. "Opus plumarium" seems to have become the
legitimate term for all needlework. The Plumarii were the
embroiderers, whether their work was in wool, or thread, or in silk
(at a later period),[342] with or without admixture of gold or silver
(as the Argentarii were the jewellers).
The article on the word "plumarius" in Hoffman's Lexicon,[343] after
describing two kinds of Plumarii, Phrygians and Babylonians, proceeds
to say, "These latter, who wove garments and hangings of various
colours, were called 'Plumarii;' but though this name was at first
confined to craftsmen who wove patterns in the shape of feathers, in
course of time the name was extended to those artists who, with the
needle or by painting, embellished robes."[344]
The "opus plumarium" included, as I before said, all flat stitches;
and I repeat that "feather application" was certainly its first
motive; and next came the stitches that conveyed the same desired
effect, though a new material was employed, fitted for the needle,
which, having served its apprenticeship in "plain work," now came to
the front as a decorative agent.
Painting with the needle began with an attempt to model with it; the
lay of stitches being so arranged as to give the whole effect of
light and shadow, so as to delineate the forms without changing the
shades of the material used. I give on the opposite page some Japanese
birds, which will explain what I mean. The stitches are so
intelligently placed as absolutely to give the forms of the birds
imitated. They represent plumage, and a more artistic representation
cannot be imagined. (Pl. 43.)
The same stitch which we find prevailing in China and Japan as plumage
work, is employed in embroidering flowers. Here satin, stem, and
plumage stitches are blended together, and excellent decorative
effects are produced; but the texture of flowers is not to be
imitated, as is that of the plumage of birds. "Satin" stitch is a more
restricted form of plumage stitch; and "stem" is another variety of
these flat stitches, very useful in its place. I therefore have
assigned the name of "plumage stitch" to that hitherto called
"embroidery" or "long and short" stitches; and I give the term
"plumage work" to include all the "flat" stitches.
Practically, it is allowed that these flat stitches, especially the
plumage stitch, give most scope for freedom in needlework, as they are
laid on at once, and according to the inspiration of the worker, and
may cover the outline and efface it. The stitches are not counted, and
have more of the nature of touch than any others, as their length,
thickness, and closeness may be varied at will. The artist's design
thus admits of interpretation according to the taste and feeling of
the needlewoman.
[Illustration: Pl. 43.
Japanese Opus Plumarium.]
_Part 6._
OPUS CONSUTUM (_or cut work_).
This is "Patchwork," or "Appliqué" ("inlaid" and "onlaid"). Vasari
calls it "Di commesso," and says that Botticelli invented it for the
use of Church banners, as being much more effective than any other
style of work, or even than painting, as the outlines remained firm
(non si stinguano), and were not affected by the weather (as in
painted cloths) and were visible on both sides of the banner.
Botticelli drew with his own hand the baldachino of Or San Michele,
and the embroideries on a frieze carried in procession by the monks of
Santa Maria Novella; he died 1515. Perhaps he may have revived the art
of application in his own day.
There are, however, much earlier examples of patchwork, of which the
first and most remarkable is the Egyptian funeral tent of Queen
Isi-em-Kheb, mother-in-law of Shishak, who besieged and took Jerusalem
three or four years after the death of Solomon, B.C. 980. It may be
described as a mosaic, or patchwork of prodigious size, made of
thousands of pieces of gazelles' skins, dyed, and neatly sewn together
with threads of colour to match, resembling the stitching of a glove,
the outer edges bound with a cord of twisted pink leather, sewn on
with stout pink thread (pl. 44). The colours are described as being
wonderfully preserved, when it is remembered that they are nearly as
old as the Trojan War; though perhaps their preservation is less
surprising than that the flowers wreathed about several royal mummies
of the same period should have shown their colours and forms when the
cases were first opened, so as to be recognized as blue larkspur,
yellow mimosa, and a red Abyssinian flower, massed closely together on
the foundation of a strong leaf cut in zigzags. Among the flowers lay
a dead wasp, whose worthless little form and identity were as
perfectly preserved as those of the mighty monarch on whose bosom it
had completed its short existence. The tent itself consists of a
centre or flat top, divided down the middle, and covered over one
half with pink and yellow rosettes on a blue ground; on the other half
are six large vultures, each surrounded with a hieroglyphic text which
is really an epitaph. The side flaps are adorned first with some
narrow bands of colour; then with a fringe pattern; then with a row of
broad panels, red, green, and yellow, with a device or picture and
inscription in the two other colours; on this border there are
kneeling gazelles, each with a pink Abyssinian lotus blossom hanging
to its collar. The rest of the side flaps and the whole of the front
and back flaps are composed of large squares, alternately pink and
green. This, for its antiquity, its style, its stitchery, materials,
and colours, is a most interesting work of early art, and an example
of the perfection to which it had attained. It is remarkable how much
variety of effect has been produced with only four colours, by the
artistic manner of placing and contrasting them. To our more advanced
taste, however, the whole effect of the contrasting colours is
inharmonious and gaudy, though certainly striking and typical.[345]
Another piece of Egyptian application, from the Museum at Turin, is a
pretty leaf pattern cut out in red stuff, laid on a white ground, and
worked down with a darker outline of the same colour.[346]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.
Piece of appliqué in red stuff and red outlines from Egypt.]
[Illustration: Pl. 44.
Funeral Tent of Isi-em-Kheb. From Villiers Stuart's "Funeral Tent
of an Egyptian Queen."]
We have an instance of ancient "application" of about 600 years
later, Greek in its beauty of design and execution. Alas! we can only
ascertain, from tattered fragments taken out of a tomb in the Crimea,
that it was parsemé with figures on horseback or in chariots. The
border is very beautiful. Compare the fragments of which we have
obtained a copy with the mantle of Demeter, from a Greek vase, and you
will perceive how the styles correspond (Pl. 16, Fig. 23). The ground
material is of the finest woven wool, of a deep violet or purple
colour, enriched with application of another fine woollen fabric of a
most brilliant green, worked down, outlined and embroidered in white,
black, and gold-coloured wool, apparently in stem stitches.[347] The
accompanying illustration gives the effect and general design of the
outer border only, in which the applied leaf is worked down in red,
gold, and white.
It is much to be regretted that the centre of the mantle is so
tattered and discoloured that it is impossible to do more than
ascertain that the design that is embroidered on it consists of
figures on horseback or in chariots, in spirited attitudes. The second
and broader border is to be found (pl. 17).
[Illustration: Fig. 23.
Narrow border of a Greek mantle.]
"Opus consutum" cannot in any sense perhaps be the name of a stitch or
stitches. But it applies to a peculiar style of embroidery employing
certain stitches. It is the term given to all work cut out of plain or
embroidered materials, and applied by "working down" to another
material as grounding. It includes all raised and stuffed application
in silk, woollen, and metal thread work. It has been given to all work
in which the scissors are active agents, whether in cutting out the
outlines or in incising the pattern, as in much of the linen and
muslin embroideries of our day, now called "Madeira work," of which a
great deal was made in the first part of the century by English ladies
who designed and collected patterns from each other, and gave the
produce of their industry as gifts to their friends for collars,
cuffs, and trimmings.[348]
"Cut work" is named by Chaucer, and is constantly to be found in
inventories from his time to the beginning of the last century. At
Coire, in the Grisons, is a very beautiful chasuble, of which the
orphrey is of the school of the elder Holbein or Lucas Cranach,
applied and raised so as to form a high relief. The figures are
covered with satin and embroidered. The chasuble itself is of fine
Saracenic silk, woven with golden inscriptions in broad stripes. The
colours are brown, crimson, and gold.
[Illustration: Wall Pilasters
Appliqué Cut work, Italian XVI. Cent^ry
Property of Countess Somers]
In the later Middle Ages, a good deal of this work was executed in
Germany for wall hangings; figures were cut out in different
materials, and embroidered down and finished by putting in the details
in various stitches. As art they are generally a failure, being more
gaudy than beautiful. This, however, is not necessarily the case, for
there is at the Hotel Cluny a complete suite of hangings of the time
of Francis the First, partly applied and partly embroidered, which
are beautiful in design and colouring, especially the fruit and
trophies in the borders.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cut work was much employed
in Italy for large flowered arabesque designs, commonly in velvet or
silk, making columnar wall hangings, which are often very effective;
giving the rooms an architectural decoration, without interfering with
the arrangement of works of art, pictures, statues and cabinets,
placed in front of them. Besides, it was supposed that the utmost
effect of richness was thus accomplished with the least labour, and
very large spaces and very high walls covered, without losing anything
of beauty by distance, as must be the case when the work's highest
merit is in the delicacy of the stitches and the details of form. (Pl.
45.)
The Earl of Beauchamp has inherited a most beautiful suite of hangings
of "appliqué work;" silks of many kinds are laid on a white brocade
ground with every possible variety of stitch, forming richly and
gracefully designed patterns; and showing to what cut work can aspire.
A great deal of "opus consutum" has been done in the School of Art
Needlework, in the way of restoration of old embroideries. Here may be
seen copies of different models of many periods; amongst other British
specimens, part of a bed at Drumlanrig, in which James I. slept. In
this work the application is cut out, raised and stuffed, and
"couched" with cords, and the whole thing is as stiff, strong,
conventional, and enduring as if it were a piece of upholstery that
was carpentered yesterday, instead of being needlework of at least 250
years ago.
One of the most remarkable large works of this style that exists was
shown in 1881, at the South Kensington Museum, during the Spanish
Exhibition.[349] It was of the kind called "on the stamp." This was a
landscape seen between columns wreathed with flowers and creepers. In
the foreground couched a stag, the size of life--a wonderful
reproduction of the hide of the creature in stitches. The relief is so
high that the columns appear to be circular by the shadows they throw;
and the stag is stuffed so as to be raised about six inches. The work
is superb, and causes pleasure as well as wonder; and yet, in spite of
the beauty of the design, and the richness of the materials--gold,
silver, silk, and wool profusely used--it is a divergence from the
legitimate art of embroidery, and is simply the attempt of the
needlewoman to combine again the arts of sculpture and painting with
the help of so inadequate an implement as the needle. Therefore,
except as being a marvellous and beautiful curiosity, it is a failure;
it is not art.[350]
Practically, cut work is the best mode of arriving at splendid effects
by uniting rich and varied tissues.[351] The Italian curiosity vendors
know this well, and often cut up the remnants and rags of rich stuffs,
old faded silks, and scraps of gold and silver tissues, and with them
copy fine old designs, and sell them as authentic specimens of such
and such a date.
I was once requested to give an opinion as to the date of a curtain
border bought in Italy, and on consideration I gave the following
verdict: "The design is of the sixteenth century; the applied velvet
and gold cord, of the seventeenth century; the brocaded silk ground,
eighteenth century; the thread with which the whole was
worked--machine-made silk thread (English)--middle of nineteenth
century." The whole effect was excellent, and very antique.
This art of "application" is the distinctive part of the "opus
consutum," and it is the best and most economical method for
restoration of old embroideries, of which the grounding material is
generally worn out long before the stitches laid upon it. Much
beautiful work has thus been rescued from annihilation, and restored
to use from its long imprisonment in the boxes and drawers of the
garret and store-room. But it is cruel to transfer historical or
typical works, and so puzzle the artist and the historian.
It is so troublesome to embroider on velvet or plush, or gold tissues,
that application is the easiest and most effective mode of dealing
with these fabrics.[352] The outlines laid down in cord have the best
effect, while binding the edges and securing them from fraying, and it
is almost certain that the eye receives most pleasure, in flat art,
from a defined outline, which satisfies it; where there are no cast
shadows, it lifts the work from the background, and separating the
colours, it enhances their beauty. It would appear, however, as a
rule, that either black or gold metal should invariably be employed,
because they do not interfere with any colour they approach. White is
distracting and aggressive. The Greeks sometimes used gold colour
instead of gold, as we see in the mantle from the Crimea already
referred to; but this is not nearly so agreeable to the eye as pure
gold.
A great deal of modern "opus consutum," or application cut work, has
been done in Constantinople of late years. The designs in general, are
not artistic; nor are the colouring and materials very commendable.
The onlaid material is, in general, sewn down with chain stitches, and
cut out afterwards.
_Part 7._
LACE.--OPUS FILATORIUM OR ARANEUM.
Mrs. Palliser says that from the earliest times the art of lace-making
has been so mixed up with that of needlework, that it is impossible to
enter upon the one without naming the other. This is, in fact, what
she has done, showing the intimate connection between the two in her
charming work on lace, where much information about embroideries in
general, may be found in the introduction.[353]
M. Blanc also considers that there is but a slight transition between
embroidery and guipure, which he says was the first lace.[354] As all
the earliest specimens and designs for guipure were Venetian, the art
was, therefore, probably an Italian invention, though an Oriental
origin has sometimes been attributed to it. The objection to this last
theory is that we find no ancient specimens, and no modern
continuation of such work in the East.
The word "guipure" is a stumbling-block. It has been applied to many
forms in the varying art of lace-making; which same variableness has
caused its nomenclature to assume the terms belonging to other textile
arts where they approach or touch each other, (as in netting, fringes,
or embroideries). The nearest approach to laces before the thirteenth
century was more in the nature of what we now call guimp.[355]
Embroidery differs from lace, in that it is worked on already woven
tissues; whereas lace is manufactured at once, both ground and
design.[356] But the link between the two is not missing.
In the twelfth century they worked "opus filatorium," which consisted
of embroidery with the needle on linen, of which half the threads had
been drawn out, and the remainder were worked into a net by knotting
them into groups, then dividing, and knotting them again.[357] There
is a piece of work described in an old catalogue quoted by Rock. "St.
Paul's, London, had a cushion covered with knotted thread: Pulvinar
copertum de albo filo nodato." Here lace and embroidery touch each
other.[358] Sir Gardiner Wilkinson notices some early Egyptian work in
the Louvre as "a piece of white network pattern, each mesh containing
an irregular cubic figure." This sounds much like lace-work.
It may be fairly asserted that the term "embroidery" embraces the
craft of lace-making, as almost all ancient and much modern lace is
simple embroidery, and formed entirely by the needle.
Some kinds of lace, however, are made by plaiting and twisting the
threads attached to bobbins round pins which are previously arranged
in the holes of a pattern, pricked on parchment or glazed paper.[359]
The original motive and idea of lace is a net. The patterns called by
the ancients "de fundata," are netted designs meshed. You will see
them constantly in Egyptian and Greek art, both in wall painting and
textile decoration. Homer speaks of golden cauls, and so does
Isaiah,[360] as adorning women's heads. They also mention nets of
flax.
The capitals of the brazen columns adorned with "nets of chequer work"
in Solomon's Temple are very curious.[361] And the author of "Letters
from Italy, 1776," tells of the garment of a statue at Portici, edged
with a border resembling fine netting. Egyptian robes of state appear
to have been sometimes trimmed with an edging of a texture between
lace and fringe.[362]
Lace has been made of many materials in many ways. We may instance
"passementerie," made with bobbins (bone lace), with or without pins,
or with the needle only, by hand. The materials have been gold,
silver, silk, thread (these two last white or coloured), the fibres of
plants, and human hair.[363] A lace called "yak" is made of wool or
hair.
Bone laces in gold and silver, or the two mixed and interchanged, are
continually mentioned in the inventories of the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries. Bed hangings, chair and cushion covers, and
table cloths were constantly trimmed with gold and silver bone lace,
and fringes of the same.[364] Laces in coloured silks were made in
Spain and the Balearic Isles late in the last century.[365]
In 1542, a sumptuary law was passed in Venice, forbidding the metal
laces embroidered in silk to be wider than "due dita," i.e. about two
inches. This paternal interference in the details of life is truly
Venetian. It was intended to "protect the nobles and citizens from
injuring themselves and setting a bad example."
Perhaps this strict rule was relaxed in favour of crowned heads and
royal personages; for there is at Ashridge, among the relics of Queen
Elizabeth's enforced visit, a toilet-cover of red and gold striped
silk, with a trimming of lace, four inches broad, of Venice gold and
silver lace embroidered in coloured silk. Specimens of these laces are
rare, owing to the intrinsic value of the metal. We must suppose the
origin of these golden trimmings to belong to a very early period. A
piece of gold wire lace guimp was lately found in a tomb near Wareham,
and is supposed, with reason, to be Scandinavian.[366]
M. Blanc describes lace as a "treillage" or network, and says it is
made in three ways. You may complete the ground first, and then work
the pattern with the needle. This he calls lace "pure et simple;" and
he considers that it differs from guipure in that the latter consists
of flowers and arabesques worked separately, and then connected with
bars, lines, or meshes. This guipure is the second mode of
lace-making.[367] The third is by machinery; but this has the inherent
defect of all machine-made fabrics, to a practised eye; i.e. a certain
rigidity and coldness in the exactly repeated forms, in which the
human touch is wanting. It is curious how in art, even a "pentimento"
is valuable, recalling the hand that erred as well as created; the
attention that strayed, or reconsidered the design.[368]
M. Blanc, speaking of the beauty of point d'Alençon, praises it
especially as being entirely needlework. He names the different modes
of lace-making, and judges their merits. Of needle-made lace he says:
"And the value of this lace not only arises from its representing a
considerable amount of labour, but also because nothing can replace in
human estimation the fabrics produced by a man's, and still less by a
woman's handicraft. However the hand may have been restrained by the
necessity of faithfully following, on green parchment, the designs
imagined and traced by another person, there is always, even in
copying an outline, an individuality, an imperceptible deviation to
the right or to the left, above or below the tracing, which impresses
on the design the accent of strength or weakness, of indecision or
determination."[369] I would add, of intelligence or stupidity; of
knowledge or ignorance.
This is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that I
shall have sought to impress on the needlewoman the fact that her
individuality cannot fail to be strongly marked in her work; and I
would urge her to carry out the suggestions that her experience and
her taste afford her, while seeking to render faithfully the original
motive of the designer. In lace-making, as in all art, the interest
and the life, as it were, is imparted to each specimen by the
attention and thought bestowed upon it.
Mrs. Palliser shows us, by her beautiful illustrations, how much
variety may be given to designs for lace-making, which have changed
with each period of contemporary art, and are markedly distinctive of
their nationalities.
Mr. A. Cole's lectures on lace, his volume of photographs, and M.
Seguin's valuable work, are full of information.
M. Urbani de Gheltof's "Technical History of Venetian Laces,"
translated into English by Lady Layard, is a beautiful little book and
a worthy imitation of the ancient lace-books of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.[370]
The subject has been so thoroughly discussed by adepts in connection
with its revival as a local industry in its original cradle, that I
will confine myself to a few observations on its history and its place
in decorative art.
Fringes, Knotting, Netting, Knitting, Crochet, Tatting, and
Lace-making, are all parts of the same branch of ornamental
needlework. They are all "trimmings," in the sense of being decorative
edges to more solid materials. They are not available as coverings for
warmth or decency; but they serve to give the grace of mystery to the
object they drape or veil. They soften the outlines and the colours
beneath them, while they permit them to peep through their meshes.
They are hardly to be included in what is called high art, having more
affinity with grace, refinement and coquetry, than with æsthetic
culture or noble thought.
This tendency in lace work may be the reason that the masculine mind
does not, in general, appreciate these lovely textures, but rather
despises them (even when the designs are beautiful and ingenious), as
being flimsy and deficient in honest intention; whereas women have
always greatly prized them for their delicacy and refinement, and
their great value, on account of the time, trouble, and eyesight
expended upon them. Their knowledge of stitches also enables them to
appreciate their variety, and the taste shown in their selection and
arrangement for carrying out each design.
Lace stitches are almost innumerable.[371] Upwards of a hundred are
named, and their variations are endless. But a volume would not
suffice us for entering into the details of the craft; many of its
stitches have been imported into embroideries in gold, silk, and
crewels; and such adaptations are always allowable, provided the
effect is good.
We have every reason to believe that the claims of Venice as the first
and original school of lace-making have been satisfactorily
proved.[372] Genoa, Florence, Milan, especially the last,[373]
followed suit. Germany, France,[374] and Spain soon started their
schools; but Lady Layard believes that Spain received all her
inspiration and the greater part of her laces from Venice, which
likewise sent teachers to France and to Brussels--or rather, we may
say, had many first-class workwomen decoyed from her manufactories to
assist in starting rival industries in other countries.[375]
The first pattern-books were printed in Venice in the sixteenth
century; and these "Corone di belle e virtuose donne," as they are
sometimes entitled,[376] were imitated in France and Germany.
Venice was proud of her industry, and of the noble ladies who fostered
it. It is recorded in the "Virtù in Giocco of Giovanna Palazzi" that
Giovanna Dandolo, or "la Dandola," (wife of the Doge Malapiero,) was
the first patroness of Venice laces. She also fostered the art of
printing in Venice, and is spoken of as a "principessa di gran'
spirito, ne di private fortune," and her memory is cherished in
connection with these proofs of her patriotism. We hear also that
Morosin or Marosin, wife of the Doge Marin Grimani, patronized
Venetian lace-making. Her forewoman, or _maestra_, was a certain
Cattina Gardin, and through her the art was settled at Burano, where
it has been so lately revived.
At the Cathedral of Burano, is kept in the sacristy, perhaps the
finest existing piece of artistic lace of the sixteenth century. It
contains many groups of figures from the history of our Lord,
beautiful both in design and execution, worked in "Punti Fogliami,"
and filled in with exquisite tracery. This was the border of an
antipendium.
Mrs. Palliser laments the extinction of the art in Venice, and says
that but one woman of the old craft had survived; but her elegy was
premature, as that old woman, by name Cencia Scarpariola, has lived to
see hundreds of girls at Burano reviving all the old traditions,
having learnt from her the secrets of the "mestiere," or "mystery."
Under the patronage of the Princess Margherita, now Queen of Italy,
and with the active help and superintendence of Countess Adriana
Marcello and Princess Giovanelli, most beautiful laces are now made in
every old point, French and Flemish, as well as Venetian. Pezzi,
merli, and merletti are executed in the different styles which include
all lace-making, and of which we here give a list from M. de Gheltof's
book:--
Net lace.
Cut lace.
Open lace.
Flowered lace.
Knotted lace.
Darning or square netting.
Venice point.
Burano point.
Drawn lace.[377]
Embroidered linen.[378]
The price of these laces is very high, but not beyond their value when
we consider the vast amount of skilled labour bestowed on them. We are
often told that old lace is cheaper than new, as an absurd fact,
because the antiquity of lace is supposed to add to its value. Yes,
but principally as an object of archæological interest; whereas that
which is being made now is supporting by its daily wage the
needlewoman and her family, and perhaps providing for her old age;
and as the strain on the eye is very heavy, many lace-workers early in
life lose their sight, at least for all the purposes of their
craft.[379] For these reasons we cannot say that the prices required
for such luxurious trimmings are unreasonable. Zanon da Udine gives us
an idea of how costly they were in old times. He says that Giuseppe
Berardi, a lace merchant in Venice, made a profit of 75,000 francs on
a commission for a set of lace bed-hangings for the wedding of Joseph
II., Emperor of Germany, which proves the high prices paid for the new
laces of their day.
Blond laces, which take their turn occasionally as fashionable
trimmings, veils, and Spanish mantillas, are so called from their
original Venetian name, "merletti biondi," pale laces. De Gheltof
derives this appellation from the celebrated collar of Louis Quatorze,
and fancies it was made of the fair hair of the workers; but this is
only vague conjecture. The term was applied in the seventeenth century
to laces in silk, gold, and silver--never to thread laces. I confess I
do not find the reason for the name, but accept De Gheltof's
information that it was given by the authority of the magistrates of
Mercanzia in 1759.
This is but a very slight sketch of the history of lace. Venice being
its birthplace, and likewise the busy scene of its rehabilitation, I
have lingered over its school, and left but little space for the
discussion of those of Spain, Flanders, Belgium, and France. But these
have been thoroughly investigated, and their individual merits are
well appreciated, both as antique and modern dress decoration.
I have already said that the lace schools in France were instituted by
Colbert, who placed one at Auxerre, under the especial care of his
brother, the bishop of that city. Louis Quatorze made it one of his
splendid caprices, and not only set the example, but forced the
fashion into this luxurious and extravagant channel.
In Spain, lace was made to look its best by being worn stretched over
the great hoops of the "Guard-Infante;" and the fashion spread all
over Europe. The white laces, resembling carved ivory or those in gold
and silver, which remind one of solid jewellers' work, when spread
over the surface of these fortified outworks, guarding from all
approach the persons of the Infantas of Spain, assume in the portraits
by Velasquez, a dignity which is in keeping with their value. The
splendid designs show brilliantly on a background of scarlet, rose
colour, or black silk; and that which, hanging loosely, looks only
tawdry and ragged, had a magnificent effect when thus displayed.
For ecclesiastical purposes, these grand solid laces seem most
appropriate, being effective in large spaces, and easily seen at a
distance, hanging over the edge of the altar, as a border to the linen
cloths, or finishing the white alb of the officiating priest.
One cannot but agree with M. Blanc, who points out that each piece of
lace had its intention, and that a fashionable ball-dress trimmed with
the edging of an antique altar-cloth in loops, is in false taste, to
say no worse of the misappropriation.
Though we have had no schools of lace in England (unless we can call
our imitative industries schools), we have samplers of the time of
Queen Elizabeth, and down to the middle of the last century, showing
that drawn lace and cut lace were regularly taught, probably as an
accomplishment, by Italians. The laces of Devonshire and the Isle of
Wight (called Honiton) form a group totally distinct from those of
Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, which last are very
simple cushion bobbin-laces.
From the sixteenth century English ladies have, for their amusement,
made cut laces. Still, we must confess we have no national style of
lace, and the only enduring ones have been those of France and
Belgium, which have always kept the lead since their establishment,
though fluctuating in design with the varying fashions of each epoch.
Perhaps the reason of their longevity is that they have followed
always the taste of their day. That of our time being decidedly
archæological, ancient patterns are now the most successful.
There is a kind of embroidery darned-work, called "Limerick lace,"
which is said to be only made in Ireland, and being partly
machine-made, is not pure lace, and therefore little esteemed. Very
fine thread laces have been produced at Irish work schools; but no
commercial result has followed. Clever imitations of Venice point have
come from Ireland lately, called "raised crochet." This is a novelty,
and it is extremely fine and beautiful work.
[Illustration: Pl. 46.
Egyptian "Gobelins," Woven and Embroidered.]
The Exhibition of Irish Lace in London (June, 1883), shows how
widespread have been the efforts of Irish ladies to employ the
peculiar genius of the sister island for delicate work with the
needle, which has always been shown in their beautiful embroideries on
muslin and cambric. It appears that every kind of lace, except,
perhaps, Brussels point, has been made in Ireland within the last 180
years; but as in each case the effort was always that of one
individual woman, the school fell away when she died.
The names of these ladies are now worthily recorded in the official
catalogue of the exhibition, with photographs of the specimens
produced under their superintendence and care. Perhaps a permanent
industry may crown, however late, their exertions to help the women of
Ireland.
_Part 8._
TAPESTRY--OPUS PECTINEUM.
It is necessary to define precisely what is meant by the word
"tapestry."[380] The term has been applied to all hangings, and so
caused confusion between those that are embroidered with a design, on
a plain or brocaded woven material, and those which are inwoven with
the design from the first.[381] This latter was called in classical
language, "opus pectineum," because it was woven with the help of a
comb (the "slay"),[382] to push the threads tight between each row of
stitches; and the individual stitches were put in with a sort of a
needle, or by the fingers only, and laid on the warp. It was thus
practised by the Egyptians, by the Persians, Indians, and Peruvians;
and in Egypt was often finished by embroidery. (Pl. 46.) In Egyptian
tombs we have evidence of their tapestry, from the mural paintings
representing men and women weaving pictures in upright looms. The
comb which served to push the threads together after the stitches were
laid in is sometimes found in the weaver's tomb.
We have, in the British Museum, pieces of "opus pectineum" from
Saccarah, in Egypt; and also fragments from a Peruvian tomb, of
barbarous design, but the weaving is equal to the Egyptian; and both
resemble the Gobelins weaving of to-day. Whence came the craft of the
Peruvians?
Tapestry is woven in two ways, by a high or by a low-warp loom
(_haute-lisse_ or _basse-lisse_), vertical or horizontal. The "slay"
is the implement which is peculiar to the craft. I shall not enter
into any description of the mode of working the looms, as this has
been thoroughly well done by masters of the art.[383] But I would call
attention to the Frontispiece, copied from a Greek vase, where
Penelope is portrayed sitting by her _haute-lisse_ frame. I also refer
the reader to the illustration from the Rheims tapestries, in which a
mediæval artist shows the Blessed Virgin weaving at one that is
horizontal or "basse-lisse." (Pl. 47.)
[Illustration: Pl. 47.
Portion of a Tapestry Hanging. Cathedral. Rheims. The Virgin weaves
and embroiders at a _basse-lisse_ frame.]
For the best information I have been able to obtain regarding tapestry
weaving, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to M. Albert Castel's
"Bibliothèque des Merveilles."[384] He has given great care to the
consideration of this subject, and has collected good evidences to
prove his conclusions, which I willingly accept _en bloc_. Of course
he has chiefly dealt with the French branch of the art, and with the
Flemish, from which it immediately descends. He begins, however, by
quoting Pliny, to prove the antiquity of weaving, and gives a verse of
Martial's to this effect: "Thou owest this work to the land of
Memphis, where the slay of the Nile has vanquished the needle of
Babylon."[385]
Homer makes Helen weave the story of the siege of Troy; this may have
been partly embroidered; and there are some pieces of woven tapestry
introduced most ingeniously into the web of a linen shirt or garment,
of which the sleeve is in the Egyptian department of the British
Museum, proving that figures were pictured by weaving quite as early
as the date of Troy, and unmistakably finished with the needle (Plate
18); at any rate, as early as the days of Homer. Arachne's web was
interwoven with figures. She and Minerva rivalled each other in
ingenious design and perfect execution. The description of the
beautiful hangings they wove, the glorious colours with their
tenderly graduated tints, and the graceful borders, appear to be
almost prophetic of the highest efforts of the looms of the
Gobelins.[386][387] Arachne's name is derived from the Hebrew word
for weaving, "Arag."
It appears that the town now called Arras, but anciently Nomenticum,
was always a centre of the trade of the weavers;[388] for Flavius
Vopiscus, writing in A.D. 282, says that thence came the Byrri--woven
cloaks with hoods, which were much in vogue amongst all classes in the
later Roman Empire. The craft of weaving, which flourished in the
Flemish and other adjacent countries, seems to have become native to
that soil, and to have clung to it, surviving many historical
cataclysms.[389]
Though in the fifth century the inhabitants of that country were
transported wholesale to Germany by the Vandals, and among them those
of the town of Arras, yet, thanks to the monasteries, there was a
survival and a revival; the craftsmen grouping themselves round the
religious houses. Specimens as models were brought from the East.
Aster, Bishop of Amasis (a town in Asiatic Turkey), describes these
Oriental hangings in one of his homilies. He says that animals and
scenes from the Bible were woven on white grounds.[390]
Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont Ferrand,[391] says that some
foreign tapestries are "pictured" with the summits of Ctesiphon and
Nephates, "wild beasts running rapidly across void canvas, and also by
a miracle of art, the Parthian of wild aspect with his head turned
backwards." This might be a description of a Chinese composition, and
probably it is so.[392]
Woven tapestry is also called "Arras,"[393] because that town in the
Netherlands was the home and school of the art of picture weaving in
the Middle Ages. It has been hitherto excluded from the domain of
needlework, because of the different use of the needle employed in
it. It has always been woven on a loom, and is, in fact, embroidery
combined with the weaving; for the shuttle, or slay, or comb completes
each row of stitches. It belongs as much to our art as does tambour
work, which is done with a hook instead of a needle. Tapestry weaving
is the intelligent craft of a practised hand guided by artistic skill.
The forms of the painted design must be copied by a person who can
draw; and the colours require as much care in selection, as in
painting with oils or water-colours. Such a thing as a purely
mechanical exact copy is impossible in any art; and the difficulties
are increased a hundredfold when it is a translation into another
material, and another form of art. Besides, in this case, the copies
are worked from the back, and the picture is reversed. The question is
this: Can it be claimed as belonging to the same craft as embroidery?
I answer in the affirmative, and I claim it.
"When the Saracens began to weave tapestry we cannot tell; but the
workers in woven pictures were called Sarassins, and their craft, the
'opus Saracenicum.'"[394] The French and Flemish artisans who
continued to weave in the old upright frames (_haute-lisse_) were,
whether Christians or not, called "Sarassins." Probably they came
through Spain, possibly from Sicily to Flanders and to France, or else
from Byzantium. Viollet-le-Duc says that the "Saracinois" was a term
applied to the makers of velvety carpets (_tapis veloutés_).[395] This
is possible.[396] Woven carpets of Oriental type were spreading
themselves as articles of luxury through Europe early in the Middle
Ages; and the Persian style of design was much the same then, when the
first models were brought to Spain, and thence to Arras, as it is now
in the carpets we buy just woven in Persia.[397] The oldest specimens
known here have been exhibited in the Indian Museum, and may be of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The perishable nature of the
material makes us dependent on the sculptured records of all artistic
design for our knowledge of carpets and hangings of more than a
thousand years ago; and we must confess that we find nothing really
resembling a Persian pattern in any classical tomb or sculpture of the
Dark Ages.[398]
I have allowed myself to touch upon carpet weaving, as it is germane
to tapestry; though it is a branch that soon loses itself and leaves
artistic work in the distance. Except the first design, it has become
purely mechanical.
After what has been quoted from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and bearing in
mind the pictured webs described by Homer, and likewise the evidence
of the frescoes in Egypt, and the woman weaving on the Greek fictile
vase found at Chiusi, we may be justified in concluding that, like all
other arts, that of tapestry existed in very early days, died out, and
had to begin afresh, and gradually return to life, during the Middle
Ages.
Bishop Gaudry, about 925, possessing a piece of tapestry with an
inscription in Greek letters surrounded by lions "parsemé," was much
put about till he obtained something to match it, to hang on the
opposite side of his choir at Auxerre.[399] And it is known that the
monks of St. Florent, at Saumur, wove tapestries about 985, and
continued to do so for two centuries. St. Angelme of Norway,[400]
Bishop of Auxerre, who died in 840, caused many tapestries to be
executed for his church. At Poitiers this manufactory was so famous in
the eleventh century, that foreign kings, princes, and prelates sought
to obtain them, "even for Italy." The rules of their order of the
monks of the Abbey of Cluny, dated 1009, were followed by those of St.
Wast and of the Abbey of Fleury, and others in France, who all wove
wool and silk for tapestries. Le Père Labbé, from whom much of this
information is drawn and acknowledged by M. Charton (my authority),
says that in 876, at Ponthièvre, in presence of the Emperor Charles
the Bold, the hall of the council-chamber was hung with pictured
tapestries, and the seats were covered with them.[401]
[Illustration: Pl. 48.
Order of the Golden Fleece. Tapestry at Berne, taken from Charles
the Bold at the Battle of Grandson, 1476.]
Sufficient has been said to show that during the dark ages hangings
were woven in France, Germany, and Belgium,[402] and that England was
not behind the rest of the civilized world in this craft. I think,
also, that we have indicated its Oriental origin.[403]
Arras continued to lead as the great tapestry factory till the end of
the fifteenth century, when the commercial failure of the city began,
at the death of Charles le Téméraire, Duke of Burgundy.[404] Plate 48
shows a portion of his tent hangings woven with the order of the
golden fleece taken at the battle of Grandson--now in the museum at
Berne. Till then Arras had supplied most of the splendid decorations of
which we find such marvellous lists. Every possible subject--religious,
romantic, historical, and allegorical--was pressed into the service,
and pictured hangings were supposed to instruct, amuse, and edify the
beholders. The dark ages were illuminated, and their barbarity
softened, by these constant appeals to men's highest instincts, and to
the memories of their noblest antecedents and aspirations, which
clothed their walls, and so became a part of their daily lives. The
great Flemish and French workshops became the illustrators of the
history of the world, as it was then read or being enacted. It is a
record of faiths, religious and political; and of national and family
lives and their changes. The Exhibition at Brussels in 1880 showed, by
its "Catalogue Raisonné," how much could be extracted from its storied
tapestries of both archæological and artistic information.[405]
Though the art continued to be the servant of refined luxury in the
fifteenth century, Arras itself had done its work,[406] and was
superseded as the greatest weaver of artistic tapestry by a neighbour
and rival. Brussels, which had been gradually asserting itself as a
weaving community, from that date absorbed most of the trade of Arras,
and thence forwards, till Henri IV. established the works of the
Savonnerie, Brussels led European taste, and employed the best
artists. Brussels employed Leonardo da Vinci and Mantegna, Giovanni da
Udine, Raphael, and later, Rubens and the great Dutch painters, to
design cartoons for tapestry works. Raphael's pupil, Michael Coxsius,
of Mechlin, superintended the copying of his master's cartoons.
Shortly afterwards, Antwerp, Oudenarde, Lille, Tournai, Valenciennes,
Beauvais, Aubusson, and Bruges all had their schools;[407] and the
adept can trace their differences and peculiarities, and name their
birthplace, without referring to their trade-mark, or to that of the
manufacturer, which is usually to be found in the outer border.
Poitiers, Troyes, Beauvais, Rheims, and St. Quentin likewise had their
schools, and became famous.
Want of space prevents my entering more fully into this subject of the
northern tapestries, and I must refer my readers to the authorities I
have quoted from so largely.
ITALIAN TAPESTRY.
The word Arrazzi shows us whence the Italians drew their art.
Doubtless there were looms in the Italian cities, and especially under
ecclesiastical patronage, through the dark ages. Rome was in
communication with the Atrebates in the third century, by whom she was
supplied with the Byrri, or hooded cloaks then worn; and as it had
been a centre for weaving commerce, it is probable that Rome received
from Arras the craftsmen as well as the produce of their looms. At the
Renaissance we find factories for pictured webs in Florence, Rome,
Milan, Mantua, and elsewhere. The best artists of the Italian
schools--Mantegna, Leonardo, Raphael and his scholars, &c., &c.--gave
their finest designs to be executed in Italy, before they were sold to
Arras, Brussels, France, or England, and they are accumulated in the
treasure-room of every palace in Italy. But the finest collections are
those of the Vatican, and of the Pitti in Florence. A splendid volume
might be edited of these grand artistic works; such a record would be
invaluable. Vasari[408] and Passevant give us occasional glimpses of
local factories for tapestry, but, as we have before said, this
subject has still to be investigated.
FRENCH TAPESTRY.
In France, as elsewhere, tapestry was probably woven in private looms
and in the religious houses from early days. M. Jubinal believes that
it was made at Poitiers, Troyes, Beauvais, Rheims, and St. Quentin as
early as 1025.[409] Froissart describes the entry of Isabel of
Bavaria as a bride into Paris, when the houses were covered with
hangings and tapestries representing historical scenes.[410] The Cluny
Museum possesses a most curious mediæval suite of hangings from the
Chateau de Boussac, of the early part of the fifteenth century. They
tell the story of the "Dame au Lion," and are brilliantly coloured and
charmingly quaint and gay in design. Hangings designed by Primaticcio
were woven at Fontainebleau, where Francis I. started the manufacture
in 1539. However, the first national school of tapestry weaving was
that at Chaillot, under the experienced teaching of workmen from
Arras; afterwards transferred to the town of Gobelins, 1603, by Henri
Quatre.[411] Louis Quatorze and his minister Colbert splendidly
protected this manufacture by law, privilege, and employment; so did
Louis Quinze. Before the Revolution, other considerable tapestry works
were flourishing at Aubusson in Auvergne, at Felletin in the upper
Marches, and at Beauvais. These two last were especially famed for
velvety tapestries (_veloutés_).
As usual, the French have surpassed all other nations in this textile
art. The pictorial tapestries of the Gobelins have carried the beauty
of wall hangings to the utmost perfection. Nothing can be more festive
than a brilliantly lighted hall, glowing with these woven pictures or
arabesques, framed in gilded carvings or stuccoes. Still we must
acknowledge that, in choice of worthy subjects, the Flemish ideal,
which had been left far behind, was the highest. The weavers of the
time of Louis Quatorze aspired only to teach the glories of France,
not the moralities of society and civilization, in their historical
compositions, which were then superseded by classical mythology, or
else by scenes from rustic life, of the Watteau School. La Fontaine's
fables gave some of the prettiest and gayest designs, and were
generally the centres of splendid arabesques. The drawing and
execution were perfect.
It is to be feared that in the future, great works of textile
decoration will be few and far between. It is only when the State, or
the monarch that represents the dignity of the State, protects and
fosters these artistic factories, that they can continue to thrive.
Without such powerful encouragement, fashion, commercial depression,
or a war will stop for a time the orders without which funds fail,
discouragement sets in, and ruin quickly follows; and the best workman
when unemployed, or forced for some years to wield the sword, loses
his practised skill never to be restored. In France, whatever has been
the form of government, the old traditions of protection for the
Gobelins have been acted up to and maintained. The consequence is that
science and art still contribute their efforts in the machinery, the
colouring, and the designing of hangings of which the materials[412]
and the execution are unrivalled. Probably there will never again be a
Tuileries or a Versailles to adorn, but an Hôtel de Ville, especially
if it is occasionally destroyed, may give from time to time
opportunity for such decorations.
ENGLISH TAPESTRY.
When we consider the antiquity and the excellence of the art of
tapestry on the Continent, we cannot pretend that there can be the
same general interest in that of our English looms. But to ourselves
it naturally assumes the greatest importance; and I have tried to
trace the efforts of our ancestors in this direction, by noting every
certain sign of English production, in what must have been an
imitation of Flemish or Oriental weaving. The few facts here collected
may be of service to the future writer of the history of English
tapestries.
Comnenus, Prince of Arras, fled before the Romans from Nomenticum to
England; and he and his Atrebates settled themselves between
Silchester and Sarum, and the Belgæ and Parisi did the same. The
Romans found them here when they invaded England. Wherever the Belgic
tribes spread themselves, the art of weaving was established. Comnenus
probably brought over, and left to his descendants, the inheritance of
this craft.
Dr. Rock thinks that pictured tapestry was woven at an early period in
the Middle Ages by the monks in England. The earliest proof of this
that we possess, is the notice by Matthew Paris (thirteenth century)
describing the three reredos for St. Alban's Abbey; the first, a large
one, depicting the finding of the body of the Protomartyr; the others,
"The Prodigal Son" and "The Man who fell among Thieves." All these
were executed by the orders of Abbot Geoffrey.[413]
While in London in 1316, Simon, Abbot of Ramsay, bought for the use of
his monks, looms, shuttles, and a slay. "Pro weblomes emptes xx^d. Et
pro staves ad eadem vj^d. Item pro iiij Shittles, pro eadem opere
vj^d. Item j sloy pro textoribus viii^d."[414]
In Edward II.'s time there were hangings woven in England which appear
to have been absolutely tapestries. They were much valued abroad, and
were called "Salles d'Angleterre." Charles V. of France (1364)
possessed among his articles of costly furniture, "Une salle
d'Angleterre vermeille brodée d'azur, et est la bordure a vignettes,
et le dedans de Lyons, d'Aigles, et de Lyopars."[415]
Our trade with Arras must have improved our tapestries. We are told of
Edward III. selling his wools to that town, and being therefore called
by Philip de Valois, his "Marchant de Laine." Horace Walpole refers to
an act, "De Mysterâ Tapiciarorum," of the time of Edward III., 1327,
"regarding certain malpractices of the craft," which proves its
existence in England at that period.[416]
Mr. French, in his catalogue of the Exhibition in London, 1851, quotes
the tapestries of St. Mary's Hall at Coventry, to prove that there was
a manufactory in England, _temp._ Henry VI. There were certainly
individual looms, though we doubt whether it had yet become a national
industry, as we have so few specimens remaining. The St. Mary's
tapestries contain portraits of Henry VI., Cardinal Beaufort, &c., and
are probably contemporary works. The subject is the marriage of Henry
VI.
There is also a piece of tapestry at Bude, in Cornwall, the property
of Mr. Maskell, which came from a royal sale. Here the marriage of
Henry VII. is depicted, and the style resembles that of the Coventry
hangings. The costumes are certainly English, and the original
pictures must have been English, though they might have been wrought
at Arras, reminding one of the groups of figures and the dresses on
the Dunstable Pall (see Plate 78).
Dr. Rock also quotes the reredos belonging to the Vintners' Company,
representing St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar. He thinks
this is executed by the monks of St. Alban's, and attributes to those
of Canterbury the fine tapestries of the legends of the Virgin at Aix,
in Provence, of which we have the history. They were originally given
to Canterbury Cathedral by Prior Godstone, and were called Arras work.
There is no doubt that there were looms and artists in the convents
and monasteries before there was any recognized school of such work in
England. Probably till the Reformation such hangings were being woven
all over Europe, and only then ceased in Germany and England. One
cannot but regret that the weight of the evil which preponderated over
the good in the Houses of the Church, should have caused so much that
was beautiful in art to be crushed by their ruin.
Chaucer speaks of "tapestry of verd."[417] This green tapestry seems
to have been intended to give a bowery effect to the room it hung; and
one can imagine that it pleased the taste of the poet of the "Flower
and the Leaf." It seems to have been much the fashion in England and
elsewhere about that period, and generally represented landscapes and
woody foregrounds only; but sometimes figures and animals were
portrayed, and always in the same tints of bluish-green.
Dr. Rock gives us an extract from the wardrobe accounts of Edward II.,
containing the following items: "To a mercer of London for a green
hanging of wool, woven with figures of kings and earls upon it; for
the king's service upon solemn feast days in London;" therefore the
"tapestry of verd" was not a novelty even in the time of Chaucer.[418]
Oudenarde was famous for these "hallings" or "salles." All the
specimens mentioned in the catalogue of tapestries exhibited at
Brussels in 1880, are said to be from thence. But we see no reason why
it should not have been an English style of weaving also. The first
establishment of a permanent manufactory in England, did not, however,
take place until the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII., when
Robert Sheldon "allowed" his manor-house at Barcheston, in
Warwickshire, to "one Hicks," whom he signalizes in his will as "the
author and beginner of all tapestry of Arras in England." This will is
dated 1576.[419]
[Illustration: SUMMER
English Tapestry, Temp. Henry VIII. at Hatfield]
There are four pieces of tapestry representing the Seasons, removed
from an old family house and placed by Lord Salisbury at Hatfield
House, where they hang in the great corridor. These were probably
woven in Barcheston. (Plate 49.) The style is English Renaissance, and
the design full of intention; in fact, they have the seal of the time
of Henry VIII. Only one characteristic reminds one of Flemish art,
and that is the mode of drawing the plants and flowers, which might
have been taken out of an old German herbal. The landscapes and
peasantry are unmistakably English. The pictures are worked with
strong black outlines which emphasize every detail and give the effect
of a highly coloured outlined engraving; reminding one of the
children's books by Marcus Ward or by Walter Crane.[420]
The tapestries called the "Spanish Armada hangings" were probably
woven here late in Elizabeth's reign. In her time we find in
catalogues of household goods, descriptions of splendid hangings,
furnishings of palaces and private houses. The MS. inventory of the
Earl of Leicester's belongings, in the library at Longleat, astonishes
us with the abundance of suites of hangings of tapestry that it
enumerates, as well as those embroidered by hand, and others of
stamped and painted leather.
It was in the reign of James I. that the manufacture was set up at
Mortlake, in Surrey. Aubrey, in his "History of Surrey, i. p. 82,"
however, dates the institution in the subsequent reign; but Lloyd[421]
is not only positive for the former date, but affirms it was "of the
motion of King James himself," who gave £2000 towards the undertaking;
and we have further proofs extant that he spent largely, and
encouraged it in every way. He gave to Sir Francis Crane, who erected
the house at Mortlake, "the making of three Baronets" towards his
project for manufacture of tapestry.[422]
Another curious item which we quote, shows that the funds for the
enterprise were not easily forthcoming. It is a warrant "to Sir
Francis Crane: £2000 to be employed in buying £1000 per ann. of
pensions or other gifts made of the king, and not yet payable, for
ease of His Majesty's charge of £1000 a year towards the maintenance
of Sir Francis Crane's tapestry manufacture."[423]
Apparently this little arrangement did not succeed, for there is an
acknowledgment by Charles I., in the first year of his reign,[424]
that he is in debt to Sir F. Crane: "For three suits of gold tapestry
we stand indebted to Sir Francis Crane £6000. Also Sir F. Crane is
allowed £1000 annually for the better maintenance of said works for
ten years to come." The king also granted the estate of Stoke Bruere,
near Stamford, in Northamptonshire, as part payment of £16,400 due to
him on the tapestry works at Mortlake.[425] The great value of these
tapestries is shown by the prices named in the Domestic Papers of the
State Paper Office, and in private inventories; they were woven in
silk, wool, and gold, which last item accounts both for their price
and for their disappearance.
William, Archbishop of York and Lord Keeper, gave £2500 for four
pieces of Arras representing the four Seasons.[426] Their value,
however, fell during the civil wars, for the tapestries of the five
Senses from the Palace of Oatlands, which were from the Mortlake
looms, were sold in 1649 for £270. The beautiful tapestries at
Houghton were woven at Mortlake: these are all silk, and contain whole
length portraits of James I. and Charles I., and their Queens, with
heads of the royal children in the borders. A similar hanging is at
Knowle, wrought in silk, containing portraits of Vandyke and Sir
Francis Crane.[427]
Francis Cleyne was a decorator and painter employed in the works at
Mortlake by Charles I., who, while he was still Prince of Wales,
brought him over to England from Rostock, in Mecklenburg (his native
place), while the Prince was in Spain wooing the Infanta. Cleyne was
great in grotesques, and also undertook in historical designs.[428]
Three of the Raphael cartoons were sent to be copied at Mortlake.[429]
The purchase of these cartoons by the king, showed how high was the
standard to which he tried to raise the art in England. The "Triumph
of Cæsar," by Mantegna, was obtained for the same purpose in 1653; and
certain Dutch prisoners were forwarded to the manufactory to be
employed on the work.[430] It was entrusted to the care of Sir Gilbert
Pickering, who was either an artist or the superintendent of the
works.
After the death of Sir Francis, his brother, Sir Richard Crane, sold
the premises to Charles I. During the civil wars, the property was
seized upon and confiscated as having belonged to the Crown. It
occupied the site of what is now Queen's Head Court. The old house
opposite was built by the king for the residence of Cleyne the artist.
Gibson, the dwarf, and portrait painter, who had been page to a lady
at Mortlake, was one of his pupils.[431]
The value of the king's collection of tapestries was well understood
during the Protectorate. The tapestry house remained in the occupation
of John Holliburie, the "master-workman." After the Restoration,
Charles II. appointed Verrio as designer, intending to revive the
manufactory. This was not, however, carried out; but the work still
lingered on, and must have been in some repute, for Evelyn names some
of these hangings as a fit present among those offered by a gallant to
his mistress.[432]
Arras is said to have been woven at Stamford, but we have no data of
its establishment or its suppression. Burleigh House contains much of
it; and there is a suite of hangings at Belton House, near Grantham,
of which there are duplicates at Wroxton House, in Oxfordshire, all
having the same traditional origin at Stamford. Possibly Sir Francis
and Sir Richard Crane may have received orders at their house at
Stoke Bruere, which lay near enough to Stamford to account for the
magnates of the town and neighbourhood obtaining furnishings of their
tapestries, and, perhaps, vying with each other in decorating their
apartments with them.[433]
In Northumberland House there was a fine suite of tapestry, woven in
Lambeth, 1758.[434] This is the only sample of that loom of which we
ever find any mention. There were also works at Fulham, where
furniture tapestry in the style of Beauvais was made. This manufactory
was closed in 1755.[435] It may be hoped that the revival of tapestry
weaving at Windsor in our own day may be a success, but without the
royal and noble encouragement it receives, it would probably very soon
fall into disuse.
Unless it is supported by the State, such an exceptionally expensive
machinery cannot possibly be kept at work. It requires the
superintendence of the best artists, and the weavers themselves must
needs have the highest technical education to enable them to copy
really fine designs. These artistic requirements, besides the extreme
tediousness of the work, make it the most expensive of all luxurious
decorations--even more costly than embroideries by the hand, covering
the same spaces. However, the two styles of hangings never can enter
into competition, except in a financial point of view. Tapestries are
the best fitted for wall coverings, and embroideries for curtains of
all kinds--for beds, for windows, and for portières.
The old hangings are now again having their day, and we are striving
to save and restore all that remain to us. We must continue to guard
these treasures from the moths, their worst enemies; and science
should be invoked to assist us in the preservation of these precious
works of art, of which the value is now again understood and
appreciated, and which increases with every decade that is added to
their antiquity.
Tapestry, as art, has its own peculiar beauties, and one of them is
the softening, yet brilliant effect of the alternate lights and
shadows of the ridge-like surface; the separation of each stitch and
thread also casting minute shadows in the opposite direction, and
giving an iridescent effect. It is a mistake to struggle against this
inherent quality, instead of seeking to utilize it. The coarser and
simpler tapestries of our ancestors are really more beautiful and
effective in large spaces--flat in the arrangement of colours, and
sharply outlined--than the imitations of paintings of the last two
centuries, in which every detail of form and colour is sought to be
expressed.[436]
M. Blanc says that tapestries were intended to cover the bare walls,
but not to make us forget their existence. The wall being intended for
comfort and defence, the mind is solaced with the idea it conveys. It
is a mistake, therefore, to substitute a surface picture, so real that
it at once does away with this impression of security, while a
certain conventional art should amuse the mind with shadowy
representations and suggestions.
It is, perhaps, fortunate that the possibilities of tapestry weaving
are restricted, and thus its very imperfections become the sources of
its best qualities as decoration and comfort. One element of textile
weaving, the use of gold, both in the backgrounds and in the
draperies, takes it at once out of the region of naturalism, while
giving it light and splendour.
The designer for tapestry need not be a great genius. Harmony, repose,
grace, and tender colouring are the qualities most valuable to such an
artist. Battle-pieces, and other exciting and awful subjects, are only
bearable in apartments that are used for state occasions, or for
hanging corridors and anterooms. They are painful to live with.
All tapestries are liable to suffer by the double nature of their
materials--their woollen surface and linen threads which are affected
by both damp and heat crinkling the forms and puckering the faces, and
bringing out unexpected expressions and deformities. For this reason
the design should be as flat and as simple in its outline and shading
as is consistent with beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[317] Birdwood, "Indian Arts," p. 283.
[318] "The word in Sanskrit for a needle is _suchi_,
from _such_, to sew or pierce. This is the same word as
the Latin _suo_, to sew; so probably the common word
used by the Aryans in their primeval habitations was
_su_, and they clearly knew how to sew at that remote
period. Eve sewed fig-leaves together. Adam sewed also.
The Hebrew word is _tafar_, and clearly meant _sewing_,
not _pinning_ together with thorns. Sewing is the first
recorded art of our forefathers."--Letter from Mr.
Robert Cust.
[319] Semper, "Der Stil," Textile Kunst, i. pp. 77-90.
[320] Semper, Textile Kunst, "Der Stil," i. p. 77. The
German word "naht," here literally translated, would be,
uniting, weaving, bringing together.
[321] "Handbook of Plain Needlework," by Mrs. Floyer.
See also her "Plain Hints for Examiners," &c.
[322] Dr. Rock, "Introduction," pp. cix, cx, calls it
"thread embroidery," and names some specimens in the
South Kensington Museum. He says it was sometimes done
in darning stitches for ecclesiastical purposes, for
instance, for coverings for the pyx. It is mentioned in
the Exeter inventory of the fourteenth century. There is
notice of white knotted thread-work belonging to St.
Paul's, London, in 1295, by Dugdale (p. 316).
[323] St. Catherine of Sienna's winding-sheet is
described as being cut work (punto tagliato) on linen.
This sounds like embroidery of the type now sold as
"Madeira work," the pattern being cut out and the edges
overcast.
[324] Semper, "Der Stil," i. pp. 132, 203.
[325] See Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 289.
[326] Ibid. He cites Athenæus, iv. 64.
[327] Phrygia in general, and especially Babylon, were
famed for their embroideries. "Colores diversos picturæ
intexere Babylon maxime celebravit et nomen
imposuit."--Pliny, lib. viii. 74. See D'Auberville,
"Ornement des Tissus," p. 7.
[328] "Der Stil," i. p. 196. "Opus Phrygium," in the
Middle Ages, included all gold work in flat stitches.
The cloak worked by Queen Gisela in the ninth century,
for her husband, St. Stephen, King of Hungary, the
imperial mantle at Bamberg, of the date of 1024, and the
robes of Bishop William de Blois (thirteenth century),
in the library at Worcester Cathedral, are all "opus
Phrygium," and resemble each other in style.
[329] In the Museum at Munich are two remarkable
examples of these imitations. There is an embroidered
badge of the Order of the Dragon, worked in gold and
woven over with coloured silks, so as to present the
appearance of enamel (sixteenth century). The second is
a dress for a herald of the Order of St. Hubertus, which
is richly embroidered in gold and silver, and the badge
and collar are imitated in the most extraordinary
manner, and laid on entirely in gold needlework. This is
of the seventeenth century.
[330] In Salt's collection from Saccarah (British
Museum); also at Turin, in the Egyptian Museum; and in
the collections in the Louvre, figured by Auberville in
the "Ornamentation des Tissus."
[331] Hence the French name, _pointes comptées_.
[332] See Semper, ii. p. 213, for wood-work at
Panticapæum, Kertch, in the Crimea, which evidently has
descended in style from panelled needlework hangings.
Chaldean wall decoration at Khorsabad and Warka, near
Nimroud, recalls the effect of "opus pulvinarium"
according to Loftus. See Semper, i. p. 327.
[333] "Der Stil," i. pp. 196, 248. This is known from
the archaic books of imperial commerce.
[334] Peacocks' feathers, either woven or onlaid, are
those most commonly used in China and Japan. "Ka Moolelo
Hawaii," by M. Jules Remy, Paris, 1861. See Ferdinand
Denis, "Arte Plumaria," p. 66.
[335] Yates, "Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 373, translates
from Publius Syrus the word _plumata_, "feathered." The
word "embroidered" would have here improved the sense,
even though it is a peacock that is described.
"Thy food the peacock, which displays his spotted train,
As shines a Babylonian shawl with feather'd gold."
He also quotes Lucan, who is praising the furnishings of
Cleopatra's palace: "Part shines with feathered gold;
part sheds a blaze of scarlet."--Yates, p. 373.
[336] Sir G. Birdwood, with all his enthusiasm for
Indian art and its forms, yet cannot resist a touch of
humour when he describes a state umbrella, of which the
handle and ribs are pure gold, tipped with rubies and
diamonds, the silken covering bordered with thirty-two
fringed loops of pearls, and "also appropriately
decorated with the feathers of the peacock, heron,
parrot, and goose."--Birdwood, "Indian Arts," ii. p.
182.
[337] "History of the Kingdom of Congo," c. viii. p. 55,
by Filippo Pigafetta (translated by Mrs. M. Hutchinson).
[338] In the Tyrol certain embroideries are called
"Federstickerei."
[339] For the feather hangings at Moritzburg, see
Appendix 2.
[340] "Arte Plumaria," by M. Ferdinand Denis. Paris,
1875.
[341] The Plumarii mentioned by Pliny were craftsmen in
the art of _acu pingere_, or painting with the needle.
Though Seneca speaks of the "opus plumarium" as if it
were absolutely feather-work, yet it may have been at
that time undergoing its transition into embroidery,
suggested by feathers, and imitating them in gold,
silver, wool, or thread. When Lucan describes the
extraordinary change introduced into Roman habits and
luxury by Cleopatra's splendours, his use of the words,
"pars auro plumata nitet," probably means their
imitation or mixture with gold embroidery, and would,
therefore, come under the head of "opus Phrygium."
[342] It is said that the work, named "Plumarium," was
made by the needle; and the Greeks, from the variety of
the threads, called it "Polymitum." "Plumarium dicitur
opus acu factum quod Græci a licionum varietate
multiplici polymitarium appellant."--Robert Stephan.
"Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ," s.v. Plumarius.
[343] Blümner, i. p. 209. "The Plumarii were a class of
persons mentioned by Vitruvius, and found likewise in
inscriptions. It cannot be decided with certainty what
was their occupation; their name would lead us to
suppose that it has something to do with
feathers."--Becker's "Gallus," ii. p. 288. But see
Marquardt, "Handbuch d. Röm. Altert." vii. pt. 2, p.
523.
[344] "Plumarium qui acu aliquod depingit super
culcitris plumeis."--R. Steph., "Thesaur. Lat."
[345] See "The Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen," by
Villiers Stuart.
[346] See Auberville's "Tissus," Plate i.
[347] "Compte Rendu de la Commission Archéologique, St.
Petersburg, 1881." Pl. iii. pp. 112,119.
[348] In the British Museum is the lining of a shield
which shows the arms of Redvers, third Earl of Albemarle
(who died 1260), applied in different coloured silks.
[349] Lent by the Archæological Museum at Madrid.
[350] Rees' Cyclopædia speaks of embroideries "on the
stamp or stump," as being so named "when the figures are
high and prominent, supported by cotton, wool, or hair;"
also in "low and plain embroideries, without enrichment
between." He speaks of work "cut and laid on the cloth,
laid down with gold, enriched with tinsel and spangles."
Rees' Cyclopædia, "Embroidery," 1819.
[351] "Opus consutum." The way in which this applied
work is used in India, for the special adornment of
horse-cloths, saddles, and girths, is very interesting.
[352] The chapter on "application," in the Handbook of
Embroidery of the Royal School of Art Needlework, will
be useful to those who need instruction in the most
practical, and therefore the quickest way of doing cut
work.
[353] Mrs. Palliser's "History of Lace." The origin of
needle-made lace-work is attributed by M. de Gheltof to
the necessity for disposing of the frayed edges of
worn-out garments. This I think somewhat fanciful.
_Fringes_ may have been so suggested.
[354] See M. Blanc's "Art in Ornament and Dress" (p.
200).
[355] Mrs. Bayman (late Superintendent in the School of
Art Needlework) writes thus: "I see no reason to doubt
that the word guipure is derived from 'guipa' or
'guiper,' a ribbon-weaver's term for spinning one thread
round another; and that guipure was originally more like
what we now call 'guimp,' or like 'point de Raguse,'
first being made of thread, of more or less thickness
and commoner material, wound round with a finer flax,
silk, or metal; then they cut shapes, bold scrolls, and
leaves out of cartisane, vellum, or parchment, winding
and covering them over with the more precious thread.
These figures were then connected by brides, only as
close as was required to hold them together, and leaving
large open spaces, thus forming the large scroll
patterns seen in so many old pictures." No doubt the
heavy "Fogliami" and "Rose point" laces developed
themselves from these still older kinds of point. As the
cord and card lace disappeared, the name slid on to all
laces with large, bold patterns and open brides, though
the special method which first created it had been
effaced. Latterly, embroidered netting or laces have
been called "guipure d'art." Littré gives the derivation
of the word; he says it is from the Gothic _Vaipa_, or
German _Weban_ or _Weben_ (_g_ and _p_ replacing the _w_
and _b_).
[356] The word lace came from France, where it was
called _lacis_ or _lassis_, derived from the Latin
_laqueus_ (a noose). These words originally applied to
narrow ribbons--their use being to lace or tie.
[357] The Venetians early made much lace for furniture
or ecclesiastical linen adornment, of what they called
"maglia quadrata," which was usually squared netting,
afterwards filled in with patterns in darned needlework.
This somewhat primitive style of lace trimming was
popular on account of its simplicity, and descended to
the peasantry for their domestic decorations in Spain,
Germany, France, and Italy. There are specimens of this
work believed to be of the thirteenth century. At the
time of the Renaissance the simple geometrical designs
developed into animals, fruits, flowers, and human
figures.
[358] See Rock, p. cix, cx. He says that a sort of
embroidery was called network, and certain drawn work he
calls "opus filatorium." See Catalogue of Textiles in
the South Kensington Museum, by D. Rock, p. cxxvii.
[359] Reminding us of the description of a net--"holes
tied together by a string." As a contrast in descriptive
style, we would quote Dr. Johnson on network: "Anything
reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with
interstices between the intersections."--Johnson's
Dictionary.
[360] Isaiah iii. 18, xix. 9.
[361] The nets of chequer work which hung round the
capitals, with the wreaths of chain work, were designed
by Hiram of Tyre, at Solomon's desire (1 Kings vii. 17).
[362] A fringe lace is made on the Riviera, of the
fibres of the aloe, and is called "macramè," which is an
Arabic word. Mrs. Palliser's "History of Lace," p. 64.
[363] A collar of fine white human hair was made in
point lace stitches at Venice, and worn at his
coronation by Louis Quatorze. It cost 250 pieces of
gold. "Scritti di V. Zanon da Udine" (1829). Cited by
Urbani de Gheltof, "Merletti di Venezia," pp. 22, 23.
[364] See, for example, the inventory of the household
goods of the great Earl of Leicester at Longleat; also
the lists of the possessions of Ippolito and Angela
Sforza (sixteenth century).
[365] Coloured thread and silk laces are still made in
Venice.
[366] In the British Museum.
[367] M. Blanc's use of the word "guipure" is different
from that found in the notices of the art by other
authorities.
[368] The first lace-making machine was contemporary, or
nearly so, with the stocking-making frame. About the
year 1768 it was altered, and adapted for making
open-work patterns. In 1808, the Heathcot machine was
started for bobbin net. In 1813, John Leaver improved on
this idea, with machine-woven patterns. The Jacquard
apparatus achieved the flat patterns, and the new
"Dentellière" has perfected the art. Lace-making by
machinery employed by the latest official returns in
1871, 29,370 women in England, and 24,000 in France. See
Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition, p. 183-5.
[369] M. Charles Blanc, "Art in Ornament and Dress," p.
211.
[370] The information contained in these volumes is most
valuable, for the lace-worker as well as the collector.
[371] Lady Layard suggests that the cut lace work, which
was the earliest made in Venice ("punto tagliato,"
"point coupé"), simply consists of button-hole stitch
with purl ornaments. These are varied with geometrical
stitches and needle-weaving in those solid laces called
"punti tagliati Fogliami," and "Rose point de Venise,"
of the finest kinds.
[372] Urbani de Gheltof, in his book, "Merletti di
Venezia," p. 9, says that Venetian laces and fringes
were furnished thence for the coronation of Richard III.
(1483). I fancy that gold guimps or braid, rather than
netted laces, must be here intended, as we have no other
notice of lace so early. See _Ibid._ pp. 10-20.
[373] Henry VIII. had a pair of hose of purple silk,
edged and trimmed with a lace of purple silk and gold,
of Milanese manufacture. Harl. MSS., 1519.
[374] The manufacture of point d'Alençon was created
under the special orders of Louis Quatorze, by Colbert,
in 1673. Now more than 200,000 women, besides the
machinists, are employed in lace-making in France.
Colbert imported the teachers from Venice.
[375] Yriarte says that Alençon, Argenton, Sedan,
Mercourt, Honiton, Bedford, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire, Mechlin, Bruges, Brussels, all followed in
imitation of Venice. Yriarte's "Venise," p. 250.
[376] Titian drew the designs for one of these books for
"punti tagliati." The laces made in the Greek islands
probably owe their origin to Venice, showing the same
"punti in aria."
[377] I have already spoken of "lacis" as either darned
netting or drawn work. Of this there is an English
specimen at Prague, said by tradition to be the gift of
Queen Anne of Bohemia, wife of Richard II. It originally
trimmed or bordered an ecclesiastical garment.
[378] For further information, we refer the reader to M.
Urbani de Gheltof's book on Venice laces already cited
(Organia, Venice, 1876), and Lady Layard's translation
(1882).
[379] I am assured on the best authority that this is
unknown as yet at Burano; but the workers, as well as
the revived industry, are very young. The modern school
of Burano has only been established eleven years. It is
certainly delightful to see the 320 happy faces,
singing, chattering, and smiling over their graceful
occupation; and the beauty of the Buranese women, which
is celebrated, has not suffered from their occupation.
There is a charming little article of the _Revista di
Torino_, 1883, which describes the improvement in the
social condition of Burano, morally and physically, and
the way it is recognized by the inhabitants. Instead of
signs of miserable poverty, the promoters of the lace
school are greeted by the women leaning from the windows
with, "Siestu benedetta!" ("Be thou blessed!").
[380] The word "tapestry" comes from the Greek _tapes_,
which is used equally for hangings or carpets. The
Italians call carpets "tapeti" to this day. It is
believed to have been originally an Egyptian word for
such fabrics.
[381] For instance, the embroidered hangings of the
eighth century at Gerona, in Spain, have been more than
once quoted as proofs of tapestries having been
manufactured there at that period.
[382] The "slay" means the "strike." The word had the
same meaning originally: to slay a man was to strike
him.
[383] See De Champeaux, South Kensington Museum Art
Handbook, 1878.
[384] "Bibliothèque des Merveilles" (sur les
Tapisseries), publié sous la direction de M. Edouard
Charton, à Paris, 1876.
[385] Martial, xiv. 150.
[386] Minerva accepts the challenge of the Mæonian
Arachne, who will not yield to her in the praises of
being first in weaving wool. The girls desert the
vineyards round the little town of Hypæpa, to look at
her admirable workmanship. She boasts that hers is finer
than that of Pallas, and, desiring a vain victory,
rushes upon her own destruction. "... They stretch out
two webs on the loom, with a fine warp. The web is tied
to the beam; the slay separates the warp; the woof is
inserted in the middle with sharp shuttles, while the
fingers hurry along, and being drawn with the warp, the
teeth (notched in the moving slay) strike it. Both
hasten on their labour, and girding up their garments to
their bosoms, they move their skilful arms, their
eagerness beguiling their fatigue. There are being woven
both the purples, which are subjected to the Tyrian
brazen (dyeing) vessel with fine shades of minute
difference; as in the rainbow with its mighty rays
reflected by the shower, where, though a thousand
colours are shining, yet the very transition eludes the
eyes that look upon it; to such a degree is that which
is adjacent the same, and yet the extremes are
different. The pliant gold is mingled with the threads,
and ancient subjects are represented on the webs." Then
follows the list of the subjects. The web of Pallas had
a large central design, and a smaller one on each
corner, surrounded with a border of olive leaves.
Arachne's contained nineteen pictures, of two or more
figures each, and was surrounded by a border of flowers,
interwoven with the twining ivy. Ovid's "Metamorphoses,"
book vi.
Through the kindness of my friend, Lord Houghton, I am
enabled to give the sequel of the story--Arachne's
transformation into the Spider, as--
A PARAPHRASE AND A PARABLE.
Lo! how Minerva, recklessly defied,
Struck down the maiden of artistic pride,
Who, all distraught with terror and despair,
Suspended her lithe body in mid-air;
Deeming, if thus she innocently died,
The sacred vengeance would be pacified.
Not so: implacable the goddess cried--
"Live on! hang on! and from this hour begin
Out of thy loathsome self new threads to spin;
No splendid tapestries for royal rooms,
But sordid webs to clothe the caves and tombs.
Nor blame the Poet's Metamorphoses:
Man's Life has Transformations hard as these;
Thou shall become, as Ages hand thee down,
The drear day-worker of the crowded town,
Who, envying the rough tiller of the soil,
Plies her monotonous unhealthy toil,
Passing through joyless day to sleepless night
With mind enfeebled and decaying sight,
Till some good genius,[437] kindred though apart,
Resolves to raise thee from the vulgar mart,
And once more links thee to the World of Art."
[387] Appendix 3.
[388] Guicciardini ascribes the invention of woven
tapestry to Arras, giving no dates; so we do not know
whether he attributes it to the Belgic Atrebates or to
their successors, the Franks. In either case the craft
was probably imported from the East.
[389] The Atrebates were the inhabitants of that Belgic
region till the fifth century; now it is the province of
Artois, probably a corruption of the name "Atrebates."
Taylor, "Words and Places" (1865), pp. 229-385.
[390] Castel, "Des Tapisseries," p. 30.
[391] Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. ix., 13. Cited in
Yule's "Marco Polo," p. 68.
[392] Castel, "Des Tapisseries," p. 31.
[393] The commentators of Vasari, MM. Lechanché and
Jenron, believe that this art was coeval in the Low
Countries with Roman civilization and Christianity; but
it would appear that the weavers had fled to Britain to
escape from the Romans. Ibid. p. 52. Traces of the name
Arras have been found by Bochart and Frahn in Ar-ras,
the Arabian name for the river Araxes and the people who
inhabit its shores; but this may be accidental, and is
at best an uncertain derivation.
[394] Rock, Introduction, p. cxii. This "Saracenic work"
is really so like what is called by the Germans
"Gobelins" when found in Egyptian tombs that one can
hardly doubt whence the Moors brought their art. There
are several Egyptian specimens in the British Museum.
See also the catalogue of Herr Graf'schen's collection
of Egyptian textiles, from the first to the eighth
century. "Katalog der Teodor Graf'schen Fünde in
Ægypten, von Dr. Karabacek. Wien, 1883."
[395] Viollet-le-Duc, "Dictionnaire du Mobilier
Français, Tapis," p. cxii; also M. Jubinal, "Tapisserie
Historique." It is difficult absolutely to assign to any
known specimens a date anterior to the fifteenth
century; although M. de Champeaux thinks that the
"Sarazinois" were mostly or entirely carpet-weavers
about the eleventh century. He says there is documentary
authority to prove that these were woven with flowers
and animals. There is a very deep-piled velvety carpet
at Gorhambury (the Earl of Verulam's place). Here Queen
Elizabeth's arms and cypher appear on a Persian or
Moresque ground pattern surrounded with a wreath of oak
leaves. It may have been a gift from Spain,--left after
one of her visits to her Chancellor.
[396] "Tapisseries des Gobelins," A. L. Lacordaire, p.
10 (1853). He considers that the Sarazinois were
embroiderers as well as weavers--and this theory is
supported by extracts from an inventory of Charles VI.'s
hangings of 1421.
Every detail of the art and its materials was carefully
regulated by the French statutes of 1625-27, containing
many laws for the perfecting of the manufacture of new
as well as the restoration of old tapestries--and fines
were imposed for not using materials as nearly as
possible matching the original ones; and likewise for
any other dereliction from the rules of the craft. Ibid.
pp. 9, 10, 14.
[397] At the Poldi Bezzoli Museum in Milan there are
some very fine carpets; one especially, a Persian, is
supposed to be of the fifteenth century. This is very
finely woven of pure, tender colours, and the whole
composition, flowers and animals (most beautifully drawn
lions, &c.), is delicately outlined in black on a white
ground. The colouring is rich and harmonious, and has
the iridescent effect of mother of pearl.
[398] In the San Clemente frescoes at Rome there are
hangings which show a semi-Asiatic style.
[399] "Mémoires Historiques et Ecclesiastiques
d'Auxerre," par M. l'Abbé Lebœuf, i. pp. 178, 231.
[400] There are very interesting Norwegian tapestries of
the sixteenth century, which show distinctly an Eastern
origin.
[401] Jubinal, "Tapisseries," pp. 25, 26;
Viollet-le-Duc, "Dic. de Mobilier Français," p. 269.
[402] There is much splendid tapestry--German, and
especially Bavarian,--to be seen at Munich; and, indeed,
the more one seeks, the more one finds that private
looms were constantly at work in the Middle Ages for
votive offerings. There is a tapestry altar-piece at
Coire, in the Grisons, of the Crucifixion, which is
evidently of the fourteenth century. The colours are
still brilliant, and the whole background is beautifully
composed of growing flowers. No sky is seen. There is at
Munich an altar frontal of tapestry, Gothic of the
fifteenth century, exquisitely beautiful. The weaver has
introduced a little portrait of herself at her loom,
under the folds of the virgin's cloak at her feet.
[403] M. Albert Castel ("Tapisserie," p. 53) believes
that the taking of Constantinople, when Earl Baldwin was
elected to the throne of Byzantium, had a great effect
on Flemish art, which then received a strong impulse
from Oriental designs and traditions. See M. Jubinal's
very interesting account of the tapisserie de Nancy
which lined the tents of Charles the Bold at the siege
of Nancy (p. 439). These tapestries are an allegory
against gluttony. "Tapisseries Hist.," pp. 1-5.
[404] Charles the Bold has left us records of his taste
in tent hangings of Arras at Berne, as well as at Nancy.
These are the plunder from his camp equipage after the
battle of Grandson. The whole suite, of many pieces,
represents battles and sieges, and sacred subjects also,
such as the adoration of the Magi. They are finely drawn
and splendidly executed with gold lights, and are of the
most perfect style of the fifteenth century. The
National Museum at Munich contains most valuable
specimens of very early and very fine tapestries;
amongst others, a Virgin, which was certainly designed
in the school of Dürer, and is of the greatest
perfection of its art, both as to colour and drawing and
the general effect, which has a soft, dreamy beauty,
only to be seen in fine woollen tapestries, and
differing from pictorial design and intention.
[405] See Rock, cxii: Among the remarkable suites of
tapestry of which we find historical mention are the
following: In 1334, John de Croisette, a "Tapissier
Sarazinois, demeurant à Arras vendit au Duc de Touraine
un tapis Sarazinois à or: de l'histoire de Charlemagne"
(Voisin, p. 6). Of the many recorded as belonging to
Philip, Duke of Burgundy and Brabant, one piece, "Haulte
lice sanz or: de l'histoire du Duc de Normandie, comment
il conquit Engleterre."--"Les Ducs de Bourgogne," par le
Comte de Laborde, ii. p. 270, No. 4277.
[406] M. de Champeaux, the author of the "Handbook of
Art Tapestry" belonging to the series of the Kensington
Museum, 1878, says that the history of Arras has yet to
be written. He, however, gives a great deal of
interesting information, especially about the French
tapestries, on which subject we fancy there is little
more to tell. Their art does not come from such a
distant time as that of the Belgian manufactures. After
Louis IX. had decimated the inhabitants, and dispersed
the remainder, Arras yet made a gallant struggle to
revive her industry and compete with the rising
prosperity of Brussels; but France had decreed against
her.
[407] "Encyclopædia Britannica" ("Art Tapestry"), pp.
17, 97.
[408] Vasari vividly describes the design for a tapestry
for the King of Portugal--the history of Adam--on which
Leonardo da Vinci, then aged twenty, was engaged. He
lingers tenderly over the picture of the flowery field
and the careful study of the bay-trees. Vasari, tom.
vii. p. 15; ed. Firenze, 1851.
[409] See M. Jubinal's "Tapisseries Historiées," p. 26;
Viollet-le-Duc, "Mobilier Français," i. p. 269.
[410] Froissart's "Chronicles," iv., chap. 23; Johnes
ed. 1815.
[411] M. de Champeaux, "Handbook of Art Tapestry," p.
24; also Rock, "Textiles," p. 122. M. Lacordaire,
"Tapisserie des Gobelins," p. 15, tells us that under
Louis XIII. the statutes of 1625-27 contain many
regulations for the perfection of the materials employed
in weaving new as well as in restoring old tapestries.
Fines were imposed for not matching the colours
carefully.
[412] English wool is still used for the finest
tapestries at the Gobelins. The wool from Kent is
considered the best.
[413] "Vitæ St. Alban. Abbatum," p. 40; Rock, p. cxi.
That the walls were covered with tapestry in the
thirteenth century is supposed to be proved by the
description of Hrothgar's house in the Romance of
Beowulf. We are told that the hangings were rich with
gold, and a wondrous sight to behold. "History of
Domestic Manners, &c., in England during the Middle
Ages," by Thomas Wright, p. 2.
[414] Matthew Paris, in Dugdale Monast., ed. 1819, ii.
p. 185.
[415] Quoted by Michel from MSS. in the Imperial
Library, Paris.
[416] This was a writ to the Aldermen and Sheriffs of
the City of London, principally levelled against the
dealings of "certain Frenchmen which were against the
well-being of the trade of the Tapissiarii ... by
petition of Parliament at Westminster." Calend. Rot.
Pat. Edward III., p. 148, "De Mysterâ Tapiciarorum,"
Lond. M. 41.
[417] Called "verdures" in French inventories.
[418] Rock's Introduction, p. lxxix.
[419] "The art of weaving tapestry was brought to
England by William Sheldon, Esq., about the end of the
reign of Henry VIII."--See Dugdale's "Warwickshire"
("Stemmata:" Sheldon), 2nd edition, folio, vol. i. p.
584; also Lloyd's "State Worthies," p. 953, quoted by
Manning and Bray, "Hist. of Surrey," vol. iii. p. 82.
But we have an earlier notice of a spirited attempt to
make fine tapestries at Kilkenny. Piers, Earl of
Ormonde, married the daughter of Fitzgerald, Earl of
Kildare, "a person of great wisdom and courage." They
brought from Flanders and the neighbouring provinces
artificers and manufacturers, whom they employed at
Kilkenny in working tapestries, diaper, Turkey carpets,
cushions, &c. Piers died 1539. Carte's Introduction to
the "Life of James, Duke of Ormonde," vol. i. p. 93
(Oxford, 1851).
[420] William Sheldon at his own expense brought workmen
from Flanders, and employed them in weaving maps of the
different counties of England. Of these, three large
maps, the earliest specimens, were purchased by the Earl
of Orford (Horace Walpole), by whom they were given to
Earl Harcourt. He had them repaired and cleaned, and
made as fresh as when out of the loom, and eventually
gave them to Gough, the antiquary, who bequeathed them
to the University of Oxford. The Armada tapestry, which
is stated to have been designed by Henry Cornelius
Vroom, the Dutch marine painter, and woven by Francis
Spiering, appears to have been, in 1602, in the
possession of Lord Howard, Lord High Admiral and the
hero of the Armada. Fuller particulars are given in
Walpole's "Anecdotes," i. p. 246, under the name of
Vroom, Sandart being the principal authority. Part of
them were in the House of Lords till 1834, when they
perished in the fire. These had been engraved in 1739 by
John Pine, but it appears that at that time there were
in the royal wardrobe other pieces, now lost.
[421] Lloyd's "Worthies."
[422] Calendar of State Papers, cx. No. 26, James I.,
1619-23.
[423] Calendar of State Papers, vol. clxxxi. No. 48.
[424] Rymer, "Fœdera," vol. viii. p. 66, ed. 1743.
[425] Brydges, "Northamptonshire," i. p. 323, under the
head of "Stoke Bruere," pt. 1, p. 48.
[426] Manning and Bray's "History of Surrey," vol. iii.
p. 302.
[427] Horace Walpole, "Anecdotes of Painting in
England," vol. ii. p. 22.
[428] Macpherson, "Annals of Commerce."
[429] There is in Brydges' "Northamptonshire," under the
head of "Stoke Bruere" (the estate which King James gave
to Sir F. Crane as part payment of the deficit of
£16,400 in his tapestry business), mention of the
cartoons of "Raphael of Urbin, ... had from Genoa," and
their cost, £300, besides the transport. M. Blanc says,
with great justness, that Raphael, when he prepared
these cartoons for tapestry, made designs for weaving,
and _did not paint pictures_. If they had been intended
for oil pictures, they would have been very differently
treated.
[430] Calendar State Papers, Domestic, Sept. 28th, 1653.
[431] Horace Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting," vol.
iii. p. 64.
[432] See Evelyn's very scarce tract, entitled "Mundus
Muliebris," printed 1690, p. 8.
[433] Lord Tyrconnell, Lord Exeter, and Lord Guildford
had married three of the Brownlow heiresses of Belton,
who had a winter residence at Stamford.
[434] Designed by Francesco Zuccharelli. Rock,
Introduction, p. cxiv.
[435] It has been at different periods the crowning
glory of the craft of the weaver to place different
patterns or pictures on the two sides of the web. This
would almost appear to be impossible, but that it has
been done in late years, according to Rock, who tells us
that he saw a banner so woven, with the Austrian eagle
on one side and the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception
on the other. He says that the same manufacturer was
then being employed in producing ecclesiastical garments
with the colours and patterns so varied.
[436] In old tapestries three tints only were employed
for the complexions of men, women, and children--the
man's reddish, the woman's yellow, and the child's
whiter than either. It is an agreeable economy of
colours, simple and effective, and avoids the pictorial
imitation that one deprecates. See M. Charles Blanc's
"Grammaire des Arts Décoratifs: Tapisserie," p. 112.
[437] The poet here refers to H.R.H. the Princess
Christian.
CHAPTER VII.
HANGINGS.
"... Her bedchamber was hang'd
With tapestry of silk and silver...."
"Cymbeline," Act II., Scene IV.
The most important works that have been executed in embroidery, have
been hangings or carpets. We may look upon these as belonging to the
history of the past. Never again will such works be undertaken. Their
_raison d'être_, as well as the means for their production, have
ceased to exist. We have very ancient historical evidence of the use
of hangings (or tapestries), either as curtains to exclude prying
eyes, or as coverings to what was sacred or else unseemly, or as
ornamental backgrounds in public and private buildings.
There is no doubt that in pillared spaces the enclosures and
subdivisions were completed by hangings from pillar to pillar, from
the earliest times of Asiatic civilization. In Assyria, and afterwards
in Greece and Rome, the open courts and rooms were shaded from the sun
and rain by umbrella-like erections with hangings stretched over them.
From the Coliseum's vast area to that of the smallest atrium in the
Pompeian house, the covering principle was the same.
Palace-halls and temples alike were furnished in this way, and the
cold splendour of the polished marbles was enhanced by contrast with
the shadowing folds of soft textures richly embroidered in bright
colours and gold. The statues, the gold and silver vessels, the
shrines heaped with votive offerings, were all brought into higher
relief and effect by the screens, the curtains, and the veils which
classical perfect taste would plan so as to carry out the decorator's
intention. Babylonians, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and
Jews, each adorned their sacred places in similar fashions.[438]
Clemens Alexandrinus says that behind the hangings of the Egyptian
temples were hidden their "foolish images."[439]
The word "hangings" was applied to all large curtains and tapestries,
tent coverings, screens dividing empty spaces, or pendant between
pillars; also sails,[440] banners, and decorations for processional
purposes covering walls or hanging from windows; all these have been
embroidered or woven with pictures and patterns. Carpets, from having
originally the same name, "tapete," are to be added to this list, and,
in fact, their uses are often interchanged. Kosroes' famous hangings
were used as a carpet, and Persian and Babylonian carpets have been
hung on the walls. A Babylonian hanging must have resembled, in its
style (of which we have descriptions), the Persian carpet of to-day.
Semper gives excellent reasons for his theory that, next to dress,
hangings (the clothing of architecture) were the earliest phase of
art.[441] He looks upon the most ancient paintings on architecture as
absolutely representing textile coverings. Some of the earliest
Babylonian decorations show men supporting draperies, which he
believes to be the tradition of the time when the tallest slaves held
up the hangings to their own height; and above them, in tiers, were
men, dwarfs, and even children fastened on brackets, carrying the
hangings up to the roofs. This was an Assyrian custom, and was adopted
by the Romans as a mode of disposing of their prisoners of war.
Woltmann and Woermann appear to lean to the suggestion that permanent
imitations of hangings were carried out in painted or encaustic tiles
covering the masonry of Chaldean buildings at Nimroud and Khorsabad.
The pale ones associated with low reliefs, and really resembling them,
as they were partly raised, and the reliefs in alabaster and stone,
which were partly coloured, were in harmony, and yet in contrast, with
the brilliant tiles of Babylon.[442]
We know exactly what were the purple, scarlet, and white hangings of
the Sanctuary in the wilderness, designed by Bezaleel, and that the
veil of the Temple was blue, purple, crimson or scarlet, and white,
i.e. worked on white linen; and we know from Josephus, that "the veil
of the Temple, which was rent in twain" sixteen centuries later, was
that dedicated by Herod, and was Babylonian work, representing heaven
and earth[443] (see p. 23 _ante_). Its colouring was scarlet, white,
and blue. Scarlet and white hangings seem indeed to have been an
Oriental fashion; and fashion then was not ephemeral, but lasted
hundreds of years. The embroidered curtains of the Tabernacle are
repeated in the hangings of Alexander's wedding tent, after 1500
years; and a thousand years later still they reappear in the seventh
century, when Pope Sergius gave curtains to the high altar
(baldachino) in the basilica of St. Peter's at Rome of this same
scarlet and white embroidery.
In early Oriental art, the enormous expenditure of work is appalling
to think of. Abulfeda describes the palace of the Caliph Moctader, on
the banks of the Tigris, as being adorned with 38,000 pieces of
tapestry, and of these 12,000 were of silk worked in gold. What a
wealth of women had to be wasted in creating such a wealth of
embroideries![444]
There is a Bedouin romance which describes the tent of Antar, and
shows the taste for large works. Five thousand horsemen could skirmish
under its embroidered shade; and Akbar's largest tent held 10,000
persons.
Nadir Shah's gorgeous tent, which was of the end of the seventeenth
and the beginning of the eighteenth century, was of scarlet cloth on
the outside, lined with violet satin embroidered with gold and
precious stones. The peacock throne was placed within it, and was kept
there during the remainder of Nadir Shah's reign.
Sir John Chardin says that "The Khan of Persia caused a tent to be
made which cost two millions: they called it the house of gold;" and
it was resplendent with embroideries.[445] These are comparatively
modern works, and sound commonplace and vulgar compared to those of
Greece and Egypt.
The Greeks imitated the tents and temporary buildings of the Eastern
monarchs. This phase of Oriental luxury was imported by Alexander the
Great, and we have the description of two of his gorgeous creations at
Alexandria, where he outrivalled the ancient traditional glories of
Assyria and Persia. His own tent was supported by fifty golden
pillars, carrying a roof of woven gold, embroidered in shimmering
colours, and divided from the surrounding court, filled with guards
and retainers, by scarlet and white curtains of splendid material and
design.
But more gorgeous is the account of the tent in which he entertained
ninety-one of his companions-in-arms on the occasion of his marriage.
This tent was supported by columns twenty cubits high, plated with
silver and gold, and inlaid with precious stones. The walls of the
court were formed by curtains adorned with figures worked in gold, and
were hung from beams plated with the precious metals, to match the
columns. The outer court was half a mile in circumference.[446]
Yet Alexander's wedding-tent was exceeded in splendour by that erected
by Ptolemy Philadelphus for his great pomp at Alexandria, described by
Kallixenos, as cited by Athenæus.[447] This tent, crowned with golden
eagles, was supported by pillars fifty cubits high. They upheld an
architrave with cross-beams covered with linen, on which were painted
coffers, to imitate the structure of a solid roof. From the centre was
suspended a veil of scarlet bordered with white. The pillars in the
four angles represented palm-trees of gold, and the intermediate
columns were fashioned as thursi, and were probably wreathed with
golden vines and bunches of grapes made of amethysts, as we know of a
Persian tent so adorned, and the whole idea of the erection was
evidently fresh from the East.[448] A frieze eight cubits high was
composed of niches containing groups of tragic, comic, and Satyric
figures "in their natural garb;" and nymphs and golden tripods from
Delphi. The tent was separated from the outer peristyle by scarlet
hangings, covered with choice skins of wild beasts. Upon these were
hung the celebrated Sikyonian pictures, the heritage of the Ptolemaic
dynasty, alternating with portraits and rich hangings, on which were
embroidered the likenesses of kings, and likewise mythological
subjects. Between these and the frieze hung gold and silver shields.
Opposite the entrance, vessels of the most costly materials and
workmanship, valued at 10,000 talents of silver, were ranged, so as to
strike the eye of all who entered there. Golden couches supported by
Sphinxes were placed along the sides of the tent, furnished with soft
purple woollen mattresses, and coverings gaily and exquisitely
embroidered. The floor was strewn with fresh blossoms, except where a
most costly Persian carpet covered the centre. In the doorways and
against the pillars stood a hundred precious statues by the greatest
artists.
This description dazzles the imagination! To be an upholsterer (a
vestiarius) in those days was to be an engineer, architect, and
artist! Semper, from whose translation we are quoting, remarks that
the luxurious "motive" of such an erection naturally arose from the
desire to make use of the mass of artistic materials acquired by
conquest, and the effort to reduce them to certain architectural
principles already accepted.[449]
That Alexander did not purposely destroy the Persian embroideries is
evident from the fact that Lucullus speaks of them 200 years later.
Rome accepted and adopted all the Oriental uses of hangings, in the
Temple and the house for temporary festive occasions.
By both Greeks and Romans hangings were used in triumphal processions,
covering immense moving cars or draping the temporary buildings which
lined the avenues of their progress. Also the funeral pyres which
Greece and Rome copied from Assyria were hung with splendid materials
and embroideries. Without describing one of these awful erections, it
is impossible to give any idea of how much artistic treasure was
thrown into the flames which consumed the remains of a great man. The
funeral pyre dedicated by Alexander to his friend Hephæstion recalls
that erected by Sardanapalus in one of the courts of his own palace,
on which he perished, surrounded by his wives and his treasures.
Hephæstion's catafalque was built of inflammable materials, 250 feet
high, raised in many stories, and hung with pictorial tapestries,
painted and embroidered. Each story was adorned with images of ivory
and gold. In the upper story were enormous hollow figures of Sirens,
filled with singers, who chanted the funeral odes.[450] It is to be
hoped that they were released before the conflagration.
The records of such extravagant funeral ceremonies teach us how much
of human thought, how much of art and beauty which had helped to
civilize the world, were torn from the places they were intelligently
designed to decorate, heaped up by the conquerors, and as ruthlessly
spent and destroyed for the boast of a day.[451]
Christian Rome adopted the traditions of Pagan decoration, and
introduced them in her worship, processions, and shows. A great
religious procession like that of the "Corpus Domini" in our own
times, has reminded us of a Roman triumph. The baldachini and the
banners; the torches; the streets, festooned with draperies; even the
Pagan emblems, which have been converted into Christian symbolism--all
these were the echoes of classical days; but they are fast
disappearing. Two thousand years will have worn out and effaced these
customs, and our children will not see them.
I have not space to linger over the many descriptions of Oriental,
Grecian, and Roman work to be gathered from classical authors, but
from them this lesson is to be learned that the first principle which
guided those great decorators was the individuality and
appropriateness of each design to the purpose for which it was
intended and the place it was to fill. But even their peculiar
excellences did not save them from the universal law of destruction.
When the hangings were worn, or became for any reason distasteful,
they were replaced by others, often by gifts or spoils from friendly
allies or conquered kings. The quantity of gold laid upon these great
religious or national works was the cause of their destruction as soon
as they were withdrawn and superseded by something of a newer fashion.
The intrinsic value in precious metals of such works is proved by
Pliny's statement that Nero gave four millions of sesterces for covers
of couches in a banqueting-hall.[452] The hangings or carpets taken by
the Caliph Omar from Kosroes' white palace (A.D. 651) must have been
some of the finest and most valuable embroideries ever known. They
formed a tapestry carpet or hanging, representing all the flowers of
spring, worked in coloured silks, gold, and precious stones. Kosroes
entreated Omar to keep it intact for himself, but he was so virtuous
that he cut it up into little bits and divided it amongst his
generals. Gibbon describes this wonderful piece of work.[453] We have
heard much of a marvellous carpet, given lately by the Guicowar of
Baroda to the tomb of Mahomet at Medina, which, from its description,
recalls the style of Kosroes' hangings; and their history gives us a
notable instance of how works of art in the time of war and conquest
come to be considered only for the value of their materials. War, the
enemy of culture, all but effaces whole phases of art when a country
is overrun and plundered. But there is almost always a residuum, which
has influence whenever there is a revival, beginning with the smaller
arts of luxury in more peaceful and prosperous days.[454]
To return to the classical veils and hangings. You may see them on
Babylonian bas-reliefs, on Greek fictile vases, or painted in frescoes
on the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples; in the houses in Pompeii
and Herculaneum, and in the remains of Roman villas and tombs
everywhere. From all of these we may learn something.
The obvious intention of hangings in household decoration is to cover
bare walls, so as to adorn at once that which was rough or common,
without delay or trouble. They were also used as curtains to shut out
the cold or the heat, and to give privacy to rooms without doors or
windows. Hangings on bare walls have always been meant to hang
straight down, undisturbed by folds, whereas curtains and portières
would probably have to be looped up or continually drawn aside. The
designs to be worked upon them should necessarily be regulated by
their shape and use.
Semper considers that a square is an expressionless form, and that it
should be avoided.[455] If you wish to give dignity to a room, its
hanging decorations should be divided into panels of greater height
than breadth, so as to elevate the spaces they cover. Horizontal
stripes bring down the ceiling, and even in furniture, look ill except
as borders. Nothing can be more ugly or inartistic than the curtains
one finds in old illuminations, covered with bands of the same pattern
throughout the surface, but even this is less unpleasant on the walls
than lines crossing each other at right angles. The Romans looked on
chequers as barbarous national characteristics, and left them to the
Gauls and Britons. Chequers should be avoided unless they express a
meaning, as in Scotch tartans. Semper observes that the striped
stuffs, especially those of Oriental fabrics, were never intended to
be spread out flat, but to be draped in folds and loops, and the lines
only seen broken up. He continues:--"One rule, which cannot be
neglected with impunity, is this: that whether the hanging or screen
is supposed to stand or to hang, there must be an above and a below to
every pattern, and it must, moreover, be upright." All foliage
designs, and those containing animals, must start from below, and grow
upwards. Another of his laws is that the heaviest colours should be
placed below, and the palest and brightest above. This may be
disputed. It must be first determined where contrast is needed. If
the darkest part of the pattern is below, it may be necessary to give
it the lightest background, on the principle of balancing quantities
in colour. The dado, or lowest border, will often give the necessary
weight to the design. Semper goes on to say, "A surface may be made to
appear to stand, or to hang down, according to its decoration. For
instance, a triangle will hang or stand, according as its apex points
downwards or upwards. But in draped curtains all symmetry of design is
lost, and the rich forms and fulness of folds rather tend to destroy
the effect of elaborate patterns, and to take their place."
Another important difference between standing and hanging tapestries
is their finish or edge, the upper one being an upright continuous
border, and the lower one a fringe. In both cases it is a continuation
of the main threads of the material, and these belong exclusively to
the hanging tapestries and curtains. The fringe is so essential a part
of hanging decoration, that we must pause and give it our best
consideration. In Babylonian art it is most important. The extreme
solidity of the knotted fringes in their dress and hangings show
either the thickness of the woven substance, or that the fringes were
made by enriching the warp and adding to it. They are almost always,
on the Assyrian sculptures, simply knotted fringes; but the little
portable Chaldean temple on the bronze gates from Balawat (near
Nimroud), in the British Museum, shows fringes of bells or fruit like
those of the Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness (fig. 2). On Egyptian
linen we sometimes see, woven or worked, a reticulated pattern which
imitates a fringe.
The carpets of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians were evidently
used sometimes as hangings, though many of their designs would not
have served both purposes equally well. That the Babylonian weavers,
however, understood that a carpet lying on the ground should be
covered with an even pattern, and be finished with a border all round,
is evident from the exquisitely chiselled designs, imitating carpets,
on two portions of pavements in the British Museum (pl. 27); and we
may compare these with the different treatment of designs for the
veils of the temples, both in Babylon and Egypt, on which were
represented the signs of the zodiac and all the heavenly bodies, and
other symbolical and unconventional forms. The Atrium of the Greek and
Pompeian houses, which was modelled on the same idea, was separated
from the Court by curtains, hung on rods or nails. On festive
occasions these may have been garlanded with natural flowers. If so,
we may be sure that the little wreaths worked on them, as we learn
from frescoes, would combine with the gala day's decorations, and
would be designed with that view. The Greek artist would never have
approved of natural flowers or trees, embroidered as if growing out of
a dado, simulating a garden worked in wool. This would have been
considered a bad attempt at pictorial art.
M. Louis de Ronchaud, in his "Tapisseries des Anciens," speaks of the
hangings which he supposes to have decked the recess that contained
the chryselephantine statue of Athenè Parthenos in her temple at
Athens. He says these votive hangings dressed the pillars that
surrounded the Hecatompedon, and formed a tent over the head of the
goddess. M. de Ronchaud believes that among the subjects of the
Delphic embroideries, described by Euripides in the tragedy of Ion,
may be recognized some derived from the designs on saffron-coloured
hangings, spoken of by the poet as "the wings of the peplos."[456]
The downfall of decorative art, domestic as well as national, kept
pace with the downfall of the Roman Empire. During the Dark Ages, of
such art there seems to have been very little; and of that the best
was Celtic or Anglo-Saxon. But the darkness shrouds from our view the
artistic life of the world, and the dawn was very long in breaking. We
must therefore return to the subject of hangings, after a gap of
nearly a thousand years, when the first stirrings of the European
revival came, in the twelfth century.[457] Symonds says: "The arts and
the inventions, the knowledge and the books, which suddenly became
vital at the time of the Renaissance, had long lain neglected on the
shores of that Dead Sea which we call 'The Middle Ages.'"[458]
There can be no doubt that, during the Dark Ages, hangings woven and
embroidered continued to be the custom throughout Europe. Our own
Anglo-Saxon records prove that such furnishings were employed to
mitigate the cold bareness of our northern homes from the earliest
times. Sir G. Dasent informs me that in Icelandic Sagas, as early as
the eleventh century, there are frequent notices of hangings both in
churches and in the halls of houses; such, for instance, as the Saga
of Charlemagne, i.e. scenes out of Charlemagne's life, worked on
hangings 20 ells long. In Scaldic poetry, a periphrasis for a "lady"
is "the ground of hangings," or "the bridge of hangings," all pointing
to embroidery.
From illuminated MSS. engraved in Strutt's "Antiquities of the
English," and contemporary European work of the tenth to the
thirteenth centuries, we find that the favourite style of embroidery,
when not representing historical or sacred subjects, was a _parsemé_
pattern. Armorial bearings were generally reserved for cushions,
chair-backs, and the baldachinos of altars, beds, and thrones.[459]
Richer and more flowing designs were later introduced.
In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, splendid
tapestries of Arras, and hangings even of cloth of gold, were common
as palatial decorations. Sometimes we have a glimpse of less ambitious
hangings; for instance, in the London house of Sir Andrew Larkynge,
Knight, in the fifteenth century, the hall was hung with sage-green
panels, bordered with gold "darned work," and the "parler" with
sage-green, bordered with crimson.
French embroidered hangings were very fine in the sixteenth century.
Jeanne d'Albret, the mother of Henri IV., was a great patroness of
such works. Miss Freer tells us that--
"When Jeanne and Antoine took possession of the Castle of Pau, they
found their new abode rich in works of art and splendid decorations.
The refined taste of Marguerite d'Angoulême was visible everywhere.
Jeanne's presence-chamber was adorned with hangings of crimson satin,
embroidered by the hand of Marguerite herself. The embroidery
represented a passage from the history of the Queen's own life."
"During the hours which the Queen allowed herself for relaxation, she
worked tapestry, and discoursed with some one of the learned men whom
she protected."
"The Queen daily attended the afternoon sermon, preached by her
chaplains in rotation. Often, however, weary with the excess of her
mental labours, and lulled by the drowsy intonation of some of these
ministers, the Queen slept during part of the discourse. Jeanne always
felt severe reproach of conscience when she had thus involuntarily
yielded to fatigue; and finding the inclination grow upon her, she
demanded permission from the Synod to work tapestry during the sermon.
This request was granted; and from thenceforth, Queen Jeanne, bending
decorously over her tapestry-frame, and busy with her needle, gave due
attention to the rambling addresses of her preachers."
"Comme elle (Jeanne d'Albret) estoit grandement adonnée aux devises,
elle fit de sa main de belles et grandes tapisseries, entre lesquelles
il y a une tente de douze ou quinze pièces excellente qui s'appelle
_les Prisons brisées_, par lesquelles elle donnoit à connôistre
qu'elle avoit brisé les liens et secoué le joug de la captivité du
Pape. Au milieu de chaque pièce, il y a une histoire du Vieu Testament
qui resent la liberté, comme la délivrance de Suzanne, la sortie du
peuple de la captivité d'Egypte, l'élargissement de Joseph. Et à tous
les coins il y a des chaisnes rompues, des menottes brisées, des
strapades et des gibbets en pièces, et par-dessus en grosses lettres
ce sont ces paroles de la deuxième aux Corinthiens, ch. iii.: _Ubi
spiritus, ibi libertas._"[460]
Cluny boasts a most curious suite of hangings from the Chateau de
Boussac, of the early part of the fifteenth century, which are
charming, quaint, and gay, and historically and archæologically
interesting. They tell the story of the "Dame au Lion."
Modern French tapestries, from the manufactories of the Savonnerie,
the Gobelins, and elsewhere, are decorative to the highest degree.
Nothing can be more festive than these works of the time of Louis
XIII., XIV., and XV., framed in white and gold, carved wood, or
stucco, reflected in mirrors, and lighted by crystal or glass
chandeliers and girandoles. Such hangings have nothing in common with
those of early times; they are not temporary coverings of bare spaces,
but panels in decorated walls, where they form an integral part of the
architectural composition and design. They do not merely serve to give
warmth, comfort, and colour to desolate halls, as did those ancient
tapestries belonging to the furniture of the great man who sent them
on before him from palace to palace, carrying them away with his
baggage lest some one else should do so in his absence. These were
probably merely attached by loops and nails, as one sees in country
villas or castles in Italy to this day.
We find that the Italians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
often hung their walls with upright strips of work, in the guise of
pilasters. The walls were thus divided into panelled spaces, which
separated pictures, statues, and cabinets, of which the style did not
agree in juxtaposition. These pilasters were generally of "opus
consutum," or "appliqué" in its different forms. Above, next to the
cornice, and below, next to the dado, or even touching the floor, they
were connected by borders of similar work. The spaces between were
mostly filled in with rich brocades or velvets of one colour, so as to
make the best backgrounds for the artistic treasures grouped against
them. Sometimes fine tapestries filled the intervening spaces, and
sometimes splendid embroideries. There is a beautiful example of this
sort of decoration at Holland House, where the dining-room is adorned
with pilasters worked on velvet in gold and coloured silks, with
tapestries between them. This is Florentine work, of the sixteenth or
beginning of the seventeenth century.
Hangings entirely in needlework, to cover large spaces, are rare, but
a few are to be found all over Europe in museums, palaces, and private
houses, which are interesting as objects of art. The genealogical tree
of the Counts of Kyburg, designed in the sixteenth century, and
carried to France as plunder, and now restored to its home near
Zurich, is a remarkable instance of a piece of needlework that
deserved the value placed on it. Many splendid pieces of embroidered
tapestries are at the Cluny Museum. The beatitudes of St. Catherine,
from the castle at Tarrascon, and the hangings worked in appliqué and
flat stitches with portraits of Henri IV., Jeanne d'Albret, &c., are
monuments of industry, and design; and are very beautiful.
There, is a large room at Castle Ashby hung with tapestry in cross
stitches, worked by the ladies of the family, and finished 150 years
ago. The industry shown here is indubitable, but the designs are
barbarously bad and funny. In the Palazzo Giustini at Florence there
is a suite of hangings worked also in cross stitches of the same
period, of which the design is very clever and graceful, and the
effect beautiful and artistic. An irregular bank of brown earth is
crowded with grasses and small flowers about a foot above the dado,
and from this grow rose-bushes, covered with blossoms of different
shades, held back to a treillage of delicate "cane colours." The
leafage is brown, against a sky that is not blue, but which rather
reminds one of blue than of grey. It is conventionally treated, and
the effect is singularly rich and harmonious. Had it been a little
more naturalistic, it would have looked too much like a painted
picture; but as it is, the decoration is charming, and so universally
admired that we cannot but wonder it has never been imitated. In the
Borghese Palace at Rome there is a ball-room hung with white satin
embroidered with wreaths of flowers, and a similar one in the Caetani
Palace, on crimson satin. These are about 150 years old, and are so
far above being mere objects of fashion, that they must be placed by
their beauty of design and execution amongst objects of art, and so
will probably survive more centuries of change, holding their own, and
increasing in value and esteem.
For hangings in church decoration, the reader is referred to the
chapters on ecclesiastical art and on tapestry.
Having discussed the origin and reason for hangings, and having tried
to draw from what has been accepted as beautiful and perfect in taste,
some guidance in hanging our modern rooms, supposing always that the
spaces are fitted for really fine decorations, I yet would add a few
more words on this subject. There are in general some previous
conditions which will help us to choose the style and design of such
furnishings. In the first place, we should study what is appropriate
to the persons who will first inhabit the rooms. The bride's apartment
may be white and gold, garlanded with roses, and gay with groups of
Cupids; but such prettinesses would not be suitable to the home of a
mourning Queen. Tender or subdued colouring equally sets off groups of
young and lovely faces, and the bent form robed in black. Embroideries
are always agreeable on such backgrounds, and it is as a vehicle for
needlework that I now allude to the design of the artist in hangings.
We are somewhat restricted, or we ought to be, when there are
treasures of art already in the house, by the desire to exhibit them
to the best advantage. The hangings should be of a colour which suits
all pictures, and if the walls are either embroidered or tapestried
with woven designs, they should be very much subdued, both in form and
colour, so as not to prevent the eye from perceiving at once the
precious objects hung against them. A fine brocade or velvet of one
colour suits pictures best; but if our object is to show off our
cabinets, which are generally black, and our statues, which are mostly
white, then richly embroidered backgrounds in brilliant colours are
the best, compensating the eye in variety and splendour.
FOOTNOTES:
[438] The "women who wove the hangings for the grove"
were probably priestesses of the worship of Astarte
(2 Kings xxiii. 7).
[439] He says that within the sacred shrine was revealed
their god--a beast rolling on a purple couch--veiled
with gold embroidered hangings; and he describes the
magnificent temples, gleaming with gold, silver, and
electrum. Quoted from Clemens Alexandrinus, in Renouf's
"Hibbert Lectures," p. 2.
[440] "Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was
that which thou spreadest forth to be thy
sail."--Ezekiel xxvii. 7. Egyptian sails were woven and
painted; sometimes they were blazoned with embroidered
patterns. The Phœnix was set there to indicate the
traveller's return. See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians,"
vol. iii., ed. 1837, p. 211.
[441] See Semper, "Der Stil," vol. i. p. 273.
[442] The figure-painting of the nations we have spoken
of, successful so far as it concerns its special purpose
of exhibiting a clear and comprehensive chronicle of
events, is at the same time no more, so far as it
concerns its artistic effect, than a piece of tapestry
or embroidery done into stone, and can only be estimated
... as a piece of coloured wall decoration. Woltmann and
Woermann, "History of Painting," Eng. Trans., pp. 23-30.
See also Perrot and Chipiez, "Histoire de l'Art dans
l'Antiquité," for tile decorations at Nimroud; vol. ii.
p. 704.
[443] Compare this record with Solomon's veil for the
Temple, of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen
(2 Chron. iii. 14), and the hangings designed by
Bezaleel, of scarlet, blue, purple, and embroidered with
gold (Exod. xxxix. 2, 3, 5; see also Josephus, "Wars of
the Jews," Whiston's trans., p. 895).
[444] As cited from Abulfeda by Gibbon, chap. lii. ix.
p. 37, ed. 1797. When one is moved to pity, thinking of
the enforced labour of thousands of captive women,
fallen, perhaps, from high estate, and only valued for
the toil of their hands, it comforts one to believe that
they would hardly have produced beautiful works without
enjoying some happiness in the creation of that beauty.
[445] Yule's "Marco Polo," vol. i. p. 394, note 7.
[446] See Semper, "Der Stil," i. pp. 310, 311; Chares,
ap. Athen. xii. 54, p. 538.
[447] Semper's "Der Stil," i. p. 311; Athen. v. 25, p.
196.
[448] Phylarchus, ap. Athen. xii. 55, describes a
Persian tent in which were golden palm-trees, and vines
fruited with precious stones, under which the Persian
kings held their state. On an Assyrian sculpture at the
British Museum is seen Assurbanipal on a couch, the
queen opposite to him, under an arbour of jewelled
vines; unless it represents a rural entertainment, which
is unlikely.
[449] The art of the "tapezziere," "tapissier,"
"tapestry-hanger," is not a recognized one with us,
though it is in Italy and France, where the hangings for
special occasions in churches and houses are stored
away, treasured for hundreds of years, cleaned and
mended, and hung and placed to the best advantage by men
educated for the purpose. In poor churches which possess
no fine materials for decoration, one has often wondered
at and admired the picturesque effects extracted from
yards of muslin, gold tinsel, and box wreaths,
artistically combined. Our house carpenter is the only
representative we have of the vestiarius, and he is but
a feeble descendant from the ancestors of his craft, who
were expected to study and evolve the adornments of the
building for its completion, the materials of decoration
for special occasions, and lastly, the mechanical means
for hanging and stretching the draperies. These were
sometimes movable frames or posts--"scabella" (whence
"escabeau," échafaudage, scaffolding).
[450] Semper, "Der Stil," i. pp. 314, 315.
[451] Never again will such great works be executed with
the needle. In civilized countries, sovereign splendours
are at a discount. The East occasionally produces
something fine, because there they still have harems and
slaves; but even these ancient institutions are losing
their stability and in the interest of humanity, if not
in that of needlework, we may soon hope there will be
neither the one nor the other. We must allow, however,
that the purple and gold embroideries now being executed
for the King of Bavaria in his school at Munich are
royally splendid, and, by their execution, worthy of
past days.
[452] Pliny, viii. 44, 196.
[453] Gibbon's "Roman History," ix. c. 51, p. 370, ed.
1797; also see Crichton's "History of Arabia," i. p.
383.
[454] The utter dispersal of accumulated family and
household treasures has had a sad illustration in the
loads of Turkish and Slav embroideries which have
flooded the markets of Europe since the Russo-Turkish
war. Work, treasured for generations, sold for a piece
of bread, robbed from the deserted home or the bazaar,
stolen from the dying or the dead. These are so
suggestive of the horrors of war, and touch us so nearly
in connection with the rights and wrongs of the Eastern
question, that they cause us more pain than pleasure
when we study these beautiful specimens of well-blended
colours and designs, that show their Aryan (Persian or
Indian) origin. Lady Layard's residence in
Constantinople was, perhaps, the "happy accident" which
will have preserved the secrets and practice of this
work for future generations, by her active and generous
institution of a working organization for the poor
exiled and starving women, and for the sale of their
work in England.
[455] Semper, "Der Stil," i. p. 30, § 10.
[456] This subject has been ably treated in the
Introduction to "La Tapisserie," by Eug. Müntz; Paris,
1885.
[457] I refer to the chapter on "English Embroideries"
for the _parsemé_ patterns of our mediæval hangings, and
to the section on tapestry in the chapter on "Stitches."
[458] "Renaissance in Italy," J. A. Symonds, p. 4.
[459] But to this rule there are notable exceptions, of
which Charles the Bold's hangings for his tent (now at
Berne) furnish a brilliant example. Here the Order of
the Golden Fleece is repeated on a field of flowers,
exquisitely designed.
[460] "Life of Jeanne d'Albret," by Miss Freer, pp. 68,
123, 330.
CHAPTER VIII.
FURNITURE.
"Jane, I hate æsthetic carpets;
High-art curtains make me swear.
Pray cease hunting for the latest
Queen Anne chair.
I care nothing for improvements,
On the simple style of Snell,
Which will suit both you and me ex-
tremely well."
ROBERT CUST, "Parody of the Last Ode of the
First Book of Horace."
"First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnish'd with plate and gold;
Basons and ewers, to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
In cyprus chests my arras, counterpoints,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
Costly apparel, tents and canopies,
Valance of Venice gold, in needlework;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
To house, or housekeeping."
SHAKESPEARE, "Taming of the Shrew," Act II., Scene I.
The last chapter on hangings, their history and uses, and the
preceding account of tapestries, naturally lead to the consideration
of the furniture which may accompany them.
Homer's description of Penelope's bridal couch is very curious. The
central idea is the bedpost, fashioned out of the stem of an
olive-tree growing in the court, and inlaid by Ulysses himself with
gold, silver, and ivory, and bands of dyed purple ox-hide. The stone
walls and roof were built over to cover it in, as it stood yet rooted
in the ground.[461]
The illustration is a very quaint delineation of a Chaldean
four-roomed house, where the rooted tree with its stem and branches is
suggestive of the state of the domestic art of the architect and the
upholsterer in those Archaic days.[462]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.
Assyrian delineation of Chaldean House.]
Furniture has been the excuse and the vehicle for embroideries, from
the footstool and the cushion to the window curtain and the
bed-hangings.[463]
Such curtains are the most permanently important features in the
economy, or rather the luxury of the house. Let us begin with the
decorations of the state bedroom.
Now the shape of the bed must regulate the design. If there is only a
canopy--like that over a throne--one may have fine work for the head
of the bed inside the canopy, and a rich border round its valance;
this should contrast with the walls; and the curtains should marry the
two together, by the embroidered borders belonging to the fashion of
the bed, and accompanying the window curtains; while the plain surface
should match with the wall hangings. Another method is to have the bed
and curtains hung with plain materials, to contrast with embroidered
or tapestried hangings on the walls.
This style of bed canopy absolutely belongs to the decoration of the
wall to which it is attached. But when we have to deal with a large
four-post bed--"a room within a room," as poor Prince Lee Boo
said--the bed may, in its own decoration, be totally independent of
the wall hangings; and care must be taken that we do not injure the
effect of both by too much contrast or too much similarity. Every room
has its own individuality, and the first beginning of its decoration
must be the key-note to guide the rest of the furnishing and
adornment. I am anxious to point out that the bed and its belongings
are a most important element in the beauty and dignity of style of the
room and the house that contains it. It is a splendid opportunity for
displaying the embroideries of the women of the family, and for
exercising their taste. "The chamber of Dais," as it was called in old
times, was always carefully adorned for the welcome of the honoured
guest. The bed-hangings, and even the linen, were embroidered,[464]
and the greatest care and the most artistic work were lavished on the
coverlet in firm stitches and twisted threads, while on the curtains
the frailest materials and most delicate stitches were freely
bestowed, as they were safe from friction. We may employ floss-silk
and satin-stitch for such works with safety.
As a rule we should avoid too great a variety of design in the
decoration of a bedroom, and at the same time beware of its becoming
monotonous.
I should say that a change in the design, though not in the style, of
the different parts of the bed is admissible, and gives opportunities
for rich and graceful work. For instance, a parsemé pattern may be
varied judiciously on the curtains, the valance, and the heading;
provided there is a connecting link (say a cypher) found throughout.
If the back of the Baldachino is embroidered, it admits of totally
different treatment, and the valance must include a border according
to its outline.
The ingenuity and magnificence of the Elizabethan bedroom furnishings
are proved by the inventories to be found in old houses. Those
describing the property of the Earl of Leicester, in the Library at
Longleat, are so characteristic of a time when each room contained
artistic furniture, that I cannot help making here some extracts, and
pointing out that embroidery was usually employed to individualize
each decoration.
"At Killingworth (Kenilworth) Lord Leicester's Bedsteads." "A fayre,
rich, standing Square Bedstead of carved walnut-tree wood: painted
with silver hearts, ragged staves and roses. The furniture and teste
crimson velvet embroidered with silver roses, and lined throughout
with Buckram." There was apparently a second set of curtains inside
of striped white satin, trimmed and fringed with silver, and the
velvet curtains were also fringed with silver with long "buttons and
loops."
Another bedstead is described, with the pillars painted red, and
varnished. The teste and curtains of red silk edged with gold and
silver bone lace, and embroidered "in a border of hops, roses, and
pomegranates."
Another "Bedstead painted red and gold, and varnished; with crimson
velvet, gold and silver in breadths, embroidered over with red, gold,
and silver,--lined with Milion (Milan) fustian," &c., &c. The
catalogue of the tapestries and embroidered hangings include fifteen
suites at Kenilworth only; and three other houses are equally well
provided. The ground of one of these suites of five pieces of
embroidery, of animals and flowers, is described as being "Stannel
cloth lined with cannevois" (canvas). Each room has chairs, cushions,
carpets (which appear to have covered the floor and the tables), and
"Cabinutts" (cabinets) covered with embroideries.
In a Florentine Palace (the Alessandri), there is a state
apartment,[465] where the bed, the walls, the curtains, and the
furniture are entirely decorated with the same splendid materials,
i.e. gold brocaded with crimson velvet. The eye longs for some repose
amidst the gorgeous reiterated forms and colours. If the bed and
curtains had been either plain crimson velvet or embroidery, it would
have been much more beautiful. This sort of example is a lesson and a
warning, which is valuable even under less splendid conditions.
Amongst our fine Indian embroideries, those of Lucknow, Gulbargah,
Aurungabad, and Hyderabad are well fitted for beds and furniture.
These we can study in the Indian Museum, and it seems a pity not to
profit by, and encourage the resources of our own Empire.
Carpets and rugs were sometimes embroidered as well as woven in
patterns. They were anciently spread on thrones, couches and sofas, at
entertainments;[466] and used for covering the catafalques at funeral
ceremonies, or for laying over tombs, as is still the custom in the
East. We who restrict their use to domestic purposes, are beginning to
understand that these decorations look best when the patterns are
geometrical, and that natural objects, such as rabbits and roses, even
when conventionalized, are unpleasant to tread upon.
The sofa and chairs are so often the vehicles for embroidery that we
must give them a separate share of our attention. The square shapes of
the chair-backs repeated several times give us an opportunity for
balancing colours and introducing forms of decoration which may be
made to contrast with everything else in the room, and so enhance the
general effect. Say that the carpet is red, and the furniture and
hangings are of tender broken tints, it will be a pleasure to the eye
if the cushions on the sofa and the chairs and seats are panelled with
a deeper or lighter colour than the carpet, but always reposing the
eye by contrasting plain surfaces with richness of design. Then the
footstool or cushion should break away entirely from the carpet on
which it lies, that the poor thing may be spared the kick it
invariably receives, when the master of the house has tripped over its
invisible presence.
For furniture, the cushion stitches, i.e. canvas and cross stitches,
are certainly the best. They are the most enduring, as they bear
friction without fraying; and are therefore, in this case, preferable
to satin stitches, which are liable to be spoilt by contact, and give
the lady of the house, who is probably the artist, a pang each time an
honoured guest occupies the comfortable chair embroidered in floss
silk, unaware that it is an æsthetic investment, and that a percentage
of its beauty is disappearing every time it is brought into collision
with broadcloth.[467] This brings us to the subject of the covers
called "housses" by French upholsterers, and which may come under the
head of small decorations, or rather, of petty disfigurements. The
things which went by the horrid name of "antimacassars" have, however,
given way to "chair-backs," and crochet has been displaced by linen
veils worked in crewels. This is a step in the right direction. No
well-regulated eye could do otherwise than suffer from the glaring
white patterns of crochet-work, mounted aggressively on the back of
every chair in the room, as a buffer between it and the human head and
shoulders. The suggestion was disagreeable, and the present chair-back
still recalls it. To reconcile us to its use, it must be sparingly
used, and artistically disposed. The "antimacassar" is a remaining
sign of the overlap of dress and manners. Our great-grandmothers
embroidered the chairs, and valued them exceedingly, and never would
have contemplated that they should be soiled by a male or female head
lying back upon them. True, they wore powder and pomatum then--but
they never leant back; such a solace, and solecism in manners, was
reserved for the privacy of the bedroom and the arm-chair covered with
cotton piqué or washing chintz. Under the new manners, and since the
introduction of the graceful lounge, the antimacassar doubtless has
saved many ancestral works, but nowadays we wear neither powder nor
pomatum. On the contrary, we dye, dry, and frizzle our hair till it
might serve as a brush to remove any dust it encountered, and it
spoils nothing.
The table-cover is a source of endless variety;[468] on the whole I
should recommend here plain surfaces and deep borders. The articles
thrown on the table are best set off by plain grounds. The colour of
the table-cover may be a test of artistic taste, and may make or mar
the whole effect of the furnishings of the room, especially if it is
newly acquired, in order to enliven the fading glories of ancestral
taste.
The Screen.--This evidently began its existence as a curtain hung on a
movable frame for the purpose of dividing large chambers for separate
uses.[469] The Chinese seem to have been the first to stretch the
curtain tight over the frame, making it a fixture, and often an actual
partition, painted with pictures by brush or needle.
To our modern home, the screen in a large room, gives a sense of
snugness, and is an actual necessity for keeping off the draughts
drifting in through ill-fitting window-frames and doors; and at the
same time serving æsthetically as a background to high chairs and
tables heaped with objects of art, and tall vases of flowers. The
high screen groups and unites the pictures of active and still life
around it; and meanwhile the little fire-screens are performing the
merciful service of saving the complexions of our daughters from being
sacrificed to Moloch in front of our scorching coal fires. I need not
recommend these as fit surfaces for embroidery--they offer themselves
to it; and the School of Art Needlework is a living witness to how
much they are appreciated and how largely employed. On the screen,
decorative ambition is permitted to rise to pictorial art. Nothing in
furniture is prettier than the screen covered with refined needle
painting, either arabesqued or naturalistic. You may vary the designs
to any extent, either as large pictures covering many folds, or in
small pictures repeated or varied on each. Here design to
individualize the living-room comes into play, and is most conspicuous
for good or for evil effect.
Amongst the occasional furnishings of the home, we would instance
embroidered curtains to veil pictures, which are perhaps too sacred to
expose to the general eye. We know how often in churches and
sacristies on the Continent, one, or even two veils have to be
withdrawn before the holy and precious picture is displayed. We have
seen these little curtains beautifully worked so as to form by their
design a picture in the space they cover. Crimson silk is perhaps
worked in gold and colours for a gilt frame, and white and silver
within ebony or walnut settings. I would recommend this style of work
to the consideration of our decorators. It is interesting to find in
an old catalogue at Hampton Court, how pictures of sacred subjects
were thus decently veiled, in the profaner moments of court
gaieties.[470]
Embroidered book coverings were often very beautiful, either as
simply clothing the boards, or when finished with metal-work corners,
backs, and clasps.
I quote the following lines, said to have been written by Tasso on a
case for a book, embroidered for him by Leonora d'Este:--
"Questo prezioso dono,
Ch' ornar coll' ago ad Eleanora piacque,
Lo vidde Aracne, e tacque.
Or se la mano, che la piaga fè al core,
Si bello fè d' amore il dolce laberinto,
Come uscirne potro, se non estinto?"
In the catalogue of Charles V.'s library, the materials used for
bindings are thus named: Soie veluyau, satin damas, taffetas, camelot,
cendal, and drap d'or; and many were embroidered.
Tact, discretion, and knowledge are required when we undertake to
adorn the home to be lived in; and while employing the art of
embroidery to embellish it, we must never forget that harmony, and the
absence of anything startling, tends to the grandiose as well as the
comfortable. Bright bits of colouring should be reserved for pictorial
art, or for small objects, such as cushions and stools. If for the
general tint blue be chosen, let it be either pure pale colour, like
the æther, or a soft one, pale or dark, such as indigo; but the
startling aniline blues should be avoided as being offensive to the
nerves of the eye. If red be the foundation colour, let it be Venetian
red, part scarlet, part crimson; or pure crimson (Tyrian purple), or
pure scarlet (cochineal). Never employ scarlet with a yellow tinge; it
may not affect yourself, but it is blinding to many eyes. Avoid
brickdust, which is simply a dirty mixture of earthy colours. Of green
there are few shades that are not beautiful, soothing, and more or
less fitted for a background to needlework. Olive-green, sea-green,
pea-green, emerald-green, and sage-green,--Nature teaches us how
these harmonize together and with all other colours. Only arsenical
green is impracticable and repulsive. Yellow, pale as a primrose,
glowing as gold, or tender as butter, is always beautiful; but one
tint we would exclude from our list, called "buff," which never can
assimilate with any other colour, and is often the refuge of the
weak-minded man that cannot face the responsibility of choosing an
atmosphere in which he will have to spend many hours of his existence,
when the walls, the ceiling, and the hangings will inevitably obtain a
subtle, but real influence on his nerves; which, in the case of buff,
will be that of a yellow fog, while pale primrose will have the effect
of early sunrise, and pure gold that of sunset.
A rule to be respected is that decoration should be reposing instead
of exciting. The unexpected, which is an element in the enjoyment of
what is new, should be such as to become the more agreeable the longer
we are accustomed to it. Mr. Morris's golden rule is this: "Have
nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to
be beautiful."[471] In decorative art, and therefore in embroidery,
the first object to consider is beauty--beauty in conception,
proportion, drawing, and colour. I would not have it thought that I am
placing our secondary art too high, and giving it too much importance,
when I apply to it the first essential rules of art; but one of these
furnishes my excuse. It is that "the simplest and smallest creation
should be as faultless as the greatest and grandest." Now beauty
cannot be obtained, even in little works, without proportion in size,
harmony and balance in colour, and correctness in form, and these
require the careful study of first principles.
Proportion in size is most important, both as regards ourselves and
our surroundings--objectively and subjectively. When our masters, the
Greeks, wished to express force and majesty, they sculptured their
gods of unearthly size, larger than their heroes, who yet exceeded in
stature their human models. The statue of the god placed in the temple
was the largest object seen, and the delicacy and refinement of the
details in dress, throne, and base only enhanced the effect of
majestic proportion.
In the temple men were to be reminded of their own nothingness. In the
gymnasium, and on the racecourse, and at the public games, the
surrounding pictures and statues were all intended to excite ambition
by showing men the heroic size to be attained by the awards of fame.
But at home, in the house, man is already supreme, and needs no
incentive to assert himself, and no tall standard by which he may be
measured. The Lares and Penates themselves were very small objects to
look at, whatever may have been the thoughts they suggested. Nothing
is so alarming or unpleasant as gigantic figures worked in tapestry or
embroidery.
And if even the guardian gods of the house were kept in due subjection
as to size, why not all decorations, and especially those representing
the flowers of the field? Certainly in worked decorations flowers
should be no larger than in nature--perhaps on the whole they are best
rather smaller. Botanical monstrosities on the wall dwarf the flowers
in a bow-pot near them, and nature has her own lovely proportions,
which should be studied and respected. These remarks, of course, apply
exclusively to domestic decoration, which is the special object of our
art, and for the guidance of which the suggestions contained in this
chapter are intended.
I would strongly advocate the return to the old system for the
production of large embroideries. If ladies would design, or have
designed for them, curtains or tapestries, and let the work-frame be
the permanent occupier of the morning sitting-room, they might at
least commence works that members of the family or friends might
continue and complete at their leisure; and should they at any time
hang fire, a needlewoman or clever professional worker might be called
in to help to finish it. Thus ladies might assist the art of
needlework by their own original ideas, and give individual beauty to
their homes, and an impetus to the occupation which helps to support
so many of our struggling sisters. The frame or métier is always a
pretty object in the drawing-room or boudoir. The French understand
this well; and make it one of their most useful "properties" in their
scenic representations of refined home life.
I will conclude this chapter with two quotations. The first is part of
Sir Digby Wyatt's advice in a Cambridge Lecture. "You can never hope
(he says) to have the means of supplying yourself with what is
beautiful unless you take pains to add to the production of that
beauty. The colour which the decorative painter" (and the embroiderer
also) "may cast around you is neither more nor less than an atmosphere
in which your eye will be either strengthened or debilitated. If you
accustom your eye only or mainly to contemplate what is satisfactory
in colour and form to the highest tastes, it will gradually become
allured to such delicacy of organization as to reject unintentionally
all that is repugnant to perfect taste."
Mr. Morris, in a lecture to the "Birmingham Society of Arts and School
of Design," says of ugly furnishings: "Herein the rich people have
defrauded themselves as well as the poor. You will see a refined and
highly educated man nowadays, who has been to Italy and Egypt and
where not, who can talk learnedly enough (and fantastically enough
sometimes) about art and literature of past days, sitting down without
signs of discomfort in a house that, with all its surroundings, is
just brutally vulgar and hideous. All his education has done for him
no more than that."
"You cannot civilize man unless you give him a share in art." But the
man must be civilized by education to accept that share of art that
his life offers to him. It must be admitted that though a man may be
educated enough to enable him to theorize, he may yet be too poor to
furnish with taste. If he is able to act up to his theories, and to
surround himself with what is refined, and fail to do so, and is
contented not to stir in this matter, he is not truly educated.
"Now that which breeds art is art. Any piece of work that is well done
is so much help to the cause." "The cause is the Democracy of Art, the
ennobling of daily and common work."
FOOTNOTES:
[461] Odyssey, xxiii., l. 190.
[462] Layard's "Monuments," 1st series, pl. 77; see
"Histoire de l'Art," ii., Perrot and Chipiez.
[463] A bed may be absolutely without any hangings or
tester, and yet carry embroidery, as in the curious
funeral couch of a sepulchral monument in painted
terra-cotta in the Campana Museum of the Louvre. Here
the mattress is worked to resemble ticking, striped, and
the cushions have embroidered ends; and are made in the
form of bolsters. There is a similar sepulchral monument
in the British Museum. Both of them were found at
Cervetri, and are quaint examples of early Etruscan art.
See Dennis' "Etruria," 2nd ed., p. 227.
[464] The thread embroideries in counted stitches were
worked in an endless variety of beautiful designs, of
which the collection in Franz and Frida Lipperheide's
"Musterbücher für Weibliche Handarbeit" is most
interesting and exhaustive; including Italian and German
"Lienenstickerei," Berlin, 1883.
[465] Of the seventeenth century.
[466] The carpets used by the Romans were called
Triclinaria Babylonica, for the use of the triclinium,
and Polymata cubicularia, for the cubiculum. These were
dyed crimson, scarlet, and purple. See Horace's Satires,
ii. 6; also Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities," s.v. Tapes., p. 102-106, Triclinium.
[467] "Marco Polo," p. 92, ed. Yule, speaking of the
ladies of Caramania in the thirteenth century, says they
produced exquisite needlework on silk stuffs of divers
colours, with figures of birds, beasts, trees, and
flowers. They worked hangings for the noblemen's use, as
well as cushions, pillows, quilts, and all sorts of
things.
[468] Lampridius ("Antonin. Heliogab." cap. xxvi. see
Bock, p. 129) says, in the life of Heliogabalus, that
table-covers were embroidered for the emperor,
representing the dishes which were to be placed upon
them at the festal table of this epicure.
[469] See the screen on the Assyrian bas-relief in the
British Museum, placed round the back of the throne on
which the king is seated. This is apparently a frame on
which hangings are fixed.
[470] See inventory Of Henry VIII.'s goods, &c., I. Ed.
VI. (Bib.) Harl. 1419, quoted by Felix Summerley in his
"Handbook of Hampton Court."
[471] I would add, "except that which is consecrated by
time or sentiment."
CHAPTER IX.
DRESS.
"Whatever clothing she displays,
From Tyre or Cos, that clothing praise;
If gold show forth the artist's skill,
Call her than gold more precious still;
Or if she choose a coarse attire,
E'en coarseness, worn by her, admire."
OVID, "Ars Amat." ii. 297, 300 (Yates, p. 180).
Having glanced at the decoration of the house, I must now proceed to
say a few words on Dress. Semper, Labarte, and Sir Digby Wyatt all
take it for granted that the Art of Dress preceded all other arts.
Every ancient record shows how early decoration of dress by needlework
began, and how far it had gone; and when we read of festal
hospitalities and marriage gifts, embroidered garments are invariably
named. Solomon in all his glory, though he praised the lily, yet shone
in splendid apparel. The Greeks refined the gold, and painted the
lily.
[Illustration: Pl. 50.
Italian Knight dressed for conquest, by Gentile da Fabriano.
Academia at Florence.]
As soon as dress became an art, and not merely an acknowledged
necessity for warmth and decency, I see no reason to deny that the
same decorative genius that embroidered the garment might at the same
time have imagined the carving of the chair and the inlaying of the
sword and bow; but as regards the precedence of the arts, we can only
guess at what is probable. Beauty in dress is certainly a universal
instinctive passion. Perhaps the birds (which Mr. Darwin and others
credit with preening their plumage, conscious that their spots are
the brightest, and their feathers the glossiest, and that they are
therefore adored by the hens, and the envy of the shabbier cocks)
suggested to men the same method for securing the preference of the
other sex, who in return willingly helped to adorn the idols of their
hearts and homes. (Plate 50.) This natural state of things still
prevails in Central Africa, where Schweinfürth describes a king
dancing before his 100 wives costumed in the tails of lions and
peacocks, and crowned with the proboscis of an elephant. It appears,
however, that, unlike Cleopatra, "custom had staled his infinite
variety," and the 100 ladies looked on the splendid display with blank
indifference.
This is only a barbarous illustration of the fact that in the earliest
civilizations magnificent garments were worn by men to dazzle and awe
the beholders by the splendour which represented wealth and conquest.
How glorious a man could appear apparelled to represent majesty and
dominion, may be learned by studying Canon Rock's book on the
coronation dresses of the Emperors of Germany--a book great in every
sense of the word. The portrait of Charles V. robed and crowned is a
dazzling example of the arts of dress, embroidery, and jeweller's
work. These garments have for ages been treasured at Vienna,
Aix-la-Chapelle, and in the Vatican at Rome.
The coronation garments of the Emperors of Russia are said to be
gorgeously beautiful.
It seems hardly necessary to assert that embroidery has always been
especially applicable to dress. Each garment, being individualized by
the design depicted on it, was fitted for individual uses and
occasions. The conqueror's palmated mantle, the coronation robe, the
bridal garment, the costume of the peasant for festival days, and the
officiating vestments of the priests for special services of prayer
and praise--these were loyally or piously worked; they descended from
generation to generation as family treasures or as historical
memorials, and sometimes as holy relics,[472] till they and the call
for them, were swept away at once by social changes; yet some still
remain and hold their place. Priestly garments, together with Church
decorations, never laid aside in the Roman and Greek Churches, are
being partially revived in our own; and for secular adornment the
embroiderer is often called upon to work a garland, to enwreathe the
form of a pretty woman, to lie on her shoulders and encircle her
waist.
The greatest loss to the art is that men as a rule have ceased to
individualize themselves, or their position or office by dress,[473]
and have left entirely to the women the pleasure and duty of making
themselves as lovely and conspicuous as their circumstances will
permit. The same linen and broadcloth are cut in the same shapes, of
which the only merit is that they are said to be comfortable, and
whose highest aim is to be spotless and unwrinkled; these show the
altered conditions of the highly civilized man, and woman too, for he
has long left behind him the idea of dazzling the female eye or heart
by the attraction of colour. This applies only to European costume at
home or in the colonies. The East still retains its pleasure in
gorgeous combinations, in which man enfolds his person, and shows how
beautiful he can make himself when thus clothed, in accordance with
the classical axioms, as to how much of the human form should be
revealed, and how much concealed.
The principle on which the ancients embroidered their garments was
like that of the Indians, the large surfaces plain, or covered with
quiet diapers or spots, the rich ornaments being reserved for the
borders, the girdles and the scarves. Their garments hung loose from
the shoulders or girdle; whether long or short they clung to the
figure or fluttered in the wind. The long flowing robes to the feet
veiled the form completely, and were only thrown off for the battle or
the chase, or in the struggles for victory in the races and games.
Dress, in the supreme reign of beauty, was intended to flow around, or
to conceal, but never to _disguise_, the human frame it enclosed.
Homer thus describes Juno's toilet before calling on Jupiter:--
"Around her next a heavenly mantle flow'd,
That rich with Pallas' labour'd colours glow'd;
Large clasps of gold the foldings gather'd round;
A golden zone her swelling bosom bound."
Iliad, xiv. v. 207.
The Greeks certainly wore delicate and tasteful embroidery on their
garments, frequently finished with splendid borders, while the large
space between was dotted with stars or some simple pattern. We learn
this from the paintings on Greek fictile vases. In the British Museum
there is a little bronze statuette of Minerva (with twinkling diamond
eyes). She has a broad band of embroidered silver foliage from her
throat to her feet.
As the beauty of Greek forms acted and reacted on the beauty of their
"Art of Dress," so we may be certain that all deformity of dress has
been produced by deformity of race in mind or body, and that climate
is an important factor in both. The cold of the farthest north has
produced people short, fat, and hairy; which natural gifts have been
supplemented by their warm clothes or coverings, in the same way that
a "cosy" covers a teapot. Flowing garments there would be utterly out
of place, petticoats are unknown, and the Lapp hangs out nothing that
can be the vehicle for carrying an icicle. Their dresses, or cases,
are planned to keep out the cold, and to place another atmosphere
between the heart of the breathing mass, and the cruel, cutting, outer
wind. Hence, the materials used are not only woven hair, but the furry
skins themselves. In the south, under the sunshine, dress is for the
greater part of the year only needed for decency and beauty. The
flowing and delicate cottons and silks and fine woollens, are shaped
to cover and adorn the beautiful forms, which for entire isolation
take refuge in the never-failing mantle. The mantle was the great
opportunity for the embroiderer's craft. Alkisthenes, the Sybarite,
had a garment of such magnificence that when it was exhibited in the
Temple of Juno at Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it
attracted such universal admiration that it was sold to the
Carthaginians by Dionysius the Elder for 120 talents. The ground was
purple, wrought all over with animals, except the centre, where were
seen Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Minerva, Venus, and Themis. On one border
was the figure of Alkisthenes himself, on the other was depicted the
emblematic figure of his native city, Sybaris. The size of the
garment was Homeric--it was fifteen cubits, or twenty-two feet in
breadth.[474]
That the ladies of Greece in the fourth century carried down the
historical and Homeric traditions of the embroidery frame, and made it
part of their daily lives, while the Persian women of rank left such
work to their slaves, is evident from the pretty legend told of
Alexander the Great, who desiring to beguile the weariness of his
prisoners, the wife and family of Darius, sent them some of his
garments to embroider. When it was reported to him that these
princesses were much mortified, believing it was a suggestion of their
fallen fortunes, Alexander hastened to reassure them--saying that his
own mother and sisters occupied themselves in embroidering dresses.
The Persians and Babylonians seem to have preferred subjects for their
embroidered dresses somewhat in the style of the mantle of
Alkisthenes, which was probably Oriental, and suggests the Babylonian
mantle in Jericho, "which tempted Achan to sin." The Egyptian frescoes
on the other hand, sometimes give us women and goddesses dressed in
small flowery patterns that remind one of Indian chintzes. These were
probably woven, painted, and embroidered, and filled in with threads
of gold. The Romans varied their fashions, but they preferred for a
time striped borders on their garments,[475] and called them
"molores," "dilores," "trilores," up to seven. The Greeks but seldom
departed from the rule of plain or quietly patterned surfaces with
rich borders in their delineations of dress, though there are examples
of large designs covering the whole garment.
The embroidered dresses of early Christian times are to be judged of
by mosaics and frescoes--mostly Italian. Those of the dark ages were
till lately only names and guesses. But a hiatus in our knowledge has
been filled up lately by the store of entombed textiles discovered in
the Fayoum in Egypt, and now at Vienna, in Herr Graf'schen's
Collection. Here we have a variety of shapes, designs, and stitches,
and every kind of subject, sacred and profane, Christian and Pagan,
and the missing links between Indian and Byzantine fabrics are
revealed. They cover nearly 400 years, from the third to the seventh
century, and many of them may be looked upon as apart from any
ecclesiastical or even Christian suggestions. I have spoken of them in
the chapter on Woollen Materials.[476]
After the seventh century, we again come into the dawning light of
history--and find here and there an illustrative fragment, nearly
always ecclesiastical, taken from the graves of priests and monarchs.
Charlemagne's mantle and robe embroidered with elephants and with
bees, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle--his dalmatic in the Vatican--the
Durham embroideries, are rare and precious examples of that early
period.
Semper describes the difference between "the covering" and the
"binding." This seems to be little considered in modern costume, but
it is so essential that I would impress it on my readers. He says that
"the covering seeks to isolate, to enclose, to shelter, to spread
around, over a certain space, and is a collective unit," whereas
binding implies ligature, and represents a "united plurality,"--for
example, a bundle of sticks, the _fasces_ of the lictors, &c. "Binding
is linear, in dress it is either horizontal or spiral." What can the
united plurality be that justifies the binding often bestowed on the
figure in fashionable costumes? more fitted for binding together the
bones of the dead, than for permitting the agility of the muscles of
the living. Semper continues,--"Anything that goes against this
important axiom is wrong."[477]
I think we must all agree that the objects of dress are decency,
isolation, warmth, grace, and beauty. As long as fashion takes the
place of taste, and extravagant _chic_ supersedes grace and beauty, we
must not hope that fine designs to individualize dress will be called
for. The French machine-made embroideries are so beautiful, and
comparatively cheap, that we cannot compete with them. The best
artists design them, and the only fault to be found is this, that as
they are made by thousands of yards, and can only be varied by
interchange of colours, they become common the day they are produced.
It has been said that "fashion is made for a class, but taste for
mankind."[478] Fashion is the enemy of taste, though she makes use of
her services. The gown, of which the fashion is in every sense
imported from France, will probably never again be the vehicle for
home embroideries. But there are other articles of personal adornment
which will always be available for the fancies of decorative
taste--the fan, the purse or satchel, the apron, the fichu, the point
of the shoe, and the muff--all these are objects on which thought and
ingenuity may well be expended, and which will remain as records of
personal feeling when the workers and givers of such graceful
mementoes are far away. Carriage-rugs and foot-muffs, and embroidered
letter-cases, and book-covers, must be placed somewhere between
furniture and personal ornament. In all these the "_imprévu_," or
"unexpected," is what is valuable, including all that is original and
quaint.
Embroidery will, however, probably continue occasionally to be
employed in the adornment of dress--and will leave of each phase and
period of art some fine examples on which the archæologist of the
future may pause and reason.
There are in most old houses some specimens of old secular work--few
earlier than the date of Henry VIII. Gothic dress is very rare, except
the ecclesiastical. But from the fifteenth century till now, there
remains enough to exercise our curiosity, our artistic tastes, and our
power of selection and comparison; and hints for beauty and grace may
often be found and adapted to the style of our own day.
Planché's "Dictionary of Dress," and Ferrario's "Costumi antichi e
moderni di tutti i Popoli," are great works on dress and costume, and
both are splendidly illustrated and worthy of study.
FOOTNOTES:
[472] Elsewhere I have spoken of dress being continually
offered to the images of the pagan gods in the temples.
Herodotus (ii. p. 159) tells us that Pharaoh Necho
offered to the Apollo of Branchidæ the dress he happened
to have worn at both his great successes (the victory of
Magdalus and the taking of Cadytis). In the procession
of Ptolemy Philadelphus the colossal statue of Bacchus
and his nurse Nysa were draped, the former in a shawl,
the latter in a tunic variegated with gold. See Yates,
"Textrinum Antiquorum," p. 369. Old clothes were sent as
votive offerings to temples, and inscriptions recording
lists of such decorations are still extant. See Appendix
1. The Greeks honoured the menders and darners, and
called them "healers of clothes." Blümner, p. 202.
[473] Men in former days preferred to show by their
dress their station and the company they belonged to.
Guilds had their ceremonial dresses, and their
"liveries," and their cognizances, and considered it an
honour to wear them. See Rock, "Church of our Fathers,"
ii. p. 115.
[474] Aristotle, De Mirab. Auscult., xcvi.
[475] Asterius, Bishop of Amasis, in the fourth century,
describes both hangings and dress embroidered with
lions, panthers, huntsmen, woods, and rocks; while the
Church adopted pictorial representations of Christian
subjects. Sidonius alludes to furniture of like
character. See Yule, "Marco Polo," p. 68.
[476] "Katalog der Theodor Graf'schen Fünde in Ægypten,"
von Dr. J. Karabacek, Wien, 1883.
[477] Semper, "Der Stil," p. 28.
[478] Unfortunately this axiom may be reversed. Taste
only belongs to a small class, and mankind follows it,
whether good or bad, if it only be the fashion.
CHAPTER X.
ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERY.
"And now as I turn these volumes over,
And see what lies between cover and cover,
What treasures of art these pages hold,
All ablaze with crimson and gold....
Yes, I might almost say to the Lord,
Here is a copy of Thy Word
Written out with much toil and pain;
Take it, O Lord, and let it be
As something I have done for Thee!
How sweet the air is! how fair the scene!
I wish I had as lovely a green
To paint my landscapes and my leaves!
How the swallows twitter under the eaves!
There, now, there is one in her nest;
I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast,
And will sketch her thus, in her quiet nook,
For the margin of my Gospel-book."
LONGFELLOW, "The Golden Legend" ("The
Scriptorium"), p. 176.
"Upon Thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of
gold, wrought about with divers colours.... The king's
daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of
wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in
raiment of needlework."--Psalm xlv. 10, 14, 15.
If the Bride is the type of the Church, how truly has she been, for
eighteen centuries, throughout Christendom, adorned with gold, and
arrayed in raiment of needlework.
By ecclesiastical embroideries, we mean, of course, Christian work for
Christian churches. The first pictured decorations of our era, in
early frescoes, mosaics, and illuminated MSS., and the first specimens
that have come down to us of needlework and textiles, testify by their
_naïveté_ to their date.[479]
The prosperity of the Church's hierarchy was founded on the ruins of
the Empire, over which Attila had boasted that where his horse trod no
grass grew; and truly the cultivated art of those splendid days had
lapsed at once to a poverty of design and barrenness of ideas which
would soon have dwindled into mere primitive forms, had not a fresh
Oriental impulse arrived from Syria, Egypt, and Byzantium,--and then
the arts were born anew.[480] The continuity was broken; yet, being
devoted to the service of the Church, the new arts were by it moulded
and fostered. Little lamps twinkled here and there in monastic houses.
Hangings for the churches, coverings for the altars, robes for the
priests, occupied the artist and the embroiderer.
The forms, the colours, the uses, were adapting themselves to become
the symbols of orthodoxies and heresies, and thus became a part of the
history of the Church. The links are many between them and the history
of the State; and here ecclesiastical embroideries come in as
landmarks.
Royal and princely garments, which had served for state occasions,
were constantly dedicated as votive offerings, and converted into
vestments for the officiating priest, and so were recorded and
preserved.[481]
Royal and noble ladies employed their leisure hours in work for the
adornment of the Minster or the home church or chapel. Gifts of the
best were exchanged between convents, or forwarded to the holy father
at Rome, and were often enriched with jewels. The images of the Virgin
and saints received from wealthy penitents many costly garments,[482]
besides money and lands.
This dedicatory needlework has preserved to us the records of
classical, Byzantine, and Arab-Gothic design, which otherwise must
have been lost.
The Church records and illuminated MSS. give us most trustworthy
information of the way in which the altars, the priests, and even the
kings were arrayed; and the catalogues of royal wardrobes are also
very instructive, as we find how often princely gauds became, as gifts
to the Church, commemorative of historical events, such as a victory
or an accession, a marriage or a coronation.
Woltmann and Woermann say that the efforts of the Christians in the
time of Constantine tended to delay the extinction of classical design
in Rome. Of the fourth century they give as examples the mosaics of
"S^ta. Pudenziana," where we can still find antique beauty of
design. We may also mention the church of "St. Agnese fuori le mura,"
which once contained the sarcophagi of Constantine and his mother
Helena, and of which the decorations in the ceilings are entirely
classical, though the motives had been transferred to Christian
symbolism.[483]
The total disappearance of Greek art did not occur till the eighth
century, when the new blood infused from foreign sources began to
assert itself.[484]
Rome had succeeded to Greece as being the centre of Christian art,
which assumed the phase commonly called the Romanesque. This was a
conglomerate of Oriental, Byzantine, and Græco-Roman, varied in
different countries. Then there were the Scandinavian, and Runic, and
Celtic styles drifting from the North; the Lombardic, of Central
Italy; the Ostro-Gothic, of Ravenna; the Byzantine, of Venice, all
acting and reacting upon each other.
All these rough and inchoate attempts at the beautiful, prepared the
world for the acceptance of the Arabic influence, which is said to
have been imported at the end of the eleventh century by the
Crusaders, to whose pious enterprise some attribute the whole of the
splendid Gothic art of the three succeeding centuries. But the marking
characteristic of the Arabic arch is wanting; the ogee shape is seldom
to be found in Christian architecture;[485] and the pointed arch so
naturally results from the intersection of the round arches, that we
cannot but look upon these causes as co-incident.
I have elsewhere remarked how often in art different causes co-operate
to form a style. The father and mother are of different nationalities,
and the result shows the characteristics of its double parentage. The
learned antiquaries, who draw their arguments mainly from the form of
the arch, must settle whence and how Gothic art in stone came into
Europe. It was doubtless the effect or result of more than one cause.
But in as far as it influenced textile art, we have come to the period
when it must be studied in Sicily, the half-way house and
resting-place of the Crusaders on their highroad to the Holy Land.
Sicily, which had succeeded to Constantinople as being the great
manufacturing mart during the Middle Ages, was, in the hands of the
Moors, the origin and source of all European Gothic textile art. Yet
even at Palermo and Messina they were controlled by the traditions of
the schools of Greece, ancient and modern, and by Babylonian, Indian,
and African forms and symbolisms.
Byzantium furnished many of their designs, which were sometimes of
very remote date, though pressed into the service of the new style and
the Church.
These and all the streams of ecclesiastical decoration throughout
Europe flowed towards Rome, and were re-issued with the fiat and seal
of the Central Church, which also afterwards presided over the art of
the Renaissance.[486]
By studying what remains to us of fragments and records we know all
the materials which clothed the primitive and mediæval Church, and we
find that there was but little originality in textile decoration or in
the forms of dress, which either resembled those of the priests in the
Jewish synagogue or those of the heathen temples; and were adapted
from traditional patterns.
The constant repetition of the cross and the signs of the Passion,
with the emblems of saints and martyrs, were interwoven with the
ancient classical forms, mixed up with the old symbolisms partially
altered to suit their new service of Christian art. Of course such
changes were inevitable, while the old motives were being translated
to the new uses.
The corselet of Amasis (the Egyptian corselet, p. 20, _ante_) closely
resembles the Jewish ephod, which probably was borrowed from
Egypt.[487]
In Rock's "Church of Our Fathers," vol. i. p. 409, we find mention of
the consular trabea, profusely worked in gold, as being the origin of
the cope.
[Illustration: Pl. 51.
St. Mark. Anglo-Saxon Book of the Four Gospels in the Cathedral
Library at York.]
It has been suggested and disputed that the stole was an adaptation of
the latus clavus; indeed, if we compare the examples given by
Bock[488] we can hardly doubt that the consular trabea and the latus
clavus either served as the models for the Christian Bishop's dress,
or were derived from the same traditional sources. Such is the
intimate chain of design from century to century, from age to age;
from Egypt to the Holy Land, and thence to Rome.
Bock gives his authorities for saying that the clavus was sometimes an
applied border, sometimes a loose stripe hanging down in front, as may
be seen in two consular diptychs given in plate 70. Much has been
written on this latus clavus, its origin and meaning, and I shall
return to it in reference to the chrysoclavus pattern, p. 337, _post_,
and I refer the reader, who may wish to enter more fully into the
questions raised by conflicting opinions regarding the clavus, to
Marquardt's "Handbuch Röm. Alterthümer," vii. p. 2, pp. 528-533, where
great learning and ingenuity have been expended, without arriving at
any satisfactory conclusions.[489]
This keeping to the old lines and outward appearance as much as
possible was mainly due to a regard for safety during the
persecutions, and also to the Christian spirit of adoption and
conversion, rather than that of antagonism, which influenced all their
early manifestations.
This unchanging character of art was also partly owing to the absolute
sterility of the ashes of Roman Imperialism.
It is true that through the Dark Ages individual genius occasionally
flashed and left a mark here and there; but such phenomena are so
rare, that when they occur we hesitate before we assign them to that
age.
The Anglo-Saxon art of illumination shows these inspired moments; I
would point to their drawings in the books in the Bodleian at Oxford,
and the "Book of the Four Gospels" (of the tenth century) in the
Minster Library at York, which are original and graceful, and have a
reflection from the classical traditions. To an artistic eye they are
beautiful. (Plate 51.)
The conscientious colouring of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. is liturgical. Mr.
Clapton Rolfe[490] says that the Levitical traditions in the earlier
system of decoration in the Christian Church had a far stronger hold
on the popular mind than we are willing now to admit; and that the
five Levitical colours, gold, blue, purple, red, and white, were
retained in the Christian ritual. Whenever we come across figures of
Anglo-Saxon bishops, the liturgical vesture entirely agrees with the
Biblical description.
Embroideries before the twelfth century generally preserve a
semi-Roman, semi-Oriental character, which is nearly related to the
art which is called Lombardic. This differs from what we know of
Scandinavian and Celtic design through illuminated books,[491] carving
on stone crosses throughout the north of Europe, Great Britain, and
Ireland, and the remains we possess of their metal work. I am not
aware of any ecclesiastical embroideries which show a Celtic
origin,[492] unless the intertwined patterns on Italian dresses in
paintings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be supposed
to be derived from that source. (See p. 91, _ante_.)
[Illustration: Fig. 25.]
In accounting for the instances of evident Oriental influence on
Christian art, which came through Byzantium, we must not restrict
ourselves to searching out the Arabian traditions, but we must
remember also how much Babylon and Persia, as well as India, had given
to the Empire of the East, and these influences were in full force at
the time that Christian art was being organized.
We know, for example, that the great veil of the temple at Jerusalem,
given by Herod, was Babylonian.
The materials--linen, silk, and woollen--on which ecclesiastical
embroideries were worked at Rome and Constantinople were accepted all
over the Christian world. The fabrics were plain, striped, and
figured; and came from Persia and India, Greece, Alexandria, and
Egypt. Even Chinese and Thibetian stuffs are often named. Cloths of
gold and silver also came from the East, as in the days of Attalus.
All these furnished the grounds on which needlework was lavishly
spent.
The great veils which divided the pagan and Jewish temples were at
first adopted in the Christian churches, but they gradually
disappeared from common use, in spite of occasional survivals and
revivals during the Dark Ages.
Records exist of the hangings of the ancient basilica of St. Peter at
Rome, spread between the pillars supporting the baldachino over the
high altar and those of the choir; and at the Ostro-Gothic imperial
court of Ravenna, in the fifth century, Maximianus ordered a set of
similar splendid curtains (tetravela) to be worked for the altar.
Anastasius Bibliothecarius (ninth century), in his biographies of the
popes, mentions curtains and embroidered altar-pieces worked in the
sixth and seventh centuries.[493]
Sergius (A.D. 687) ordered four white and four scarlet curtains, and
Pope John (701) hung white ones between the pillars on either side of
the altar at St. Paul's. St. Zacharias[494] gave similar hangings to
the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Stephen IV. placed immense
silver curtains at the entrance of the basilica of St. Peter's, and in
768 gave to it sixty-five curtains of figured Syrian stuffs.[495] The
same hangings prevailed at intervals in England, France, and Germany,
till the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the new Gothic style
of high, pointed arches altered the decorative customs.
[Illustration: Pl. 52.
Fragments of Silk to be seen at Coire in Switzerland, also in the
South Kensington Museum.]
From Anastasius's mode of speaking of ecclesiastical garments, it
appears that they were named in the treasury catalogues after the
animals represented on them--"the peacock garment," "the elephant
casula," "the lion cope." Evidently these were Oriental gold brocades,
Indian or Persian, or else reproductions of their designs, and from
Auberville's and Bock's books of engravings we can judge how they
repeated and varied their motives. One woven subject, which evidently
started its textile career as one of the labours of Hercules, was
gradually transferred to Samson, or to Daniel in the lions' den.
(Plate 4, Auberville's "L'Ornement des Tissus.") (Plate 52.)[496]
However, in Russia and throughout the Greek Church the ancient
Byzantine use of hangings still remains in force.
The art of embroidery has always given its best efforts to these
church draperies.
Rome was so laden with splendid embroideries by her eastern conquests,
that probably the Christian decorators would have availed themselves
of some of the accumulated stores; but we have no record of such
adaptations, unless the splendid curtains and the silver hangings of
Pope Stephen IV. were taken out of some imperial treasure-house.
The contrast between early ecclesiastical art and that which
immediately preceded it in the palaces of the Cæsars (at Rome, Tivoli,
and wherever we find their ruined glories) is most remarkable.
The lovely and the lively had been suddenly abandoned for the heavy
earnest solemnity and inartistic drawing of the frescoes of the
underground church of St. Clemente in Rome, and that of the early
Christian mosaics.
It is as if the arts which had lent, nay, given themselves to the
glorification of idols, had suddenly died out, leaving behind them
neither an artist, nor a skilled artisan, scarcely a tradition.
The new Christian ideas had to be painfully recorded on sacred
buildings and their furnishings for more than a thousand years; with
all the patient acquiescence of untaught ignorance, and the struggling
uncertainty of genius pursuing a distant glimmering light, apparently
unconscious of all that had preceded it in Egyptian and classic art.
The great political and religious revolutions in Europe had crushed
and buried the arts under the ruins of the Empire over which Time
himself seemed to have broken his hour-glass, so little was there to
show any memory of their past, or hope for their future. The alternate
progress and destruction of the arts in European civilization strike
the student, in vivid contrast with the immutability of those of the
East, especially in India and China, where the old forms were still
being maintained by the swaddling bands of codified custom[497] that
had restricted their development, but prolonged their existence, and
so they had survived, while Greece conquered and robbed the East and
Egypt, and Rome crushed Greece and was in her turn despoiled by the
Goths and Huns.[498]
Christian art had to begin at the very beginning, and collect its own
traditions, and organize its own forms. These gradually accumulated,
availing themselves of accepted symbols, and adding to them hidden
meanings. The Reformation checked this development in the north of
Europe, but after 300 years we are now witnessing its revival, which
is not merely owing to a religious impulse, but also to the
archæological tendency of our day and to the historical interest we
attach to the ceremonials of the East.
As the Reformation in Germany was less sweeping and iconoclastic than
our own, we find there many more remains of ecclesiastical art
collected in the churches to which they have always belonged, or in
museums into which they have drifted;[499] and the Germans have thus
been enabled to do more than even the French, in training the
different schools of work throughout the Continent.
They have proved the Oriental character of the fabrics employed
through the Dark and Middle Ages, i.e. for about 1400 years, whether
they were Syrian, Indo-Chinese, Indian, Alexandrian, Greek, Sicilian,
or Spanish, or whether they had come from Asia by the north or the
south of Europe. The same traditional forms governed them all. But an
adept is able generally to class and name each specimen by the
texture of the webs, by the way gold or gilt thread is inwoven in
them, whether the metal is pure or alloyed, round or flat; also by the
mode of twisting and dyeing the wool, flax, or silk, and its quality
and colouring matter.
Among the earliest historical church embroiderers the foremost figure
is that of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, claimed in
Wales and in the Welsh ballad of "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" as being
a Welsh princess married to the Emperor Constans. She is said to have
embroidered an image of the Virgin, which Muratori speaks of as
existing in the Church of Vercelli in the seventeenth century. Bock
says it is still there, and he quotes an ancient inventory of the
treasures of Phillip the Good, of Burgundy, which names a "Riche et
ancienne table d'autel de brodeure que on dit que la première
Emperriez Christienne Fist."[500] The Empress Helena died in the
fourth century.[501]
Then after a long interval comes "Berthe aux grands pieds" the mother
of Charlemagne, who in the eighth century was famed for her
needlework, which is celebrated in a poem by Adhelm in the eighth
century, quoted by Mrs. Palliser,[502] "a ouvrir si com je vous dirai
n'avoit meillior ouvriere de Tours jusqu'a Cambrai," and her
grand-daughter Gisela followed in her footsteps. Nearly contemporary,
is Aelfled's Durham embroidery,[503] described in the chapter on
English work.
Christian art before the twelfth century is very often rich, usually
picturesque, from its fulness of intention; sometimes beautiful, when
it recalls some echo from the East, or some tradition of Greek
art;[504] but the embroideries of those centuries are almost always
quaint; this is invariably the archaic phase of all early art. Born in
the catacombs of Rome--roused by impulses from the north, by education
in the south, and everywhere encouraged by the fostering hand of the
Church, and the patronage of papal and of royal and imperial
houses,--it evolved its forms, and emancipated itself at last from its
poor and sordid condition; and the Gothic phase of each nation
attained to its own peculiar growth and characteristics; and among
them the foremost in the world's estimation was the English school of
embroidery, to which the next chapter is devoted.
There has been much controversy as to the date of the dalmatic of
Charlemagne in the Vatican treasury. Like every good early piece of
Gothic work in Italy, it is allotted to the days of Pope Boniface
VIII. (thirteenth century). But when we examine this splendid relic we
cannot doubt that it is of a much earlier time, as there is nothing
Gothic to be found in it. It is full of the lingering traces of Greek
art (not Byzantine). It reminds us most of the mosaics of Santa
Pudenziana, which are always quoted to prove that Greek art still
survived in Rome in the eighth century.[505] The dalmatic has been
much restored, but, I believe, most carefully kept to the old lines.
It is worked on a thick, dark-blue, or purple, satiny silk, which had
entirely fallen into little stripes, but has been skilfully mended,
and the embroidery has never been transferred. On the front is our
Lord in glory, saints below, and angels above, with a border of
children playing, which is truly Greek. The motive of this is the "Ibi
et Ubi." On the back is the Transfiguration, and on the humerals are
the sacraments of bread and wine. The whole, as art, is beautiful; and
it is historically most interesting. Lord Lindsay tells us that in the
dalmatic of Charlemagne, (called that of Leo III.) Cola di Rienzi
robed himself over his armour, and ascended to the Palace of the Popes
after the manner of the Cæsars, with sounding trumpets before him, and
followed by his horsemen--his crown on his head and his truncheon in
his hand--"Terribile e fantastico."[506]
This dalmatic must be ranked first and highest among ecclesiastical
embroideries. (Plates 53, 54, 55.)
Some of the details are curious. The whole of the blue satin ground is
worked with crosses "parsemé." Parts of the design are so adorned with
larger and smaller Greek crosses--and others with the starry cross. On
the shoulder is once embroidered the mystic swastika.[507]
[Illustration: Charlemagne's Dalmatic
The Vatican, Rome]
[Illustration: Charlemagne's Dalmatic
The Vatican, Rome]
[Illustration: Pl. 55.
Details of Charlemagne's Dalmatic. Vatican Treasury.]
[Illustration: Pl. 56.
Cope called "of St. Silvester." Treasury of St. John Lateran, Rome.
English Embroidery, thirteenth century.]
Rock says, "Those who have seen, in the sacristy of St. Peter's at
Rome, that beautiful light-blue dalmatic said to have been worn by
Charlemagne when he sang the gospel at High Mass, at the altar vested
as a deacon, the day he was crowned Emperor in that church by Pope
Leo III., will remember how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses
between its exquisite embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real
'stauracin.'"[508]
[Illustration: Pl. 57.
Portion of the Cope at St. John Lateran, showing its condition.]
[Illustration: Pluvial, English, XIII. Century
Museum at Bologna]
[Illustration: Pl. 59.
The Daroca Cope. Museum at Madrid. Opus Anglicanum, fourteenth
century.]
[Illustration: Pl. 60.
Portion of the Cope of Boniface VIII., twelfth century. From
Anagni. Now in the Vatican Collection.]
[Illustration: Pl. 61.
Altar Frontal from Anagni, Italy.]
Signor Galletti, Professor of Embroidery to the Pope, says it is
undoubtedly of the eighth century. It has been suggested that the
design is of the date of the Exarchate. It is, however, something of
infinitely finer style; it is noble, simple Greek.
Charlemagne's dalmatic is embroidered mostly in gold--the draperies in
basket-work and laid stitches; the faces in white silk split-stitch,
flat, with finely-drawn outlines in black silk. The hair, the shadowy
part of the draperies, and the clouds are worked in fine gold and
silver thread with dark outlines. The hands, feet, and draperies have
a fine bas-relief effect. (Plate 53, 54, 55).
The "pluvial of St. Silvester," in the church of St. John Lateran at
Rome, is probably, from its Gothic style, of the time of Boniface
VIII. (thirteenth century).[509] It never served St. Silvester, except
as being perhaps dedicated to him. On seeing it, one is convinced that
it is English. It has one peculiarity of English Gothic design in the
canopies being supported by twisted pillars of vine-stems, in this
case intersected by green shoots, and carrying leaves. The angels, the
two cherubim clothed in peacocks' feathers, the fine split-stitch, the
gold grounding, and the drawing are also distinctly English.
I give an outline of the pluvial from photographs,[510] and a finished
woodcut of the centre to show the style and condition of the work. The
design is most beautiful, and we can only regret the loss of the
border, which has been entirely cut off. This shows how elaborate is
the design, yet how artistically arranged as a whole composition.
(Plate 56, 57.)
It is difficult to settle the precedence between this splendid piece
of church decoration and the rival pluvial of Bologna in the Museo
Civico, said to have come from the church of San Giacomo. It resembles
in style and execution that of St. Silvester, but its architectural
arrangement contains six circles of subjects, worked like the other in
silk and gold, with gold groundings; and both are embroidered on
linen. On careful examination of this splendid work of art, I have
come to the conclusion that it is English. (Plate 58.)
The Daroca cope (lately belonging to the Archæological Museum at
Madrid) is undoubtedly English. We can claim it by its peculiar
shrine-work, and the twined columns on the orphreys; by the cherubim,
by the peacock-feathered angels, and by the form of the panels
enclosing the different subjects, from the "Life of Our Lord." (Plate
59.)
The cope of Boniface VIII. in the Vatican came from the church of his
native place, Anagni (plate 60), where are still very curious old
embroideries (see Hon. and Rev. I. Clifford's list of embroideries in
Appendix 5). Some appear extremely ancient, but there is no sign by
which they may be dated. Some are probably of the thirteenth century,
and are very coarse Italian work, though finely designed (plate 61).
There are doubtless many interesting specimens still to be found in
the sacristies of Italian churches. But they have generally been
transferred to museums.
[Illustration: Pl. 62.
1. From Tomb in Worcester Cathedral, of Bishop Walter de Cantilupe,
consecrated 1236.
2. Embroidered Cope at Aix in Switzerland.]
[Illustration: Pl. 63.
Mitre of Thomas à Becket at Sens, showing the Scandinavian Fylfot
Cross (thirteenth century).
Jewelled Cross on Rose-coloured Cope at Rheims (twelfth century).]
In the tomb of Walter de Cantilupe (eighteenth century) at Worcester,
were found the remains of a dress which is decidedly of an earlier
date--evidently of Oriental material, but Anglo-Saxon work--so exactly
resembling in style that at Aix given by Bock,[511] that we
can hardly doubt that they proceeded from the same workshop, or at
least are of coeval design. Both are worked with a dark red outline on
a red silk ground. The faces and hands are in white silk--all the rest
between the outlines is gold thread, flat stitch. Bock places its date
as antecedent to the tenth century, and indeed there is no reason to
doubt that this is correct, though the Worcester fragment was taken
out of a tomb of two centuries later. As these garments were stored in
the church treasuries; and as antiquity (without an historical
interest) was then of no value, these old clothes, holy by their use
and office, yet by their shabbiness unfit for public show, may have
been reverently disposed of in clothing the bodies of departed
priests, who probably had worn those very vestments, when officiating
at the altar near which they were laid to rest. When the date of the
wearer of the garment is ascertained, the dress cannot be of a later
period, but it may have belonged to a much earlier one. The
architectural part of these two embroideries, i.e. the canopy work,
resembles that of the Bayeux tapestry. Both appear to be English.
(Plate 62.)
[Illustration: Pl. 64.
From Tomb of Bishop William of Blois, died 1236. Worcester
Cathedral Library.]
[Illustration: Pl. 65.
A portion of the Mantle embroidered by Gisela for her husband, St.
Stephen of Hungary. From Bock's "Kleinodien."]
In the eleventh century, and for some part of the twelfth, needlework
design in England, France, and Germany first assumed a phase, which
may be called the metal-work style. It is to be found on the robes and
mitres of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas à Becket) at Sens[512]--on
the famous rose-red cope of satin embroidered with gold and pearls at
Rheims (which we should incline to believe is English)[513] (plate
63). The fragment of the cope of William of Blois, found in his tomb,
is in this style. (He died in 1236.) The fragments of this curious
garment, worked in gold on a purple silk material, evidently Oriental,
are also preserved under glass in the Cathedral Library at Worcester
(plate 64).
Amongst the finest instances of ecclesiastical needlework, and,
indeed, we may say, of ecclesiastical art of the twelfth century, is
the coronation robe of St. Stephen of Hungary, decorated by his queen,
Gisela,[514] which is preserved in the Imperial Treasury at Ofen
(plate 65).
Of this authentic historical work we have the whole story. The
original design,[515] drawn on linen, carefully coloured, is to be
seen at the Benedictine convent abbey of Martinsburg, near Raab in
Hungary. The care with which the work was carried out shows the value
then placed on such undertakings considered as art, and it has been
justified by its survival of 800 years; time having spared it owing to
its perfect materials and manipulation, till it received cruel
injuries by being carried off and thrown into the bog of Orsava during
the revolution under Kossuth. It was, however, recovered and restored,
and was worn by the present emperor at the splendid and picturesque
ceremonial of his coronation at Pesth. The design reminds us of the
mosaics in the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore and other churches at
Rome, and it is extremely beautiful. It consists of an arrangement of
medallions and inscriptions, with "metal-work" ornaments in bands
alternated with smaller medallions. Yet the figures are not so finely
drawn as those of the Durham relics of the beginning of the tenth
century. The drawing of the figures of the Gisela mantle resembles
those on the garments of Walter de Cantilupe (plate 62), which, from
their design and stitches, seem to be of this period. The
architectural parts are very like in design to those of the Bayeux
tapestry, though they are infinitely better, and they have Lombardic
characteristics.
[Illustration: Pl. 66.
Portion of the Coronation Mantle of Henry II. of Germany,
embroidered by the Empress Kunigunda. From Bock's
"Kleinodien."]
It appears that Queen Gisela had personally embroidered this
many-figured, richly-embroidered representation of the "Ibi et
Ubi"--The Saviour in His glory as Victor over death and hell, seated
on the bow of heaven, surrounded by choirs of angels and saints, and
prophets of the Old Testament; below on thrones, are the twelve
Apostles. The figures are worked in Oriental gold thread on Byzantine
crimson silk.
In contrast to the Ubi, the heavenly hereafter, the queen, in the
lowest broad hem (border) has represented the Present, the then "Ibi,"
by the leaders of the Hungarian magnates and the half-figures of the
royal givers in large gold-embroidered medallions.
The next finest specimen of eleventh century needlework was the gift
of Henry II., Emperor of Germany, and his wife Kunigunda, to the
cathedral of Bamberg, where it still exists[516] (plate 66).
This, again, consists of medallions great and small, of which the
borders, gracefully intertwined, form a large composition[517]
covering the whole surface of the imperial pallium it once adorned.
But in the fifteenth century it was transferred from its original
purple silk ground to one of dark-blue damask, and altered to the form
of a chasuble, as we see it now. The general design resembles that of
the mantle of Gisela.
Bock calls the style of these works Romanesque; and he thinks that
they show a Saracenic influence. They appear, however, as I said
before, to be rather Lombardic than anything else. The reader is
referred to Dr. Bock's preface for further lists of Continental works
and workers.
Abbé Martin considers that in the thirteenth century the opening out
of Gothic art was extended to the laity, and was really the sign of a
great social revolution. Gothic art had till then only served the
Church, and had been by circumstances closed to the people, who were
yet unfitted, by their want of education, for artistic life.[518]
Art was till then almost exclusively produced by the monastic orders,
into which all talent had drifted. But about this time it fell into
the hands of architects and other originators of design, who presently
banded themselves together into brotherhoods and guilds.[519]
Embroidery till the thirteenth century had been entirely in the hands
of cloistered women, and the ladies who practised it learned their
craft with the rest of their education in convents, and their work was
simply ecclesiastical and dedicatory. At that period social burgher
life in the towns had first begun to develope its love of luxury,[520]
and to follow the fashions of other countries, and the changes of
forms in dress and furnishing which came from foreign parts, though
frequently checked by sumptuary laws. This social movement preceded
everywhere political and religious revolutions. Embroidery then became
customary in lay dress, and lost its religious character, or rather
its religious monopoly.
[Illustration: Pl. 67.
The Syon Cope, South Kensington Museum (thirteenth century).]
We find that about this time throughout the Church the forms of
ecclesiastical garments were considerably modified, and made more
comfortable for the officiating priest; and the old traditional trabea
was cut down to the mediæval chasuble.
English needlework of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had its own
peculiar style of metal-work pattern, resembling the hinges and
spreading central ornament branching across the wood-work on our
church doors.[521]
When we meet with this kind of design on foreign church vestments, we
feel inclined always to claim the merit of them for the English
school. The foreign metal-work patterns are much lighter and more
geometrical, and have not the firmness and at the same time the fancy
that we find in our own of the twelfth century; and they remind us
rather of the goldsmiths' than of the blacksmiths' craft. The English
embroidery of this style has the character of "appliqué," i.e. one
material laid upon another and fastened down.
There are differences of opinion as to the accepted characteristics of
the "opus Anglicanum," which in the twelfth century began to be
celebrated.[522] Some say that it was principally remarkable for its
admixture of jewellers' work in the borders, or the imitation of it in
gold thread. Some give the attempt to reproduce the effect of
bas-reliefs in the embroidered groups of figures; others, again, point
out the peculiarities of the "laid stitches" in gold, which so
permeated the linen grounding, as to give the look of a material woven
with gold thread. We may fairly say that _all_ these, which were then
ingenious novelties, combined to give this opus Anglicanum its value,
as well for its beauty as for its ingenuity.[523]
The Syon cope, (now one of the treasures of art in the Kensington
Museum), is a perfect example of this work; and is also, according to
Bock, "one of the most beautiful among the liturgical vestments of the
olden period anywhere to be found in Christendom." Dr. Rock's study of
this piece of thirteenth century work in his "Catalogue of the
Embroideries in the South Kensington Museum" is most interesting, as
exemplifying all the characteristics of the Gothic art of the period,
in its historical, æsthetic, heraldic, liturgical, emblematical, and
textile aspects. I have ventured to transcribe the whole of this
notice in the Appendix.[524] I will only add here that the one error
into which I think he has fallen, is in naming the stitches. The
"diapers" are not opus plumarium, but opus pulvinarium, of the class
of "laid stitches." This was ascertained by examining the back of the
material under the ancient lining by a most competent judge[525] in my
presence, and so a long-disputed point is set at rest (plate 67).
Ciampini says that in the twelfth century, the arts went hand in hand,
each lending something to the design of the others. This, however,
has always been the case.[526] (Whether they greatly profited by such
exchanges is another question.) I cannot but agree with Semper's
often-reiterated theory, that textile art was a leading influence and
constant suggestion to _all_ art from the beginning. And the way that
ecclesiastical decoration was so led in the twelfth century is very
apparent. In the new art of stained mosaic glass in church windows we
see the reflex of the flat illuminations and embroideries of that
period; and while these were being influenced by metal-work, painting
was being transferred again to textile art, pictures being woven as
well as embroidered,[527] while textiles were seeking to emulate
reliefs in a forced and unnatural manner, more ingenious than
artistic.
While England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was exciting the
admiration of all European artists by the imitation of bas-reliefs in
needlework, by the arrangement of the light and shadows in the "lay"
of the stitches, and by a little help from the pressure of hot irons,
to accentuate its apparent indentations, a similar inroad into the
sister art of sculpture, or, perhaps, we should say a similar
adaptation from the sister art, was going on in Switzerland and
Germany, especially in Bavaria.
There was a clever and artistic mode of stuffing and raising of the
important parts of the embroidered design, such as the figures, the
coats-of-arms, or the emblems of the Passion, &c., in sacred subjects
in imitation of high-relief. There are some beautiful specimens that
have been evidently designed in the School of Cranach. I will only
mention the orphrey, of which the subject is the "Tree of Jesse,"
exhibited at Zurich, 1883, the chasuble at Coire in the Grisons, and
the little triptych in the museum of the Wasser-Kirche in Zurich. This
last is exquisitely pretty. The finest, however, is the altar-piece
belonging to Prince Borghese at Rome, which is certainly German in its
design.[528]
Beautiful as these few examples are, they yet show the mistake of
mixing different forms of art. The designs are reduced to a compromise
between painting, sculpture, and needlework, which excites interest
and perhaps amusement rather than admiration.
Glass painting, of which we have no notice till the tenth century,
shares many of the rules which hitherto had applied only to
embroideries. It was intended to give colour and interest to those
parts of a building which otherwise were cold and lifeless. _Flatness_
in the composition, and the avoidance of pictorial effects (especially
any perspectives) show that it was intended for conventional
decoration, rather than as a rival to mural painting. There is no
doubt that it generally superseded textile hangings, because it
supplied the want of colour for the large traceried windows just
coming into architectural design, toning down the crudeness of the
masses of light, and tinting the walls and pavements on which it was
cast.
When coloured glass came into general use, embroidered hangings mostly
disappeared. Whatever may have been the cause, there is no doubt of
the coincidence.
[Illustration: Pl. 68.
An embroidered Panel, designed by Pollaiolo, and worked by Paulo
da Verona. In the Church of St. Giovanni at Florence (fifteenth
century).]
The applied embroideries of the north of Germany were evidently
inspired by the newly-discovered art of glass-painting, and
resemble its designs, both in the compositions of figures and heraldic
subjects. Of this we may remember examples in the Scandinavian
Exhibition at South Kensington in 1881.[529]
All the most beautiful and picturesque needlework that we possess of
the true ecclesiastical Gothic type, and which belongs to the perfect
flowering of the art, is of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
just before the spirit of the Renaissance crept northward over Europe,
preceding the Reformation and its iconoclastic effacements. This
remark especially applies to England.[530] The art of representing
Scriptural subjects in flat stitches, as medallions accompanied by
beautiful foliage, and heraldic designs, is illustrated to us by the
palls belonging to several London companies--and by those belonging to
churches, especially that of the church at Dunstable, in which court
ladies, knights, and saints form a most artistic border--the costumes
being of the date of Henry VII. (see p. 378, _post_).
The perfection of the embroideries of Flanders of that period has
never been exceeded, and it continues still to produce the most
splendidly executed compositions in gold and silken needlework, of
every variety of stitches. The Flemish work and its peculiar mode of
laying golden grounds with flat-laid thread stitched down in patterns
was carried into Italy, where great artists did not disdain to design
for textiles. I give, as an instance, Vasari's account of the
embroidered set of vestments designed by Antonio Pollaiolo for the
church of San Giovanni at Florence. These were carried out by Paolo da
Verona, and took twenty-six years for their completion; and they were
only one set of vestments, "embroidered by the most subtle master of
the art, Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent in his calling, and of
incomparable ingenuity (_ingenio_). The figures are no less admirably
executed with the needle than drawn by Pollaiolo with the pencil,--and
thus we are largely indebted to one master for his design, and to the
other for his patience" (plate 68).
Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Gothic styles were
replaced by the Renaissance, but the technical part of the art of
embroidery for the churches lost none of its value. All the talent of
the artist and the ingenuity of the craft continued to be lavished on
altar decoration and priestly garments, in Flanders, Spain, France,
and Italy. But the solemnity of these works was certainly impaired by
their being emancipated from the traditional ecclesiastical forms and
their accompanying symbolism, to which the old designers had so
faithfully adhered. Ecclesiastical decorative art became, so to speak,
unorthodox.
As a proof of this secular, I might almost say irreverent spirit, I
quote Bock's accusation against Queen Mary of Hungary, who in her
embroideries, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, is said to have
represented herself as the Queen of Heaven, surrounded by her adorers
on their knees.
There is no doubt, however, that needlework aspired in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries to the highest place in art, and was
enthusiastically cultivated by women of rank and position, of artistic
taste, who still gave themselves to the productions of beautiful
decorations, though they no longer confined themselves to
ecclesiastical motives.
[Illustration: Spanish Altar Frontal, Gold Embroidery
XVII. Cen^y]
Gabrielle of Bourbon and Isabella, sister of Louis XI., spent their
lives in preparing and overlooking fine works in their own apartments,
and assembled around them noble damsels for this purpose. Anne of
Brittany, who lived in an artistic atmosphere, had her own workshop of
embroidery. Pictorial design now asserted its dominion over
needlework, which accepted it, just as it had been influenced in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries by metal-work motives, and, before
then, by the art of mosaic.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish plâteresque
embroideries (adopted and modified in Flanders and in France),
consisting of heavy gold and silver arabesques of mutilated vegetable
forms, superseded the graceful Renaissance of the classical
taste.[531] These Spanish embroideries forced their way by their
gorgeousness, in spite of their want of real beauty. They varied their
effects with pearls, corals, and precious stones[532] (plate 69).
Spain, though she was much despoiled during the Peninsular War by her
French invaders, yet still possesses some of the finest ecclesiastical
work in the sacristies of Seville, Granada, Burgos, Toledo, Segovia,
and Barcelona. Don Juan F. Riano[533] says that Toledo is a perfect
museum of the work of the sixteenth century.
Sicilian and Neapolitan ecclesiastical needlework showed the Spanish
taste of their masters, but not its perfection. The use of pearls,
coral, and beads[534] prevailed, and we may in general affix its date
and its origin to each specimen by the silver largely used in the two
kingdoms of Sicily and rarely elsewhere; also by the extreme
brilliancy or rather the gaudiness of its colouring.
English ecclesiastical work came suddenly to an end at the
Reformation. What was not destroyed is to be found in the possession
of the old Roman Catholic families who have religiously collected the
residue, preserved by concealment or by being overlooked; and in the
wardrobes of Continental sacristies.[535]
But the church decorations of France, Germany, Flanders, Spain, and
Italy have meantime, for the last 300 years, gone through all the
variations of lay styles, emanating from anything but ecclesiastical
motives. First, the Renaissance's semi-pagan (so-called) arabesques;
then the Spanish plâteresque, which was a revolt against their own
bastard Moorish-Gothic; next, the "Louis Quatorze," followed by the
"Louis Quinze" and the "Louis Seize," light, frivolous, and elegant,
essentially social, and not serious.[536] Then a return to the
classical of the Empire; and finally, since the beginning of this
century, to a conglomerate, lawless imitation of forms and styles,
utterly meaningless and uninteresting, as well as wanting in
ecclesiastical dignity and decorum. We are glad to believe that we are
ourselves striving to reconstruct some sort of style that shall be
able to express poetical and religious ideas, especially in our church
decorations. At any rate, it must be of some use to understand the
hidden springs which once raised ecclesiastical embroideries, and
especially those of England, so high as objects of beauty, worthy to
adorn the house of God, and to be for centuries valued as monuments of
pious industry and thoughtful art.
One of these hidden springs and ancient underlying motives was the
symbolism which gave a religious intention to the smallest design for
the humblest use, provided that its purpose was the service of the
Church.
Sacred symbolism is a subject to which I have alluded more than once;
and it has played such an important part in the construction and
growth of ecclesiastical art, that I cannot but give a short notice to
the subject under this aspect.
Symbolism in art is what metaphor is in speech. It is the
representation to the eye of an object which suggests something else
besides itself.
Dr. Rock tells us that the symbolism of Scripture texts was given to
the world in a book by St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, A.D. 170. Its
title is "The Key."[537] In the fourth century were produced two great
works on Scriptural symbols, that of St. Basil in his homilies on the
six days of the creation, and that by St. Ambrose; both entitled
Hexameron.
We meet this subject at every turn in the succeeding centuries,
till in the twelfth we find it formulated and divided into
branches--Bestiaria, Volucraria, and Lapidaria--and each type had
frequently more than one meaning. Thus a lion represented power,
sovereignty, dominion; also the "House of Judah;" a hare the emblem
of man's soul; a peacock that of wisdom (many-eyed). The ruby
represents love. The pearl, innocence. The twelve stones in a
breastplate, the twelve tribes of Israel.[538] Trees and flowers had
also their symbolical meanings, though we are not aware of their
being recorded in any mediæval book. We know that the vine is the
tree of life; the stem of Jesse, the sacramental emblem; that the
lily stands for purity, the woodbine for chastity, and the rose for
religious ecstasy. The crowned lily was always the special emblem of
the Virgin.
These symbols had many of them a distant source, and had been, as I
have already indicated, emblematic of other inner meanings in the
expression of pagan faiths. The tree of life was Babylonian; the horn,
Persian; the fire-sticks of the prehistoric cross, Egyptian or Indian;
and the composite animals representing many qualities, Ninevite
(probably Accadian).[539]
All these were utilized, so that their already accepted uses should be
helps and adjuncts, instead of impediments to the appreciation of
divine truths; in the same way that "all that was lovely and of good
repute" in the belief and morals of the ancient peoples, reasserted
and purified, was claimed by the new teachers as types and antitypes.
The symbolism of colours has been always considered very important in
liturgical decoration,[540] and their meanings are discussed in the
chapter on colour.
The mystical colours, as has been already stated, are five--red, blue,
purple, white, and gold. These the Christian Church inherited from the
Levitical law, and continued faithful to them till the modern Roman
use introduced green and black. The Church of England before the
Reformation never allowed any but the original five mystic colours.
The symbolism of ecclesiastical embroideries, as well as that of all
Christian art, being intended to illustrate the truths of Christianity
by the teaching of the eye, the great symbol of our faith, the
_Cross_, naturally drew to itself all its prehistoric forms as being
the prophetic types of the "true cross."
The earliest form of the prehistoric cross, [Illustration], is supposed
to refer to the worship of the sun, and is said to be formed of two
fire-sticks (for producing fire by friction) laid across each other.
This is almost universal in prehistoric, archaic, classical, and
Christian art to the thirteenth century. The next most ancient form is
a broken cross, thus, [Illustration], said to be the double of the Tau,
or Egyptian sign of life, and claimed by the Rabbins as having been the
sign in blood, which stopped the hand of the angel of death, over the
doors of the Israelites at the first Passover. This afterwards was
called the "Gammadion," from its likeness to a doubled Greek gamma,
and it was also said to symbolize the "corner-stone."[541] The third
commonest form, apparently a modification of that of the fire-sticks,
[Illustration], is to be found throughout Celtic and Scandinavian art,
and was called in England "the fylfote" (from its likeness to the arms
of the Isle of Man), and likewise "the Gammadion," though it shows
another source than the Greek letter.
From these three forms already in use, added to that of the
Crucifixion, endless varieties were composed to suit the
ecclesiastical taste and requirements of different national styles of
symbolical decoration. I refer my readers to plate 26 in the chapter
on patterns for a few of these from different sources. They are
extremely suggestive. I have there entered more fully into the
subject, regarding it as a fertile pattern motive in textile art.[542]
The cross "bearing twelve fruits for the saving of the nations"[543]
is so like some of the representations of the Persian or Indian Tree
of Life, that the transmission and adoption of the symbolic form is
evident. The cross (plate 63) is a good mediæval example, and is taken
from the celebrated rose-coloured cope at Rheims, embroidered with
gold and pearls on a rose-coloured satin ground.
[Illustration: Pl. 70.
IVORY CONSULAR DIPTYCH.
1. In the Wasser-Kirche Museum, Zurich. Sixth century. 2. Of an
earlier period, and finer workmanship, at Halberstadt. No
date given.]
The Roës is an ecclesiastical pattern of wide use and of very long
descent, often named in ancient Church inventories. It is sometimes
called the "Wheel and Plate." Its origin is probably Oriental, but it
certainly was adopted by the Romans as the motive of their triumphal
garments, the _togæ pictæ_, worn in the processional return of a
conqueror, whether he were a general or a sovereign. The first motive
was a surface covered with circles, closely touching each other, and
containing figures which had a reference to their purpose. In
Christian times the heads of saints were sometimes inserted,
especially in that form of the Roës called the chrysoclavus, from the
intersticial ornament between the circles.
I have written (p. 308-9) about the Trabea, which on the Roman
consular ivory diptychs of several centuries is so invariably
embroidered with this same clavus pattern (plate 70) that we must
conclude that it had a meaning and a tradition.
The very ancient superstition that driving in a nail is a fortunate
rite, may have been connected with the pattern called the clavus; and
the chrysoclavus, from being merely a nail pattern, became consecrated
in Christian art as representing the heads of the nails of the
Crucifixion, and hence its early Christian name.[544] It was
originally filled in with a radiated ornament like the sun; (probably
the first motive of this pattern, which seems to be the same as the
Egyptian sun-cross,) and its peculiar decoration remained in
possession of the descriptive name "palmated," though it is difficult
to discover in it any likeness to the palm branch or tree, unless it
is supposed to resemble it as seen from above.
The toga triumphalis was also called the toga picta, because its
precious purple fabric was covered with gorgeous embroideries. After
it had been worn at the triumph or festival, by the victorious
general, the distinguished noble, or the Emperor, it was laid by and
dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Thus these palmated
triumphal patterns, and their traditional decorations, having by their
dedication to the gods assumed a religious character, were woven for
Christian ecclesiastical use during the dark ages, and were repeated
in Sicily and Spain down to the beginning of the fifteenth
century.[545]
I have elsewhere spoken of the "cloud pattern," which is very ancient,
Chinese, Indian, and mediæval. Its use has always been for celestial
subjects in embroidery, either isolating or supporting spiritual
figures. This was appropriated by ecclesiastical art, and we find it
nowhere else in Europe.
This sketch of the history of ecclesiastical needlework, (necessarily
incomplete from want of space), is founded on the works of Semper,
Bock, Rock, and the comparison of many specimens in collections and
exhibitions in London and elsewhere. Auberville absolutely places
before us the materials as well as the patterns of the weaving of the
Christian era, as well as fragments of Egyptian textiles, in his
beautiful book on Tissues.
For forms and patterns we cannot do better than study Bock's
liturgical chapters and their illustrations, as well as Dr. Rock's
"Church of our Fathers."
The stitchery of Christian art has been discussed in the chapter on
stitches, and I repeat that there is nothing new in the treatment of
solid embroideries, (lace stitches having been the only innovation of
the last 400 years), though many of the ancient stitches have lost
their distinctiveness, and fallen into a pitiful style by gradual
descent which reached its lowest point in the early part of this
century, as is shown by the robes embroidered for the coronation of
Charles X. in the museum of the Louvre.
In the commencement of this our nineteenth century, there was a total
cessation of embroidery, which had, for nearly 2000 years held its own
as an art, apart from all others; perhaps a secondary one--yet mixed
up with every refinement and luxury of civilization.
Its revival in England, especially, is owing to many causes. As
ecclesiastical decoration I have already attributed it to the
archæological tendencies of our day, as well as to the æsthetic
sentiment which protests, after so long a period of abstention,
against the puritanical bareness and coldness of our national forms of
worship. The obliteration of embroidery from the list of the arts was
more complete in England than elsewhere; as the church of Rome still
continued to be adorned with beautiful work on altar-cloths and
frontals, and priest's dresses, which, though too much regulated in
design by the lay tastes and fashions of the time, have combined to
keep up a traditional school of needlework throughout the Continent.
Exhibitions abroad and at home have shown us what a latent power in
art embroidery still preserves, and architects have employed the
women's needles to give colour and beauty to the decaying churches,
which have been restored to their original architectural effects by
careful copies of what remained in wood, stone, and glass.
The number of new churches has also given rise to the production, in
more than one semi-conventual establishment, of beautiful and
effective works, such as the altar-cloth at Durham, and those at
Canterbury and Worcester. Such works have revived the impulse of
artistic and ecclesiastical taste, and in many small churches we have
seen beautifully embroidered altar decorations.[546]
There are, however, many amateurs who are perhaps mistresses of the
craft of needlework, and who are yet not educated sufficiently to
design a really thoughtful and beautiful work of art, and to these a
few remarks may be addressed, which may help the struggling aspirants,
and show them how they fail, and where to seek for assistance.
I shall begin by pleading for more careful design, and less parsimony
in expenditure upon the usual church adornments. It is once more a
received dogma in ecclesiastical art, one in which all religious
opinions agree, that the building in the parish which is set apart for
the first public duty, that of worship, should show as much beauty as
the means and taste of the community can command.
Perhaps the little church has just been restored, or completely
rebuilt from the foundations; the consecration is imminent. The white
stone, carved or plain, shines fresh and cold, and the whole space
looks poor and bare.
The rich woman of the neighbourhood sees and feels that colour is
wanting (for the windows must wait till their use as pious memorials
fills them with glowing tints). The central point of the whole
edifice, the altar, calls for the first key-note in colour to be
struck, and a splendid altar-cloth is the fitting instrument.
She consults the architect, who probably is also an artist, and the
design is agreed upon, and hurriedly drawn and carried out; for there
is not a moment to lose if it is to be ready for the opening day. It
may be beautiful, and it sometimes is so, but the mere want of time
for due consideration often results in the commonplace ornamentation,
which neither satisfies the eye nor the mind. It is often only a mere
bit of colour and a mediæval pattern, and has no apparent motive or
meaning to give it value.
One sometimes finds that a conventional form has been selected, of
which the emblematic intention it originally expressed has been
forgotten or overlooked. Therefore, while to the unlearned it conveys
no meaning, it is read as absolute nonsense by the ecclesiastical
archæologist, simply because it is worked in a language of
undeciphered hieroglyphics--unknown to the worker--meaningless,
reminding us of the Græco-Egyptian inscriptions, of which the pictured
words seem to have been copied at random for their prettiness, or the
Arabian lettering on some of the ancient Sicilian textiles, which is
nonsense. The sense and the emblematic meaning are forgotten, and the
conventional form--an empty shell--is alone retained, conveying no
idea, and reduced to the low purpose of being a pretty pattern, vague
and unintelligent.
I have so often said that a pattern always originally possessed, and
should always retain a meaning, that I fear to become tiresome; but I
repeat it here, as in ecclesiastical design it is more important than
elsewhere; the meanings are deeper, and convey more essentially solemn
traditions and allusions. If the motive of the designer is evident,
and is conscientiously worked out, its value receives an enduring
quality, and its present interest is enhanced.
Embroidery is not less eloquent than her sister-arts in the teaching
of divine lessons, and appealing through the beauty of form and
colour to the poetical instincts of the congregation, of which the
least educated members almost unconsciously feel the influence; and
besides, the people are always alive to the charms of symbolism, when
it is placed within their reach. As a proof of this, among our own
peasantry and mechanics, I would point to their universal enjoyment of
the "Pilgrim's Progress."
In the symbolism of art, the thoughts which are individual to the
artist can only be expressed by known forms and colours, even as the
poet must employ the words and the metres already accepted by the
literature of his language.
Hurry is fatal to art. But another and very serious cause of its
deterioration is its costliness.
In the dark and mediæval ages, time was of no account. Skilled labour,
such as was needed for carving, illuminations, and embroideries, was
freely given as the duty of a life, for one particular object, the
good of a man's soul. The cloistered men and women worked for no
wages; neither to benefit themselves nor their descendants; hardly for
fame,--that was given to the convent which had the credit of
patronizing and producing art,[547] while the very name of the artist
was forgotten.
It was from pure love of the art as a craft, and the belief that it
was a good work in which they were engaged, and from their abundant
leisure, that they were enabled to evolve the lovely creations which
delight and astonish us when shown in the sacristies and treasuries of
foreign religious houses and churches, where they have been cherished
for centuries. Like the silkworm they spent themselves; and by their
industrious lives were surrounded in their living graves by the
elaborated essence of their own natures, a joy and consolation to
themselves, and a legacy to all time. To them, also, art appeared as
the consoler.
But to return to the grievances of to-day--cheapness and hurry,
economy of pence and hours--these often are the bane of the work which
we give to the Church, sometimes as a memorial, sometimes as a
thank-offering. The colours are bad, because cheap dyes fade, and none
others can be had without much trouble, and we have only time to
select among those that are for sale. The work is poor because it must
be done quickly, and we cannot afford to delay and pay for the extra
hours necessary to make the stitches worthy and capable of lasting.
Possibly we cannot give the time ourselves, nor can find any one
effectually to organize and overlook the work.
Though the design, the motive, the colours and materials, as well as
the stitches, need to be each carefully studied, yet we perhaps accept
an ancient drawing intended for a different place and use; and thus we
fail to produce any effect, with uncongenial surroundings. Sometimes
we feel obliged to take the design forced upon us by a shopwoman as
ignorant as ourselves, with the submissive hope "that it will do."
Now to a truly artistic mind it would appear that each little church,
however simple and devoid of ornament, requires its own special
colours and design, besides the individual motive of the giver; and
people forget that the whole effect in any such compositions must be
comprehensive, and that one careless mistake spoils all.
The High Church, in its love of ritualistic vestments, has sometimes
been prejudicial to the general adoption of properly studied altar
decorations; as there is a common suspicion that a clergyman's
personal wish for ornament, akin to a woman's addiction to fine
clothes, governs all his attempts to adorn the altar; whereas there
should be, and there often is, a real artistic feeling for the fitness
of things, in the furnishings of the most beautiful building set aside
by the community for the glory of God. But it is not necessary for
beautiful effects that there should be any coloured vestments. When
the clergy are duly robed in the orthodox surplice and scarves, there
is, perhaps, something funereal in the white linens and black Geneva
silk, but yet the traditional white and black have their own value
against a background of altar-cloth and reredos splendidly coloured.
Now that, in spite of prejudice, church decoration is so much the
custom of our day, it is worth our while to consider seriously how
best to carry it out, and search into the principles which may apply
to all ecclesiastical embroideries, whether they are to be dedicated
in the Minster, the village Church, or the home Chapel.
We must begin by remembering that in these days, if we cannot do the
work ourselves, it must be highly paid for. The skilled artisan who is
no artist, receives enough to feed his family, according to the higher
wages of the time. The woman's slow stitchery has to support probably
as many claims, and yet it is always grudged as being too costly. The
sculptor or the painter who succeeds in obtaining employment, is
highly paid, but the designer for metal-work or embroideries occupies
an unrecognized place in art, and barely earns enough to live by. The
illuminator has ceased to exist; he would starve--probably has been
starved out long ago.
The decorative designer, having, therefore, no status, has no
education; and it is almost impossible to find in England an artist to
accept orders for thoughtful ecclesiastical designs. Hundreds of boys
and girls are taught "freehand drawing," and having copied some casts
and lithographs and drawn some flower-pieces, without any particular
aim, find a precarious living by designing frightful wall-papers for
the million. These poor creatures, from whose lives all ambition and
originality have been effaced, are our decorative artists.
Still a beautiful original design can sometimes be obtained, and if
that is beyond our reach, we may courageously copy from ancient
models, selecting judiciously what is most suitable for our purpose.
The ecclesiastical artist should be well informed in the modes of
working a design. The stitch if selected without experience may mar
the effect of the whole composition, as some stitches of themselves
convey the meaning of shadow, and others that of light.
In ecclesiastical work which is intended to be effective in the
distance, as well as perfect in detail, it is worth while to weigh the
claims of the architectural low-relief motive, i.e. a flat raised
surface, with an edge sufficiently accentuated to catch a light on one
side, and cast a sharp shadow on the other. All flat _raised_ stitches
conduce also to this effect, especially if edged with a cord, and it
is much more striking than in stuffed work (on the stamp), which has
not the incisive effect that is given by the tool to the sharp edge of
stone or wood carvings.
If we can afford to give to our church without stint, let us seek for
the most beautiful textiles, such as are again woven in imitation of
the old fabrics; gratefully acknowledging all that Pugin, Ruskin, and
the foreign manufacturers, especially those at Lyons, have done in the
revival of woven designs. Let us avoid those materials which are
easily spoiled by sunshine, dust, and smoke, and all those that fray
easily. Woollens are not long lived. Crewels, beautiful as they are,
are not salient in their effect. Silks, satins and velvet, and gold
brocades,[548] or groundings worked in with gold thread, are the only
materials worthy of bearing fine embroidery, fit to receive them, and
capable of keeping them for centuries. Plushes and worsted velvets are
unworthy, indeed they are worthless.
The gold we employ must be either pure "passing," or else the Chinese
or Japanese gold threads which differ in colour, but have each their
own value, and never tarnish, even in the coal smoke of London. Pure
silver, too, is beautiful, and if it is really pure, can be kept
bright with bread crumbs.
In composing the altar decoration for the cathedral or the village
church, we ought to take into consideration what is suitable for the
surrounding architecture. In great spaces, the majestic altar-cloth or
frontal, shining with gold and silver, and glowing with silken
embroideries, recalls the splendid altar "palli" encrusted with gems
in St. Mark's, St. Peter's, and other ancient churches; and is in
perfect keeping with the high and gorgeous reredos, the rich screen,
the fretted roof and clustered ornaments of a great cathedral choir.
Such glories are unattainable in the modest village church.
But though we may subdue the brilliancy of our decoration, we should
try to make it yet a work of art. The design may have as much
intention, the work be as refined and individual, and the gold as
pure, as in larger works. The precious metals may be confined to small
spaces in the parts we desire to accentuate, such as the cross in the
centre, or the edges of the orphreys, or they may be entirely replaced
with fine silk work.
The altar-cloth we desire to present, may be simply a gift, so that we
may choose any design that will agree with the date of the building.
We may prefer any subsequent style, but not one anterior to that of
the architecture. It would be a mistake to imitate Anglo-Saxon
ornaments in a church of the flamboyant style.
Perhaps the altar-cloth we are discussing may be intended as a sort of
votive offering, a memorial of a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral.
For the first, white silk worked in gold and silver, or gold-coloured
silk, or parsemé with conventional spring flowers would be
appropriate. For a marriage, crimson, rose-colour, blue and gold, or a
mixture of all these, to produce a festive and gorgeous effect. For a
funeral, purple or violet silk or velvet, with palms and the crown of
thorns in gold or silver.[549] These would serve at the festivals of
the Church: the purple for Good Friday,[550] the crimson for Saints'
days, the white for Christmas and Easter Sunday.
The reredos, or the screen curtain behind the altar, should be made
available for enhancing its effect, as well as for enlarging the area
of textile coloured decoration.
As this is intended for a background, it should be either subdued or
else contrasting, in juxtaposition with that which it is intended to
supplement. Woollen embroideries or tapestries are the most usually
selected for this purpose. The softness of fine crewels is well shown
near the more glowing tints of silk, velvet, and gold of the altar
frontal. If this is white, or light coloured, the reredos hanging
should be of dark or richly worked material; if the frontal is dark,
the contrast should be preserved by hangings of tender shades.
The pulpit and reading-desk, with their small cushions and veils, and
beautiful worked covers for the books, give opportunities for
repetition of colour which is often required for picturesque effect.
I should recommend the young ecclesiastical designer to study the
principles which guided the authors of some of the fine Gothic
examples remaining to us, such as the great Stoneyhurst cope, and the
palls of the different London companies, as well as the very few fine
altar-cloths still existing. All these have their brilliant and
effective treatment; they are intended to be glorious, and either
represent massive jewellers' work or tissues of wrought gold.
Anciently, the ornaments for the different church services, which we
timidly reduce to floral decorations (often, however, very beautifully
planned and executed), gave the opportunity for displaying costly
embroidered hangings.
The paschal of the choir of Durham, for example, was a marvellous
construction of wood and gilding, metal-work, and (probably) hangings.
It was as wide as the "lateral" of the choir, and as high as the
building, so that the central and seventh candlestick (that from which
the new fire for the year was kindled) was so near the roof that there
was a "fine convenience through the said roof of the church for the
help of lighting it." I quote from a rare book printed by G. S. Ross
for Mrs. Waghorn, 1733.
This little book is full of interesting matter regarding Durham
Cathedral, though the author is most concerned in relating the
vandalisms committed by the dean's wife, Mrs. Whittinghame, who
evidently had "no culture," and a strong turn for appropriating odds
and ends, such as tombstones, embroidered silk, and other curiosities
which she deemed valueless except for her own purposes,--such a woman
is a real archæological misfortune!
The corporax used in celebrating the mass by St. Cuthbert in the
seventh century (he died and was buried at Holy Isle in 657) was
supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers and was carried into
battle on many occasions as a banner.
This banner was of crimson velvet on both sides, wrought with flowers
in green silk and gold, and fringed with red silk and gold. The
corporax cloth was inserted in the centre, and covered with a square
of white velvet, having on it a cross of red velvet, "most
artificially worked and fringed, with little silver bells in the
fringe." This was carried into battle, till Dame Whittinghame "did
most injuriously destroy the same in her fire."
One feels as if this woman were spiteful, as well as stupid. But for
her punishment, her memory is kept quite the contrary to green by Mrs.
Waghorn's careful record of her iniquities; which has at the same time
fortunately preserved to us the description of the banner of St.
Cuthbert, and gives also an idea of "the good and sumptuous furniture
of changeable suits," and of "the divers vestments wrought and set
round about with pearls, both stoles and flannels, &c."
Looking at it from a distance, it appears that the "fair white linen"
for the communion service always requires the softening of the edges
by fringes, by cut work embroidery, or by thick lace edgings. If a
white ground for embroidery is required, nothing is more beautiful
than linen, especially if it is not over-bleached. White, in art,
should be represented by the nearest approach to no colour; but it is
more agreeable to the eye by its being tempered with a suggestion of
the natural tint, of which all textile substances possess something
(excepting cotton) before they have passed through the hands of the
fuller or the chemist.
Corporals and veils for the pyx used to be of white linen, embroidered
with white silk or linen thread; the silk gives a beautiful, varied,
shining brightness.
I think a few words should be said about the fringe.[551] Its motive
and _raison d'être_ is the disposal of the threads of the warp when it
is cut out of the frame; these being tied and knotted symmetrically,
become an artistic decoration instead of an untidy tangle of threads
and thrums. Edging the material and finishing it with its own loose
ends is a very ancient custom; and we can see from the sculptures of
Nineveh that they were great in that city in the art of fringe-making,
and the Israelites, when they made their hangings for the sanctuary,
trimmed them with fringes. It stands to reason that an added fringe
should be arranged with reference to the origin of the decoration, and
the moment we think of it, the eye is annoyed by seeing a deep fringe
of one or two colours traversing the whole widths of the frontal and
super-frontal, quite irrelevantly, and without any reference to the
masses of colours, woven or embroidered, above them; and the
consequence of this carelessness is, that it makes it look as if this
part of the decoration, came from another source, independent of the
composition which it ought to supplement. The fringe should belong to
the whole design, and be carefully fitted to the spaces occupied by
the colours above it, each of its compartments or divisions being
filled in with those tints which are most conspicuous in the general
design and would show effectively in the warp. It is not necessary to
account for all the colours, as the threads employed to form the woof
would naturally disappear at the sides of the web. The sections of the
fringe should be skilfully arranged so as to reappear at equal
distances, or at least they should be so balanced as to produce that
effect. If this is impossible, the fringe should be all of one shade,
matching exactly the ground of the textile. It may be relieved by
clustered knobs, or hanging beads or cups of different colours and
gold. The celebrated pluvial at Aix-la-Chapelle has a fringe of gold
bells hanging to a gold cord, which amalgamates with the pattern.[552]
The veils of the Sanctuary in the wilderness were fringed with
attached ornaments, bells, blossoms, knops, flowers, and fruit, which
sounds extremely pretty.
To resume, let me once more urge that in church work neither time nor
trouble be spared; nor yet money grudged, if possible. The design
should be full of intention, the stitching perfect, and the materials
most carefully chosen for tints, for endurance and smoothness.
Remember that no inferior substitute will serve to give present
effect, nor will it last into the future.
Design, as I have elsewhere said, is all the better for being to a
certain degree circumscribed, relegated, and regulated by the laws of
traditional usage, as well as those of good taste, and this applies
especially to ecclesiastical design.
These laws serve as the frame which encloses the motive thought, and
makes it a complete whole, that can admit of no amplifications.
New symbols should not be adopted except for the expression of new
facts or altered circumstances, and these can but seldom enter into
liturgical art.
There is so much already formulated and admitted, and the area in
which we may gather our materials is so large, that we need not seek
for more than we find under our hand, ready for use.
Besides the symbolism of dogma, we have all the heraldry of the
Saints; and can repeat and vary the emblems of those to whom the
church we are working for is dedicated. The keys of St. Peter, the
sword of St. Paul, the lilies of the Virgin, the cross of St. Andrew,
the eagle of St. John,--I need hardly enumerate all these legitimate
sources of decoration. Then there is the lay heraldry which belongs to
the history of each church, and which memorializes the reign of the
monarch when it was begun, finished, or restored, and the pious work
and care of the founder and benefactor, the architect, and sometimes
that of the sculptor.
Now as our forefathers accepted all this material for ecclesiastical
design, remodelling it to their own uses in different centuries, so we
cannot ourselves do better than imitate them, and profit by their
experience; never missing an opportunity of studying ancient
embroideries; and while we admire in them all that is admirable, and
appreciate their historical and archæological value, we may yet
extract greater benefit for ourselves, by criticizing what is
imperfect, as well as what is possibly a descent and failure from a
higher type.
We must make a judicious selection of what to imitate and what to
avoid.
As a general rule, I should warn the young artist against the
imitation of "naïveté" and so-called "quaintness;" especially in our
designs for Church embroidery as it is hardly a noble quality in art,
though we look on it with a tender pity, half-way between admiration
and contempt, when we find it inevitably in mediæval work; struggling
to overcome the expression of something difficult, and expressing a
difficulty only partly overcome. We find ourselves putting our minds
into the attitude of the artist who conceived those figures with arms
conventionally growing out of the encasing garment; conventionally
holding a book, and giving a blessing with a conventional twist, not
entirely ungraceful, nor devoid of a certain dignity, rather felt than
perceived. Yet we contemplate them with a smile of conscious
superiority, appreciating our own refined sense of their merits and
infantine progress towards something good, that time--a long
time--would, and did evolve. But those efforts at last culminated in a
Christian art, such as is seen in the splendid forms and adornments in
stone, gold, silver, glass, and embroideries of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Such splendours as the windows of Bourges, the
Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, or those of the Cathedral of Toledo, or
King's College Chapel at Cambridge. Such sculptures and traceries as
those of the Puits de Moise at Dijon, and the Chapter House at
Southwell in Nottinghamshire. Such embroideries as the Syon cope, and
the Borghese triptych. These are types worthy of all praise, and they
are full of instruction to the student of ecclesiastical art.
The Kensington Museum offers us endless help and suggestions in its
very interesting collection of liturgical vestments of every date and
school; and its textiles, illustrated by the inventory of their
learned collector, Dr. Rock, are most instructive.[553]
In the library of that museum are to be found many of the learned
works on these subjects by French and German _savants_. The
exhibitions in the English counties are never without a case or a room
full of embroideries, collected from the treasure-chests of the
neighbouring churches and country houses, and especially from those of
the ancient Roman Catholic families. The colleges of Oscott and
Stoneyhurst have collected, by purchase or by gift, many fine relics
of the craft, which are most liberally granted for exhibition.
For those who can go further afield there is instruction in almost
every Continental town. Rome, Florence, Milan, Toledo, Sens, Rheims,
Aix-la-Chapelle, Berne, Vienna, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Munich--each
and all have stores of beautiful liturgical objects carefully
preserved; of many dates, and many styles, and showing endless
varieties of design, which can be employed on new works by careful
selection and adaptation. Most of these belong to the eleventh and
succeeding centuries; any earlier examples are fragmentary, and have
generally been taken from the tombs of kings and bishops.
It seems to savour of desecration, this opening of shrines and
disturbing the ashes of the illustrious dead, if only for the
satisfaction of archæological curiosity. But except where it has
hitherto been protected by the sanctity of the tomb, there is so
little that remains to us,--so few textiles have survived the friction
of use, or even that of the air, through as many as a thousand years
or more, that we may plead the hunger for truth, and the eager desire
for proofs of identity and verification of historical legends, which
are to be extracted from the shape of a garment, from the pattern on
the border, or the lettering on the web of which it is composed;
whence we reverently cut a fragment, and preserve it under glass.
"If studious, copie fair what time hath blurr'd,
Redeem truth from his jawes."[554]
Before closing this chapter, I would wish to observe that I have
entered into the subject of church decoration in no ritualistic
spirit; I do not treat it theologically, but as art; and if these
decorations are to be carried out at all, I feel that I am rendering a
service to those whose duty or pleasure it is to provide them, by
pointing out where they may find the principles which have been the
spring and life of mediæval art, and the survivals which are now the
best exponents of those principles to guide us in the works of our
day.
FOOTNOTES:
[479] Figure-drawing in early Christian art was for
nearly a thousand years primitively barbarous, with
occasional exceptions. The rapid decline in Europe,
through the art of the Catacombs and St. Clemente at
Rome, and the frescoes and mosaics of Ravenna, down to
the Bayeux tapestries, is very remarkable. In those
inartistic compositions during the early Middle Ages,
the figures were drawn facing the spectator, the head
and feet in profile, differing in nothing from the
Egyptian and Assyrian modes of representation. We can
hardly account for this return to childish ways, from
which Greece and Rome had so long been emancipated,
except by supposing that they came from the imitations
of Oriental textiles, which still retained very ancient
forms; for instance, the motive of the sculptured lions
over the gate of Mycenæ. We cannot say that Greek art in
Rome was quite extinct till the eighth century. About
that time there was a remarkable revival in England.
[480] Till very lately we have been entirely dependent
on the frescoes in the Catacombs and in the underground
Church of St. Clemente at Rome, and on monumental art
and illuminations, for our knowledge of the textiles of
the earliest days of Christianity. But Herr Graf'schen's
discoveries in Egypt will, when published, add greatly
to our information on this subject.
[481] The book by Parker on the "Liturgical Use" says
that only the five liturgical colours were permitted in
the use of the Church of England. Before the Reformation
the Norman and English liturgical colours were
different. (Rock, "Church of our Fathers," ii. p. 268.)
Perhaps nothing was originally worked departing from
this rule, but votive offerings are inventoried as being
of all colours, having been accepted and used as
decoration and for vestments.
[482] I have already spoken of the custom of clothing
the images of the gods as a classical tradition. The
Greeks draped their statues in precious garments, often
the spoils of subjugated nations, offerings from the
conquerors, or obsequious tribute from the conquered.
Newton (Appendix 1) tells us of inscriptions containing
inventories of old clothes offered in the Greek Temples.
Ezekiel (xvi.) speaks of silk and linen embroideries
given for covering the idols. The images of the saints
in Roman Catholic churches are, we know, constantly
draped in splendid embroideries, and hung with jewels.
[483] There is here an overlap of several centuries.
[484] Charlemagne's dalmatic, described hereafter, of
which the pedigree is well ascertained, justifies
Woltmann and Woermann's theory; as this eighth-century
embroidery shows, by its design, that Greek art was
still a living power.
[485] Of which we have yet examples on the Continent,
here and there; for instance, in the Cathedral at Coire
in the Grisons, and in the Romanesque church at Clermont
in Auvergne (not the cathedral). I do not include in
this statement of the rare occurrence of the ogee, the
European countries which were subject to Moorish rule,
i.e. Spain and Portugal.
[486] This, slightly modified, continued to prevail till
the time of Louis XIV., when France took the lead, and
gave a style to the world which entirely broke away from
all mediæval tradition.
[487] Rock's "Church of our Fathers," i. p. 409. Compare
Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," i. p. 332 (see fig. 1);
and Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," taf. i., i. p. 130,
fig. 6. Bock does not give his authority for the pattern
on the ephod.
[488] Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. i., iii.,
vi.
[489] Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 203, 376, §
103. He quotes from Claudian the description of a
trabea, said to have been woven by the goddess Roma
herself, for the consul Stilicho. I give this as showing
how forms and patterns become sacred by their being
attributed to the inspiration of the gods. The name of
Stilicho marks his tomb in Sant' Ambrogio's Church at
Milan, on which is a curious moulding, carved with
alternate roses and mystic crosses.
[490] Clapton Rolfe, "Ancient Use of Liturgical
Colours."
[491] See the Book of Kells, Library, Dublin; also St.
Cuthbert's Durham Book, British Museum, and the Celtic
MSS. in the Lambeth Palace Library.
[492] Celtic and Scandinavian designs are characterized
by meandering, interlaced, and knotted lines, which are
described and discussed in the chapter on patterns. The
forms of the Celtic stone crosses are very beautiful.
See "L'Atlas de l'Archéologie du Nord, par la Société
Royale des Antiquaires du Nord" (Copenhagen, 1857),
where the metal remains are shown by careful engravings;
also George Stephen's "Old Northern Runic Monuments."
[493] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. p. 126,
quoting Anastasius Bibliothecarius, pp. 153, 156, 189.
[494] Ibid. p. 189.
[495] The information here collected proves that these
sovereign gifts to the great basilicas were by no means
of costly materials, especially as compared with the
preceding splendours of Rome, or the still more
astounding luxury of Alexandria through the Greek
conquests of the Eastern nations. To these rules of
economical decoration, however, we find occasionally
exceptions. We gather also from later lists that the
embroideries of the Papal See were culled, in the
thirteenth century, from France, Spain, Germany, and
England.
[496] See also Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," vol. i.
pp. 9, 18, 56, 86, plate 2. At a later period the lion
motive is supposed to have represented a Christian in
the arena, and it certainly in time was symbolical of
man struggling with the dominion of sin. However, Bock
considers the design to have been originally classical
Greek, and it survived to the seventh and eighth
centuries, and was reproduced as late as the sixteenth.
[497] The Code of Manu in India, which 2500 years ago
regulated all the crafts and ruled their decorations, is
still in full force, and Chinese art was crystallized in
the reigns of the first emperors of the Hia dynasty,
2197 B.C.
[498] We cannot but respect the memory of Attila, who
checked the spoliation of Rome by his troops.
[499] The collections of needlework in Germany are very
rich. The treasury of the cathedral at Halberstadt, the
Markt-Kirche of Brunswick, the sacristy of the
Marien-Kirche of Dantzic, and that of the Kaland
Brethren at Strahlsund are especially quoted by Bock. At
Quedlinburg are the tapestries of its famous abbess; at
the Pilgrim Church of Marie at Zell are fine remains of
stuffs and embroideries by the ladies of the imperial
house of Hapsburg, of the thirteenth century; at the
Abbey of Göss (near Lieben, Steiermark) is to be seen
the remarkable needlework of the Abbess Kunigunda, and
in the cathedral treasury of Heidelberg the antipendium
of the fourteenth century, made for the church at Tirna.
The museums of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna are very rich
in textiles.
[500] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," p. 133.
[501] Helen Lwyddawc. See "Mabinogion," by Lady C.
Guest, pp. 279-284. This beautiful story is told in the
language of the romance period, and yet has a certain
Celtic colouring in it, which shows its origin. The
ballad opens with a description of Helen watching a game
of chess, clothed in white and gold, seated on a chair
of gold, when Maxentius finds her in her father's
palace.
[502] See Mrs. Palliser's "Lace," p. 4.
[503] See chapter on English embroidery, _post_.
[504] Early decorations of ecclesiastical dress are so
thoroughly illustrated by the ancient frescoes and
mosaics in Italy, that we can form an idea of the
embroidered vestments of each period by studying them,
and the early illuminated books that are scattered over
Europe. Dr. Bock gives authentic illustrations as well
as information about the finest Continental specimens.
[505] For the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana, see Woltmann
and Woermann, i. p. 167, "History of Painting."
Translated by Sidney Colvin.
[506] Appendix 4. Lord Lindsay's "History of
Ecclesiastical Art," i. p. 136. These gorgeous vestments
are engraved by Sulpiz Boisserée in his "Kaiser
Dalmatika in der St. Peterskirche," and far better by
Dr. Rock, in his splendid work on the "Coronation Robes
of the German Emperors."
[507] It is singular that we find the starry cross and
the swastika filling alternate square spaces on the
mantle of Achilles--playing at dice with Ajax--on a
celebrated Greek vase in the Etruscan Museum at the
Vatican. I have referred to this design elsewhere.
(Plate 26.)
[508] Rock's "Introduction," p. liii.
[509] This date is assigned to it by Monsignor Clifford.
[510] Kindly supplied to me by the Father Superior of
San Clemente in Rome.
[511] In the cathedral of Aix, Switzerland. Bock's
"Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. ii.
[512] One of these mitres has, it is said, been brought
to England.
[513] Bock, "Liturgische Gewänder," ii. taf. xii. This
is dyed in Tyrian purple (rosy red), and is simply the
cross, representing the tree with twelve leaves, "for
the healing of the nations."
[514] Bock, "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. iii. pp.
157-160.
[515] Bock, _ibid._, p. 158, quotes the Jesuit Erasmus
Fröhlich, (1754).
[516] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. iv. pp.
165, 166. "One of three costly garments."
[517] Modifications of the "wheel pattern" ("wheel and
plate"). Of these works of the tenth and eleventh
centuries the fine Roman lettering in the borders is a
marking characteristic.
[518] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. p. 214.
[519] There was no guild of embroiderers in England that
we know of till that incorporated in the reign of
Elizabeth. See chapter on English embroidery.
[520] Bock, i. 214, says that the splendid stuffs and
embroideries were entirely consecrated to the use of the
Church, till the luxurious arts invaded European
domestic life from the seventh to the twelfth century.
[521] See the cross on the Rheims cope (plate 63).
[522] There is no doubt it was only used for church
work.
[523] At Aachen, in Switzerland, there is a very
remarkable pluvial of one kind of opus Anglicanum, which
has been already alluded to. The border, of splendid
gold embroidery, has the pattern completed in fine
flowers of jewellers' work. (See Bock, "Liturgische
Gewänder," ii. p. 297, taf. xli.-xliv.) Rock, "Textile
Fabrics," Introduction, p. xxxi, cites from Mon. Angl.
(ii. 222), the vestments given to St. Alban's Abbey by
Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, A.D. 1429, as being
remarkable for pure gold in its texture and the
splendour of the jewels and precious stones set into it,
as well as for the exquisite beauty of its embroideries.
These are some of the characteristics of the opus
Anglicanum.
[524] Appendix 6.
[525] Mrs. Bayman, of the Royal School of Art
Needlework.
[526] If it is true that in the days of the Greeks and
Romans the art of acupictura or needle-painting copied
pictorial art, so likewise in the Egyptian early times,
painted linens imitated embroideries. This we learn by
specimens from the tombs. Painted hangings and
embroideries appear to have been equally used for
processional decorations. In the Middle Ages painted
hangings imitated embroideries and woven hangings, and
were considered as legitimate art.
[527] See Bock, vol. i. p. 10.
[528] Exhibited in the "Esposizione Romana" in 1869, in
the cloisters of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
[529] See Woltmann and Woermann, who quote evidence as
to works in painted glass as early as the ninth and
tenth centuries in France and Germany ("History of
Painting," vol. i. pp. 316-339). They remark that the
character of painted glass is nearly akin to textile
decoration, that it is essentially flat and unpictorial.
And doubtless there is an analogy between the two, but
rather suggesting patchwork or cut work than legitimate
embroidery.
[530] "Vasari," ed. Monce, taf. v. p. 101.
[531] See plate 69, which is a fine altar-frontal of the
plâteresque Spanish.
[532] The dress of the "Virgin del Sagrario" at Toledo,
embroidered with pearls, and the chasuble of Valencia,
worked with corals, show how profusely these costly
materials were employed.
[533] See "The Industrial Arts of Spain," pp. 250-264,
by Don Juan F. Riano, and catalogues of Loan Exhibition
by him for the South Kensington Museum series, 1881. The
works of Spanish Queens and Infantas are to be seen at
the Atocha, the church of the Virgin del Pilar at
Madrid.
[534] There are most interesting examples of Scriptural
subjects in Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. x.
pp. 207, 208; taf. xi. pp. 239-278. These are of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and we have some
good fifteenth century bead-work in the South Kensington
Museum.
[535] The splendid embroideries from Westminster Abbey,
sold to Spanish merchants at the Reformation, now at
Valencia, and the cope in the Museum at Madrid, are
instances of these exportations. The Syon cope also was
returned to England, after its long wanderings, about
sixty years ago. I give its history by Dr. Rock in the
Appendix 6.
[536] For examples of this ornate and graceful, but
frivolous style, we may remember the mosaic altar
frontals throughout the basilica of St. Peter's at Rome.
[537] See Dr. Rock's "Catalogue of Textile Fabrics,"
South Kensington Museum, Introduction, p. cxxxvi.
[538] Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. vi., vii.,
pp. 385-392. The emblematic meanings of stones is
constantly alluded to in the Old Testament. Their
symbolism has, therefore, a high authority and most
ancient descent. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is an
illuminated copy of Philip de Than's Bestiarium,
composed for Adelais, second wife of Henry I.
[539] "Cyclopædia of Bible Literature," vol. vii. p.
477.
[540] See Clapton Rolfe, "The Ancient Use of Liturgical
Colours." (Parker, 1879.)
[541] See "Indian Arts," by Sir G. Birdwood, i. p. 97.
He says this [Illustration] form is the sign of the
Buddhist or Jainis, and that the [Illustration]
fire-stick form was that of the Sakti race in India.
[542] See chapter on patterns, p. 103-4, _ante_.
[543] Revelations chap. xxii. v. 2.
[544] In mediæval times the cross in a circle was
sometimes called the "clavus" [Illustration]. It was
the same as an Egyptian sign, meaning "land" (plate 25).
Donelly fancifully claims the sign as being that of the
garden of Eden, and of the four rivers flowing from it
(see "Atlantis").
[545] See plate 70, No. 1. In the upper part of the
Halberstadt diptych, No. 1, the "gens togata" are
sitting on Olympus, clothed in such purple garments
embroidered with the chrysoclavus.
[546] I would instance the little church of St. Mary,
built and adorned by the late W. E. Street, at Feldy, in
Surrey.
[547] The art of illumination had in general kept a
little in front of that of the painter, and illumination
and embroidery went hand in hand.
[548] The fine brocades of velvet and gold, of which we
find examples in the centres of palls, and a notable one
in the celebrated Stoneyhurst cope, are still reproduced
to order at Lyons, Genoa, Florence, and in Spain. The
Florentine is distinguished by the little loops of gold
thread which pervade it.
[549] In the English ritual gold was permitted wherever
white was enjoined. This shows a true appreciation of
the effect of the metal, separating and isolating all
colours, and being of none.
[550] The purple is not one of the five mystic colours
named; it is included in blue, and therefore the most
ritualistic critic need not object to it.
[551] Under the Carlovingians, priestly garments were
often enriched with splendid fringes, trimmed with
bells. A Bishop of Elne, who died in 915, left to his
church a stole embroidered with gold and garnished with
bells. So rich were the fringes at that epoch, that King
Robert, praying one day in the church, became aware that
while he was lost in meditation a thief had ripped off
part of the fringes of his mantle. He interrupted his
proceedings by saying, "My friend, suppose you content
yourself with what you have taken, and leave the rest
for some other member of your guild." See "Histoire du
Tissu Ancien," Union Central des Arts Décoratifs. For a
fringe with bells, see the beautiful example in Bock's
"Liturgische Gewänder" (plates xli. xlii. xliii. vol.
ii. p. 297), already quoted.
[552] Resembling the fringe of St. Cuthbert's corporax,
with its silver bells.
[553] This valuable collection of textiles is so ancient
and therefore so frail, that it seems a pity to send
portions of it continually travelling about the country
for loan exhibitions. Change of climate--cold, heat, and
damp--carelessness in packing and unpacking--above all,
the reckless exposure to floods of sunshine even when
they are protected from dust by glass,--all these
endanger the preservation of what can never be replaced,
and has only survived till now because of the quiet and
darkness in which it has lain for centuries.
[554] George Herbert, "The Churchyard Porch," v. 15.
CHAPTER XI.
ENGLISH EMBROIDERY.
Through the preceding chapters I have tried to moderate my predominant
interest in our national school of needlework, seeking to place it in
its just position alongside of the coeval Continental schools.
However, the more I have seen of specimens at home and abroad, the
more I have become convinced of the great superiority of our
needlework in the Middle Ages. As information about our own art must
be valuable to us, I give a short account of English embroidery.
In England our art, like our language, is mixed. Our early history is
one of repeated conquest, and we can only observe where style has
flowed in from outside, or has formed itself by grafting upon the stem
full of vitality already planted and growing. It is interesting to
seek its root.
There is every reason to believe, from the evidence of the animal
remains of the Neolithic Age (including those of sheep), that they
came with their masters from the central plateau of Asia.
The overlap of the Asiatic civilizations over the barbarism of
Northern Europe shows that Assyria[555] as well as Egypt was a highly
organized empire, and the Mediterranean peoples far advanced in the
arts of life, while the Neolithic man survived and lingered in
Britain, France, and Scandinavia. Yet, even at that early period, the
craft of spinning and the use of the needle were practised by the
women of Britain.[556]
Our first glimpses of art may have come to us by Phœnician traders,
touching at the Scilly Islands and thence sailing to the coasts of
Cornwall and Ireland. From Ireland we have curious relics as witnesses
of their presence--amongst others, jewellery connected by, or pendant
from, "Trichinopoly" chains, similar to those dug out of Etruscan
tombs, and which were probably imported into Ireland as early as the
sixth century B.C.[557]
In the Bronze Age the chiefs and the rich men wore linen or woollen
homespun. Fragments of these have been found in the Scale House barrow
at Rylston, in Yorkshire. Dr. Rock says that an ancient Celtic barrow
was opened not long ago in Yorkshire, in which the body was wrapped in
plaited (not woven) woollen material.[558] Before this time the Cymri
in Britain probably wore plaited grass garments; they also sewed
together the skins of animals with bone needles.
Dyeing and weaving were well understood in Britain before the advent
of the Romans. Hemp and flax, however, though native to the soil, were
not employed by the early Britons. Linen perhaps came to us first
through the Phœnicians, and afterwards through the Celts, and was
naturalized here by the Romans.
Anderson ("Scotland in Early Christian Times") gives a high place to
the forms of pagan art which prevailed in the British Isles, before
the Roman civilization; and differing from and influencing that which
came from Scandinavia. We must certainly allow that it was art, and
that it contained no Greek or other classical element. His
illustrations explain and give great weight to his theories.
Cæsar invaded England forty-five years B.C.[559] The Romans gave us
Christianity and the rudiments of civilization, but their attempts to
Romanize us met with little success. Probably they imported their
luxuries, and removed all they valued at the time of their exodus.
From them we know what they found and what they left in Britain.
Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, the day of her defeat wore a tartan
dress (polymita) and an "embroidered" or "fur" mantle; probably the
fur was inside, and the skins embroidered outside. Dion Cassius,[560]
who describes Boadicea's motley tunic, says that the bulk of the
people wore what was apparently a chequered tartan. Semper says that
the early tribes of Northern Europe, like the North American Indians
of the present time, embroidered their fur wraps. The Emperor
Honorius, in the fourth century, made it illegal for Roman nobles to
wear extravagantly-worked fur robes; perhaps the report of Boadicea's
dress had set the fashion in Rome.
During the first four centuries of our era, all art in Britain must
have come from our Roman masters; and owing to their neglect of the
people they conquered, we benefited little by their civilization.
All that we know of their decorative art in Britain, is that it was,
with few exceptions, chiefly of small bronze statues, somewhat crude
and colonial, as appears from the remains of their architecture,
sculpture, mosaics, and tombs.[561] Of their textiles we have no
relics, and hardly know of any recorded, if we except the works of the
Empress Helena. See p. 316, _ante_. We must remember that, as she was
a British princess, it is likely that she had learnt her art at home,
and therefore that the women of England were already embroiderers as
early as the beginning of the fourth century.[562]
On the departure of the Romans, chaos ensued, till the Britons, who
had called in the Saxons to help them, were by them driven into Wales,
Brittany, and Ireland, which last they Christianized; and mingled the
art of the Germans and Celts with that of the Danes and Norsemen[563];
all which may be traced in the Irish remains to be seen in the
College Museum at Dublin and elsewhere. From the time that England
became Anglo-Saxon, literature, law, and art began to crystallize; and
when, under Egbert, one kingdom was formed out of the heptarchy, order
and a sense of beauty were in the course of development. Then came the
invasion of the Danes (ninth century), who robbed, destroyed, and
arrested all artistic improvement, till Alfred got rid of them for a
time. Early in the seventh century the women of England had attained
great perfection in needlework. This appears from a passage in a poem
by Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne. He speaks of their shuttles, "filled
not with purple only, but with various colours, moved here and there
among the thick spreading threads."[564] He had himself a robe "of a
most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and
peacocks." This may or may not have been woven in England, but at that
time weaving, as well as needlework, was the delight and occupation of
the ladies of the court and of the cloistered nuns.[565] The thralls
(slaves or serfs) were employed in weaving in the houses of the
nobles, probably they embroidered also.
Mrs. Lawrence sees reason to believe that in the seventh century, silk
and fine linen were the materials for altar decorations, vestments,
and dress; whereas the hangings of the house were of coarse canvas
adorned with embroidery in thick worsted.[566] She says the term
"broiderie" was reserved for the delicate works on fine grounds, in
silk and gold and silver thread, and enrichments in metal work.
Precious stones and pearls had already been introduced into the
Byzantine and Romanesque designs imported from Greece and Rome.
The English Dominican Friar, Th. Stubbs, writing in the thirteenth
century, describes in his notice of St. Oswald a chasuble of
Anglo-Saxon work, which exactly resembles that of Aix.[567] This is
splendidly engraved in Von Bock's "Kleinodien" amongst the coronation
robes of the Emperors of Germany, and is adorned with the richest
golden orphreys, imitating jewellers' work, enriched with pearls and
silver bells.
There is an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century which relates the
history of Thorgunna, a woman from the Hebrides, who was taken to
Iceland on the first settlement of the country by Norway, A.D. 1000.
She employed witchery in her needlework, and her embroidered hangings
were coveted by, and proved fatal to, many persons after her death,
till one of her inheritors burned them.[568]
[Illustration: Pl. 71.
One of the ends of the Stole of St. Cuthbert at Durham, which
together bear the inscription, "Aelfled fieri precepit pio
Episcopo Fridestano."]
English ecclesiastical art did not necessarily keep to Christian
subjects; for it is recorded that King Wiglaf, of Mercia, gave to
Croyland Abbey his splendid coronation mantle and "velum;" and that
the latter was embroidered with scenes from the siege of Troy.[569]
[Illustration: Pl. 72.
St. John.
St. Roger.
Durham Embroideries, tenth century.]
It was probably on account of such derelictions from orthodox subjects
of design that in the eighth century the Council of Cloveshoe
admonished the convents for their frivolous embroideries.[570]
In the eighth century our English work in illuminations and
embroideries was finer than that of any Continental school; and
therefore, in view of the great advance of these secondary arts, we
may claim that we were then no longer outer barbarians, though our
only acknowledged superiority over Continental artists was in the
workrooms of our women and the cells of our religious houses.
During the terrible incursions of the Danes, and the many troubles
that accrued from these barbarous and idolatrous invaders, the
convents and monasteries, especially those of the order of St.
Benedict, kept the sacred flame of art burning.[571] Both monks and
nuns wrote, illuminated, painted, and embroidered. They evidently
continued their relations with foreign art, for it is difficult to say
at what period the Norman style began to be introduced into England.
It was the outcome of the Romanesque, and of this, different phases
must have come to us through the Danes and the Saxons.
I cannot but dwell on the early life and springtide of our Anglican
Christian art, which in many points preceded and surpassed that of
other northern nations, as we arose from that period commonly called
the Dark Ages. Ours was a gradual development, adding to itself from
outer sources new strength and grace. The better perfection of details
and patterns was succeeded by Anglo-Saxon ingenuity and refinement in
drawing the human figure. The art, which was native to England, may be
judged by the rare examples that we possess, and of which we may well
be proud; though we must remember with shame how much was destroyed at
the Reformation. Enough however, remains to prove that our English art
of illumination of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries was very
beautiful, and we are not surprised therefore to find in the
embroideries of that period grace and artistic feeling.
The stole and maniple of the Durham cathedral library, which bear the
inscription "Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo Fridestano," are of
the most perfect style of Anglo-Saxon design; and the stitching of the
silk embroidery and of the gold grounding are of the utmost perfection
of needlework art (plates 71, 72).
The history of this embroidery is carefully elucidated by Dr. Raine in
his "Saint Cuthbert." He says that Frithestan was consecrated bishop
in 905, by command of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great.
Aelfled was Edward the Second's queen. She ordered and gave an
embroidered stole and maniple to Frithestan. After her death, and that
of Edward, and of the Bishop of Winchester, Athelstan, then king, made
a progress to the north, and visiting the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at
Chester-le-Street, he bestowed on it many rich gifts, which are
solemnly enumerated in the MSS. Cott. Brit. Mus. Claud. D. iv. fol.
21-6. Among these are "one stole, with a maniple; one girdle, and two
bracelets of gold." That the stole and maniple are those worked for
Frithestan by the command of his mother-in-law, Aelfled, may fairly be
said to be proved. These embroideries, worked with her name and the
record of her act, were taken from the body of St. Cuthbert in
1827.[572]
[Illustration: Pl. 73.
St. Dunstan's Portrait of himself in adoration. From his Missal in
the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]
Another and earlier Aelfled was the widow of Brithnod, a famous
Northumbrian chieftain. She gave to the cathedral of Ely, where his
headless body lay buried, a large cloth, or hanging, on which she had
embroidered the heroic deeds of her husband. She was the ancestress of
a race of embroiderers, and their pedigree will be found in the
Appendix.[573] At this time a lady of the Queen of Scotland was famed
for her perfect skill in needlework, and the four daughters of Edward
the Elder were likewise celebrated embroiderers.
St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have designed
needlework for a noble and pious lady, Aedelwyrme, to execute in gold
thread, A.D. 924.[574] He prepared and painted a drawing, and directed
her work.[575] I here give the portrait of our celebrated early
designer from the MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, said to be
by his own hand, and which represents him kneeling at the feet of the
Saviour (plate 73).
Shortly before the Norman conquest, in the beginning of the eleventh
century, we have notices of sundry other very remarkable pieces of
work.
The Danish Queen Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, when she
was wife to Ethelred the Unready, and again during her second marriage
to Canute, gave the finest embroideries to various abbeys and
monasteries. Canute, being then a Christian, joined her in these
splendid votive offerings. To Romsey and Croyland they gave
altar-cloths which had been embroidered by his first queen,
Aelgitha,[576] and vestments covered with golden eagles. She worked
one altar-cloth on shot blood-red and green silk,[577] with golden
orphreys at the side and across the top. When one considers what the
life of poor Queen Emma was, one hopes that "Art the Consoler" came to
her in the form of her favourite craft, and that she did find
consolation in it.
Croyland Abbey seems to have been most splendidly endowed by the
Anglo-Saxon monarchs. There is continual mention in the records of
those times of offerings of embroideries and other Church apparels.
Queen Editha, the wife of the Confessor, dispensed beautiful works
from her own workrooms, and herself embroidered King Edward's
coronation mantle.
When in the eleventh century the Normans became our masters, they
found cathedrals, churches, and palaces which almost vied with their
own; likewise sculptures, illuminated books, embroidered hangings,
and vestments of surpassing beauty.
William of Poitou, Chaplain to William the Conqueror,[578] relates
that the Normans were as much struck on the Conqueror's return into
Normandy with the splendid embroidered garments of the Saxon nobles,
as with the beauty of the Saxon youth. Queen Matilda, who evidently
appreciated Anglo-Saxon work, left in her will, to the Abbey of the
Holy Trinity, "My tunic worked by Alderet's wife, and the mantle which
is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I give the
one which is adorned with emblems to suspend the lamp before the great
altar."
I come now to the earliest large work remaining to us of the
period--the Bayeux tapestry. We must claim it as English, both on
account of the reputed worker, and the history it commemorates, though
the childish style of which it is a type is indeed inferior in every
way to the beautiful specimens which have been rescued from tombs in
Durham, Worcester, and elsewhere. They seem hardly to belong to the
same period, so weak are the designs and the composition of the
groups. Though Mr. Rede Fowke gives the Abbé de la Rue's doubts as to
the accepted period of the Bayeux tapestry, which he assigns to the
Empress Matilda, he yet leans to other equally good authorities who
consider the work as being coeval with the events it records.[579]
Mr. Collingwood Bruce is of the same opinion, and for this
reason--the furniture, buildings, &c., are all of the eleventh
century, and our ancestors were no archæologists, and always drew what
they saw around them. Mr. Bruce fancies the design to be Italian,
"because of the energetic action of the figures;" this seems hardly
justified when we look at the simple poverty of the style. Miss A.
Strickland suggests that the artist was perhaps Turold the Dwarf, who
has cunningly introduced his effigy and name. That the tapestry is not
found in any catalogue before 1369, is only a piece of presumptive
evidence against the earlier date, and cannot compete with the
internal evidence in its favour. On 227 feet of canvas-linen, twenty
inches wide, are delineated the events of English history from the
time of Edward the Confessor to the landing of the Conqueror at
Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry is worked in worsted on linen; the
design is perfectly flat and shadowless. The outlines are firmly drawn
with cords on thickly set stem-stitches. The surfaces are laid in flat
stitch. Though coarsely worked, there is a certain "maestria" in the
execution.
The word "orphrey" (English for auriphrigium or Phrygian gold
embroidery) is first found in Domesday Book, where "Alvide the maiden"
receives from Godric the Sheriff, for her life, half a hide of land,
"If she might teach his daughters to make orphreys."[580]
In the end of the eleventh century, Christina, Abbess of Markgate,
worked a pair of sandals and three mitres of surpassing beauty, sent
through the Abbot of St. Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., who doubtless
valued them the more because they came from his native England.[581]
[Illustration: Pl. 74.
English Patterns, chiefly from Strutt's "Royal and Ecclesiastical
Antiquities of England."
1. 1066. 2. 1092. 3. 1100. 4. 1171. 5. 1171. 6. 1189. 7. 1189. 8.
1361. 9, 10. 1377. 11. 1399. 12. 1422. 13. 1426. 14. 1440. 15.
1445. 16. 1416. 17. 1445. 18. 1477. 19. 1530. 20. 1272.]
[Illustration: Pl. 75.
1. Panel of a Screen in Hornby Church. Painted fifteenth century.
2. Dress pattern from painted glass. St. Michael's Church, York.
Fourteenth century.
3. A portion of the material of the Towneley Copes. Fifteenth
century.]
Of the twelfth century (1170) we have the robes and mitres of Thomas
à Becket at Sens; and another mitre of the period, white and gold, is
in the museum at Munich, with his martyrdom embroidered on one side,
and that of St. Stephen on the other. The gold needlework is so
perfect that it resembles weaving. It is recorded that a splendid
dress was embroidered in London for Elinor of Aquitaine, which cost
£80, equal to £1400 of the value of to-day.[582]
Rock ("Church of our Fathers," t. ii. p. 279) truly says that it is
shown by plentiful records and written documents, from the days of St.
Osmond to the time of Henry VIII., that the materials employed in
English ecclesiastical embroideries were the best that could be found
in our own country or in far-off lands, and the art bestowed on them
was the best we could learn and give. Various fabrics came from
Byzantine or Saracenic looms, which are described as damasked, rayed,
marbled, &c. The few surviving specimens fully justify the admiration
bestowed on them throughout Christendom.
Matthew Paris, in the reign of Henry III., says that Innocent III.
(1246), seeing certain copes and infulæ with desirable orphreys, was
informed they were English work. He exclaimed, "Surely England is a
garden of delight! In sooth this is a well inexhaustible! And where
there is so much abundance, from thence much may be extracted!"[583]
From the Conquest to the Reformation the catalogues of Church
vestments which are to be found in the libraries of York, Lincoln, and
Peterborough, show the luxury of ecclesiastical decoration. In Lincoln
alone there were upwards of 600 vestments wrought with divers kinds of
needlework, jewellery, and gold, upon "Indian baudichyn," samite,
tartarin, velvet, and silk. Even in reading the dry descriptions of a
common inventory, we are amazed by the lists of "orphreys of goodly
needlework," copes embroidered with armorial bearings, and knights
jousting, lions fighting, and amices "barred with amethysts and
pearls, &c. &c." The few I have named will give an idea of the
accumulation of riches in the churches, and the gorgeousness of
English embroideries.[584]
I have collected from Strutt's "Illustrations"[585] and other sources
a number of patterns for domestic hangings, copied from MSS. of
contemporary dates, covering about 400 years, from the time of Harold
to Edward IV. The hangings may have been more effective than appears
at first sight, if the materials were rich and enlivened with gold. I
give two textile designs which in their style are peculiarly English
(plates 74, 75).
Now we enter on the age of romance and chivalry, when all domestic
decorations began to assume greater refinement. Carpets from the East
covered the rushes strewn on the floors, and splendid tents were
brought home by crusading knights; and the decorative arts of northern
Europe were once more permeated with Oriental taste and design.
We know that in the so-called "days of chivalry," i.e. from the
Conquest till the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, needlework was the
occupation of the women left in their castles, while the men were away
fighting for the cross, for the king, for their liberties, or for
booty.
This period included the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses, wars with
France, and rebellions at home; and yet there was a taste for art,
luxury, and show spreading everywhere.[586]
The women were expected to provide, with their looms and their
needles, the heraldic surcoats, the scarves and banners, and the
mantles for state occasions.[587] They also worked the hangings for
the hall and chapel, and adorned the altars and the priests'
vestments. Alas! time, taste, and the moth have shared in the
destruction of these gauds. The taste for the "baroc" is a new
acquisition; no one cared for what was old, merely because it was old.
The rich replaced their hangings and their clothes when they became
shabby; the poor let them go to pieces, and probably burned the old
stuff and the embroideries for the sake of the gold thread, which was
of intrinsic value. But both in prose and poetry we read descriptions
of beautiful works in the loom, or on the frame, executed by fair
ladies for the gallant knights whose lives and prowess these poems
have preserved to us. I will give one quotation from that of Emare,
in Ritson's collection: "Her mantle was wroughte by a faire Paynim,
the Amarayle's daughter." This occupied her seven long years. In each
corner is depicted a pair of lovers, "Sir Tristram and Iseult--Sir
Amadis and Ydoine, &c., &c. These pictures were adorned with precious
stones." The figures were portrayed--
"With stonès bright and pure,
With carbuncle and sapphire,
Kalsèdonys and onyx clere,
Sette in golde newe;
Diamondes and rubies,
And other stones of mychel pryse."
The lady who owns this mantle is herself great in "workes of
broderie."
From the Conquest to the Wars of the Roses, England may claim to have
gradually acquired a higher place in art. Our architecture, sculpture,
manuscripts, and paintings were not surpassed on the Continent:
witness Queen Eleanor's crosses, and her tomb in Westminster Abbey;
and the portrait of Richard II., surrounded by saints and angels, at
Wilton House,[588] a picture which, preceding Fra Beato Angelico's
works by at least a quarter of a century, yet suggests his style,
refined drawing, and tender colouring. All who saw the frescoes found
in the Chapel at Eton College when it was restored, will remember
their extreme beauty, and regret that they were effaced, instead of
being preserved and restored. They were a lesson in what English art
was in the end of the thirteenth, during the fourteenth, and into the
beginning of the fifteenth centuries.
During the Wars of the Roses, when a duke of the blood-royal is said
to have begged his bread in the streets of the rich Flemish towns,
ladies of rank, more fortunate, were able to earn theirs by the work
of their needle.[589]
The monuments of the eleventh and twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, are our best authorities for the embroideries then worn.
The surcoat of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral is a
noteworthy example. The sculptured effigy on the tomb over which it is
suspended is absolutely clothed in the same surcoat, with the same
accidents of embroidery, as if it had been modelled from it.
In Worcester, when the archæologists opened King John's tomb in 1797,
they found him in the same dress and attitude as that portrayed on the
recumbent statue.[590] Dress was then extravagantly expensive, and
embroidered dresses were worn with borders richly set with precious
stones and pearls.
The Librate Roll of Henry III. gives us a list of embroiderers' names:
Alain de Basinge, Adam de Bakeryne, John de Colonia, &c.; and in the
wardrobe accompts of Richard II., William Sanstoune and Robert de
Ashmede are called the "Broudatores Domini Regis." These may have
been the artists to whom the orders were delivered, for in the Librate
Roll of Henry III. we find Adam de Baskeryne receiving 6_s._ 8_d._ for
a "cloth of silk, and fringe, purchased by our commands to embroider a
certain chasuble which Mabilia of St. Edmunds made for us." There were
certainly then purveyors and masters of the craft. Stephen Vigner, in
the fourteenth century, is so warmly commended by the Duke of Berri
and Auvergne to Edward III., that Richard II. appointed him his chief
embroiderer, and Henry IV. pensioned him for his skilful services.
John Garland, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a good
authority for the use by our women of small hand-looms. In these they
wove, in flax or silk (often mixed with gold), the "cingulæ" or
"blode-bendes" so often mentioned, supposed to be gifts between
friends for binding the arm, when blood-letting was so much in fashion
that the operation was allowed to assume a certain air of coquetry.
But the idea suggests itself that this was oftener the gift of the
fair weaver to her favoured lover, to fold round his arm as a scarf in
battle or tourney, to be ready in case it was needed for binding up a
wound, and had possibly served as a snood to bind her own fair hair.
There is an account of a specimen of this kind of weaving by M.
Léopold Delisle.[591] He describes the attachment of a seal to a grant
from Richard Cœur de Lion to Richard Hommet and Gille his wife,
preserved in the archives of the Abbey of Aunai, in the department of
Calvados. He considers it to be either French or English, and says it
was a "lac d'amour," or "tie of love," cut up to serve its present
purpose. It is woven with an inscription in white on a ground of
green, backed with pale blue, and the material is silk. The woven
legend is thus translated from the old French--"Let him perish who
would part us."
[Illustration: Opus Anglicanum, XIII. Century
British Museum]
The term "opus Anglicanum" is first recorded in the thirteenth
century, and is supposed simply to mean "English work." But there is
also good authority for its having been applied, on the Continent
especially, to a particular style of stitchery, of which the Syon cope
in the Kensington Museum is the best preserved great example known.
Its peculiarity consists in its fine split-stitch being moulded so as
to give the effect of a bas-relief; and this appears to have been
generally reserved for the medallions representing sacred subjects,
and especially employed in modelling the faces and the nude parts of
the figures delineated. The effect of this work has often been
destroyed, as time has frayed and discoloured the parts that are
raised, exhibiting the canvas ground, reversing the high lights, and
causing dark spots in their stead. This reversal of the intended
effect is an additional practical argument for the flatness of
embroidery.[592]
From the Librate Roll of Henry III. one can form an estimate of the
value of the "opus Anglicanum" in its day.[593] In 1241 the king gave
Peter de Agua Blanca a mitre so worked, costing £82. This would be,
according to the present value, £230.
The finest specimens of this English work are to be found on the
Continent, or have been returned from it.[594] They had either been
gifts to popes or bishops before the Reformation, or they had been
sold at that time of general persecution and pillage. Among the most
remarkable are the pluvial (called) of St. Silvester at Rome, the
Daroca pluvial at Madrid, the great pluvial at Bologna, and the Syon
cope, of which I have already spoken. The general idea and prevailing
design of these three great works are so singular, and yet so alike,
that they must have issued from the same workshop, and that was
certainly English.
In the Daroca cope the cherubim, with their feet on wheels, which are
peculiar to English design, and the angels (in the vacant spaces
between the framed subjects from the life of our Lord) have their
wings carefully done in chain split-stitch representing peacocks'
feathers, of which the silken eyes are stitched in circles, and then
raised with an iron by pressure, so as to catch a light and throw a
shadow. The ground is entirely English gold-laid work. This cope, so
markedly national in design and stitches, probably drifted to the
Continent at the time of the Reformation.[595]
[Illustration: Pl. 77.
Characteristic English Parsemé Patterns for Ecclesiastical
Embroideries.]
[Illustration: Pl. 78.
Dunstable Pall. Property of the Vicar of Dunstable _ex officio_.]
A wonderfully preserved specimen of the "opus Anglicanum," of which a
photogravure is here given, was lately presented by Mr. Franks to the
Mediæval Department of the British Museum (plate 76). In this may be
seen most of the characteristics of this work in the thirteenth
century; such as the angels with peacock feather wings, moulded by hot
irons; the features of all the figures similarly manipulated; the
beautiful gold groundwork, which in this instance is covered with
double-headed eagles; and lastly, the fashion of the beard on the face
of our Lord and of all the men delineated--the upper lip and round the
mouth being invariably shaven; whereas, in Continental work, the
beard is allowed to grow into the moustache, closely surrounding the
mouth. There are other peculiarities belonging to English design--such
as the angels rising between the shrine-work on the pillars out of a
flame or cloud pattern, and the pillars very often formed of twined
stems bearing vine-leaves or else oak-leaves and acorns. The
compartments which frame the groups, when they are not placed in
niches, are usually variations of the intersected circle and square.
Plate 77 shows the cherubim which from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
centuries are found on English ecclesiastical embroideries--also the
vase of lilies (emblematic of the Virgin), and the Gothic flowers
which are so commonly _parsemé_ over our mediæval altar frontals and
vestments.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.]
It appears that in the reign of Edward III. the people ingeniously
evaded the penalties against the excess of luxury in dress, by wearing
something that looked as gay, but was less expensive than the
forbidden materials; and which did not come under the letter of the
law. They invented a spurious kind of embroidery which was, perhaps,
partly painted (such examples are recorded). In the 2nd Henry VI.
(1422) it was enacted that all such work should be forfeited to the
king. The accusation was that "divers persons belonging to the craft
of Brouderie make divers works of Brouderie of insufficient stuffe and
unduly wroughte with gold and silver of Cyprus, and gold of Lucca, and
Spanish laton (or tin); and that they sell these at the fairs of
Stereberg, Oxford, and Salisbury, to the great deceit of our Sovereign
Lord and all his people." In those days any dishonest work or material
was illegal and punishable.[596]
This was, in fact, a protectionist measure in favour of the chartered
embroiderers, and gave them a slight taste of the advantages of
protection. For a time it was doubtless useful in keeping up the
standard of national work. Then followed further measures for the
benefit of the established monopolies. First, a statute in 1453 (Henry
VI.), forbidding the importation of foreign embroideries for five
years. This is re-enacted under Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry
VII.; and was partially repealed in the 3rd and 5th George III. While
we are on this subject, we may remark that in 1707, the importation of
embroidery was forbidden to the East India Company, and we closed our
ports to all manufactured Indian goods. The only artistic trade _now_
protected is that of the silversmith; no plate from foreign workshops
being permitted to enter England--not even do we allow Indian plate to
come in, except under certain conditions. This may be the reason that
our own plate is so very bad in design and execution, for want of
competition and example.
Protection is always more or less fatal to art. The Wars of the Roses
had injured our own best schools, and we needed refined imported ideas
to raise our standard once again. Perhaps, since embroidery had become
a regular industry, our markets were overstocked by home productions
which were outrivalled by the works from the Continent, and it was
distress that caused the plea for protection.
[Illustration: Pl. 79.
Pall of the Vintners' Company (sixteenth century).]
It is fair to say that some of the English works of that time, of
which we have specimens, are as good as possible. In the Dunstable
pall, for instance, the figures of which are perfectly drawn and
beautifully executed, the style is excellent and pure English (plate
78). The pall itself is of Florentine crimson velvet and gold brocade,
with the little loops of gold drawn through the velvet, showing the
loom from whence it came. The white satin border carries the
embroidery. It is a more perfect specimen of the later fourteenth
century work than the famous pall of the Fishmongers' Company, which
shows the impress of the Flemish taste, which was at its perfection in
the fifteenth. The style reminds us of that of the fine tapestries
from the St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, of which the subject is King Henry
VI. and Cardinal Beaufort praying. The Vintners' Company's pall is
also very fine (plate 79).
[Illustration: Henry VII.'s Cope from Stoneyhurst]
Of the time of Henry VII. we have the celebrated cope of Stoneyhurst,
woven in Florence, of a gold tissue, the design raised in crimson
velvet. It is without seam, and the composition which covers the whole
surface is the crown of England lying on the portcullis; and the Tudor
rose fills up the space with a magnificent scroll. The design is
evidently English, as well as the embroidery, which is, however, much
restored[597] (plate 80).
This is one of the "whole suite of vestments and copes of cloth of
gold tissue wrought with our badges of red roses and portcullises, the
which we of late caused to be made at Florence in Italy ... which our
king, Henry VII., in his will bequeathed to God and St. Peter, and to
the Abbot and Prior of our Monastery at Westminster,"[598] which were
designed for him by Torrigiano.
From the portraits of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can
judge of the prevailing taste in dress embroideries of that period,
which consisted mostly of delicate patterns of gold or silver on the
borders of dresses, and the linen collars and sleeves. Of this style I
give a small sampler, from Lord Middleton's collection. We have a good
many specimens of the work of these centuries, both ecclesiastical and
secular. They had still a Gothic stamp, which totally disappeared in
the beginning of the sixteenth century in the new style of the
Renaissance.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.
Sampler, from Lord Middleton's collection.
Time, Henry VIII.]
The next great change throughout northern Europe affecting all the
conditions of life, most especially in England, was caused by the
Reformation, which swept away both the art and the artist of the
Gothic era. The monasteries which had fostered painting, illumination,
and embroidery, and the arts which had been so passionately devoted to
the Church, were doomed. George Gifford, writing to Cromwell of the
suppression of a religious house at Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire, after
praising that establishment says, "There is not one religious person
there, but what _can_ and _doth_ use either embrotheryng, wryting
bookes with a fayre hand, making garments, karvynge, &c."[599]
In the general clearance the churches and shrines were swept, though
never again garnished, and the survivals have to be painfully sought
for, and are so few that a short catalogue will tell them all.
The greater part of the fine embroideries which escaped the
"iconoclastic rage" of the Reformation, and the final sweep of the
Puritans, are to be seen now in the houses and chapels of the old
Roman Catholic families, who have either preserved or collected them;
also in the museums of our cathedrals, and spread about the Continent.
For instance, at Sens are the vestments of Thomas à Becket, and at
Valencia, in Spain, there are yet in the chapter-house a chasuble and
two dalmatics, brought from London by two merchants of Valencia, whose
names are preserved--Andrew and Pedro de Medina. They purchased them
at the sale of the Roman Catholic ornaments of Westminster Abbey in
the time of Henry VIII. They are embroidered in gold, and represent
scenes from the life of our Lord. The background of one is a
representation of the Tower of London.
In 1520 was held the famous tournament of the Field of the Cloth of
Gold.[600] Here came all England's chivalry surrounding their splendid
young king; followed by squires and men-at-arms, and carrying with
them tents, banners, and hangings covered with devices and mottoes.
Their own dresses, of rich materials and adorned with embroidery (as
well as the housings of their horses), vied in ingenuity and splendour
with those of the still more luxurious court and following of Francis
I., the French king. The tradesmen and workmen and workwomen in
England were driven crazy in their efforts to carry out the ideas and
commands of their employers. It is recorded that several committed
suicide in their despair. It was worse than the miseries caused by a
Court Drawing-Room now. Ingenuity in devices was the order of the day.
Francis and his "Partners of Challenge" illustrated one sentimental
motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were
apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with
black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of
"corbyn" (a raven) is _cor_, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is
_pennac_. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and
"betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened in
pain endlesse."
The next day the "Hardy Kings" met armed at all points. The French
king and his followers were arrayed in purple satin, broched with gold
and purple velvet, embroidered with little rolls of white satin, on
which was written "Quando;" all the rest was powdered with the letter
L--"Quando Elle" (when she). The third day the motto was laboriously
brought to a conclusion. Francis appeared dressed in purple velvet
embroidered with little white open books; "Liber" being a book, the
motto on it was, "A me." These books were connected with worked blue
chains; thus we have the whole motto: "Hart, fastened in pain
endlesse, when she delivereth me not of bondes." Could painful
ingenuity go further? On the English side we have similar devices.
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the bridegroom of the Dowager Queen of
France, Henry's sister, was clothed on one side in cloth of frise
(grey woollen), on which appeared embroidered in gold the motto,--
"Cloth of frise, be not too bold
That thou be match'd with cloth of gold."
This parti-coloured garment was on the other side of gold, with the
motto,--
"Cloth of gold, do not despise
That thou be match'd with cloth of frise."
Besides mottoes, cyphers and monograms were the fashion, embroidered
with heraldic devices. These particulars we find in Hall's account of
the tournament, with a detailed description of the golden tent in
which the monarchs met, and which gave its name ever after to the
plain near Guisnes, where the jousts were held. What we read of its
construction recalls the Alexandrian erections, of which I have spoken
already, as well as their hangings and embroideries.
[Illustration: Pl. 81.
English Specimens of Spanish Work. Time of Henry VIII. Lord
Middleton's Collection.]
[Illustration: Pl. 82.
English Specimen. Spanish Work. Henry VIII. Louisa, Lady Waterford's
Collection.]
Incrustations of pearls and precious stones gave a dazzling brilliancy
to the tent, divided into many rooms, and adapted to the climate of
the north. It covered a space of 328 feet. Hall describes the tent,
the jousts, and the splendid apparel belonging to this last chapter of
the magnificence of chivalry. Brewer remarks that magnificence was, in
those days, often supposed to be synonymous with magnanimity (at any
rate, it was erected into a royal virtue). "The Mediæval Age," he
says, "had gathered up its departing energies for this last display of
its favourite pastime, henceforth to be consigned without regret to
the mouldering lodges of the past."[601]
We cannot say how much of French taste was imported from this meeting
of French and English luxury. The spirit of the Renaissance, fresh
from Italy, was reigning in France, but we had also in Italy our own
emissaries. John of Padua was probably only one of many Englishmen who
travelled to learn and improve themselves in their special crafts.
Catherine of Aragon introduced the Spanish taste in embroidery, which
was then white or black silk and gold "lace stitches" on fine linen
(plate 81). This went by the name of "Spanish work," and continued to
be the fashion down to and through the reign of Mary Tudor, who
remained faithful to the traditions of her mother's and her
grandmother's work[602] (plate 82). Catherine of Aragon had learned
her craft from her mother, Queen Isabella, who always made her
husband's shirts. To make and adorn a shirt was then an artistic feat,
not unworthy of a queen. Isabella instituted trials of needlework
amongst her ladies. In the days of her disgrace and solitude,
Catherine turned to her embroidery for solace and occupation. She came
forth to meet the Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio with a skein of red
silk round her neck.[603] Taylor, the water poet, says,--
"Virtuously,
Although a queen, her days did pass
In working with her needle curiously."
At Silbergh Castle, in Westmoreland, was a counterpane and toilet
embroidered by Queen Catherine.
Anne of Cleves brought with her the taste for Flemish and German
Renaissance designs; and all the cushion stitches were in vogue. The
Renaissance borders for dress were mostly worked in gold on coloured
silk on the linen collars and cuffs. Holbein's and other contemporary
portraits illustrate this peculiarity of the costumes of the time. The
women's head-dresses also carried much fine, beautifully designed, and
delicate work.
In the reign of Henry VIII. fine hangings were worked and woven in
England; the royal inventories give us an idea to what extent.
Cardinal Wolsey's walls were covered with splendid embroideries,
besides the suites of tapestries still adorning the hall at Hampton
Court. One room was hung with embroidered cloth of gold.
Mary Tudor, as I have said, was Spanish in all her tastes, and we
have lists of her "smocks" all worked in Spanish stitches, black and
gold, or black silk only.[604] This taste, following the political
tendencies of the time, entirely disappeared under Elizabeth. It
survives, however, in peasant dress in the Low Countries.
Queen Elizabeth spent much of her time in needlework. She herself had
received the education of a man, as well as her cousin, Lady Jane
Grey; and doubtless many women were taught at that time Greek and
Latin, and to study philosophy, mathematics, and the science of music,
as a training for serious life. Elizabeth studied and embroidered too;
at any rate, she stood godmother to many pieces of embroidery, which
are to be seen still in the houses she visited or occupied.
While at Ashridge, and afterwards as a prisoner at Hatfield, she so
employed herself; and among the specimens of work of the sixteenth
century exhibited at South Kensington in 1873, were her shoes and cap,
worked in purl, a semainière in the same stitch, also cushion-covers
in divers cushion stitches, and a portmonnaie in exquisitely fine
satin-stitch; all of which articles, and many more, were left by her
at Ashridge when she was hurried away in the dead of night to
Hatfield.[605]
The character of the Renaissance of the sixteenth century, just
released from the trammels of Gothic traditions, was somewhat lawless
in England, being unchastened by the classical element which entirely
controlled the movement in Italy.
The queen's dress soon departed from the severe simplicity which she
at first affected, and every part of her costume was covered with
flowers, fruit, and symbolical designs; while serpents, crowns,
chains, roses, eyes and ears crowded the surfaces of the fine
materials of her dresses. These symbolical designs were rich without
grace, and ingenious rather than artistic, although their workmanship
was perfect. In Louisa, Lady Waterford's collection we find a jacket
for a slight girl's figure, of white linen, covered with flowers,
fruit, and berries, all carried out in satin and lace stitches. There
are butterflies with their wings disengaged from the ground; pods
bursting open and showing the round seeds or peas; caterpillars
stuffed and raised; all these astonish us by their quaint perfection,
and shock us by their naturalistic crudeness of design, and the utter
want of beauty or taste in the whole effect. The impression left on
the mind is, how dear it must have cost the pocket of the purchaser
and the eyes of the workers. There are, however, exceptions to these
defective poor designs; and in the same collection is a cushion-cover
worked in gold and silver plate, purl and silk, on a red satin ground,
which is as good as possible in every respect, and is purely English
in style. The stitches and materials are most refined and varied.
Purl, which was a newly made material imported from Italy and Germany,
was then in much vogue, and we have seen a few fine specimens of it,
that have been imitated from the Italian cinque-cento raised and
stuffed needlework, which are very curious and almost very
beautiful,--only one feels that the same effect could have been
produced by simpler means. This work is characteristic of the reigns
of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James I. We have needlework of another
most unhappy queen of this date. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, tried to
soften Elizabeth's heart towards her prisoner by little gifts of her
own embroideries.[606]
We have no account of the cause of the incorporation of the
Embroiderers' Company by Queen Elizabeth,[607] in the third year of
her reign, Oct. 25th, 1561, confirmed by James II., April 12th, 1686,
which is still a London guild. It received the lions of England as a
special favour. The arms are thus blazoned: "Palée of six argent and
azure on a fess gules, between three lions of England pass. gardant
or. Three broches in saltire between as many trundles (i.e. quills of
gold thread), or. Crest: on a wreath a heart; the holy dove displayed
argent, radiated or. Supporters: two lions or (guttée de sang). Motto:
'Omnia Desuper.' Hall, 20, Gutter Lane." There were branches,
incorporated and bearing the arms, at Bristol and Chester, in 1780.
(See Appendix.)
[Illustration: Fig. 28.
Arms of Embroiderers' Guild.]
In the reign of James I. it was the fashion to do portraits in
needlework, stitched flat or raised. Some are artistic in design and
execution, but they are mostly ridiculously bad.
The East India Company was founded in 1560, under Elizabeth, and
obtained the monopoly of the Anglo-Indian trade, under Cromwell, in
1634. This would have been the moment for encouraging a fresh
importation of Oriental taste into our degenerate art. Cromwell's own
service of plate was scratched over ("graffito") with a childish and
weak semi-Indian, semi-Chinese design; and we must accept this as
typical of the artistic Oriental knowledge of that day. Grafted on the
style of James I., it shows, however, that Indian ideas were creeping
in and sought for, if not understood in high places, under the
auspices of the East India Company. Needlework alone was excluded from
all benefit. From that date, for 150 years, Indian manufactures
were imported, _with the exception of embroidery_, which was
contraband by the ancient statutes. This accounts for our faint and
ignorant imitations of Indian work, and the extreme rarity of the true
specimens to be met with in England, unless of a later period.
[Illustration: Cushion cover Temp. Queen Elizabeth
XVI. Century]
But our Aryan instincts have always led our English tastes towards
conventional naturalism. Although we have lost the rules and
traditions which converted natural objects into patterns, we are
continually, in our style, leaning and groping in their direction, and
twining flowers, those of the field by preference, into
semi-conventional garlands and posies.
In the seventeenth century, when James I. was king, protection had
done its worst. The style of work called "embroidery on the stamp" was
then the fashion. This sort of work in Italy continued to be artistic,
but the English specimens that have survived from this reign are
mostly very ugly. Continental art had ceased to influence us, and bad
taste reigned supreme, except in our architecture, which had
crystallized into a picturesque style of our own called "James I.,"
and was the outcome of the last Gothic of Henry VIII. and the Italian
style of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. But the carvings of that phase of
architecture were semi-barbarous. Nothing could have been poorer than
their composition, or coarser than their execution, and the needlework
of the day followed suit. Infinite trouble and ingenuity were wasted
on looking-glass frames, picture frames, and caskets worked in purl,
gold, and silver. The subjects were ambitious Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba, and James and Anne of Denmark,[608] and other historical
figures were stuffed with cotton or wool, and raised into high
relief; and then dressed and "garnished" with pearls; the faces either
in painted satin or fine satin stitch; the hair and wigs in purl or
complicated knotting. Windsor Castle as a background for King James
and King Solomon alike, pointed the clumsy allegory, and the lion of
England gambolling in the foreground, amid flowers and coats-of-arms,
filled up the composition.
The drawing and design were childish, and show us how high art can in
a century or less slip back into no art at all. Any one comparing the
Dunstable or the Fishmongers' pall with one of the best caskets of
this period would say that the latter should have preceded the former
by centuries. In James I.'s time, ignorance of all rules of
composition was added to the absence of any sort of style.[609] I give
the illustrations of the time of James I. Plate 83 is a cushion from
Hatfield House, rich and rather foolish, with tiny men filling in the
corners left vacant by large flowers, caterpillars, &c.
Charles I. gave a raised embroidered cope to the Chapter of Durham, of
this description of work.[610]
[Illustration: Pl. 84.
English embroidered curtain (James I.), at Cockayne Hatley, Beds.]
[Illustration: Pl. 85.
Embroidered Hangings. Crewels on Linen. Hardwicke Hall.]
The other fashionable work of that day had its merits. It was the
custom to embroider hangings or linen in crewels. Considering how
often in this book and my preceding lectures I have said that this
style of work was common (even in the early days of Egypt and
Assyria), it may well be said, when was it _not_ the fashion? and I
must answer, "only since the days of Queen Anne." It seems as if
before that time our designs for work were partially influenced by the
fine Indian specimens which had surreptitiously crept into England.
Some of these are very cleverly executed. Huge conventional trees grow
from a green strip of earth carrying every variety of leaf and flower
done in many stitches. The individual leaf or flower is often very
beautiful. On the bank below, small deer and lions disport themselves,
and birds twice their size perch on the branches (plate 84).[611] But
even where the work is finest, the incongruities are too annoying. The
modern excuse for it, "that it is quaint," does not reconcile us to
its extravagant effect. To be quaint in art is, as I have said before,
to be funny without intending it; and these curtains are funny by
their absence of all intention or perspective, and when hung they
make everything in the room look disproportionate to the unnatural
size of the foliage. (Plate 85.) Specimens of this work are to be
found in most English country houses. It has lasted till now, partly
because the crewels first manufactured in the sixteenth century were
of an excellent quality, and secondly, because there was no gold to
make it worth any one's while to destroy them; so the old hangings
went up into the attics in all the disgrace of shabbiness, and have
come down again as family relics. Even the moths have been deprived of
their prey, by these curtains having served for the beds of the
household, so that they have been kept for their nearly 300 years of
existence, aired and dusted. Much of this work has been recovered from
farmhouses and cottages in tolerable preservation. In many cases the
flowers have survived the stout linen grounds on which they were
worked. The Royal School of Needlework has often been commissioned to
restore and transfer the crewel trees on to a new backing. The
hangings and the curtains I have described, prevailed from the end of
Elizabeth's reign to that of Queen Anne, and gradually deteriorated.
The stitches, of which the variety at first was infinite, had given
place to a coarse uniform stem stitch--"gobble stitch." The materials
also were of inferior quality, and less durable, so that the latest
specimens are in general in the worst condition.
It is remarkable how little the beautiful Continental work influenced
our English school. We were enjoying perfect protection, and were
clumsily taking advantage of our security from all competition. In the
Italian palaces this was the moment of the finest secular embroideries
in satin stitches, gold and silver, and "inlaid" and "onlaid"
appliqués. Likewise in Spain and Portugal the Oriental work,
especially that executed at Goa, filled the palaces and the convents
with gorgeous hangings, carpets, table-covers, and bed furniture. We
feel it painful to contrast with these our own shortcomings in art,
and our faded glories.
The fact is, that, owing to our art-killing protectionist laws,
embroidery had the misfortune to be treated at that time as textile
manufacture, and not as art at all.
In the reign of William and Mary, Dutch taste had naturally been
brought to the front.[612] This included Japanese art, or imitations
of it, and also had something of late Spanish. The Georges brought
into England, and naturalized a rather heavy work, in gold and
silver--the design being decidedly a German "Louis Quatorze"--richly
stitched and heavily fringed, and much employed on court dresses and
on state furniture. We have seen royal beds and court suits which show
very little difference in style. It does not appear that this was
worked by ladies. It has, somehow, a professional look.
[Illustration: Fig. 29.
Part of James II.'s Coronation Dress.
From an old Print.]
Occasionally, however, we meet with pieces of exceptionally beautiful
work of the end of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth
centuries. The style is the most refined Louis Quatorze, but the work
is actually English. The white satin coverlets belonging to the
Marquis of Bath and the Duke of Leeds are not to be exceeded in
delicacy and splendour. The embroidered dresses of the Duke and
Duchess of Buckingham, in Westminster Abbey (early eighteenth
century) are of this description.
From Queen Anne to George III., a great deal of furniture was covered
with the different cushion stitches, either in geometrical or
kaleidoscope patterns, or else displaying groups of flowers or
figures, quaint and sometimes pretty. These designs are generally,
however, wanting in grace, and their German feeling shows them to be
the precursors of the Berlin wool patterns.
When the crewel-work hangings ceased to be the fashion, home work took
another direction. All the ladies imitated Indian dimity patterns, on
muslin, in coloured silks or thread, with the tambour-frame and
needle;[613] but in 1707 the "Broiderers' Company," we presume, found
that the Indian manufactures were engrossing the market, and a fresh
statute was obtained, forbidding the importation from India of any
wrought material. This cruel prohibition carried its own punishment.
The Indian trade was ours, and we might have adapted and assimilated
the Indian taste for design. We might have brought over men and women
great in their most ancient craft, and so produced the most splendid
Indo-English School. The Portuguese at least sent out their own silks
and satins to be worked at Goa; _we_ threw away our chance, and signed
the death-warrant of our art.
About the middle of the last century, several ladies, notably Miss
Linwood, Miss Moritt, of Rokeby, and Mrs. Delany, copied pictures in
worsteds. Some of these are wonderfully clever and even very pretty,
but they are rather a painful effort of pictorial art under
difficulties, than legitimate embroideries. These pictures would have
served the purpose of decoration better as medallions in the centres
of arabesque panels, than framed and glazed in imitation of oil
paintings. Some of the followers of this school produced works that
are shocking to all artistic sense, especially as seen now, when the
moths have spoiled them. They can only be classed with such abortive
attempts at decoration as glass cases filled with decayed stuffed
birds, and vases of faded and broken wax flowers.
I may record with praise the efforts of Mrs. Pawsey,[614] a lady who
started a school of needlework at Aylesbury. She was patronized by
Queen Charlotte; and for her she worked the beautiful bed at Hampton
Court, of purple satin, with wreaths of flowers in crewels touched up
with silk, which look as if they might have been copied from the
flower-pieces of a Dutch master. The execution is very fine, and
reminds one of the best French work of the same period. Mrs. Pawsey
taught and helped ladies to embroider in silk and chenille, as well as
crewels, and in many country houses we can recognize specimens of her
style; usually on screens worked in silk and chenille, with bunches of
flowers in vases or baskets, artistically designed.
This was our last attempt at excellence, immediately followed by the
total collapse of our decorative needlework, and the advent of the
Berlin wool patterns.
POSTSCRIPT.
A postscript to this chapter will perhaps be acceptable to those who
have taken an interest in the "History of English Embroidery," and who
will therefore care to know about the revival which has filled so many
workshops with what is now called "Art Needlework."
There was a public demand for something better than the worsted
patterns in the trade, and the Royal School of Art Needlework rose and
tried to respond to that call by stimulating original ideas and
designs, and imitating old ones in conformity with modern
requirements. The difficulties to be overcome were at first very
great. The old stitches had all to be learned and then taught, and the
best methods to be selected; the proper materials had to be studied
and obtained--sometimes they had to be manufactured. Lastly, beautiful
tints had to be dyed; avoiding, as much as possible, the gaudy and the
evanescent.
The project of such a school was first conceived in the autumn of
1872.
Lady Welby, herself an accomplished embroideress, had the courage to
face all the difficulties of such an undertaking. A small apartment
was hired in Sloane Street, and Mrs. Dolby, who was already an
authority on ecclesiastical work, gave her help. Twenty young ladies
were selected, and several friends joined heartily in fostering the
movement.
H.R.H. the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein gave her name as
President, and her active co-operation.[615]
The school grew so fast, that for want of space for the work-frames,
it had to remove into a larger house, No. 31, Sloane Street, and
finally in the year 1875 it found its present home in Exhibition Road,
when the Queen became its Patron. In 1878 the Association was
incorporated under the Board of Trade, with a Managing and a Finance
Committee, and a salaried manager to overlook the whole concern.
From 100 to 150 ladies at a time have there received employment. Their
claims were poverty, gentle birth, and sufficient capacity to enable
them to support themselves and be educated to teach others.
Branch schools have been started throughout the United Kingdom and in
America.[616]
The education of the school has been much assisted by the easy access
to the fine collections of ancient embroideries in the Kensington
Museum, and by the loan exhibition of old artistic work, which was
there organized in 1875, at the suggestion of H.R.H. the President;
and since then there have been three very interesting loan exhibitions
in the rooms of the Royal School.
It was, indeed, necessary that the acting members should avail
themselves of every means of instruction, in order to fit themselves
for the task they had undertaken. They were expected at once to be
competent to judge all old work, to name its style and date, and even
sometimes its market value. They were to be able to repair and add to
all old work; to know and teach every stitch, ancient and modern; and
produce designs for any period, Gothic, Renaissance, Elizabethan,
James I., or Queen Anne; besides contemporary European work,--all
different, and each requiring separate study.
Some important works have been produced which will illustrate what has
been said:--
1. A suite of window curtains for her Majesty, at
Windsor (style, nineteenth century; sunflowers).
2. Curtains for a drawing-room for the Duchess of
Buccleuch: crimson velvet and gold appliqué (Louis
Quatorze).
3. Curtain for Louisa, Lady Ashburton: coloured silk
embroidery on white satin (Venetian, sixteenth century).
4. Curtain, also for Louisa, Lady Ashburton: brown
velvet and gold appliqué (_Italian_).
5. Dado for the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham: linen and
crewels. Peacocks and vines (_Mediæval_).
6. Furnishings and hangings for state bedroom for
Countess Cowper, Panshanger: crimson satin, embroidered
and coloured silks (_Chinese_).
7. Curtains for music gallery for Mr. Arthur Balfour:
blue silk, appliqué, velvet, and gold (_Italian_).
The earnest attempt to produce an artistic school of embroidery met
with recognition and help from the highest authorities. Sir F.
Leighton granted permission for appeals to his judgment. Mr. Burne
Jones, Mr. Morris, Mr. Walter Crane, and Mr. Wade gave original
designs.
We cannot guess whether the taste which has sprung up again so
suddenly will last. Perhaps its catholicity may prolong its
popularity, and something absolutely new in style may be evolved,
which shall revive the credit of the "opus Anglicanum." Of one thing
we may be sure--that it is inherent in the nature of Englishwomen to
employ their fingers. And the busy as well as the ignorant need a
guide to the principles of design, as well as the technical details of
the art of embroidery. This should be supplied by the Royal School of
Art Needlework, which by inculcating careful drawing, by reviving old
traditions and criticizing fresh ideas, becomes a guarantee for the
improvement of domestic decorative design.
FOOTNOTES:
[555] "The people of Babylon, the Accadians, had a
written literature and a civilization superior to that
of the conquering Assyrians, who borrowed their art of
writing, and probably their culture, which may have been
the centre and starting-point of the western
civilization of Asia, and therefore the origin of our
own. Accadian civilization was anterior to that of the
Phœnicians and the Greeks, and is now received in
these later years as the original form, and become again
the heritage of mankind. It has been said that Assyrian
art was destitute of originality, and to that of the
Accadians, which they adopted, we ourselves owe our
first customs and ideas. Four thousand years ago these
people possessed a culture which in many of its details
resembles that of our country and time."--"Assyrian Life
and History," p. 66, by M. Harkness and Stuart Poole.
[556] "The arts of spinning and the manufacture of linen
were introduced into Europe and drifted into Britain in
the Neolithic Age. They have been preserved with but
little variation from that period down to the present
day in certain remote parts of Europe, and have only
been superseded in modern times by the complicated
machinery so familiar to us.... The spindle and distaff
are proved by the perforated spindle-whorls, made of
stone, pottery, or bone, commonly met with in Neolithic
habitations or tombs. The thread is proved, by
discoveries in the Swiss lakes, to have been made of
flax; and the combs that have been found for pushing the
threads of the warp on the weft show that it was woven
into linen on some sort of loom."--Boyd Dawkins' "Early
Man in Britain," p. 275.
[557] I am aware that the presence of the Phœnicians
(or Carthaginians) on our coasts has been disputed; but
I think that the evidence of the Etruscan ornaments I
have mentioned gives more than probability to the truth
of Pliny's account of the expedition of Himilco from
Gades, 500 B.C. By some he is supposed to have been a
contemporary of Hanno, and of the third century B.C.
There is some confusion in the imperfect record of the
voyage; but it is difficult to interpret it otherwise
than that he touched at several points north of Gaul.
(See Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," pp. 457-461;
see also Perrot and Chipiez, "L'Histoire de l'Art dans
l'Antiquité," t. iii.; "Phénicie et Cypre," p. 48.) For
a contrary opinion, see Elton's "Origins of English
History." Elton ascribes the first knowledge of the
British islands to the voyage of Pytheas in the fourth
century B.C.; he acknowledges that the geography of
Britain was well known to the Greeks in the time of
Alexander the Great. We owe to Pliny and Strabo the few
fragments from Pytheas that have been rescued from
oblivion, and to Pliny the notices of Himilco. (See
Bouillet's "Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie.")
[558] See Rock's Introduction to "Textile Fabrics," p.
xii.
[559] I give the following amusing tradition, which was
probably founded on the celebrity of the English pearl
embroidery of the Anglo-Saxon times, of which much went
to Rome:--
"Then Cæsar, like a conqueror, with a great number of
prisoners sailed into France, and so to Rome, where
after his return out of Brytaine, hee consecrated to
Venus a surcote of Brytaine pearles, the desire whereof
partly moved him to invade this country."--(Stow's
"Annales," p. 14, ed. 1634.) Tacitus, in the Agricola
12, says that British pearls are grey and livid.
[560] See Rock's Introduction to "Textile Fabrics," p.
xii.
[561] These are the poor results of the Roman invasion
and neglect of Britain during their occupation. The
second invasion of Britain by the Romans, under
Claudius, was caused by the squabbles between the chiefs
of the different tribes. Comnenus, the prince of the
Atrebates, was at war with the sons of Cunobelinus
(Cymbeline). He took his grievances to Rome, and the
Roman legions were despatched to settle the matter, and
to dazzle the world by the echoes rather than the facts
of the triumphant victories in the land of the "wintry
pole." Claudius marched with elephants clad in mail, and
bearing turrets filled with slingers and bowmen,
accompanied by Belgic pikemen and Batavians from the
islands in the Rhine, A.D. 44. The dress of Claudius on
his return from Britain was purple, with an ivory
sceptre and crown of gold oak leaves. One officer alone
was entitled to wear a tunic embroidered with golden
palms, in token of a former victory. The Celts, the
Gauls, the Gaels, the Picts, the Scots, and the
Saxons,--all crowded and settled in Britain when the
Romans left it in 410, after nearly four hundred years
of misgovernment. (See Elton's "Origins of English
History," pp. 306-308.)
[562] Semper, "Der Stil," pp. 133, 134. See Louis
Viardot, "Des Origines Traditionnelles de la Peinture en
Italie" (Paris, 1840), p. 53, note. Also see "Les Ducs
de Bourgogne," part ii. vol. ii. p. 243, No. 4092.
Muratori was born in 1672; and he says the Empress
Helena's work was in existence in the beginning of the
eighteenth century. (See p. 316, _ante_.)
[563] When St. Augustine (546) came to preach to the
Anglo-Saxons, he had a banner, fastened to a cross,
carried before him, on which was embroidered the image
of our Lord. (See Mrs. Lawrence's "Woman in England,"
pp. 296, 297.) Probably this was Roman work.
[564] Quoted by Mrs. Lawrence, "Woman in England," p.
49, from one of Adhelme's Latin poems. Adhelme, Bishop
of Sherborne, died in 709, having been thirty years a
bishop. He wrote Latin poems, of which the most
important, in praise of virginity, is in the Lambeth
Library, No. 200. The MS. contains his portrait. See
Strutt's "English Dresses," ed. Planché.
[565] An Anglo-Saxon lady named Aedelswitha, living near
Whitby, in the sixth century, collected a number of
girls and taught them to produce admirable embroideries
for the benefit of the monastery. (See Rock's "Church of
our Fathers," p. 273; also his Introduction to
"Textiles," p. xxvii.) Bock speaks of Hrothgar's
tapestries, embroidered with gold, of the thirteenth
century. See Appendix 8. But the earliest English
tapestry I have seen is that in York Minster, in which
are inwoven the arms of Scrope, 1390. Wright says of the
Anglo-Saxon women, "In their chamber, besides spinning
and weaving, the ladies were employed in needlework and
embroidery, and the Saxon ladies were so skilful in this
art, that their works were celebrated on the
Continent."--"History of Manners in England during the
Middle Ages," by Thomas Wright, p. 52.
[566] See Mrs. Lawrence's "Woman in England," i. p.
296-7.
[567] See Rock's "Church of our Fathers," ii. p. 272,
quoting Th. Stubbs. "Acta Pontif. Th. ed. Twysden," 1.
ii. p. 1699; also Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. p.
212, and p. 325 _ante_.
[568] Appendix 9.
[569] This could hardly have been intended originally
for an ecclesiastical purpose. It sounds as if it were a
stray fragment from Græco-Roman art, rather than a
survival of the classical legend employed as a pretty
motive for decoration. Wiglaf's veil is named by
Ingulphus. See Strutt's "English Dresses," pp. 3, 7. See
also "Historia Eliensis," l. 2, ed. Stewart, p. 183.
[570] See Rock's "Textile Fabrics," p. xxi.; also for
Council of Cloveshoe, see his "Church of Our Fathers,"
p. 14.
[571] The Benedictines drained the marshes of
Lincolnshire and Somersetshire to employ the poor in the
eighth century. St. Bennet travelled to France and
Italy, and brought back from his seven journeys cunning
artificers in _glass_ and stone, besides costly books
and copies of the Scriptures, in order (as is expressly
said by Bede) that the ignorant might learn from them,
as others learned from books. See Mrs. Jameson's
"Legends of the Monastic Orders," pp. 56, 57.
[572] See Raine's "St. Cuthbert," pp. 50-209. Mr. Raine
describes it as being "of woven gold, with spaces left
vacant for needlework embroidery." Beautifully drawn
majestic figures stand in niches on rainbow-coloured
clouds, and the effect is that of an illumination of the
ninth century. The style is rather Greek or Byzantine
than Anglo-Saxon. For further notices of St. Cuthbert's
relics, see chapter on Materials, _ante_; also see
Rock's "Introduction," p. cxvii.
[573] Appendix 10.
[574] See "Calendar of the Anglican Church," by J. H.
Parker (1851): "St. Dunstan was not only a patron of the
useful and fine arts, but also a great proficient in
them himself; and his almost contemporary biographers
speak of him as a poet, painter, and musician, and so
skilled a worker in metals that he made many of the
church vessels in use at Glastonbury."
[575] See Rock's "Church of our Fathers," p. 270.
[576] Strutt's "English Dresses," p. 70, quoted from
Ingulphus' "History of Croyland Abbey."
[577] Shot, or iridescent materials, were then and had
been some time manufactured at Tinnis in Egypt, a city
now effaced. It was called "bouqualemoun," and employed
for dresses and hangings for the Khalifs. See Schefer's
"Relations du Voyage de Nassiri Khosrau," p. cxi. The
original was written in the middle of the eleventh
century.
[578] See Duchêsne's "Historiæ Normanorum." Fol. Paris,
1519.
[579] Queen Matilda was not the originator of the idea
that a hero's deeds might be recorded by his wife's
needle. Penelope wove the deeds of Ulysses on her loom,
and it is suggested by Aristarchus that her peplos
served as an historical document for Homer's "Iliad."
See Rossignol's "Les Artistes Homériques," pp. 72, 73,
cited by Louis de Ronchaud in his "La Tapisserie," p.
32. Gudrun, like the Homeric woman, embroidered the
history of Siegfried and his ancestors, and Aelfled that
of the achievements of her husband, Duke Brithnod. The
Saga of Charlemagne is said to have been embroidered on
twenty-six ells of linen, and hung in a church in
Iceland.
[580] Domesday ed. Record Commission, under head of
Roberte de Oilgi, in co. Buckingham. See also another
entry under Wilts, where "Leivede" is spoken of as
working auriphrigium for King Edward and his Queen.
[581] Canon Jackson, writing of embroidery, says: "That
this was cared for in the great monasteries at this
early date appears from a MS. register of Glastonbury
Abbey in the possession of the Marquis of Bath. It is
called the Liber Henrici de Soliaco, and gives an
account of the affairs of that abbey in A.D. 1189
(Richard I.)." There was a special official whose
business it was to provide the monastery with church
ornaments generally, and specially with "aurifrigium,"
or gold embroidery, on vestments. For this a house and
land, with an annual allowance of food, was set apart.
Another tenant also held some land, to which was
attached the obligation to find a "worker in
gold."--Letter from Canon Jackson to the Author.
[582] See Mrs. Lawrence's "Woman in England," vol. i. p.
360. She quotes an entry from Madox, a sum of £80 (equal
to £1400 of to-day) for an embroidered robe for the
Queen, paid by the Sheriffs of London.
[583] Matthew Paris, "Vit. Abb. St. Albani." p. 46;
Rock, "Church of our Fathers," vol ii. p. 278.
[584] See Mrs. Dolby's Introduction to "Church
Vestments."
[585] Strutt's "Royal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of
England," ed. mdcclxxiii.
[586] Though the work was domestic, the materials came
from the East and the South; and while the woven gold of
Sicily and Spain was merely base metal on gilded
parchment, our laws were directed to the preservation of
pure metals for textile purposes.
[587] Matthew Paris, "Hist. Angl.," p. 473, ed. Paris,
1644. See Hartshorne's "Mediæval Embroideries," pp. 23,
24.
[588] The reproduction by the Arundel Society of this
picture will familiarize those who care for English art
with what is, perhaps, its finest example, next to the
crosses of Queen Eleanor. It has been erroneously
attributed to Van Eyk, but it is undoubtedly English.
That its art is contemporary with the time of Richard
II., is shown by the design and motives of the woven
materials and embroidery in which the king and his
attendant saints are clothed. They remind us of the
piece of silk in the Kensington Museum, into which are
woven (probably in Sicilian looms) the cognizance of the
King's grandfather, the sun with rays; that of his
mother Joan, the white hart; and his own, his dog Math.
This is a good example of the value of an individual
pattern. It helps us to affix dates to other specimens
of similar style.
[589] See Miss Strickland's mention of the Countess of
Oxford in her "Life of Queen Elizabeth of York," p. 46.
[590] From the fragments found, it appeared that King
John's mantle was of a strong red silk. Till lately,
when it was effaced by being completely gilt, the mantle
on the recumbent effigy was of a bright red, bordered
with gold and gems. See Greene's "Worcester," p. 3,
quoted in the "Report of the Archæological Association
of Worcester," p. 53.
[591] "Notice sur les Attaches d'un Sceau," par M.
Léopold Delisle (Paris, 1854); and also Rock's
Introduction to "Textile Fabrics," p. xxii.
[592] The opus Anglicanum often included borders and
orphreys set with jewellers' work (or its imitation,
worked in gold thread), gems, and pearls.
[593] Edward III. had from William de Courtenay an
embroidered garment, "inwrought with pelicans, images,
and tabernacles of gold. The tabernacles were like
niches, with pinnacles and roofs."
[594] Bock, "Liturgische Gewänder," i. p. 211, says
there is a piece of opus Anglicanum in the treasury of
Aix-la-Chapelle, called the Cope of Leo III.
[595] For further notice of the "opus Anglicanum," see
chapter (_ante_) on ecclesiastical embroideries.
[596] Appendix 11.
[597] The orphreys are probably not the original work.
[598] "Testamenta Vetusta," ed. Nicholas, t. i. p. 33.
[599] Woolstrope, Lincolnshire. Collier's
"Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain," v. p. 3 (ed.
Lothbury). This proves that the monks sometimes plied
the needle.
[600] See Hall's "Union of the Houses of York and
Lancaster," pp. lxxv-lxxxiii.
[601] See Brewer's "Reign of Henry VIII.," vol. i. pp.
347-376.
[602] In the Public Record Office is an inventory of
Lord Monteagle's property, 1523 A.D.; amongst other
things, is named a piece of Spanish work, "eight
partletts garnished with gold and black silk work." This
Spanish work is rare, but the description reminds us of
a specimen belonging to Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford
(Plate 82)--a square of linen, worked with ostriches,
turkeys, and eagles in gold and black silk stitches. See
Mrs. Palliser's "History of Lace," pp. 6, 12.
[603] Quoted from Cavendish by Miss Strickland, "Queens
of England," iv. p. 132.
[604] "The invalid queen, in her moments of
convalescence, soothed her cares and miseries at the
embroidery frame. Many specimens of her needlework were
extant in the reign of James I., and are thus celebrated
by Taylor, the poet of the needle:--
"'Mary here the sceptre sway'd;
And though she were no queen of mighty power,
Her memory will never be decay'd,
Nor yet her works forgotten. In the Tower,
In Windsor Castle, and in Hampton Court,--
In that most pompous room called Paradise,--
Whoever pleases thither to resort,
May see some works of hers of wondrous price.
Her greatness held it no disreputation
To hold the needle in her royal hand,
Which was a good example to our nation
To banish idleness throughout the land.
And thus this queen in wisdom thought it fit;
The needle's work pleased her, and she graced it.'
"According to Taylor, Mary finished the splendid and
elaborate tapestry begun by her mother."--Miss
Strickland's "Life of Mary Tudor," v. p. 417.
[605] "After the action at D'Arbre de Guise, Elizabeth
(of England) sent to Henri IV. a scarf embroidered by
her own hand. 'Monsieur mon bon frère,' wrote the queen,
'its value is naught in comparison to the dignity of the
personage for whom it is destined; but I supplicate you
to hide its defects under the wings of your good
charity, and to accept my little present in remembrance
of me.'"--"Henri IV.," by Miss Freer, p. 311.
[606] In the year 1683 the Marchese Luca Casimiero degl'
Albizzi visited England, and his travels were recorded
in manuscript by Dr. A. Forzoni. At Windsor he observed
over a chimney-piece a finely wrought piece of
embroidery--"un educazione di fanciulli"--by the hands
of Mary Queen of Scots.--Loftie's "History of Old
London;" also article on "Royal Picture Galleries," by
George Scharf, p. 361 (1867).
[607] "The Company of the Embroiderers can make appear
by their worthy and famous pieces of art that they have
been of ancient use and eminence, as is to be seen in
divers places at this day; but in the matter of their
incorporation, it hath relation to the fourth year of
Queen Elizabeth."--Stow's "Survey of London and
Westminster," part ii. p. 216; also see Edmonson's
"Heraldry," vol. i. (1780). "The Keepers, Wardens, and
Company of the Broiderie of London.... 2 keepers and 40
assistants, and the livery consists of 115 members. They
have a small but convenient hall in Gutter
Lane."--Maitland's "History of London," book iii. p.
602.
[608] The fashion of this work began much earlier, for
we find in the inventory of "St. James's House, nigh
Westminster," 1549: "42 Item. A table wherein is a man
holding a sword in his one hand and a sceptre in his
other hand of needlework, partly garnished with seed
pearl" (p. 307).
[609] The merit or blame of this rounded padded work (a
caricature of the raised embroidery of the opus
Anglicanum) is often erroneously awarded to the "nuns of
Little Gidding." The earliest specimens we know of this
"embroidery on the stamp" are German. At Coire in the
Grisons, at Zurich (see chapter on ecclesiastical art),
and in the National Museum at Munich are some very
beautiful examples. The Italians also executed elaborate
little pictures in this manner; but I cannot praise it
however refined in execution or beautiful the design. I
have seen no English specimens that are not beneath
criticism; they are only funny.
[610] In the Calendar of the State Papers Office
(Domestic, Charles I., vol. clxix. p. 12), Mrs. H.
Senior sues the Earl of Thomond for £200 per annum, her
pay for teaching his daughter needlework. Mrs.
Hutchinson, in her Memoir, says she had eight tutors
when she was seven years old, and one of them taught her
needlework. This shows how highly this accomplishment
was still considered in the days of Charles I. and the
Commonwealth. Later, Evelyn speaks of the "new bed of
Charles II.'s queen, the embroidery of which cost £3000"
(Evelyn's Memoirs, January 24, 1687). Evelyn says of his
own daughter Susanna, who married William Draper: "She
had a peculiar talent in designe, as painting in oil and
miniature, and an extraordinary genius for whatever
hands can do with a needle." See Evelyn's "Memoirs,"
April 27, 1693; also see Mrs. Palliser's "History of
Lace," pp. 7, 8.
[611] The tree-pattern, already common in the latter
days of Elizabeth, reappeared on a dress worn by the
Duchess of Queensberry, and described by Mrs. Delany;
she says, "A white satin embroidered at the bottom with
brown hills, covered with all sorts of weeds, and with a
brown stump, broken and worked in chenille, and
garlanded nasturtiums, honeysuckles, periwinkles,
convolvuluses, and weeds, many of the leaves finished
with gold." Mrs. Delany does not appreciate this ancient
pattern.
[612] Queen Mary only knotted fringes. Bishop Burnett
says: "It was strange to see a queen work so many hours
a day." Sir E. Sedley, in his epigram on the "Royal
Knotter," says,--
"Who, when she rides in coach abroad,
Is always knotting threads."
Probably it was the fashion, as Madame de Maintenon
always worked during her drives with the king, which
doubtless prevented her dying of _ennui_!
[613] I quote from the _Spectator_, No. 606: "Let no
virgin receive her lover, except in a suit of her own
embroidery."
[614] Her style was really legitimate to the art. It was
flower-painting with the needle. Miss Moritt copied both
figures and landscapes, with wonderful taste and
knowledge of drawing. Miss Linwood's and Mrs. Delany's
productions are justly celebrated as _tours de force_,
but they caused the downfall of the art by leading it on
the wrong track.
[615] Lord Houghton alludes to H.R.H.'s patronage of the
revival of embroidery in his paraphrase of the "Story of
Arachne," p. 238, _ante_.
[616] "Opposed to the 'utility stitches' are the art
needlework schools that have branched out in many
directions from New York.... The impulse that led to
their formation was derived from South Kensington
(England), and affords a striking instance of the
ramifications of an organization."--_Atlantic Monthly_
("Women in Organization"), Sept., 1880.
FINIS.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I., TO PAGE 105.
_By Ch. T. Newton._
Though the embroidered and richly decorated textile fabrics of the
ancients have perished, all but a few scraps, we may form some idea of
the richness and variety of Greek female attire from the evidence of
the inventories of dedicated articles of dress which have been
preserved for us in Greek inscriptions.
In the Acropolis at Athens have been found a number of fragments of
marble on which are inscribed lists of various female garments
dedicated, for the most part, in the Temple of Artemis Brauronia, in
the Archonship of Lykurgos, B.C. 338-35. These articles were thus
carefully registered because they formed part of the treasures
dedicated to the gods of the Acropolis, which it was the duty of the
state to guard, and to commit to the custody of officers specially
selected for that duty. One of these fragments is in the Elgin
Collection at the British Museum, and has been published by Mr. Hicks
in the "Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British
Museum," Part 1, No 34; and the entire series has since been given to
the world in the "Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum" of the Academy of
Berlin, ii., Part 2., Nos. 751-65.
The material of these garments seems to have been either linen or fine
woollen; the colours white, purple, or some shade of red, mostly used
as a border or in stripes; or a shade of green, the tint of which is
described as "frog colour," saffron, or sea-green.
The borders and patterns noted remind us of those represented on the
garments of figures in vase pictures, such as the embattled border,
the wave pattern, and certain patterns in rectangular compartments. A
group of Dionysos pouring out a libation while a female serves him
with wine, and a row of animals, are also noted among the ornaments.
The inscription, "Sacred to Artemis," woven into the fabric of the
garment, occurs twice. Gold, as an ornament fixed on the dress, is
mentioned in these entries. It is noted that some of these dresses
served to deck the statue of the goddess herself. Most of the garments
are the _chiton_ or tunic, flowing to the feet; the _chitoniskos_, a
shorter and more ornamental garment worn over it; and the mantle,
_himation_. Pieces of cloth or rags are also mentioned among the
entries; these were probably the remnants of cast-off garments
dedicated by their wearers. Some of the dresses are described as
embroidered with the needle.
In the worship of the Artemis Brauronia, certain Athenian girls
between the ages of five and ten were solemnly dedicated to the
goddess every five years. In publishing the inventory in the British
Museum already referred to, Mr. Hicks remarks, "It may have been the
custom sometimes to dedicate to the goddess the garments worn by
children at their presentation, just as we know that the garments in
which persons had been initiated at the Greater Eleusinia were worn by
them until threadbare, and then dedicated to some god. If so, the
number of children's clothes mentioned in our inventory is easily
explained. Or were these the clothes of children cut off by Artemis in
infancy, such as bereaved mothers nowadays often treasure for years,
having no temple wherein to dedicate them?" Mr. Hicks further remarks
that it was usual for the bride before marriage to dedicate her girdle
to Artemis; and at Athens the garments of women who died in childbirth
were likewise in like manner so dedicated. It is probably on account
of such dedications that Artemis was styled Chitonè--the goddess of
the _chiton_.
Another list of vestments is preserved in an inscription found at
Samos, and published by Carl Curtius in his "Inschriften u. Studien
zur Geschichte von Samos," pp. 17-21. The garments in this list were
dedicated to the goddess Herè (Juno) in her celebrated temple at
Samos. The entries relate chiefly to articles of female attire, but
some few are dedicated to the god Hermes. Some of these articles were
doubtless worn by the deities themselves on festive occasions, when
their statues were decked out. The toilet, _kosmos_, of goddesses was
superintended by a priestess specially chosen for that purpose. She
was called _kosmeteira_, or "Mistress of the Robes."
In the Samian list of garments, those which are embroidered or
ornamented with gold are specially noted. Some of the tunics are
described as Lydian. Curtains or hangings are also mentioned in this
list. These must have been used to ornament the interior of the
temple, or to screen off the statue of the goddess on the days when
she was withdrawn from the gaze of the profane. Such hangings were,
probably, a main cause of the conflagrations by which Greek temples
were from time to time destroyed in spite of the solidity of their
walls.
APPENDIX II., TO PAGE 210.
In the Castle of Moritzburg, built by Augustus the Strong, Elector of
Saxony and King of Poland, is a quaint apartment, on the walls of
which are hung rugs of feather-work, of which the borders are adorned
with set patterns of fruit and flowers, and the colouring is as soft
as a Gobelins tapestry. The feathers are woven tightly into the warp,
in the same manner as the tufts are set in a velvety carpet; forming a
surface as delicate as silk to the touch. There are four high-backed
chairs covered with the same work in smaller patterns. But what is
especially remarkable is an immense canopy, like that of a state bed,
with urn-shaped ornaments of stiff feathers at the corners; and a
pretty bell-shaped fringe of scarlet feathers. The same ornament edged
a large rug like those on the wall, thrown over what at first appeared
to be a bed; but on examination it was found to be a rough wooden
platform, said to be the throne of Montezuma. The story is that
Augustus the Strong went to Spain incognito at the age of eighteen, in
search of adventures, and distinguished himself at a bull-fight. When
the king (Charles II.) heard the name of the young hero, he gave him a
hospitable reception, and afterwards sent these Mexican treasures to
him as a token of friendship.
APPENDIX III., TO PAGE 237.
_Story of Arachne, abridged by Earl Cowper from Ovid's Metamorphoses._
Arachne's tale of grief is full:
Her father was of low degree;
No thought beyond his crimson'd wool,
His daughter and his wife had he.
The wife had fill'd an early tomb,
The daughter lived--and all the land
Of Lydia boasted of her loom,
Her needle, and her dexterous hand.
To watch her task the nymphs repair
From fair Timolus' vine-clad hill;
They deem the work divinely fair,
The maid when working fairer still.
The softness of the fleecy ball,
By skilful fingers taught to flow
In lengthening lines--they watch'd it all--
And round and round the spindle go.
Wondering, they view the rich design:
Ah, luckless gift! ah, foolish pride!
'Twas Pallas taught the art divine,
But this the haughty maid denied.
"Me taught," she cried, "by Pallas! Me
By Pallas! Let the goddess first
Accept my challenge. Then, should she
Surpass me, let her do her worst."
Vain, impious words! The goddess came
In likeness of an ancient crone,
With grizzled locks and tottering frame,
And spoke with warning in her tone.
"Though matchless in thine art," she cried,
"Though first of mortals, tempt not fate.
Age makes me wise. Thou hast defied
A goddess. It is not too late."
The unhappy maid, with madness blind,
Replied, and scarce restrain'd the blow.
"'Tis plain, old woman, that your mind
Is drivelling to address me so.
"Some daughter or some slave may want
Your counsel. Let her but appear,
This mighty Pallas whom you vaunt!"
The goddess answer'd, "She is here."
She spoke, and lo! that ancient crone
Was young and fair, and tall and proud:
--The nymphs fell prostrate. She alone--
Arachne--neither shrank nor bow'd.
One blush quick came and pass'd away,
Hovering as clouds, when night is done,
Grow rosy at the dawn of day,
Then whiten with the rising sun.
She did not shrink--she did not pause--
But headlong to destruction ran;
And thus the strife ordain'd to cause
Such dark calamity began.
Each for the contest takes her stand--
The goddess here, the mortal there--
And each proceeds with skilful hand
The means of victory to prepare.
The beam each loom supports full well,
And to the loom the warp is tied;
Nor will I now forget to tell
The reed that doth the warp divide.
The woof the shuttle in doth bring,
The nimble fingers guide its way;
And still from either work-frame ring
The blows inflicted by the slay.
Each to her bosom binds her vest:
The arms of each, quick moving, feel
No sense of toil, no need of rest,
For weariness is quench'd by zeal.
And all the gorgeous tints of Tyre
In varying shades are mingled there;
And every hue the sun's bright fire
Can kindle in the showery air,--
When the wide rainbow spans the sky;
The bow whose colours, in the end
So different, yet so like when nigh,
In harmony's own concord blend,--
And precious threads of glittering gold
Enrich the growing web. But say!
What ancient tale by each was told?
What legend of an earlier day?
Pallas her well-known triumph drew;
The gods assembled in their force,
And Neptune with his trident, too,
Exulting in the fiery horse,--
Which from the rock he made to bound:
But she herself, more deeply wise,
A greater blessing from the ground
The olive brought, and gain'd the prize.
The border of this main design
With Rhodope's sad tale was set;
And all who dared the gods divine
To rival--and the fate they met.
Meanwhile Arachne wove the wool:
The web with many a picture shone.
She drew Europa with her bull,
And Leda with her snow-white swan.
Deois with her snake display'd,
And Danäe with her shower of gold;
And many a tale besides the maid,
Had fate permitted, would have told.
But the dread goddess now no more
To check her rising envy strove;
The half-completed task she tore,
And all the pictured crimes of Jove.
The shuttle thrice the air did rend,
Thrice did the heaven-directed blow
Full on Arachne's head descend,
And made her purple blood to flow.
Arachne's soul was proud and high:
She drew a cruel cord around
Her tender neck--and, driven to die,
Was from a beam suspended found.
Her death the unpitying goddess stay'd;
"Henceforth, vain fool! for such a crime
For ever shall thou hang," she said;
"A warning to the end of time."
In scorn she spoke, and over all
Her rival's face and form she smear'd
A deadly drug. The head grew small,
And each fair feature disappear'd.
And off the beauteous tresses fell;
The tender waist that was so slim,
In loathly sort was seen to swell,
Shrivell'd and shrank each comely limb.
The spider's fingers still remain
To spin for ever.--We may vie
With fellow mortals, but 'tis vain
To struggle with the gods on high.
_January, 1885._ COWPER.
APPENDIX IV., TO PAGE 318.
_Extract from "History of Christian Art." By Lord Lindsay. Vol. i. pp.
136-139._
"But perhaps the noblest testimony to the revival under the Comneni is
afforded by the designs on the Dalmatic or sacerdotal robe, commonly
styled 'Di Papa San Leone,' preserved in the sacristy of St.
Peter's--said to have been embroidered at Constantinople for the
coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West, but fixed by German
criticism as a production of the twelfth, or the early part of the
thirteenth century. The Emperors wore it ever after, when serving as
deacons at the Pope's altar during their coronation-mass. You will
think little of it at first sight, and lay it aside as a piece of
darned and faded tapestry, yet I would stake on it, alone, the
reputation of Byzantine art. And you must recollect, too, that
embroidery is but a poor substitute for the informing hand and the
lightning stroke of genius.
It is a large robe of stiff brocade, falling in broad and unbroken
folds in front and behind,--broad and deep enough for the Goliath-like
stature and the Herculean chest of Charlemagne himself. On the breast,
the Saviour is represented in glory, on the back the Transfiguration,
and on the two shoulders Christ administering the Eucharist to the
Apostles.
The composition on the breast is an amplification of No. V. (as above
enumerated) of the Personal traditional compositions.--In the centre
of a golden circle of glory, 'Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the
Life,' robed in white, with the youthful and beardless face, his eyes
directly looking into yours, sits upon the rainbow, his feet resting
on the winged wheels[617] of Ezekiel, his left hand holding an open
book, inscribed with the invitation, 'Come, ye blessed of My
Father,'--his right raised in benediction. At the four corners of the
circular glory, resting on them, half within it, half without, float
the emblems of the four Evangelists; the Virgin and the Baptist stand
to the right and left of our Saviour, the Baptist without, the Virgin
entirely within the glory, the only figure that is so placed; she is
sweet in feature and graceful in attitude, in her long white robe.
Above Our Saviour's head, and from the top of the golden circle, rises
the Cross, with the crown of thorns suspended upon it, the spear
resting on one side, the reed with the sponge on the other, and the
sun and moon looking down upon it from the sky.
The heavenly host and the company of the blessed form a circle of
adoration around this central glory; angels occupying the upper part,
emperors, patriarchs, monks and nuns the lower; at the extremity, on
the left side, appears Mary Magdalen, in her penitence--a thin
emaciated figure, imperfectly clothed, and with dishevelled hair.
In the corners, below this grand composition, appear, to the right,
St. John the Baptist, holding the cross, and pointing upwards to Our
Saviour; to the left, Abraham seated, a child on his lap, and resting
his hand on another by his side.
The background and scene of the whole composition is of blue, to
represent heaven,--studded with stars, shaped like the Greek cross.
The Transfiguration, which corresponds to this subject on the back of
the robe, is the traditional composition, only varied by the unusual
shape of the vesica piscis which encloses Our Saviour. The two
compositions representing the Institution of the Eucharist, on the
shoulders, are better executed and more original. In each of them, Our
Saviour, a stiff but majestic figure, stands behind the altar, on
which are deposited a chalice and a paten or basket containing crossed
wafers. He gives, in the one case, the cup to St. Paul, in the other
the bread to St. Peter,--they do not kneel, but bend reverently to
receive it; five other disciples await their turn in each
instance,--all are standing.
I do not apprehend your being disappointed with the 'Dalmatica di San
Leone,' or your dissenting from my conclusion, that a master, a
Michael Angelo I might almost say, then flourished at Byzantium.
It was in this Dalmatic--then _semée_ all over with pearls and
glittering in freshness--that Cola di Rienzi robed himself over his
armour in the sacristy of St. Peter's, and thence ascended to the
Palace of the Popes, after the manner of the Cæsars, with sounding
trumpets and his horsemen following him--his truncheon in his hand and
his crown on his head--'terribile e fantastico,' as his biographer
describes him--to wait upon the legate.[618]"
FOOTNOTES:
[617] In the 'Manual of Dionysius,' recently published
by M. Didron (p. 71, &c.), these winged wheels are
interpreted as signifying the order of angels commonly
distinguished as Thrones. Their interpretation as the
Covenants of the Law and Gospel, sanctioned by St.
Gregory the Great in his Homilies, is certainly more
sublime and instructive.
[618] Cited from the original life, printed in
Muratori's 'Antiquit. Ital. Medii Ævi,' tom. viii., by
M. Sulpice Boisserée, in his essay, 'Ueber die
Kaiser-Dalmatica,' &c.
APPENDIX V., TO PAGE 320.
The Hon. and Rev. Ignatius Clifford has permitted me to make extracts
from his "Memoranda of some remarkable Specimens of Ancient Church
Embroidery." First on his list is the Cope now in the possession of
Colonel Butler Bowden, of Pleasington, near Blackburn, Lancashire. I
give his account of the mutilated condition, from which he has made
his beautifully drawn restoration. "Formerly," he says, "portions of
this cope, some made up into chasuble, stole, maniple, and some scraps
detached, were at Mount St. Mary's College, Spink Hill, near
Chesterfield, Derbyshire."
The well-known architect, the late Augustus Welby Pugin, having seen
them (or at least the chasuble), wrote on the 20th April, 1849, to the
Rector of the College, "I found it to be of English work of the time
of Edward I., and have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be the most
interesting and beautiful specimen of church embroidery I have ever
seen."
Other portions of the cope had been made up into an altar-frontal, and
were in the possession of Henry Bowden, Esq., of Southgate House,
Derbyshire, some four or five miles from the college.
The ground is crimson velvet. The designs are wrought in gold, silver,
silk, and seed pearls. The silks are worked in chain, or rather in
split stitch. It contains between seventy and eighty figures.
Only two small fragments remain of the quasi-hood.
In the orphrey are kings, queens, archbishops, and bishops. In the
body of the cope are the Annunciation--Adoration of the Magi--Our Lady
enthroned at the right of her Divine Son. _Lowest row_ of single
figures--St. Simon, St. Jude, St. James, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, St.
Peter, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. James, St.
Bartholomew. _Middle row_--St. Edward the Confessor--a Bishop--St.
Margaret, St. John the Evangelist, St. John the Baptist, St.
Catherine, an Archbishop, St. Edmund king and martyr. _Top row_--St.
Lawrence, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha (or St. Helen?), St. Stephen.
In the intervals, angels seated on faldstool thrones, and bearing
stars; also two popinjays.
Mr. Clifford describes the Steeple Aston Cope. The ground is of a
richly ribbed faded silk. The design worked in gold and silks is
enclosed in quatrefoils of oak and ivy. The Syon Cope he refers to
Rock's "Textile Fabrics." See Appendix.
The Dalmatic from Anagni, exhibited at Rome in 1870, he thinks is
probably English.
The Pluvial in the Basilica of St. John Lateran at Rome, he speaks of
as "having much the appearance of the celebrated Opus Anglicanum."
He describes the subjects embroidered on it thus: "No border round the
curved edge. The orphrey is divided into tabernacles containing an
archbishop, two bishops, and three kings and queens. Between the
tabernacles are four angels, each accompanied by one of the
evangelistic symbols. The body of the cope is cut into a most
elaborate system of tabernacles, with a centre compartment of a
different form for the group of the Crucifixion. The subjects are
chiefly from the life of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin. The small
quasi-hood is embroidered with two wyverns or griffin-like creatures.
The pelican and the phœnix are introduced over the top central
group of the enthronement of our Lady."
Mr. Clifford gives the history of the Cope of Pius II. (Bartolomeo
Piccolomini, "Æneas Silvius") fifteenth century. It is a masterpiece
of Italian embroidery of the early Renaissance. The material was gold
brocade, covered with wonderful designs carried out in needlework,
representing saints and angels, trees and birds, and arabesques. The
whole was adorned with pearls and precious stones valued at £80,000.
At his death the pope bequeathed this vestment to the cathedral of his
native town. The cope was stolen in March, 1884, from the treasury at
Pienza; and shortly afterwards discovered in the shop of a dealer in
antiquities at Florence, but completely stripped of its precious
stones and of some of its more valuable embroidery. After magisterial
investigation, the cope was restored to Pienza.
The cope at Bologna is thus described: "Subjects from the New
Testament contained in two rows of tabernacle compartments, twelve in
lower, seven in upper row. Spandrils occupied by angels playing on
various musical instruments. After each row, a border containing
medallions with heads (of angels, prophets, &c.), twenty-three in
lower, nine in upper row. No orphrey; no border or outside curve;
quasi-hood very small."
APPENDIX VI., TO PAGE 326.
_From Rock's "Textiles," p. 275._
"The Syon Monastery Cope; ground green, with crimson interlacing
barbed quatrefoils, enclosing figure of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin
Mary, the Apostles, with winged cherubim standing on wheels in the
intervening spaces, and the orphreys, morse, and hem wrought with
armorial bearings; the whole done in gold, silver, and various
coloured silks. English needlework, thirteenth century; 9 feet 7
inches by 4 feet 8 inches.
"This handsome cope, so very remarkable on account of its
comparatively perfect preservation, is one of the most beautiful among
the several liturgical vestments of the olden period anywhere to be
now found in Christendom. If by all lovers of mediæval antiquity it
will be looked upon as so valuable a specimen of art of its kind and
time, for every Englishman it ought to have a double interest,
showing, as it does, such a splendid and instructive example of the
opus 'Anglicum,' or English work, which won itself so wide a fame, and
was so eagerly sought after throughout the whole of Europe during the
Middle Ages."
Dr. Rock gives a list of the subjects. St. Michael overcoming Satan
(from Rev. xii. 7, 9). The next quatrefoil above this is filled with
the Crucifixion. Here the Blessed Virgin is arrayed in a green tunic,
and a golden mantle lined with vair; her head is kerchiefed, and her
uplifted hands sorrowfully clasped. St. John--whose dress is all of
gold--is on the left, at the foot of the cross, upon which the
Saviour, wrought all in silver--a most unusual thing--with a cloth of
gold wrapped about His loins, is fastened by three (not four)
nails.... In the highest quatrefoil is figured the Redeemer in glory,
crowned as a king, and seated on a cushioned throne. Resting upon His
knee and steadied by His hand is the Mund, or ball representing the
earth.... This is divided into three parts, of which the largest, an
upper horizontal hemicycle, is coloured crimson (now faded to a
brownish tint), but the lower hemicycle is divided vertically in two,
of which one portion is coloured green, and the other white or
silvered....
The next two subjects to be described are--one on the right hand, the
death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the other, on the left, her
burial....
Below the burial we have our Lord in the garden, signified by two
trees; still wearing the crown of thorns; our Lord in His left hand
holds the banner of the Resurrection, and with His right bestows His
benediction on the kneeling Magdalene, who is wimpled, and wears a
mantle of green, shot yellow, over a light purple tunic.
Below, but outside the quatrefoil, is a layman clad in gold, upon his
knees, and holding a long, narrow scroll bearing words which cannot
now be satisfactorily read.
Lowermost of all we see the Apostle St. Philip, with a book in one
hand, in the other the flaying knife.
A little above him St. Peter, with his two keys, one gold, the other
silver; and somewhat under him is St. Andrew with his cross. On the
other side of St. Michael and the Dragon is St. James the
Greater--sometimes called of Compostella, because he lies buried in
that Spanish city--with a book in one hand and in the other a staff,
and slung from his wrist a wallet, both emblems of pilgrimage to his
shrine in Galicia.... In the next quatrefoil above is St. Paul with
his sword, and over to the right St. Thomas; still further to the
right St. James the Less. Just above is our Saviour, clad in a golden
tunic, and carrying a staff, overcoming the unbelief of St. Thomas.
Upon his knees that Apostle feels, with his right hand held by the
Redeemer, the spear wound in His side.
As at the left side, so here, quite outside the sacred history on the
cope, we have the figure of an individual probably living at the time
the vestment was wrought. The dress of the other shows him to be a
layman; by the shaven crown of his head, this person must have been a
cleric of some sort; but we cannot tell ... for the canvas is worn
quite bare, so that we see nothing now but the lines drawn in black to
guide the embroiderer.... This Churchman holds up another scroll
bearing words which can no longer be read.
"When this cope was new, it showed, written in tall gold letters more
than an inch high, an inscription now cut up and lost ... the word
_ne_, and a V on some of the shreds are all that remains of it.
"In its original state it could give us the whole of the twelve
Apostles. Portions can still be seen.... The lower part of the
vestment has been sadly cut away, and reshaped with the fragments;
perhaps at that time were added the present heraldic orphrey, morse,
and border, probably fifty years later than the other portions of this
matchless specimen of the far-famed 'Opus Anglicum.'" "Of angels,"
the "nine choirs," and the three great hierarchies, Cherubim,
Seraphim, and Thrones, are figured here. Led a good way by Ezekiel,
but not following that prophet step by step, our mediæval draughtsmen
found out for themselves a certain angel form. To this they gave a
human shape, that of a comely youth; clothing him with six wings, with
human feet; instead of the body being full of eyes, the wings are
often composed of the bright-eyed feathers of the peacock. On this
cope the eight angels standing upon wheels are so placed that they are
everywhere nearest to those quatrefoils wherein our Lord's Person
comes, and may therefore be taken as representing the upper hierarchy
of the angelic host. The other angels, not upon wheels, no doubt
belong to the second hierarchy; while those that have but one pair of
wings (not three) represent the lowest hierarchy. "All, like our Lord,
are barefoot. All of them have their hands lifted in prayer.... For
every lover of English heraldry this cope, so plentifully blazoned
with armorial bearings, will have a special value, equal to that
belonging to many an ancient roll of arms." The orphrey, morse and hem
contain the arms of Warwick, Castile and Leon, Ferrars, Geneville
Everard, the badge of the Knights Templars, Clifford, Spencer, Lemisi
or Lindsey, Le Botiler, Sheldon, Monteney of Essex, Champernoun,
England, Tyddeswall, Grandeson, FitzAlan, Hampden, Percy, Chambowe,
Ribbesford, Bygod, Roger de Mortimer, Golbare or Grove, De
Bassingburn, with many others not recognized, and frequent
repetitions.... "Besides their heraldry, squares at each corner are
wrought with swans and peacocks of curious interest for every lover of
mediæval symbolism...." These coats of arms, being mostly blazoned on
lozenge-shaped shields, suggest that possibly they record those of the
noble ladies who worked the border; while those on circles may be the
arms of religious houses or donors.
"A word or two upon the needlework; how it was done; and the now
unused mechanical appliance to it after it was wrought, so observable
on this vestment, lending its figures more effect."
"We find that for the human face, all over this cope, the first
stitches were begun in the centre of the cheek, and worked in circular
lines, into which, after the first start, they fell, and were so
carried on through the rest of the flesh tints.
"Then with a little iron rod, ending in a small bulb slightly heated,
were pressed down those parts of the faces worked in circles, as well
as the wide dimple in the throat. By the hollows thus sunk a play of
light and shadow is brought out that lends to the parts so treated a
look of being done in low relief. Upon the lightly clothed figure of
our Lord the same process is followed, and shows a noteworthy example
of the mediæval knowledge of external anatomy.
"We must not, however, hide from ourselves that the unequal surfaces,
given by such a use of the hot iron to parts of the work, expose it to
the danger of being worn by friction more than other parts, and soon
betray the damage by their threadbare, dingy look, as is the case in
the example just cited. The method for grounding the quatrefoils is
remarkable for being done in a long zigzag diaper pattern (laid
stitch)....
"The stitching on the armorial bearings is the same as that now
followed in many trifling things worked in wool (cross stitch).
"The canvas (or linen) for every part of this cope is of the finest
sort, but its crimson canvas lining is thick and coarse....
"A word or two about the history of this fine cope...."
Dr. Rock now enters into the history of the guilds, which included
noble laymen and women, and members of the clergy; and tells us that
the rolls of these associations sometimes grew to be exceedingly
wealthy. He says that each of these guilds had usually in its parish
church a chapel or altar of its own, splendidly provided for, to which
offerings were spontaneously given by individuals, or by members
clubbing together that their joint gift might be the more worthy.
Perhaps the cleric and the layman worked on the cope may have been the
donors. Dr. Rock suggests that possibly Coventry may have been the
place of its origin, "where the famous Corpus Christi plays" (which
this cope so well illustrates) "drew crowds every year to see them, as
is testified by the Paston letters. Taking this old city as a centre,
with a radius of no great length, we may draw a circle on the map
enclosing Tamworth, tower and town, Chartley castle, Warwick,
Charlcote, and Althorp. The lords of these broad lands would, in
accordance with the religious feelings of those times, become brothers
of the famous Guild of Coventry, and on account of their high rank
find their arms embroidered on the vestments belonging to their
fraternity. That such a pious queen as the gentle Eleanor, wife of
Edward the First, who died 1290, should have in her lifetime become a
sister is very likely, so that we may easily account for the
shield--Castile and Leon."
The other noble shields may possibly record munificent benefactions.
"The whole must have taken very long in the working, and the
probability is that it was embroidered by the nuns of some convent
which stood in or near Coventry....
"Upon the banks of the Thames at Isleworth, near London, Henry V.
built and munificently endowed a monastery, to be called 'Syon,' for
the nuns of St. Bridget's order. Among the earliest friends of this
new house was a Master Thomas Graunt, an official in one of the
Ecclesiastical Courts of the kingdom. In the Syon Nun's
Martyrologium--a valuable MS. lately bought by the British
Museum--this Churchman is gratefully recorded as the giver to their
convent of several precious ornaments, of which this very cope
seemingly is one. It was the custom for a guild or religious body to
bestow some rich church vestment upon an ecclesiastical advocate who
had befriended it by his pleadings before the tribunal, and thus to
convey their thanks to him with his fee. After such a fashion this
cope might easily have found its way, through Dr. Graunt, from
Warwickshire to Middlesex.
"At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign it went with the nuns, as they
wandered in an unbroken body through Flanders, France, and Portugal,
where they halted. About sixty years ago it came back again from
Lisbon to England, and has found a home in the South Kensington
Museum."
For want of space I have been obliged to omit a great deal of Dr.
Rock's interesting account of the Syon Cope. The reader is referred
for further details, especially regarding the heraldry and the
subjects in the quatrefoils, to Rock's "Textile Fabrics," pp. 275-291,
in the South Kensington Museum (No. 9182).
APPENDIX VII., TO PAGE 350.
The Assyrians were great in fringes. Of this we can judge from their
sculptures, in which the rich deep and broad fringe forms the ornament
and accentuates the shaping of the garments of kings and priests and
nobles. Loftus, in his "Babylon and Susiana," tells of the only
actually existing remnant of their textile art of which I can find any
record. Some terra-cotta coffins were opened at Warka (the ancient
Erech), and in one of them was a cushion, on which the head, gone to
dust, had reposed. It was covered with linen--fringed. Nothing else
had survived the ages except a huge wig of false hair. Such
fragmentary echoes from a life, a civilization, and an art dead for
thousands of years, are curiously pathetic, and touch and startle the
thinking mind.
APPENDIX VIII., TO PAGE 369.
The following poem from the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf shows that the
hospitable hall of the Saxon earl was hung with tapestry embroidered
with gold.
Fœla pœra was
Much people were
Wera and Wifa pe pat win rued
Men and women who that wine house
Gest sele gyredon gold fag scinon
That guest-hall garnished. Cloths embroidered with gold
Web-after wagum. Wundersiòna feld
Those along the walls many wonderful sights
Sioga gustryleum para pe on swyle stara ♀
To every person of those that gaze on such.
Translation by Thomas Arnold.
The poem of Beowulf is supposed to have been written in the early part
of the twelfth century.
The lines which follow are from a poem, recomposed from earlier sagas,
in the beginning of the twelfth century. It serves to show that arras
was used in bedrooms thus early in Germany.
From the "Niebelungen Lied," übersetzt von Karl Simrock, p. 294.
Manche schmucke Decke von Arras da lag
Aus lichthellem Zeuge und manches Ueberdach
Aus arabischer Seides so gut sie mochte sein,
Darüber lagen leisten du gaben herrlicher Schein.
I owe these notices to the kindness of the Rev. A. O. Winnington
Ingram.
APPENDIX IX., TO PAGE 362.
_Abridged from Trans. by Sir G. Dasent._
(_From the Ezrbyggja Saga._)
In that summer in which Christianity was established by law in Iceland
(A.D. 1000), there came a ship from off the sea out to Snowfellsness,
in Iceland. It was a Dublin ship, and on board it were Irishmen and
men from Sodor and the Hebrides, but few Norsemen.... On board the
ship was a woman from the Hebrides, whose name was Thorgunna. Her
shipmates said that they were sure she had such treasures with her as
would be hard to get in Iceland.
Thurida, the housewife at Frida, was envious and covetous of these
precious goods, and received Thorgunna into her home in hopes, by some
means, to possess herself of them, especially the embroidered hangings
of a bed; but Thorgunna refused to part with them. "I will not lie in
the straw for thee, though thou art a fine lady, and thinkest great
things of thyself." Thorgunna made her own terms with Thurida and
Master Harold, and set up her bed at the inner end of their hall. Her
richly worked bed-clothes, her English sheets and silken quilt, and
her bed-hangings and canopy were such "that men thought nothing at all
like them had ever been seen." An air of truth is given to the whole
story by the details. Thorgunna is described as "tall and strong and
very stout. She was swarthy brown, with eyes set close together; her
hair was brown and very thick. She was well-behaved in daily life, and
went to church every morning before she went to her work." Then comes
an account of a storm, and a rain of blood; and how Thorgunna sickened
and died, and at her own desire was carried to be buried to Skilholt,
which she prophesied would one day be considered holy, and that
priests might there sing dirges over her.
There is a curious and picturesque account of the two days' journey to
Skilholt, and the adventures that befell the funeral cortége;
including the incident of the corpse cooking the supper of the convoy
at an inhospitable farmhouse where they had sought refuge and received
no entertainment.
On Harold's return home after the funeral, he proceeded to carry out
the wishes of Thorgunna, who had warned him that the ownership of her
embroidered hangings would cause trouble, and therefore she had
desired they should be burned. Thurida, however, could not bear to
lose them, and persuaded Harold to spare them. "After this followed
many signs and portents, and deaths of men and women, and apparitions
of ghosts, until Kjartan (Thurida's son) brought out all Thorgunna's
bed-hangings and furniture, and burned them in the fire."
APPENDIX X., TO PAGE 365.
Aelfled or Athelfleda was the founder of a race of embroiderers. Their
pedigree is as follows:--
BRITHNOD, === ATHELFLEDA.
a Northumberland | She embroidered the
Chief or Alderman. | daring deeds of her husband.
|
LEOFLEDA. === KING OSWIC.
| Oswic's sister Aedelfleda was
| adopted by Hilda, Abbess of Whitby.
| She succeeded Hilda, and died 713.
| She was a great embroiderer.
___________|___________
| | |
AELFWIN. AELSWITH. LEOFWED.
|
AELSWITH.
Leofwed made her will in the time of King Cnut; dividing her revenue
between her daughter Aelswith and the Abbey of Ely. Aelswith accepted
the residence of Coveney, a small property belonging to the convent,
and there she embroidered with her maidens. See Liber Eliensis, ed. D.
J. Stewart, "Anglia Christiana," vol. i., 1848.
APPENDIX XI., TO PAGE 377.
In the Statutes at Large there is the following in vol. i. p. 526 (in
old French):--
2 Henry VI.
A penalty on deceitful workers of gold and silver embroidery.
Item. pur ceo que diverses defautes sont trovez en loveraigne de
diverses persons occupiantz le mestier de brouderie. Ordonnez est &
assentiez, que tout loveraigne & stuff de brouderie d'or ou d'argent
de Cipre ou d'or de Luke melle avec laton de Spayne & mys a vent en
deceit des lieges du Roi sont forfait au Roi ou as Seigneurs et autres
accenz franchises d'autielx forfaitures ein quy franchise autiel
overaigne soit trouvée et durera c'est ordinance longue parlement
prochainement avenir.
33 Henry VI.
That if any Lombard or any other person, Stranger or Denizen, bring or
cause to be brought by way of merchandize any wrought silk thrown,
Ribbands, Laces, Corses of Silk, or any other thing wrought, touching
or concerning the mystery of Silk women, the corses which come from
Genoa only excepted, into any part or place of the Realm from beyond
the Sea, that the same ... be forfeit.
3 Edward IV.
Whereby the importation of any wrought silk thrown, Ribbands, Laces,
Corses of Silk, or other things wrought, concerning the craft of Silk
women is prohibited or restrained.
22 Edward IV.
That no Marchant, Stranger, nor other person shall bring into the
Realm to be sold, any Corses, Girdles, Ribbands, Laces, Coll. Silk or
Colein Silk, thrown or wrought, upon pain of forfeiture of the same.
Also Richard III. "An Act touching the bringing in of Silk Laces,
Ribbands, &c."
Also 19 Henry VII. "An Act for Silk Women."
These acts appear to have been partially repealed, 3 and 5 George III.
INDEX.
Achilles, shield of, 33, 103.
Aelgitha, wife of Canute, embroideries by, 366.
Æsthetic, 17, 90, 339.
Agrippina, golden garment of, 143.
Alessandri Palace, Florence, 284.
Alexander the Great, 142, 299;
wedding tent of, 263-4;
pall of, 142.
Alkisthenes, mantle of, 298.
Altar, 42, 346;
altar-piece, 328;
altar-cloths, 340, 346;
by Queen Emma, 366.
Amasis, corselet of, 20, 308;
Bishop of, 299.
Anne of Brittany, 331.
Apollo of Branchidæ, 296.
Arabesque, 43, 80.
Arachne, 237.
Aragon, Catherine of, embroideries by, 383.
Aristophanes, 98.
Arras, 238, 243, 255-6, 274.
Arrazzi, 245;
Prince of, 249;
trade with, 250, 252.
Art of dress, 298;
of needlework, 396.
Art, Greek, 18, 35, 59, 306;
Egyptian, 20, 25, 34, 56-7;
Scandinavian, 29, 40;
Roman, 37, 60, 310;
Romanesque, 36, 323;
Christian, 37, 39, 300, 306, 311, 315, 317;
Chinese, 38, 73, 153, 155;
Japanese, 38, 64, 65, 393;
Gothic, 42, 52, 68, 307, 324;
Italian, 43, 311;
French, 46;
Ecclesiastical, 41, 78, 303, 305;
Aryan, 69, 70;
Celtic, 96, 273;
decorative, 289;
Lombardic, 310;
Pagan, 338.
Asbestos linen, 123.
Atrebates, 136, 246.
Attalus II., 142.
Auxerre, Bishop of, 242.
Balawat, bronze gates from, 271.
Baldachino, 170, 268, 283, 312.
Banner, 215;
of St. Cuthbert, 349.
Bas-relief, Assyrian, 287.
Bayeux tapestries, 367.
Beads, 332.
Bede, mention of worked palls by, 160.
Bedsteads, 282;
at Kenilworth, 283-4;
at Hampton Court, 395.
Bellini, portrait of Mahomet II., 147.
Black, 187.
Blode-bendes, or silk arm-bindings, 374.
Blue, 184, 187.
Boadicea, dress of, 87, 359.
Bombacinum or cotton, 138.
Book-coverings in library of Charles V., 289.
Borghese Palace, Rome, 277.
British Museum, sculptures in, 22;
vases, 31, 114;
frieze of Parthenon, 31;
mantle of Demeter, 93;
Egyptian dress, 93;
glass bowls, 101;
carpets from Nineveh, 105;
Egyptian woollen embroidery, 130;
fine linen printed, 134;
garment with gold ornaments, 144;
"opus pectineum" from Egypt, 236;
pavements, 272;
bronze statuette of Minerva, 297;
specimen of "opus Anglicanum," 376.
Brocade, 141.
Bronze age, 358;
statues, 359.
Brown, 187.
Buckram, 139.
Burleigh House arras, 256.
Byrri, 238.
Byssus, 134-5.
Byzantium, 306, 314.
Carpets, 261, 285;
Persian, 23, 73, 132, 188, 241, 271, 371.
Cashmere, 133.
Castle Ashby, tapestries at, 277.
Catacombs, 304.
Chair, 285;
chair-backs, 286.
Chaldean house, 281.
Charles I., 255, 390.
Charles V., library of, 289, 295.
Chasuble, 164;
by Isabella of Spain, 147;
at Coire, 328;
of St. Oswald, 362;
at Valencia, 381;
for Henry III., 374.
Chaucer, 251.
Chemmis, city of Pan, woollen trade in, 127.
Chenille, 395.
Church historical embroideries, 316.
Ciclatoun, 145.
Cinnabar, 183.
Clavus latus, 309, 337.
Cleves, Anne of, 384.
Cochineal, 184.
Code of Manu, 89.
Colour, 175-193;
prismatic, 177;
purple, 180;
crimson, 184;
copper, 184;
yellow, 185;
pure, 189, 192;
iodine, 190;
chromatic, 190;
Oriental, 191;
gas, 191;
foundation, 289;
green, 289;
liturgical, 305;
mystical, 335.
Complication, 67.
Confusion, 65.
Constantine, 306, 316.
Consutum, 214.
Contrast, 66.
Conventional, 71, 97.
Cope of St. Andrew, 144;
Syon, 206, 326;
of Boniface VIII., 320;
at Rheims, 321-2;
Daroca, 320, 376;
at Stoneyhurst, 348, 379;
of Innocent III., 369;
at Durham, 390.
Copper, 184.
Coral, 88, 124, 332.
Coronation robes, 295, 318, 362;
of St. Stephen of Hungary, 322;
of Charles X., 339;
of Edward the Confessor, 366;
of James II., 393.
Corselet of Amasis in temple at Lindos, in Rhodes, 20, 308.
Cotton, 137;
cotton trees, 138;
woven, 139;
cotton plush, 139.
Counterpane worked by Queen Catherine, 384.
Coverlets, 393.
Crewels, 133, 229, 345, 398;
work in, 390, 392.
Crimson, 184.
Cross, 103;
of St. Andrew, 144;
Greek, 165;
emblem of, 308;
prehistoric, 335-6.
Croyland Abbey embroideries, 366.
Crusaders, 307, 371.
Curtains, 261, 270, 272, 281, 288;
ordered by Sergius, 312;
by Pope John, 312;
by Stephen IV., 312.
Cushion at Hatfield, of James I.'s reign, 390.
Cuthbert, St., 144;
silk garments in tomb of, 163, 165, 364-5.
Cyprus bowls, 109.
Dado, 271.
Dais, the chamber of, 282.
Dalmatic of Charlemagne, 53, 317-18;
at Valencia, 381.
Damascus, 127.
Decoration, 5, 50, 70, 290, 355;
art of, 273.
Decorative, 81, 273.
Design, 54-81;
floral, 71, 345, 348;
English, 377;
by St. Dunstan, 365.
Detail, 71.
Dress, 70, 294, 301, 373;
Greek, 297-8;
Roman, 299;
early Christian, 300;
of Claudius, 360;
of Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, 393.
Durham Cathedral, 348.
Dyes, 183, 185, 358;
Indian, 187.
East India Company, monopoly of trade by, 388.
Ecclesiastical embroidery, 303, 327, 330, 353;
for images, 305;
priests' robes, 306;
materials used in, 311;
names of garments in, 313, 316;
at Durham, 316;
English, 332.
Edward II., 250.
Edward III., 377.
Eighteenth century decorations, 112;
embroidery, 393, 395.
Eleanor, Queen, crosses of, 372.
Emare, mantle of, 372.
Embroiderers' Guild, 388;
list of names, 373;
Company in Elizabeth's reign, 387, 394.
Embroideries, Babylonian and Ninevite, 22, 44, 105, 127, 132, 271,
299, 311, 350;
Greek, 31-2, 93, 103, 142;
German, 43, 149;
Italian, 43, 116, 147;
Spanish, 45, 150, 331, 383;
Portuguese, 45;
Scandinavian and Celtic, 68, 91, 104, 116, 131, 136, 306;
Egyptian, 93, 114, 130, 134, 209, 236, 271;
Assyrian, 93, 127, 262, 357;
Roman, 129, 143, 153, 313;
Chinese, 97, 113, 127, 151, 208;
Persian, 99, 266, 299;
Japanese, 109, 214;
Russian, 201, 206, 313;
Delphic, 272;
English, 319, 321, 325, 356-396;
spurious, in Henry VI.'s reign, 377.
Embroidery, art of, 16, 136, 173, 195, 289, 378;
white, 200;
in churches, 313, 341.
Emma, Queen, embroideries by, 366.
Enamel, 146.
Etruscan borders, 47;
tombs, 357.
Fashion, 301.
Fayoum, 39;
ancient Egyptian textile fabrics from, 139, 300.
Fictile vases, 31, 32, 93, 103.
Field of Cloth of Gold, 381-2.
Filatorium, 222.
Fitness, 81.
Flat, drawing on, 69-70;
stitches, 345.
Flavius Vopiscus, 158.
Flax, 133, 135.
Flemish work, 329.
Floral patterns, 71.
Floss silk, 374.
Flowers, 291.
Footstools, 285.
Frames, 292, 299, 371, 389.
Frescoes, 373.
Fringes, 271, 351.
Fulham, tapestry works at, 257.
Furniture, 280-293.
Gammadion, 104.
Gaudry, Bishop, tapestry of, 242.
Geoffrey, Abbot, 249.
Gisela, Queen, 323.
Giustini Palace, Florence, 277.
Gobelins, 131, 237, 247-8, 275, 277.
Gold, 140, 143;
threads, 346;
Gothic design in, 75, 377;
embroideries, 202;
needlework for Elinor of Aquitaine, 369;
Spanish lace, 381;
caskets, 389.
Gradation, 67.
Green, 187.
Gregory Nazianzen, 160.
Grey, 187.
Grotesque, 43.
Guimp, 163, 223.
Hair, 133.
Hampton Court, 288, 384;
bed at, worked by Mrs. Pawsey, 395.
Hand-looms, 374.
Hangings, 243, 260-274;
of the Hebrew Sanctuary, 262;
of Alexander's tent, 263;
portraits on, 265;
in Kosroes' "white palace," 268;
on Greek vases, 269;
in Pompeii, 269;
saffron, mentioned by Euripides, 272;
French, sixteenth century, 274;
modern French, 275;
in Holland House, 276;
in Florence, 277;
in Rome, 277;
English, from time of Harold to Edward IV., and others, 370, 384,
392-3.
Harmonies, 66.
Hawaiian royal mantle, 209.
Helen, 33.
Helena, Empress, 316, 360.
Hemp, 121.
Henry II., mantle of, 203, 323.
Henry VIII., manufacture of tapestry in reign of, 252;
embroidery, 302, 369, 384-5.
Hephæstion, catafalque of, 267.
Hexameron work of St. Ambrose and St. Basil, 333.
Holland House, 276.
Homer, 11, 19, 33, 130.
Hom, the sacred, 99, 334.
Icelandic Sagas, 273, 362.
Illumination, 273, 305, 310, 363.
Imperial, a silk tissue, 161.
India, arts of, 7, 27, 75, 83, 311;
Museum, 89, 285.
Indian carving, 75;
shawls, 133;
cotton fabrics, 138;
dyes, 187;
embroideries, 284, 299;
manufactures, 389, 391, 394.
Inscriptions, 105, 146, 341;
woven in, 168;
in tapestry, 242, 375.
Isabella of France, 331;
of Spain, 384.
Jacket in Lady Waterford's collection, 386.
James I., manufacture of tapestry in reign of, 254;
portrait of, 255;
work in reign of, 387, 388.
Josephus, 9.
Juno, toilet of, 297.
Jute, 121.
Kells, Book of, 30.
Khotan, Prince of, 156.
Kosroes' hangings, 261, 268.
Kunigunda, Empress, 203, 323.
Lace, 222-235;
bone, 225;
yak, 225;
needle-made, 227;
ancient lace-books, 228;
stitches, 229;
Venetian, 229;
Burano, 230;
list of, 231;
blond, 232;
schools in France, 233;
for ecclesiastical purposes, 233;
bobbin, 234;
Limerick, 234;
Irish, 234;
Honiton, 234;
Spanish, 383.
Lambeth tapestry works, 257;
missal at, 30.
Lares, 291.
Leather, 123.
Lilac, 187.
Linen, 357-8.
Lombardic, 310, 323.
Lotus, 89, 102, 105.
Louis XIV., 46, 247, 276, 332, 393.
Louis XV., 47, 110, 247, 276, 332.
Louis XVI., 332.
Lyons, 151, 167, 345.
Maniple of St. Cuthbert, 144;
in Durham library, 364.
Mantle of Demeter, 93;
of Ajax, 103;
of Servius Tullius, 129;
of Alkisthenes, 299;
of Gisela, 323;
of King Wiglaf, 363-4.
Manu, Code of, 314.
Manufactures of Nineveh and Babylon, 127;
at Lyons, 151;
of silk, 160;
at Palermo, 161.
Marcus Aurelius, 158.
Mark's, St., Venice, 346.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 387.
Mary's, St., Hall, Coventry, 250, 379.
Melito, Bishop of Sardis, book on Symbolism by, 333.
Middle Ages, 12, 23, 42, 73, 125, 137, 145, 168, 183, 202, 239, 242,
249, 273, 307, 315.
Mitre at Milan, 211;
of St. Thomas à Becket, 321, 369.
Monks of St. Florent, Saumur, 242;
of Cluny, 242;
of Fleury, 242;
in England, 249;
of St. Alban's, 251.
Monuments, 373.
Morris, William, 290.
Mosaics, 40, 300, 314;
Empress Theodora's dress figured in, 41, 93;
of Sta. Pudenziana, 306, 317;
early Christian, 314;
in Sta. Maria Maggiore, 117, 322.
Mummy-wrappings, 21.
Museum, Cluny, 247, 275, 277;
at Boulac, 56.
Muslin, 139.
Mycenæ, tomb of Agamemnon at, 19;
lion's gate of, 304.
Needle, the first, 14, 357;
bronze, steel, 195, 213;
bone, 358.
Nimroud, 24.
Nineteenth century, style of, 49, 339.
Normans, 366.
Northumberland House, tapestries at, 257.
Nunneries, 10.
Opus Alexandrinum, 117.
Opus Anglicanum, 325, 376.
Orange, 187.
Order, 59.
Oriental work, 392.
Orphrey, 368-9.
Oudenarde "hallings" or "salles," 252.
Painting, 4.
Palermo, silk-weaving at, 165, 307.
Pall of Alexander, 142;
at Dunstable, 251, 378;
of London Companies, 329, 379.
Pamphile silk-weaver, 152.
Panels, 69, 79.
Patchwork, 117;
appliqué, 214, 325, 392.
Patterns, 82-117;
wave, 62, 114;
key, 63, 97;
Oriental, 84, 99;
lotus, 89, 102;
animal, 93;
lily, 95;
rose, 95;
palm leaf on shawl, 96;
sacred hom, 99;
pine-apple, 100;
honeysuckle, 101;
egg and tongue, 102;
cross, 103;
crenelated, 104;
Renaissance, 108;
cloud, 109, 338;
fundata or netted, 109;
wheel, 110;
Moorish, 110;
Sicilian, 111;
shell, 112;
Indian balcony, 112;
chrysoclavus or palmated, 113;
wicker and lattice-work, 113;
bead, 114;
daisy, 114;
geometrical, 115;
German and Venetian books of, 206;
feather, 208;
Persian, 241;
check, 270;
metal-work, 325;
Roës, or wheel and plate, 336-7;
Indian dimity, 394.
Peacocks, 163, 211;
feathers, 376.
Pearls, 332, 362, 383, 389.
Pectineum, 235.
Penates, 291.
Penelope, bridal couch of, 281.
Peplos of Athene, 32.
Père Labbé, 242.
Persian carpets, 23, 73, 98, 132, 241, 266, 271;
rugs, 94;
silks, 153.
Perspective, 70.
Peter's, St., Rome, 346.
Pheidias, 59.
Phœnicians, 7, 21, 125, 176, 357;
bowls from Cyprus, 109.
Phrygium, 202.
Pictorial art, 79, 331.
Plâteresque, 45.
Plumarii, 207, 212.
Plush, 221.
Pluvial of St. Silvester, 319;
at Bologna, 320;
at Aix, 351;
Daroca, 376.
Polymita, 87.
Pompeii, 269.
Portraits of Charles V., 295;
of Richard II. at Wilton House, 372;
of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 379;
in needlework in reign of James I., 388.
Portuguese silks, 394.
Progression, 64.
Proportion, 64, 291.
Pulvinarium, 204.
Purl, 387.
Purple, 187.
Queen Anne, style in reign of, 46, 49, 88, 391, 394.
Queen Elizabeth, embroidery of, 385-6;
style in reign of, 389.
Queen Mary of Hungary, 330.
Queen Matilda, 367.
Radiation, 67.
Raphael, 44, 245;
cartoons of, 255.
Renaissance, 26, 43, 45, 75, 108, 308, 329, 380, 383.
Repetition, 62.
Reredos at St. Alban's, 249, 347;
of Vintners' Company, 251.
Richard Cœur de Lion, 374.
Robes of Julius Cæsar, 153;
of Childeric, 144;
of Bishop Adhelme, 361;
of St. Thomas à Becket, 369.
Roger, King of Sicily, transports silk-weavers from Greece, 161.
Roman silks, 160;
fashions, 299.
Romanesque, 36, 306, 323, 362, 364.
Roses, Wars of, 371, 372-3, 378.
Rugs, 285.
Runic art, 29, 306.
Samit, 145.
Sampler of Henry VII.'s reign, 379-80.
Saracenicum, 240.
Satin, 161, 170;
of Bruges, 171.
Scarlet, 182, 187, 189.
School of Art Needlework, South Kensington, 219, 288, 392;
rise of, 396-7;
list of work executed at, 398;
designs for, 398.
Schools, branch of Art Needlework, 397.
Screens, 261, 287.
Sculptures, 4, 353.
Seam, 198.
Seres, 154, 160.
Seventh century work, 361-2.
Sewing, plain, 197.
Shells, 88, 124, 190.
Sicilian patterns, 111;
embroideries, 124;
textile designs, 162, 341;
silk manufactures, 168;
fabrics, 315;
ecclesiastical designs, 331.
Sicily, textile art in, 41, 307.
Si-ling-chi, Empress, inventor of unwinding the cocoon, 156.
Silk, origin of, 151;
first woven by Pamphile at Cos, 300 B.C., 152;
Roman and Chinese, 153, 160;
trade in, 153;
in cocoon, 153, 156;
wild silk in China, 154-5;
attire mentioned in Latin poets, 157;
silken robes sold by Marcus Aurelius, 158;
garments given by Emperor Carinus, 158;
edict of Diocletian, with prices of articles, 159;
silk mentioned by poets and historians from first to sixth century,
159;
silkworm, 159;
monopoly of silk manufactures in Constantinople, 159;
first allusion to use of silk in Christian Church, 160;
palls of silk brought from Rome, A.D. 685, 160;
Bede's remains wrapped in silk, 160;
specimens of silk in Auberville's "Tissus," silk tissues called
"Imperial," 161.
Silk-weavers, Jewish, at Thebes in 1161, 161;
transported by Roger, King of Sicily, from Greece to Palermo, 161,
165;
description of Royal manufactory at Palermo, by Hugh Falcandus,
twelfth century, 161;
three periods in Sicily, 162-3;
Saracenic, in India, 166-7;
Italian, in Lyons, 1450, 167, 169;
Spanish at Malaga and Almeria, 168;
in Hungary under Queen Gisela, 169;
in the Flemish towns, 170;
Asiatic, 170.
Smock of Mary Tudor, 385.
Society of Arts, Birmingham, 292.
Sofas, 285.
Spangles, 146.
Spanish Armada, hangings, 253.
Sphinx, 265.
Spinning, 357.
Stamford, Arras woven at, 256, 257.
Stitches, 194-259;
lists of, 196;
gold, 203;
mosaic, 204;
cushion, 204;
plumage, 207;
satin, 214;
sampler, 234;
ecclesiastical, 345;
stem, 214.
Stole, 308;
at Durham, 364;
of Aelfled, Queen of Edward II., 364.
Style, 14-53.
Sun-cross, Egyptian, 337.
Sunflower, 91;
radiated pattern of, 111.
Surcoat of Black Prince, 373.
Swastika, 103.
Symbolism, 59, 95, 98, 307, 333, 334-5, 352.
Symmetry, 63-4.
Table covers, 287.
Tanaquil, robes worked by, 129.
Tapestry, 235-259;
in British Museum, 236;
woven, 237;
of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, 243;
Gobelins, 237;
Arras, 238;
Saracenic, 240;
at Brussels, 245;
French, 245;
Italian, 245;
English, 248, 277;
revival of, at Windsor, 257;
in Cluny Museum, 277.
Taste, 52;
Oriental, 388.
Tau, 335.
Tent, funeral, of an Egyptian queen, 25, 215;
of Antar, 263;
of Nadir Shah, 263;
of Alexander, 264;
of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 264-5;
Persian, 265.
Textile art, 45, 59, 74, 77, 93, 104, 107, 174, 176, 187, 205, 307, 310.
Thebes, silk-weavers of, 161.
"Tissus" of Auberville, 160.
Titian, 178.
Toga, 338.
Tomb of Agamemnon, 19;
of Rameses, 20;
of warrior at Kuban, 129;
in Crimea, 130, 217;
Anglo-Saxon, 144;
of St. Cuthbert at Durham, 163.
Trabea, 309, 337.
Tree of Life, 336.
Triptych in Cluny Museum, 211;
at Zurich, 328.
Tyrian purple, 180, 289.
Ulysses, 281.
Vatican, Etruscan gold ornament, 21, 295, 300.
Veil of Temple, 22;
classical, 261, 265, 311, 312;
for pyx, 350;
of Hebrew sanctuary, 311, 351.
Velvet, 76, 345, 347;
stoles, 161, 172, 221;
pall, 378.
Venetian red, 289;
style, 306.
Vestments, 313, 326;
Italian, 329;
Spanish, 331;
modern, 343;
set presented to Romsey and Croyland by Canute, 366, 370;
set bequeathed to Westminster Abbey by Henry VII., 379.
Watteau, school of, 248.
Welby, Lady, founder of School of Art Needlework, South Kensington, 396.
Wiglaf, King, 362.
William and Mary, 393.
Wilton carpet works, 190.
Windsor, 257, 398.
Wool, 125, 127, 130;
Berlin, 395.
Worcester, dress in tomb of Walter de Cantilupe, 320;
cope of William of Blois, 322;
tomb of King John, 373.
Workhouse sheeting, 140.
Wroxton House, Arras at, 256.
York, Archbishop of, Arras with design of the Four Seasons, 255.
Zoroaster, 101.
ERRATA.
Page xv, line 27, _for_ Albert Castet _read_ Albert Castel.
" 10, " 24, _read_ as that of an important factor.
" 17, " 22, _for_ slow _read_ swift.
" 26, " 16, _for_ art _read_ artistic.
" 42, " 16, _for_ are _read_ were.
" 56, " 5, _read_ advance of them, in the earliest.
" 66, " 21, _for_ we _read_ I.
" 75, " 20, _for_ These _read_ Those.
" 101, " 18, _for_ from Cervetri, in Southern Italy, _read_ from
a tomb at Chiusi, in Etruria.
" 156, " 8, _for_ Chin _read_ Chan.
" 195, " 20, _for_ 6, 7. Bone needles from Neolithic cave-man's
grave, _read_ 6. Cave-man's needle from the
Pinhole, Churchfield, Ereswell Crag. 7. Bone
needle from La Madeleine, Dordogne.
" 198, " 5, footnote, _for_ act _read_ art.
" 208, " 3, footnote, _for_ "Arte Plumarii" _read_ "Arte
Plumaria."
" 237, " 8, _for_ which prove _read_ proving.
" 239, " 17, _delete_ " _after_ of art."
" " " 18, _insert_ " _after_ backwards.
" 242, " 9, _for_ in the Crimea _read_ at Chiusi.
Transcriber's Note
Page 202--the marker for footnote 2 was missing in the original. The
transcriber has estimated where it should have been, based on the text
and reference material therein.
Page 303 includes an excerpt from Psalm 45, with quoted verse numbers
of 10, 14 and 15. These should be verses 9, 13 and 14.
Archaic spelling is preserved as printed. Variable spelling,
hyphenation and use of accents has been made consistent where there
was a clear prevalence of one form over the other, or with reference
to reliable sources; otherwise, these are preserved as printed.
Typographic errors, e.g. omitted, superfluous or transposed letters,
and punctuation errors have been repaired. Other amendments are as
follows:
Plate 71--precipit amended to precepit and omitted word
'pio' added--"... Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo
Fridestano."
Page xx--3 amended to 9--"From Layard's "Monuments,"
Series i. pl. 9."
Page xxi--Edward amended to Richard--"6. Badge of
Richard II."
Page xxii--John amended to Mark--"ST. MARK. Anglo-Saxon
Book of the Gospels."
Page 115--5. removed from beginning of section title,
for consistency with others in that chapter, "GEOMETRICAL."
Page 197--Encyclopedia amended to Cyclopædia--"The
second list is from Rees' "Cyclopædia" (Stitches), 1819
..."
Page 311--des Antiquités amended to Royale des
Antiquaires--""... par la Société Royale des Antiquaires
du Nord" ..."
Page 316--Lwewelig amended to Wledig--"... and in the
Welsh ballad of "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" ..."
Page 316, footnote 502--Pallison's amended to
Palliser's--"See Mrs. Palliser's "Lace," p. 4."
Page 320--T. amended to I.--"... (see Hon. and Rev. I.
Clifford's list of embroideries in Appendix 5)."
Page 331--Riario amended to Riano--"Don Juan F. Riano[533]
says that Toledo is a perfect museum ..."
Page 331, footnote 533--Riario amended to Riano--"See "The
Industrial Arts of Spain," pp. 250-264, by Don Juan F.
Riano, ..."
Page 417--350 amended to 348--"Design, ... floral, 71, 345,
348; ..."
Page 417--210 amended to 109--"Embroideries, ... Egyptian,
93, 114, 130, 134, 209, 236, 271; ..."
Page 419--47 amended to 46 and 308 amended to 276--"Louis
XIV., 46, 247, 276, 332, 393."
Page 419--167 amended to 93--"Mosaics, ... Empress Theodora's
dress figured in, 41, 93; ..."
Page 419--306 amended to 117--"Mosaics, ... in Sta. Maria
Maggiore, 117, 322."
Page 420--index entries for 'Pall' and 'Pamphile,' which
originally followed the entry for 'Pattern,' have been moved
to their correct places.
Page 421--399 amended to 345--"Stitches, ... ecclesiastical,
345; ..."
There are a number of discrepancies between the information in the
list of illustrations (LOI) and the information on the plates
themselves. Some of these are simple omission, others involve
conflicting information. The transcriber has resolved and repaired
some of these differences with reference to alternative sources. In
general, it seems that the information on the plate is correct. Those
that could not be resolved are as follows:
Pl. 5--LOI has "Journal Asiatique,
Syro-Egyptien-Phœnicien." Plate has "Journal
Asiatique, Coupe de Palestrina."
Pl. 9--LOI has "sixteenth century." Plate has
"seventeenth century."
Pl. 10--LOI has "5, 6, 7. Egyptian smooth and rippling
wave pattern." Plate has "5, 6, 7. Egyptian Smooth and
Rippling Water Patterns."
Pl. 10--LOI has "10, 11, 14. Babylonian and Chaldean."
Plate has "10, 11, 14. Assyrian."
Pl. 11--LOI omits Assyrian references.
Pl. 12--LOI has "2, 3. Egyptian. 4, 5. Greek." Plate has
"2, 3. Indian Lotus Patterns. 4, 5. Egyptian Lotus
Patterns."
Pl. 15--LOI has "Book of Kells." Plate has "Lindisfarne
Gospels."
Pl. 20--LOI has "1, 2, 3. Assyrian. 4. Sicilian Silk. 5.
Mediæval." Plate has "1, 2, 3, 5. Assyrian. 4.
Sicilian Silk."
Pl. 28--LOI has "1. Dress patterns from old MS. 2, 3.
Old English tiles." Plate has "1, 2. Gothic tiles. 3.
Gothic Border of a Dress. 4. Gothic Vine."
Pl. 31--LOI omits mention of a third Egyptian fundata
pattern.
Pl. 32--LOI references "Bock's Lit. Gew. ii. p. 246."
Plate references "Vol i. taf. xi."
Pl. 35--LOI omits mention of a peacock pattern. Plate
omits mention of Persian type.
Pl. 41--The source of the examples are either omitted or
different on the LOI to those given on the plate.
Pl. 68--LOI has "sixteenth century." Plate has
"fifteenth century."
Pl. 70--LOI has "A.D. 434." Plate has "sixth century."
Pl. 72--LOI "ST. GREGORY AND ST. JOHN (PROPHET)." Plate
has "St. John" and "St. Roger."
Pl. 74--LOI gives different title for Strutt's book to
that given on the plate. From research, it seems that
the short title is actually "The Regal and
Ecclesiastical Antiqities of England."
Pl. 76--LOI has "twelfth century." Plate has "XIII.
century."
Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in
the middle of a paragraph. Some of the plates do not have numbers on
the plate themselves.
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