Needlework As Art Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Pa.s.sover.

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 cla.s.sical 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 a.s.syria.

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, _pa.r.s.emes_ with the prehistoric cross.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 acc.u.mulated learning on the subject of "The Prehistoric Cross," by Baron Ernest de Bunsen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. 27.

Imitation of a Carpet carved in stone, from Nineveh, showing the Indian Lotus and the a.s.syrian Daisy. (In the British Museum.)]

There was a pattern called the "crenelated" which apparently was derived from the a.s.syrian battlement, and is found throughout cla.s.sic 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trations; and, therefore, I give one of the beautiful sculptured carpets from Nineveh, in the British Museum (Pl. 27), showing the a.s.syrian 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 repet.i.tion 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 a.s.syria 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 acc.u.mulated 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 mediaeval 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 repet.i.tion without variation, were converted into patterns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. 28.

1, 2. Gothic Tiles. 3. Gothic Border of a Dress. 4. Gothic Vine.

Westminster Abbey.]

When the use of heraldic ill.u.s.tration 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 mediaeval 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, a.s.sumed 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 b.u.t.terflies to frolic for a day of gay enjoyment, are purely decorative. Their generally charming, graceful forms group together to cover empty s.p.a.ces 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 mediaeval 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 repet.i.tion and duplication, or that of doubling the pattern, which repeats itself to right and left, as if folded down the middle.

The princ.i.p.al lines thus echoed one another; but the artist was permitted to vary the conventionalism of the general forms of figures, flowers, fruit, or b.u.t.terflies, so as to balance and yet differ in every detail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. 29.

CLOUD PATTERNS.

1, 2, 3, 7. j.a.panese.

4. Chinese.

5, 8, 9. Mediaeval.

6. Badge of Richard II.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. 31.

THE FUNDATA OR NETTED PATTERN.

Portion of a Phnician Bowl from Cyprus.

Egyptian.

Egyptian.

Egyptian.]

The cloud pattern is also j.a.panese, 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 j.a.pan, 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 gla.s.s 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 Phnician bowl from Cyprus, now in the Louvre. The mediaeval 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 _roes_. 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.