Needlework As Art Part 15

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 st.i.tches 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 coa.r.s.e-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 gra.s.ses, such as the "Honduras silk gra.s.s" (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 coa.r.s.e weaving;[136] also the fibres of barks, especially those of palm branches.[137]

Another substance of cla.s.sic use, and even now employed, though rather as a curiosity than as an article of commerce, is the silky filament produced by the sh.e.l.l-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 sc.r.a.ps 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e 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).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Gewander."

Vol. i. taf. xi.]

Beads of gla.s.s 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 Phnicians dropped them on all the sh.o.r.es of the world. Then, as now, savages had a pa.s.sion for beads, and civilized men and women still admire them as tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. 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 Linnaeus, inhabiting the central regions of Asia.[151]

It is possible that plaited gra.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, and the Phnicians 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, a.s.syrians, 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]

a.s.syrian 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 th.o.r.n.y 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 G.o.ds.

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 G.o.ds, 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 coa.r.s.e wool with "great thick hair," used for carpets from the time of Homer. The same pa.s.sage 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 st.i.tches 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 crepe, 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. Cla.s.sical 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]