Needlework As Art Part 35

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 cla.s.sical perfect taste would plan so as to carry out the decorator's intention. Babylonians, Persians, a.s.syrians, 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 s.p.a.ces, 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 a.s.syrian 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 a.s.sociated 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 peac.o.c.k 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 a.s.syria 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 circ.u.mference.[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 Athenaeus.[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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.syria 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 Hephaestion 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.

Hephaestion'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 cla.s.sical 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 s.p.a.ce to linger over the many descriptions of Oriental, Grecian, and Roman work to be gathered from cla.s.sical 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 quant.i.ty 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 cla.s.sical 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 portieres 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 s.p.a.ces 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 quant.i.ties 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 a.s.syrian 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 "Tap.i.s.series des Anciens," speaks of the hangings which he supposes to have decked the recess that contained the chryselephantine statue of Athene 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 G.o.ddess. 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 sh.o.r.es 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 _pa.r.s.eme_ 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'Angouleme 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 pa.s.sage 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 adonnee aux devises, elle fit de sa main de belles et grandes tap.i.s.series, entre lesquelles il y a une tente de douze ou quinze pieces excellente qui s'appelle _les Prisons brisees_, par lesquelles elle donnoit a connoistre qu'elle avoit brise les liens et secoue le joug de la captivite du Pape. Au milieu de chaque piece, il y a une histoire du Vieu Testament qui resent la liberte, comme la delivrance de Suzanne, la sortie du peuple de la captivite d'Egypte, l'elargiss.e.m.e.nt de Joseph. Et a tous les coins il y a des chaisnes rompues, des menottes brisees, des strapades et des gibbets en pieces, et par-dessus en grosses lettres ce sont ces paroles de la deuxieme 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 archaeologically 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 gla.s.s chandeliers and girandoles. Such hangings have nothing in common with those of early times; they are not temporary coverings of bare s.p.a.ces, 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 s.p.a.ces, which separated pictures, statues, and cabinets, of which the style did not agree in juxtaposition. These pilasters were generally of "opus consutum," or "applique" 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 s.p.a.ces 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 s.p.a.ces, 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 s.p.a.ces, 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 beat.i.tudes of St. Catherine, from the castle at Tarrascon, and the hangings worked in applique and flat st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches, 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 st.i.tches 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 gra.s.ses 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 leaf.a.ge 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 s.p.a.ces 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.

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