Needlework As Art Part 38

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 pa.s.sion. 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 c.o.c.ks) suggested to men the same method for securing the preference of the other s.e.x, 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 Schweinfurth describes a king dancing before his 100 wives costumed in the tails of lions and peac.o.c.ks, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.sert 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.sical 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s, 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 rea.s.sure 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 G.o.ddesses 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 st.i.tches, 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 ill.u.s.trative 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 cla.s.s, 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 ap.r.o.n, the fichu, the point of the shoe, and the m.u.f.f--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-m.u.f.fs, and embroidered letter-cases, and book-covers, must be placed somewhere between furniture and personal ornament. In all these the "_imprevu_," 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 archaeologist 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.

Planche'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 ill.u.s.trated and worthy of study.

FOOTNOTES:

[472] Elsewhere I have spoken of dress being continually offered to the images of the pagan G.o.ds in the temples.

Herodotus (ii. p. 159) tells us that Pharaoh Necho offered to the Apollo of Branchidae 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." Blumner, 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 Funde in aegypten,"

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 cla.s.s, 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 _navete_ 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 gra.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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.