Needlework As Art Part 41

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 mediaeval 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 "applique," 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 st.i.tches" 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, aesthetic, 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 st.i.tches. The "diapers" are not opus plumarium, but opus pulvinarium, of the cla.s.s of "laid st.i.tches." 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 gla.s.s 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 st.i.tches, 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 Pa.s.sion, &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 Wa.s.ser-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 amus.e.m.e.nt rather than admiration.

Gla.s.s 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 ma.s.ses of light, and tinting the walls and pavements on which it was cast.

When coloured gla.s.s came into general use, embroidered hangings mostly disappeared. Whatever may have been the cause, there is no doubt of the coincidence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 gla.s.s-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 st.i.tches, as medallions accompanied by beautiful foliage, and heraldic designs, is ill.u.s.trated 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 st.i.tches. The Flemish work and its peculiar mode of laying golden grounds with flat-laid thread st.i.tched 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 emanc.i.p.ated 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sembled around them n.o.ble damsels for this purpose. Anne of Brittany, who lived in an artistic atmosphere, had her own workshop of embroidery. Pictorial design now a.s.serted 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 plateresque 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 cla.s.sical 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 plateresque, which was a revolt against their own b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 cla.s.sical 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 G.o.d, 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 t.i.tle 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 ent.i.tled 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 peac.o.c.k 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 mediaeval 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 chast.i.ty, 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, rea.s.serted and purified, was claimed by the new teachers as types and ant.i.types.

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 ill.u.s.trate 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, [Ill.u.s.tration], 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, cla.s.sical, and Christian art to the thirteenth century. The next most ancient form is a broken cross, thus, [Ill.u.s.tration], 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 Pa.s.sover. 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, [Ill.u.s.tration], 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 mediaeval example, and is taken from the celebrated rose-coloured cope at Rheims, embroidered with gold and pearls on a rose-coloured satin ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pl. 70.

IVORY CONSULAR DIPTYCH.

1. In the Wa.s.ser-Kirche Museum, Zurich. Sixth century. 2. Of an earlier period, and finer workmanship, at Halberstadt. No date given.]

The Roes 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 _togae pictae_, 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 Roes 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 superst.i.tion 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 n.o.ble, 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 G.o.ds a.s.sumed 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 mediaeval. 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 s.p.a.ce), 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 ill.u.s.trations, as well as Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers."

The st.i.tchery of Christian art has been discussed in the chapter on st.i.tches, and I repeat that there is nothing new in the treatment of solid embroideries, (lace st.i.tches having been the only innovation of the last 400 years), though many of the ancient st.i.tches 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.