Needlework As Art Part 7

I will first consider the principles of design, and afterwards, in another chapter, inquire into the origin of patterns; investigating their motives, and using them as examples, and also as warnings.

The individual genius of the artist works first in design, though his work is for the use of the craftsman or artisan, his collaborator; for the two, head and hands, must work together, or else will render each other inoperative or ineffective.

The artisan, by right of his t.i.tle, claims a part in the art itself; the craftsman, by his name, points out that he, too, has to work out the craft, the mystery, the inner meaning, of the design or intention.

The designer himself is subject to the prejudices called the taste of his day. He is necessarily under the influence which that taste has imposed upon him, and from which no spontaneous efforts of genius can entirely emanc.i.p.ate him. Whether he is conceiving a temple for the worship of a national faith, or the edging for the robe of a fair votaress, or the pattern on the border of a cup of gold or bra.s.s, he cannot avoid the force of tradition and of custom, which comes from afar, weighted with the power of long descent, and which crushes individuality, unless it is of the most robust nature.

Of very early design we have most curious and mysterious glimpses. The cave man was an artist. The few scratches on a bone, cleverly showing the forms of a dog or a stag, a whale or a seal, nay, the figure of a man, have enabled us to ascertain and to cla.s.sify the Palaeolithic cave man; from whom his less civilized successor, the Neolithic man, may be distinguished by his absence of all animal design.[73]

These fragmentary sc.r.a.ps of information, pieced together only in these later years, teach us the value of very small facts which time and care are now acc.u.mulating, and which, being the remains of lives and nations pa.s.sed away, still serve as the soil in which history can be fertilized.

We have no means of judging whether the cave man was an artist on a greater or more advanced scale than is actually shown by the bone-scratchings; the only other relic of his handiwork is the needle.[74]

It is evident that a direct imitation of nature, such as is seen in these "graffiti," and at an immense distance in advance of them, in the earliest known Egyptian sculptures, preceded all conventional art.

Some of the earliest portrait statues in the Museum at Boulac exhibit a high degree of naturalistic design before it became subservient to the expression of the faith of the people. As soon as art was found to be the fittest conveyance of symbolism, it became the consecrated medium for transmitting language, thought, and history, and was reduced to forms in which it was contented to remain petrified for many centuries, entirely foregoing the study or imitation of nature.[75] It recorded customs, historical events, and religious beliefs; receiving from the last the impress of the unchangeable and the absolute, which it gave to the other subjects on which it touched.

It ceased to be a creative art (if it had ever aspired to such a function), and was never the embodiment of individual thought. This phase prevailed under different manifestations in a.s.syria and China.

Pictorial art had, in fact, become merely the nursing mother of the alphabet, guiding its first steps--the hieroglyphic delineation or expression of thoughts and facts.[76]

In Egypt, the change from the first period of actual imitation of nature was succeeded by many centuries of the very slowest progress.

Renouf speaks,[77] however, of "the astonishing ident.i.ty that is visible through all the periods of Egyptian art" (for you could never mistake anything Egyptian for the produce of any other country). "This ident.i.ty and slow movement," he says, "are not inconsistent with an immense amount of change, which must exist if there is any real life."

In fact, there were periods of relative progress, repose, and decay, and every age had its peculiar character. Birch, Lepsius, or Marriette could at once tell you the age of a statue, inscription, or ma.n.u.script, by the characteristic signs which actually fix[78] the date.

Design, unconsciously has a slowly altering and persistently onward movement, which but seldom repeats itself. It is one of the most remarkable instances of evolution. But it also has its cataclysms (however we may account for them), of which the Greek apotheosis of all art is a shining example, and the total disappearance of cla.s.sical influence in Europe before the Renaissance is another.

I will instance one prevailing habit of Egyptian art.[79] In the long processional subjects, and in individual separate figures, it was usual to draw the head in perfect profile, the body facing you, but not completely--a sort of compromise with a three-quarter view of it--and the feet following each other, on the same line as the profile. This mode of representing the human figure was only effaced gradually by the introduction of Greek art, and continued to be the conventional and decorative method even in the latest days of Egyptian art; and it is curious to observe, that in the Dark ages European design fell into the same habit. We cannot imagine that this distorted way of drawing the human figure could have any intentional meaning, and therefore may simply believe that it had become a custom; and that when art has so stiffened and consolidated itself by precedent and long tradition, as in Egypt and in India, certain errors as well as certain truths become, as it were, ingrained into it. Plato remarked of Egyptian art, that "the pictures and statues they made ten thousand years ago were in no particular better than those they make now."[80]

One day, however, the Greek broke away from the ancient bonds of custom. The body was made to accompany the head, and the feet followed suit. But the strange fact remains that for several thousand years men walked in profile, all out of drawing. Evidently originality was not in much estimation among the Egyptian patrons of art. Design seemed to have restricted itself to effective adaptations in a few permitted forms in architecture and painting, and the illumination of the papyrus MSS.

Egyptian elasticity of design found some scope in its domestic ornamentation, in jewellery and hangings, but especially in its embroideries for dress. Here much ingenuity was shown, and the patterns on walls and the ceilings of tombs give us the designs which Semper considers as having been originally intended for textile purposes. He strains to a point to which I can hardly follow him, the theory that all decorations were originally textile (except such as proceeded in China from the lattice-work motive); though I willingly accept the idea that textile decoration was one of the first and most active promoters of design.

It is not possible for us to trace systematically the different points at which Egyptian and Asiatic art touch, but we can see that they were always acting and reacting on each other in the later centuries before our era, and that Greece profited by them. The first efforts of both to break through this chrysalis stage, resulted in the early Greek archaic style. Its strongly marked, muscular humanity reminds one of all the conflicting impressions struggling in the conception of the great artist who first embodied them. They appear to be breaking out from the trammels of Egyptian and a.s.syrian styles, which by meeting had engendered life; and Greek art was the child of their union. Then art, having shaken off symbolism as its only purpose, and seeking to represent the forms of men, yet possessed by a guiding spirit, first sought to convey the idea of expression. The worship of humanity, mingling with that of their G.o.ds, produced the Heroic ideal; and all the attributes of their heroes--majesty, beauty, grace, and pa.s.sion--had to be depicted; as well as rage, sorrow, despair, and revenge. These were soon to be surrounded with all the splendours of the arts of decoration.

Greece had prepared for this outburst of excellence and the perfect science of art, by collecting the traditions, the symbols, the experience in colouring, and the knowledge of beautiful forms, human and ideal. All that was needed for the advent of the man who could design and create types of beauty for all ages was thus acc.u.mulated, and the man came, and his name was Pheidias. A crowd followed him, all steeped in the same flood of poetry and art; and for several centuries they filled the world with the sense and science of beauty.

Then the function of the designer--the artist--was changed and elevated, and he became, through the great days of Greek and Roman Pagan art, and afterwards through the rise of that of Christianity, the exponent of all that was poetical and enn.o.bling in the life of man.

But though the Greek artist had broken the chains of prescribed form, he still adhered to the "motive"--the inner symbolical thought--and strove to express it as it had never been expressed before.[81] New principles were evoked, and the artist, while revelling in the "sweetness and light" of freedom, framed for himself standards of taste and refinement, which he left as a heritage to all succeeding generations.

I fear that I am repeating a plat.i.tude when insisting that freedom in all design, but especially that employed in decoration, must be kept within certain boundaries; otherwise it becomes lawless. Rules, like all other controlling circ.u.mstances, are of the greatest service to the artist, as they suggest what he can do, as well as decide what he ought not to attempt. All boundaries are highly suggestive; the size of a sheet of paper--the form of a panel--the colours in the box of pigments--even the touch of the brush which comes to hand,--all these help to shape the idea to our ends, and a.s.sist us in giving to the original motive the form which is most suitable. These restrictions are often regarded as impediments by the impatient artist; whereas he ought to look on them as hints and suggestions, and claim their a.s.sistance, instead of struggling against them. Let us accept the principle that it is good for each of our efforts at decoration that we are controlled by the s.p.a.ce allotted to its composition. The relative size (small, perhaps, for a table-cover, but large for that of a book) and the shape to which we are limited, alter all the conditions of a design. Whether it is square or oblong, or lengthened into a frieze; whether it must be divided into parts, including more than one motive, or be grouped round one centre; whether it is to be repeated more than once within the range of the eye, or whether it is to disappear into s.p.a.ce upwards or horizontally; and whether it is to stand alone, or be framed with lines or a border,--all these restrictions must govern the design, or, in its highest phase, the composition.

The composition must consist of supporting lines well balanced, and "values" filling up the whole surface of the s.p.a.ce, which is to contain it, and beyond which it must not seek to extend. As we have in embroidery no distances--only a foreground--the design must be placed all on one plane. The t.i.tle of "composition" cannot be granted to a bouquet or a bird cast on one corner of a square of linen, however gracefully it may be drawn. It does not cover the s.p.a.ce allotted to it.

If we carefully study the great and guiding principles that have been distinctly formulated by some of the Continental authorities on decorative art, we shall find much help in composing our designs.

Nothing is more interesting than to search for the foundation of the structure which centuries have helped to raise, and to dig out, as it were, the original plan or thought of the founder. So it is most instructive to learn the fundamental rules by which such results are secured.

M. Blanc[82] says of the general laws of ornamentation: "There can be no n.o.bler satisfaction to the mind, than to be able to unravel what is beyond measure complicated, to diminish what is apparently immense, and to reduce to a few clear points what has been till now involved in a haze of obscurity. Just as the twenty-six letters of the alphabet have been, and always will be sufficient to form the expression of the words necessary for all human thought, so certain elements susceptible of combination among themselves have sufficed, and will suffice, to create ornament, whose variety may be indefinitely multiplied."

He reduces ornamental design to five principles, Repet.i.tion, Alternation, Symmetry, Progression, and Confusion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.

Wave Pattern.]

First, Repet.i.tion. "You may act on the mind, through sight, by the same means as those that will excite physical sensations. A single p.r.i.c.k of a pin is nothing, but a hundred such will be intolerably painful. Repet.i.tion produces pleasurable sensations, as well as painful ones." An insignificant form can become interesting by repet.i.tion, and by the suggestion which, singly, it could not originate. For example, the rolling of the Greek scroll or wave pattern awakens in us the idea of one object following another. "It also suggests the waves of the ocean; or the poet may see in it a troop of maidens pursuing each other in s.p.a.ce, not frivolously, but in cadence, as if executing a mystic dance." Change the curves into angular forms, as making the key pattern, and it will no longer flow, but become as severe as the other was graceful. No principle gives greater pleasure than repet.i.tion, and next to it, _alternation_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.

Key Pattern.]

Variety is here added to the law of repet.i.tion. "There can be repet.i.tion without alternation, but no alternation without repet.i.tion." Alternation is, then, a succession of two objects recurring regularly in turn; and the cadence of appearance and disappearance gives pleasure to the senses, whether it be addressed to taste, hearing, or sight. Alternate rhymes, and even short and long lines, soothe the ear in verse. In form, the alternations are the more agreeable, the more they differ. Such are, in architecture, a succession of metopes and triglyphs on a Doric frieze, where the circle and the straight lines relieve each other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7.

Metopes and Triglyphs.]

Symmetry. The correspondence of two parts opposite to each other is symmetrical. "A living being, man or animal, is composed of two parts, which appear to have been united down one central line. Without being identical, if you folded them down the line, they would overlap and perfectly cover each other. Man is born with the sense of symmetry, to match his outward form; and he appreciates its existence, and instinctively feels the want of it. Symmetry is another word for justness of proportion. The Greeks understood by symmetry, the condition of a body of which the members have a common measure among themselves. We expect the two sides of a living being to correspond, and we look for these proportions in the living body to balance each other, which we do not expect to find in any other natural object. A large leaf at the end of a slender stem may be as appropriate, and give as much pleasure, as a small leaf in the same position; but a huge hand at the end of an arm is not so agreeable to our sense of symmetry as one of the size and outline which we naturally expect to see.

"The mind of man expects to find, outside of himself and his own proportions, something which he feels is proportionate and symmetrical; in fact, he at once detects the want of it. The j.a.panese, with delicacy and taste, often subst.i.tute for symmetry its corollary--balance. The Chinese or j.a.panese vase will often have an appreciable affinity and resemblance to a Greek one, each preserving a secret balance, even in the extremest whimsicality of its composition.

Proportion is another corollary to symmetry, if it is not another word for some of its qualities."

"Progression. In this principle are included long perspectives, pyramidal forms in architecture, and certain processional compositions."

"For pyramidal surfaces, such as pediments, a progressive ornament is the fittest. All the buildings in the East, and in the ancient cities of Central America, which are raised on pyramids of steps, show the tendency to this species of effect in giving dignity to the buildings placed on such platforms."

"Perspectives are highly attractive specimens of progression, which, when made use of in the decorations of a theatre, produce delightful illusions."

M. Blanc quotes Bernardin de St. Pierre, who says: "When the branches of a plant are disposed in a uniform plan of diminishing size, as in the pyramidal shape of a pine, there is progression; and if these trees be planted in long avenues, diminishing in height and colour, as each tree does in itself, our pleasure is redoubled, because progression here becomes infinite. It is owing to this feeling of infinity that we take pleasure in looking at anything that presents progression, such as nurseries in different stages of growth, the slopes of hills retreating to the horizon at different levels--interminable perspectives."

All floral compositions which give the effect or impression of growth may be included in the progressive principle. A composition which, beginning as it were with a stem, spreads and floreates equally on each side; thrusting outwards and upwards, and ending in a topmost twig or bud, is governed by this principle.

Confusion. Boileau is quoted by M. Blanc as saying, "A fine disorder is often the effect of art;" and he adds, "But before he said it, nature had shown it." Here we must observe that the confusions or disorders of nature are all subject to certain laws; and it is in adopting this idea, that an artistic confusion may give us the sense of its being ordered by, and subject to definite rules. These rules act as the frame affects the picture, circ.u.mscribing its irregularities, and restricting them to a certain area. "The artist-painter is, in a small s.p.a.ce, permitted to employ confusion, because the art of the cabinet-maker will keep the geometrical effect in view." When the j.a.panese throw their ornaments, apparently without rule, here and there on the j.a.panned box, they reckon on the square shape being sufficiently marked to the eye by its shining surface and sharp corners.

The confusion in a j.a.panese landscape is so beautiful that one appreciates the innate sense of balance, which modifies the confusion--rules and orders it.

"In the hands of the designer, confusion is only a method of rendering order visible in a happy disorder. Here contraries meet and touch....

Admit these as the principles of all decoration, and you will find that, by following and combining them, you may produce varieties as numberless as the sands of the sea, and that a latent equilibrium will reduce nearly every complication and confusion to perfect harmony."

Each of the five principles we have discussed has its corollary, which adds to the resources of the decorative artist. These are as follows:--To Repet.i.tion belongs harmony, or consonance; to Alternation, contrast; to Symmetry, radiation; to Progression, gradation; to balanced Confusion, deliberate complication.[83]

_Harmonies_ in form and in colour are produced in different ways--sometimes by repet.i.tion with variation; sometimes by the different parts being rather reflected on each than repeated. This explains the harmony that may be called consonance, if I rightly understand M. Blanc's theory.

_Contrast_ is most generally understood as a common resource in the hands of the artist for producing strong effects; but M. Blanc cleverly expresses the reticence needed to ensure contrast being pleasurable, not painful. "To adorn persons or things," he says, "is not simply for the purpose of causing them to be conspicuous; it is that they may be admired. It is not simply to draw attention to them, but that they may be regarded with feelings of pleasure.... If contrast be needed, let it be used as the means of rendering the whole more powerful, brilliant, and striking. For instance, if orange is intended to predominate in a decoration, let blue be mingled with it, but sparingly. Let the complementary colour be its auxiliary, and not its rival." Contrasts are always unpleasant, if the two forces struggle with each other for pre-eminence, whether it be in form or in colour. The rule to be observed in all ornamental design is this: "that contrasting objects, instead of disturbing unity, should a.s.sist it by giving most effect to that we wish to bring forward and display."

_Radiation_ belongs to the principle of symmetry, starting from a centre from which all lines diverge, and to which all lines point.

This is to be found throughout nature, from the rays of the sun to the petals of the daisy. All decorative art employs and ill.u.s.trates it.

"_Gradation_ in colour, as in form, is not quite synonymous with progression, but expresses a series of adroitly managed transitions.

The English intermingle in their decoration, colours very finely blended; nor do they find any transition too delicate. This, as in all principles of ornament, has to be employed according to the feelings intended to be produced on the mind of the spectator--whether for absolute contrast or for imperceptible progression, when the tenderest colours are needed."

_Complication_ is ill.u.s.trated by M. Blanc, by a quotation from "Ziegler."[84] "Complication is another aspect of the art which owns the same sentiment as that expressed by Daedalus in his labyrinth, Solomon in his mysterious seal, the Greeks in their interlacing and winding ornaments, the Byzantines, the Moors, and the architects of our cathedrals in their finest works. Intertwined mosaics, and intersection of arches and ribs, all spring from complication."

To follow the interlacing line of an ornament, gives the mind the pleasure of untying the Gordian knot, without cutting it. It gives the excitement of curiosity, pursuit, and discovery. "When we see these traceries so skilfully plaited, in which straight lines and curves intermingle, cross, branch out, disappear and recur, we experience a high pleasure in unravelling a puzzle which at first, perhaps, appeared to be undecipherable; and in acknowledging that a latent arrangement may be recognized in what at first, and at a distance, seems an inextricable confusion." The Celtic, Moorish, and Gothic styles ill.u.s.trate and are explained by these remarks; and they are well worthy the attention of the designer.