PATTERNS.
In the last chapter on design I have described patterns as the
examples or illustrations of the art of decoration, and as being the
records of the motives which produced them in different eras. My
present object is to class and define patterns as decorative art.
It is argued by some archæologists that the recurrence of a pattern,
for instance the "wave," over the whole world, proves that it really
came from many sources, under the same conditions of life and art;
showing also that a pattern is a thing that, like a flower, must grow,
if the culture of the race be equal. I do not believe this. We can
nearly always trace the family history of a pattern to its original
motive; and in the very few cases where we are unable to do so, it is
hardly necessary to cover our ignorance by stretching the fashionable
theory of development over the few instances that are as yet
unaccountable.
I have been repeatedly asked to procure or to invent a new pattern.
Such is my respect for the decorative achievement called a "pattern,"
that I cannot hope for the moment of inspiration in which I might
create such a thing. If any one has in his lifetime invented a
pattern, he has done something truly remarkable, and as rare as is a
really original thought on any subject. Patterns are commonly, like
men, the result of many centuries of long descent from ancestors of
remote antiquity.
Individuals differ from their ancestors through inherited and
surrounding conditions, and through the modifying powers of evolution,
climate, and education. So also a pattern has, besides its ancestry
and descent, the unconscious mark or seal of its day; and it is easy
to trace whence it comes, if we set ourselves to examine the style of
it seriously.
The patterns of which we can nearly always name at once the
nationality, are the Assyrian, the Chinese, the Egyptian, the Hindu
(Aryan and Turanian), the Persian, the Archaic and the highly
developed Grecian; the Roman, the Celtic, the Byzantine, the Arabian,
the Gothic, the Renaissance, the Spanish Plâteresque, the Louis
Quatorze, and those of the art of Central America.
The pattern cannot exist without design. Design means intention and
motive. Many of the motives in Oriental textile decorations are
suggestive of intention, as is shown by their names. Among Indian
patterns we meet with "ripples of silver," "sunshine and shade,"
"pigeon's eye," "peacock's neck," &c.[96]
Patterns must be classed either by their dates, when ascertained, or
according to their style, which must generally be allowed to cover
vast areas and periods irregularly drifting down, overlapping, or
being absorbed or effaced by the circumstances they have encountered.
Only when a national style has been obstinately fixed, as in China,
and bound down by strict laws and religious formulas, suited exactly
to the people for whom they were evolved out of the national life, and
imprinted on it by their own lawgivers, philosophers, and priests; and
neither imposed by conquerors, nor swept over by the waves of a new
civilization;--only in such cases can we find a continuity of
decorative art which leads us far back on its traces. Then, on this
long track, we learn how little, man, the decorating animal, has
really advanced in his powers of creation. He has gone more than once
to a certain point, and has then either been petrified by law and
custom--turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, because he has
looked back instead of striving to advance, or else through poverty or
satiety has fallen into the last stage of the Seven Ages, "_sans_
eyes, _sans_ teeth--_sans_ everything." When what is good is neither
perceived nor desired, then the arts, small and great, dwindle and
disappear, and nothing remains to show that they have been, but a
name, and perhaps a pattern.
Chinese design is the most striking example of the first of these
phases; and the extinction of all classical art with the fall of
Paganism in Rome is an instance of the second.
In the chapter on style it is said that a pattern is as ineffaceable
as a word. But one will occasionally disappear for a time, till the
ruin that covers it is cleared away, and the lost design recovered and
employed simply as a decoration, if it is beautiful; or perhaps fitted
with a new meaning, and so it makes a fresh start.
The importance of patterns, when traceable to their origin, as a means
of investigating historical influences cannot be too much insisted on,
and their history is full of suggestion as a guide to the decorator.
Much has been argued and much ascertained from the evidence of these
fragments of national civilizations, showing how an idea or a myth has
been, as it were, engrafted into the essence of another national idea,
partly altering what it finds, and changing to fit itself to its new
surroundings. Eastern patterns have travelled far, and lasted long;
and continue still to hold the fancy, and exercise the ingenuity, of
the artist and decorator. When we find a pattern of which the
nationality is strongly marked, it is worth our while to ascertain its
date and history, which will help us to recognize cognate design
wherever we may meet it. However, this is often not to be done; and
then it is best to set these puzzling examples aside, and to await
patiently the elucidation, which may come from some source of which we
are as yet ignorant.
In very early art we have little remaining but patterns, on which we
may found theories by tracing them home to their original source. The
oldest patterns had each a meaning and an intention. When a pattern
has been enduring and far spread, it is because it was originally the
expression of an idea or a symbol.
In the earliest dawn of civilization, the arts were the repositories
of the myths and mysteries of national faiths. Embroidery was one of
these arts, and the border which edged the garment of a divinity, the
veil which covered the grave of a loved one, or the flower-buds and
fruit which fringed the hangings and curtains in the sanctuary, each
had a meaning, and therefore a use. These symbolical designs and forms
were constantly reproduced; and all human ingenuity was exercised in
reforming, remodelling, and adding perfect grace to the expression of
the same idea.
* * * * *
Patterns may be ranged under four heads--the Primitive, the
Naturalistic, the Conventional, and the Geometrical.
The primitive are those of which we know not the ancestry, and rarely
can guess the motive. To us they are, in general, simply rude
decorations. The naturalistic are those which are borrowed from
natural forms, and are either only imitative, or else convey some
hidden meaning. The conventional are those which, by long descent,
have come to be accepted simply as ornamental art, with or without
reference to an original motive, now lost. The geometrical or
symmetrical are founded on form only, and in so far resemble our
experience of the primitive; they express no meaning, and only serve
to satisfy the eye by their balance and their ingenuity.
PRIMITIVE.
The first patterned forms with which we are acquainted are the
primitive. They are found in all parts of the inhabited world. In our
present ignorance as to the beginnings of the scattered tribes of men,
we cannot judge if these are the remains of an earlier art or the
first germs of a new one. Of one thing there is no doubt: this
primitive decoration consists entirely of pattern; that is to say, of
the repetition of certain (to us) inexpressive forms, which by
reiteration assume importance and in some degree express beauty--the
beauty of what Monsieur Blanc calls "cadence."
After these first unintelligible forms, which simply by repetition
become accepted patterns, come those called the Prehistoric, of which
we know or guess something as to their original meaning, and which,
having been reduced from the hieroglyphic-symbolical to the
conventional, have thus crystallized themselves, by constant use, into
a pattern. Such, for instance, is the simplest form of the "wave"
pattern, which in very early art was a representation of water.
The prehistoric water or wave patterns had other forms; for instance,
zigzags, upright or horizontal, and undulating lines which are
intelligible as expressing smooth or rough water. In general, however,
the primitive and prehistoric patterns convey no idea, and consist, as
we have said elsewhere, of lines, straight or wavy, sometimes
intersected; of angles, zigzags, groups of dots, rings and little
discs, and crosses of the Swastika shape. (Plate 10.)
[Illustration: Pl. 10.
WAVE PATTERNS.
1, 4, 9, 12, 13. Greek Wave Patterns. 2. Key or Mæander, Greek
Wave. 3. Greek Broken Wave. 5, 6, 7. Egyptian Smooth and
Rippling Water Patterns. 8. Mediæval Wave. 10, 11, 14.
Assyrian. 15. Persian or Greek (from Glass Bowl, British
Museum). 16. English Waves (Durham Embroideries.)]
Where shall the tartan be placed? It is certainly primitive, and
apparently had no intention beyond that of employing as many coloured
threads as there were dyes, so as to form the brightest contrasts, or
else to be as invisible as possible either in the sunshine or in the
shade. The Gauls brought this kind of weaving with them from the East,
and probably invented the pattern, if such a motiveless design can be
so called. It had its classical name, "Polymita," and was admired in
Rome when newly imported, as being something original and barbaric.
The Romans found it in Britain, and Boadicea wore a tartan dress on
the day of her defeat. Perhaps even then fashions came from France,
and it may have been her best tunic from across the Channel. This
fabric may have been imported by the Belgic Gauls, and was so easily
woven on house looms, that it became in time the feudal dress of the
Scottish tribes and clans, and the colours were ingeniously arranged
to show the most different effects. The tartan has always been a
resource for the woollen trade, and the fashion constantly recurs in
France, either from sentiment or the actually inherited Gallic taste;
but it remains a primitive pattern, and nothing can make it artistic.
No embroidery can soften the constantly recurring angles, and only
fringes can be employed to decorate a tartan costume. Pliny tells us
of the ingenuity of Zeuxis, who, to show his wealth, had his name
embroidered in gold in the squared compartments of his outer
garment.[97]
Primitive patterns still linger in many savage nations, but especially
throughout uncivilized Africa. Curious to say, the very ancient
fossilized early art of Egypt does not assist us to trace it back to
a prehistoric style, though it may lead us into prehistoric times.
NATURALISTIC.
The phases of the naturalistic patterns are constantly recurring. Art
is always tending to realism, in the laudable effort to reach the
motive without the shackles of rules. Each phase has fallen a prey to
symbolism, to conventionalism, or to mannerism, which last symptom
marks the decline and fall of art. We shall find these phases
everywhere in the design of patterns.
Naturalism has always striven, by simple repetition, to reduce to
patterns the forms of flowers, fruits, animals, birds, insects,
reptiles, and other natural objects.
In flower patterns the simplest forms by repetition make sometimes the
richest patterns, and the most effective. (Plate 11, Nos. 1 and 2.)
It is remarkable that one very beautiful class of natural objects is
rarely employed in ancient decoration[98]--shells and corals. The
barbarous tribes of the West Coast of Africa alone seem to have
appreciated their forms, and added them to their small repertory of
naturalistic patterns. They do not appear in any European or Asiatic
textiles till the seventeenth century, when shells were much used in
the decorations of the reigns of Queen Anne and Louis Quatorze.
The first change from naturalism into the conventional was through
symbolism, and belonged to the time when unwritten thought was first
recorded by pictured signs, which then ceased to be merely decoration.
We find that the naturalism of the earliest Egyptians and Asiatics was
soon entirely absorbed by the effort to express some hidden meaning or
mystery, and then to fit the representation to a special place and
purpose, and to restore it, as it were, to decorative art.
[Illustration: Pl. 11.
1. Persian Flower Border.
2. Egyptian Border, composed of Head-dress of the god Nile
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians").
3. Assyrian.
4. Assyrian.]
The lotus and the patterns founded on its forms, and the many
emblematic meanings attached to them, are notable examples of these
transmutations in style and intention, and of the value given to their
intention and use in Egypt and India, where each development was
immediately crystallized into a recognized pattern, and given its
place and language. It received its "_mot d'ordre_," and continued to
act upon it long after the meaning was forgotten or out of date.
The rolling pattern which had so long represented only the "wave," was
given to the really straight stem of the lotus, and its blossom,
substituted for the wave's crest, now filled many a frieze in Indian
temple architecture; whereas the lotus stems in Egypt were still bound
in sheaves to form columns, and the flowers, buds, and leaves spread
and blossomed into capitals. Here we have symbolism and
conventionalized naturalism, all combined, showing how their
principles, though quite distinct, can mix and unite. The conventional
form often superseded and effaced the naturalistic, and became the
sign of an idea, or the hieroglyphic picture of a thing; immovable and
unalterable in Egypt, where every effort was made to secure eternity
on earth, but continually returning to naturalism in India, where the
Aryan tendency, with the assistance of the "Code of Manu," always
recurred to the restoration of the ancient naturalistic motive.
In the India Museum we may see the "wave" motive converted into a
lotus pattern by rolling the long stems, and filling up the spaces
between with the full-faced blossom. Sometimes the pattern is started
by the figure of an elephant, from whose mouth the stem of the flower
of the sun proceeds. This occurs so often that it must originally
have had a meaning. Sometimes the sacred convolvulus takes the place
of the lotus. (Plate 12.)
On an Egyptian mural painting are seen parties of men snaring ducks
among papyrus and lotus plants. These are entirely conventional, and
are, in fact, a sort of recognized hieroglyphic representing the idea
of a lotus.[99]
The lotus was the accepted emblem of the sun, and reduced to a
many-leaved radiating pattern may be found as an architectural
ornament on the outside of the Buddhist "topes," of which the models
are on the staircase of the British Museum.[100] (Plate 13.)
We have Sir G. Birdwood's authority for believing that, though the
actual lotus was a native of India, and carried thence to Egypt, its
decorative use as a pattern was Egyptian, and so returned to India.
Both accepted it as their "sunflower."[101]
[Illustration: Pl. 12.
1. Indian Rolling Lotus Pattern.
2, 3. Indian Lotus Patterns.
4, 5. Egyptian Lotus Patterns.
6. Sacred Convolvulus. Indian (seventeenth century).]
[Illustration: Pl. 13.
1, 2. Indian Designs of Assyrian Daisy and Egyptian Lotus.
3. Vitruvian Scroll. Vignola. Architecture.]
Can it be our Aryan descent which induces in us the earnest adoration,
in our art of to-day, of our northern prototype of the sun's emblem? I
fear that we must acknowledge that our æsthetic worship of our
sunflowers is somewhat false and affected. Æstheticism is not art.
Sunflowers, painted or embroidered as decoration, do not "take" if
they are ordered and ranged, and reduced to a pattern like those of
Egypt. They must be naturalistic, and, if possible, remind us of a
disorderly cottage garden; whereas in India they were adapted
from nature on fixed principles, which immediately reduced them to
the conventional.
[Illustration: Sunflower pattern, R. S. A. N.
XIX. Century]
I give an illustration of a Gothic sunflower resembling a transfigured
rose; and another of an ordered naturalistic sunflower pattern, from a
design of the Royal School of Art Needlework. (Plate 14.)
[Illustration: Fig. 9.
Gothic Sunflower. From Christ's College Chapel, Cambridge.]
I have given this account of the patterns founded on the lotus, as we
can almost from this distance of time take a bird's-eye view of its
rise in naturalism, its spread, dispersion, and its crystallization
into conventional forms; also we can trace how the lotus patterns of
Indian art have resulted, when accepted in Europe, in nothing but the
rolling wave, carrying flower forms which no longer represent a lotus;
and how the lotus bud and flower pattern has become in time the
classical "egg and tongue;" which, however, may have resulted also
from a combination of other motives.
Representations of animal forms are sometimes very remarkable in
phases of naturalism. The few remains of Celtic art that have survived
are entirely animal, or very nearly so. In their stone, gold, silver,
and bronze work, and in illuminated MSS., we meet with only animal
forms; never a flower or a leaf.
Besides the Indo-Chinese patterns in Celtic art, which suggest the
Chinese lattice-work (so strongly insisted on by Semper as a constant
motive), we also find in all their decorations compartments containing
involved patterns of cords or strings knitted or plaited, suggesting
the entrails of animals, which by these hunting people were consulted
as being mysteriously prophetic of approaching events, especially
success or failure in the chase, and impending warlike raids.[102]
There is no other way of accounting for these designs, which are
peculiar to the race, unless we believe they always represent snakes.
(Pl. 15.)
In England much that was characteristic of the style was lost as soon
as the Saxons drove out the Celts, who carried it to Ireland, as may
be seen in the Book of Kells, and the carving of the Harp of Tara, and
the Celtic jewels in the Irish museums; but the interlacing patterns
survived throughout Anglo-Saxon art, and were marvellously ingenious
and beautiful; witness the Durham Book of St. Cuthbert.
We have no Celtic textiles remaining to us, unless some embroidery in
the Marien-Kirche collection at Dantzic may be of that style and time.
This is suggested by its altogether Indo-Chinese and very barbarous
character;[103] and one of the coronation mantles in Bock's
"Kleinodien" is Runic in its peculiar serpent design.
[Illustration: Illumination from the Lindisfarne Gospels, about A.D.
700]
[Illustration: Pl. 16.
Demeter. From a Greek Vase in the British Museum.]
"Judging from their illuminated MSS.," it is said, "the elements
borrowed from textile art by the Celts are plaits, bows, zigzags,
knots, geometrical figures in various symmetrically developed
combinations, crosses, whorls, and lattice-work; next, those taken from
metal work, such as spirals and nail-heads let into borders; thirdly,
simple or composite zoomorphic forms, such as bodies of snakes, birds'
heads on long necks, lizards, dogs, dragons, and the like."[104] They
well understood how to make a pattern by the repetition of objects of
any class.
[Illustration: Pl. 17.
1. Embroidery on a Greek Mantle, third century B.C., from the Tomb
of the Seven Brothers, Crimea.
2. Egyptian Painted and Embroidered Linen. The cone, the bead, the
daisy, the wave, the lotus under water, are all shown on this
fragment.]
[Illustration: Pl. 18.
EGYPTIAN TAPESTRY.
1. Woven and embroidered on a Sleeve. 2. Woven and embroidered. 3.
Painted and embroidered.]
Representations of human figures in embroideries probably originated
in hangings for the wall; but have been treated as decorative forms,
both by the Indians and the Greeks, for wearing apparel. The peplos of
Minerva was bordered with fighting gods and giants, and the Empress
Theodora's dress in the Ravenna mosaic repeats exactly the same
motive. (See Fig. 4, and Pl. 6.)
There are two other examples of such Greek patterns. The mantle of
Demeter on a Greek vase in the British Museum, of the best period (Pl.
16), is embroidered with flying genii and victorious chariots; and the
embroidered mantle lately found in a Crimean tomb, is of precisely the
same style of design, and the one illustrates the other. These
instances are so exceptional, that it is curious that here, as in the
case of the peplos, in each case there should happen to be a
duplicate. (Plates 16 and 17, No. 1.)
In Babylonian, Assyrian, and Chaldean art we constantly find animal
forms in patterns. The lion and the hare, birds and insects, are the
commonest; and there are some instances of human figures reduced to a
pattern in these sculptured representations of textiles. (Plate 2.)
There are curiously woven little human figures finished with the
needle on the sleeve of an Egyptian dress in the British Museum, from
Saccarah (Pl. 18), and, of course, when such a design is small, it
ceases to be very objectionable. On the whole, however, naturalistic
designs for embroideries are more safely confined to floral
decorations, excepting always flat tapestries for walls, which,
representing pictures, may be as naturalistic as their purpose and
style will admit.
Animal forms are often reduced to patterns by repetition in Indian
and Persian embroidery.[105] The drawing is naturalistic, but the
colouring is fanciful. We may see any day, on Persian rugs, scarlet
lions pursuing and capturing blue or yellow hares. The flatness and
want of all shadows tends to the conventional. Lions, bulls, cats,
beetles, and serpents abound especially in Egyptian design; insects,
reptiles, and fish in Asiatic patterns, where animals are sometimes
made to walk in pairs, with their heads and tails twisted into a
pattern.
Though landscapes are so rarely worked that the subject is, perhaps,
hardly worthy of notice, yet such mistaken specimens of ingenuity have
occurred. An altar frontal was exhibited at Zurich, in 1883,
containing some really exquisitely worked landscapes, which were quite
out of place, both as art and as decoration, for an ecclesiastical
purpose. This was of the beginning of the last century.[106]
While we appreciate and should take advantage of our national tendency
to naturalistic design, we must beware of looking on fixed rules as
bonds which cramp our liberty, and of thinking that nature should be
our only guide to an otherwise unassisted and unfettered inspiration.
Without the wholesome checks of experience and educated taste, and the
knowledge which teaches us what to avoid, as well as what to imitate,
founded on the successes and failures of others, we fall into weak
imitations of natural objects.
Mr. Redgrave points out how unpleasant and jarring to our sense of
what is appropriate, and therefore how offensive to good taste and
common sense, it is to tread on a carpet of water-lilies swimming in
blue pools, or on fruits and flowers heaped up and casting shadows
probably towards the light.[107] Woollen lions and tigers, as large as
life, basking before the fire in a wreath of roses, are alarming
rather than agreeable, and are of the nature of a practical joke in
art. It is the search for novelty in naturalism that leads to such
astonishing compositions; and these, being successively rejected in
the heart of our civilization and culture, are drifted away to
vulgarize our colonies, or to be sold cheap to furnish Continental
hotels, and make the English traveller blush for his home
manufactures.
SYMBOLICAL AND CONVENTIONAL.
Though it is true that the highest art, pictorial and sculptural, is
always struggling towards naturalism, the art of decoration is, by its
nature, constantly tending to conventionalism. Patterns, if not
absolutely geometrical or naturalistic, must be classed under this
principle. Let us examine what is meant by a conventional pattern.
It may be said that the conventional includes every form--the
symbolic, the naturalistic, or even the hieroglyphic--that is selected
and consecrated to convey a certain idea. The lily of Florence, which
is something between a lily and an iris, but unlike either, is a
conventional form; likewise the lily of France, which it is said was
once a conventional frog. The rose of England, the shamrock, and the
thistle have always been more naturalistic than is usual in such
heraldic designs; but the parti-coloured rose of York and Lancaster
was decidedly conventional, and heraldic.
Conventional patterns now are those which, having been originally
naturalistic in style, but perhaps emblematic as to their motive, have
been repeated till the meaning and form have been lost; or else, as in
the case of the lotus, the emblem is forgotten, and nothing remains
but the recognized conventional form.
One conventional pattern which, having commenced by being a symbol,
has been repeated and varied till it has allowed the original
essential meaning to escape, is the "palm-leaf" or "cone" pattern on
French or Paisley shawls, which, having been a sacred emblem--the tree
of life--in Persia, became in Europe, when the religious myth was
lost, only a shawl pattern--merely a leaf, with plant painted within
its outlines. (Plate 23, Nos. 10, 11.)
Decorative designs become conventional in spite of the intention of
the designer. He is overruled by the spaces to be covered and the
materials to be employed. His design must produce a flat pattern; he
must repeat it again and again; he must give it a strong outline; he
must distribute it regularly at certain intervals. Repetition at once
conventionalizes the most naturalistic drawing, and the most sacred
and mysterious emblem. Alternation is equally a source of
conventionalism. There is no motive that cannot be conventionalized
into a pattern by repetition. A Gothic crown and a true lily,
repeated, will make an ecclesiastical conventional pattern. Then come
all the Arabian and Moresque forms (which are mostly geometric), and
also the Gothic (which are partly geometric and partly naturalistic,
especially those in German and debased Spanish and Portuguese Gothic
design).
[Illustration: Pl. 19.
1. Key Pattern.
2. Broken-up Key.
3. Beads.
4. Key and sign of Land.
5. Wave and Babylonian Daisy.
6. Key and Fundata.
7. Wave and Bead.
8. Wave and Daisy.
9. Key and Sun Cross.
These Key Patterns from Ceiling of a Tomb at Saccarah, in Egypt.
(Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians.")]
Then we must accept as conventional all those which may be called
kaleidoscope patterns, which are broken fragments of old motives,
repeated or "radiated" so as to become partly geometrical, wholly
conventional. (See Pl. 17, No. 2.)
Conventional patterns may be reduced into three kinds.
First, the naturalistic, which have by repetition been adapted for
decorative art.
Secondly, the symbolical--Pagan or Christian, religious or historical,
including the Heraldic.
Thirdly, those conventional forms which may never have had any inner
meaning, or else, having originally had one, have lost it.
All these exist, sometimes apart and sometimes mingled; so that some
thought must be expended in seeking the motive which has brought them
together, and finding in each the internal evidence of its descent.
It is evident that patterns, conventionalized and brought from distant
sources, sometimes meet and amalgamate. When the origin of a
conventional pattern is disputed, it is worth while to examine if it
has a double parentage. Let me give, as an instance, the key pattern.
It may have been, as Semper believes, originally Chinese, and derived
from wicker-work design. It represents also the broken or dislocated
"wave," the symbol of the River Mæander,[108] and for water generally.
We find it everywhere in company with the wave, which never could have
had any connection with wicker-work, not only in China, but in Persia,
India, Egypt, Arabia, Greece, Rome, and Central America. (Pl. 19.)
Can any invention of man show a more symbolical intention than the
wave pattern? The airy leap drawn downwards by the force of
gravitation; controlled, and again made to return, but strong to
insist on its own curve of predilection, rushing back under the same
circle; strengthened by the downward movement to spring again from its
original plane; beginning afresh its Sisyphus labour, and facing the
next effort with the same grace and agility. Undying force, and
eternal flowing unrest--these are the evident intention and symbol of
the wave pattern. Though I believe the key pattern to be a
modification of the wave form, yet the locking and unlocking movement
suggests a repetition of the Tau, or key of life.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
When we admire the friezes of garlands hung between the skulls of oxen
and goats, we cannot for a moment doubt the sacrificial idea on which
the design was founded. When the wreaths are carried by dancing
children, we recognize the impersonation of the rejoicing of the dædal
earth.
The Greeks, however strongly they exerted themselves to throw off the
shackles of conventionality in sculpture, painting, and architecture,
yet yielded to the traditional force of the symbolical pattern, and
accepted most of the Oriental forms, merely remodelling them for their
own use, and adding to their significance what their culture required;
at the same time giving infinite variety, as their perfect taste
dictated.
[Illustration: Pl. 20.
TREES OF LIFE.
1, 2, 3, 5. Assyrian. 4. Sicilian Silk. (Birdwood's "Indian Arts,"
pp. 331, 335, 336, 337.)]
Aristophanes, in "The Frogs," laughs at the Persian carpet
patterns--their unnatural birds and beasts and flowers--whilst he
claims for his own frogs, that they at least have the merit of being
natural.[109] This little touch of art throws a gleam of inner
light on the struggle towards originality and truth which
characterized the Greek principles of beauty and fitness in literature
and art, in direct contrast to that which was always turning back to
those fossil forms which were only respectable on account of their age
and their mystery, but of which the tradition and intention were
already lost.
Roman patterns were merely Greek adaptations with an Etruscan flavour,
which was a survival of the earliest Italian art. Perhaps the
indigenous element had been already modified by Phœnician
influence.
In taking stock of Oriental symbolical patterns, we find that one of
those of the widest ancestry and longest continuity is the "Sacred
Hom."[110] (Pl. 20-24.) This is to be found in Babylonian,
Persian,[111] Indian, Greek, and Roman art; and consequently it
prevails in all European decoration (except the Gothic), where it was
reduced to unrecognizable forms.
Sir George Birdwood says the Hom or Homa was the Sanskrit Soma, used
as an intoxicating drink by the early Brahmins, and was extracted from
the plant of that name, an almost leafless succulent Asclepiad. It
appears to have changed its conventional form as other plants by
fermentation came to the front, containing what appeared to be the
"spirit of life"--the _aqua vitæ_.
The palm, with its wonderful fruit, which is convertible into
intoxicating drinks, and afterwards the vine itself, were each of them
moulded into analogous conventional fruit forms, which keep as much as
possible within the limits of the original cone shape. (Pl. 21.)
[Illustration: Pl. 21.
1. Tree of Life and Lions. Gate of Mycenæ. 2. Persian or Sicilian
Silk. Tree of Life and Leopards.]
[Illustration: Pl. 22.
1. Split Lotus Fruit on Chinese Bowl. 2. Split Lotus resembling
Tree of Life. Frieze by Benozzo Gozzoli, Ricardi Palace,
Florence. 3. Petal of Flower on Glass Bowl from Southern
Italy. British Museum.]
There is a palm-tree which absolutely carries a cone in the heart of
its crown of fronds.[112] This may have helped to preserve the
original motive of the sacred tree of life. The cone form in classical
art was drawn from the pine cone and the artichoke; and in mediæval
art these were sometimes replaced by the pomegranate, and in the late
Renaissance by the pine-apple, newly arrived from the West
Indies.[113] It is a good example of the blending of one vegetable
form into another, making the sequence, of which each phase in the
East had an historical cause or a symbolical meaning,[114] but which
in Europe had gradually lost all motive, and was simply an
acknowledged decorative form.[115] In architectural ornament it is
called the honeysuckle,[116] which it had grown to resemble in the
days of Greece.
[Illustration: Pl. 23.
Different forms of Tree of Life, from Sicilian Silks.]
[Illustration: Pl. 24.
Modern Embroidery from the Principalities, in which the cone-shaped
tree grows into a vine, and the two animals at the foot have
lost their shape and intention.]
This sacred tree, the Homa of Zoroaster and of the later Persians, has
so early a beginning that we find it on Assyrian monuments.[117] Rock
says "that, perhaps, it stood for the tree of life, which grew in
Paradise." It is represented as a subject of homage to men and
animals, and it invariably stands between priests and kings, or beasts
kneeling to it. It is figured on the small bucket for religious rites,
carried in the hands, or embroidered in the upper sleeve of the
monarch's tunic. It always represents a shrub, sometimes bearing a
series of umbels of seven flowers each. (Pl. 2, 20.)
Sometimes the expression of the symbol is reduced to the cone-fruit of
the homa alone; or even to a blossom, as in the two glass bowls in the
Slade collection in the British Museum, from a tomb at Chiusi, in
Etruria. Here the design is a flower, of which each petal contains the
essential emblem--a plant within a plant. These bowls, pronounced to
be Greek of the fourth century B.C., have yet to me a strong Oriental
character. (Pl. 22, No. 3.)
I have spoken of the lotus as a naturalistic pattern. One mode of
drawing and embroidering its flower in India, is to cut it in two;
half the blossom is then carefully and almost botanically copied, thus
conveying the inner meaning of the sacred flower. (Pl. 22, No. 3.)
Another conventional pattern, common to all times of art and all
nations, is that called in architecture the "egg and tongue" pattern.
(Pl. 13.) This, as I have already said, is supposed to be derived
directly from the lotus. The Egyptians formed it from the bud and
blossom; and the pattern is found in India, Greece, and Rome, changing
continually and yet retaining its identity. Vitruvius claimed to have
given it the last touch and finish, so that in Italy it was called the
Vitruvian scroll; and it is common to all decoration, even in
textiles, though it is hardly suited for weaving or embroidery. This
is one of the earliest patterns which, having ceased long ago to be a
religious emblem or sign, still survives by its decorative fitness,
and perpetuates the echoes of its origin.
[Illustration: Pl. 25.
TYPICAL CROSSES.
1. Swastika. 2. From a Greek Vase, 765 B.C. 3. Indian Sectarial
Mark of Sakti race. 4. Buddhist and Jainis mark. 5. Early
Rhodian Pottery. 6. Egyptian prehistoric Cross. 7. Tau Cross.
8. Mark of land, Egyptian and Ninevite. 9. Ditto. 10. Clavus.
11, 12, 13. Scandinavian Sun and Moon Crosses. 14, 15, 16.
Celtic. 17. Chrysoclavus. 18, 19. Stauracin patterns. 20.
Scandinavian, from Norway. 21. Runic Cross. 22. Cross at
Palenque, in Temple of the Sun. 23. Scotch Celtic Cross. 24.
Cross from Iona. 25, 26. Runic Crosses. 27. Cross on the
Dalmatic of Charlemagne. 28. From the Mantle of Henry II.,
Emperor of Germany.]
Of the conventional symbolical forms of the early Christian Church I
shall speak more fully in the chapter on ecclesiastical art, and
therefore would only point out here, while touching on symbolical
decoration, how that phase of Christian art is a great historical
instance of the deep ancient meanings it illustrates; showing the
motive to be often in accordance with the inherited pagan symbol, and
yet differing from it. Pre-eminent among these is the emblem of the
Cross, so early and universally used, full of mysterious secret
allusions to the groping faiths of idolatrous nations, before the
great fundamental idea of the "Word" was attached to it. This was one
of the old signs used as a pattern, and transfigured into a fresh
type, of which the radiance reflected back light upon all that
preceded it, even as Chinese ancestors are ennobled by the deeds
of their descendants.
[Illustration: Pl. 26.
1. Pallas Athene, from a vase in Lord Northampton's Collection.
2. Ajax in a cloak embroidered with swastika, sun cross, and
prehistoric water patterns. Etruscan Museum. Vatican.]
The cross (Pl. 25), was a sign and a pattern in prehistoric art. It
was the double of the Tau, the Egyptian emblem of life; and while the
Jews reject the Christian cross, they still claim to have warned off
the destroying angel by this sign in blood over the lintels of their
doors in the first Passover.
But the most ancient and universal form of the cross is that of the
Swastika, or Fylfote. This "prehistoric cross" is said to be formed of
two fire-sticks, belonging to the ancient worship of the sun, laid
across each other ready for friction; but losing that meaning, from an
emblem they fell into a pattern, and this you will still find, utterly
meaningless, on Persian carpets of to-day.
Sir G. Birdwood gives the Swastika as the sectarial mark of the Sakti
sects in India. Fergusson names it with the mound buildings, as
belonging to all Buddhist art; and examples of the Swastika are to be
found on Rhodian pottery from the Necropolis of Kamiros, where we find
also the key pattern.
In early Greek art the Swastika and Gammadion are everywhere,
especially as embroidery on dress. Minerva's petticoats are sometimes
worked all over with the latter. On an early Greek vase in the Museo
Gregoriano, are painted Ajax and Achilles playing at dice; and the
mantle of Ajax is squared into an embroidered pattern that alternately
represents a sun or star and a Gammadion (Pl. 26, No. 2). But it is
unnecessary to multiply classical examples, which are endless.
The Christian Cross was often formed by converting the Tau into the
Gamma, the sacred letter of the Greeks. It is said to have been the
emblem of the corner-stone, and as a pattern, was called, down to the
thirteenth century, the "Gammadion;" and though it had lost its
original motive, it continued to preserve the idea of a secret and
mystical meaning.
The Gammadion, as well as the Swastika, enters largely into the
illuminations of the Celtic Book of Kells and those of the Lindisfarne
MSS.; also it is to be found on the Celtic shields in the British
Museum, together with the Swastika. Both appear in the Persian carpets
of to-day, and as patterns were, in ecclesiastical decoration,
employed down to the fifteenth century, both for European and British
textiles. The Swastika, as well as the wave pattern, is of mysterious
and universal antiquity, and has certainly traversed four thousand
years,--how much more we dare not say. It is to be found throughout
Egyptian and Indian art--never in that of Assyria.
Of the time of Rameses the Second we have two figures in a mural
painting, an ally and an enemy, a guest and a prisoner, both clothed
in embroidered garments, _parsemés_ with the prehistoric cross.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.
Egyptian Enemy and Ally.]
In the chapter on ecclesiastical art I shall again refer to this
immemorial symbolical and conventional pattern. I much regret that, in
the absence of a translation, I am prevented from availing myself of
the accumulated learning on the subject of "The Prehistoric Cross," by
Baron Ernest de Bunsen.
[Illustration: Pl. 27.
Imitation of a Carpet carved in stone, from Nineveh, showing the
Indian Lotus and the Assyrian Daisy. (In the British Museum.)]
There was a pattern called the "crenelated" which apparently was
derived from the Assyrian battlement, and is found throughout classic
art, somewhat conventionalized.[118] It is named as an embroidered
pattern in the inscription recording votive offerings of dresses in
the temple of Athene at Athens.[119]
[Illustration: Fig. 12.
Crenelated Pattern.]
We know something of the conventional and symbolical embroideries of
Nineveh, which are quite unlike those of India, except in the adoption
of the lotus for decoration.[120] These are best understood by
illustrations; and, therefore, I give one of the beautiful sculptured
carpets from Nineveh, in the British Museum (Pl. 27), showing the
Assyrian use of the lotus and cone, and the embroidered garment of a
king from one of the sculptures in low relief (Plate 1). These are
very stately--perfectly conventional and decorative; and we feel that
they have grown where we find them, and are not borrowed from another
civilization. What strikes us most, is the constant repetition and the
little variety of ornament in these patterns. The forms are strongly
marked--wheels or whorls, or daisies, often repeated. (The daisy
belongs to Assyria as the lotus to Egypt.) The flowers are simply
leafless blossoms. Splendid embroideries of sacred emblematical
designs are, however, occasionally found, such as those from Layard's
"Monuments" (Plate 2).
Much has been written on the early symbolism of plants and flowers.
The sun-myths have enlisted all floral legendary lore, and
conventional ornament was largely drawn from them.
Many symbols are present to us when we name certain plants. The lily
is the acknowledged sign of purity, the rose of love, the honeysuckle
of enduring faith, the laurel of poetry, and the palm of victory; the
oak of strength, the olive of peace. Some plants have accumulated more
than one meaning. The vine has many attributes. It is an emblem of the
mysteries of the Christian Church. It symbolizes plenty, joy, the
family. Ivy means friendship, conviviality, remembrance.
The symbolism of beasts (_bestiaria_),[121] of birds (_volucraria_),
and of stones (_lapidaria_) filled many volumes in the mediæval ages,
and are well worthy of the study of the decorative artist. The
symbolism of animals and birds especially, constantly attracts our
attention in the Oriental and Sicilian textiles of the early Christian
times, and to the end of the thirteenth century. Later, in European
textile decoration, most animals were accepted as emblematic in
Christian art, beginning with the symbols of the four Evangelists. All
the virtues and all the vices found their animal emblems
conventionalized, and were thus woven, embroidered, and painted.[122]
Reptiles and insects are included under the head of "beasts," and
perhaps fishes also. Each was dowered with a symbolical meaning; and
thus admitted into art, they were conventionalized by being strongly
outlined, coloured flat; and by repetition without variation, were
converted into patterns.
[Illustration: Pl. 28.
1, 2. Gothic Tiles. 3. Gothic Border of a Dress. 4. Gothic Vine.
Westminster Abbey.]
When the use of heraldic illustration was added to the already
accepted symbolism, animal decoration became very common, and soon
forgot its symbolical motives, which were succeeded by Renaissance
fanciful patterns; and then the conventionalized beast and its
symbolism disappeared from European decoration, except when it was
a direct copy of an Oriental design.
Certain symbolical forms have, however, survived. The eagle has always
meant empire, and the double-headed eagle, a double royalty.[123]
Ezekiel represents Babylon and Egypt, symbolically, as two
eagles.[124] But here we approach the subject of heraldry, which
became a science in mediæval days; and every man and woman in any way
remarkable, every chivalrous action and national event, became a
subject for textile art, and was woven or worked with the needle on
banner, hanging, or dress. The altar decorations received a new
stimulus as historical records, as well as religious symbols, and
pride and piety were equally enlisted in these gifts to the Church.
Byzantine patterns have a barbaric stamp, and yet have much of the
grandiose about them; but they are to the last degree conventional. In
the early mosaics, both in Constantinople and Rome, every face and
head, every flower and animal, represents a type and not an
individual.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.
Gothic Trees, from Bayeux tapestry.]
Gothic foliage patterns, in England and elsewhere, are a struggle
between the naturalistic and the conventional. The Norman style and
the Romanesque, which preceded it, and from which it was modified and
elevated, show their vegetable forms thick-stemmed and few-leaved,
whereas the Gothic aspired to a developed gracefulness; and the
Renaissance, which succeeded it, assumed all the freedom of natural
flowers and plants, floating in the breeze, on their delicate stems.
(Pl. 28.)
All the Renaissance patterns, which, as their name denotes, were born
again, like butterflies to frolic for a day of gay enjoyment, are
purely decorative. Their generally charming, graceful forms group
together to cover empty spaces with every regard to the rules of
design and composition, but without any inner meaning. If we take
these arabesques to pieces, we generally find the parts come from
various sources; and having served last in pagan Rome for pagan
purposes, had been slightly refashioned for Christian decorative
art,[125] before the Byzantine inartistic taste, and barbaric
splendour of metal-work patterns, had extinguished all the gay fancy
of the arts of Southern Europe.
The mediæval revival was a return to the light and fantastic, and a
protest against the solemnity of all Gothic art, which had had its
great day, had culminated, and died out. The patterns of the
Renaissance are all guided by the principles of repetition and
duplication, or that of doubling the pattern, which repeats itself to
right and left, as if folded down the middle.
The principal lines thus echoed one another; but the artist was
permitted to vary the conventionalism of the general forms of figures,
flowers, fruit, or butterflies, so as to balance and yet differ in
every detail.
[Illustration: Pl. 29.
CLOUD PATTERNS.
1, 2, 3, 7. Japanese.
4. Chinese.
5, 8, 9. Mediæval.
6. Badge of Richard II.]
[Illustration: Pl. 30.
Indo-Chinese Coverlet, supposed to have belonged to Oliver
Cromwell. Hatfield House.]
Amongst the conventional patterns which have descended to us, and are
in general use without any particular symbolical meaning being
attached to them, we must instance those derived from the Cloud
pattern. This is to be found in early Chinese and Indian art, but I do
not recognize it in Egyptian or Greek decoration. It came through
Byzantium, and took its place amongst early Christian patterns. (Pl.
29.)
[Illustration: Pl. 31.
THE FUNDATA OR NETTED PATTERN.
Portion of a Phœnician Bowl from Cyprus.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.
Egyptian.]
The cloud pattern is also Japanese, and is supposed to have been
originally derived from Central Asia. It varies in shape, and is found
as an ornament on the head of the sceptre in the collection at Nara,
in Japan, which is twelve or thirteen hundred years old. There is an
example of the cloud pattern in Aelfled's embroidery at Durham; and it
is often found under the feet of saints in painted glass and
embroideries before the fourteenth century. A curious Indian example
exists in a coverlet belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, said to
have been the property of Oliver Cromwell, on which the central
medallion is filled with white horses careering amidst the cloud
pattern.[126] (Pl. 30.)
The _netted_ pattern called Fundata is extremely ancient. We find it
in Egyptian mural paintings, as well as in the centre of a
Phœnician bowl from Cyprus, now in the Louvre. The mediæval Fundata
was a silk material, covered with what appeared to be a gold network
covering the stuff. It is supposed to be the same as that worn by
Constantine,[127] and is named in ecclesiastical inventories as late
as the fifteenth century. (Pl. 31.)
All the wheel patterns are very ancient, and appear to be simply
conventional wheels. In France they were called _roés_. There is a
fine instance of this wheel pattern in Auberville's "Tissus." The
wheels sometime enclose triumphal cars and other pictorial subjects.
(Pl. 34.)
The patterns which are apparently composed with the intention of
avoiding all meaning, are the Moorish. They are neither animal,
vegetable, nor anything else. They show no motive in their complicated
domes, their honeycombing, and their ingenious conventional forms; but
cover equally textile fabrics or stucco ceilings without suggesting
any idea, religious or symbolical.
All the splendid Italian brocades and velvet damasks were of
conventional patterns, and like their Arab and Sicilian models, and
also like their Spanish contemporaries, represented, and sought to
represent nothing on earth. It was all floreated and meandering
design; the motive reminding one of the pine-apple and the acanthus,
or of vine stems meeting or parting, but never anything naturalistic
for a moment. When animals were introduced it was always as a pattern
doubled face to face, as if folded down a straight line.
We may say the same of the succeeding Louis Quatorze and the Louis
Quinze styles, which were of the culminating period of clever and
fantastic conventional decoration.
Our modern designs have phases of imitation, and the patterns of rich
brocades which our great-grandmothers wore, came into fashion again
about the third decade of this century. Now we have been trying to
find our inspirations further back, and some of our copies of the
simpler Sicilian patterns, with an occasional pair of birds, or a
conventional plant, imitating the motive of the tree of life, have
been very pretty. The only defect is the poverty which results from
the absence of any active and informing motive. It is, however, easier
to criticize than to create.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.
Radiated Pattern.]
I would venture here to find fault with a very common method of
converting a natural object into a conventional pattern, by radiation.
Certain modes of repetition are very objectionable. A pattern, for
instance, repeated four times round a centre, or a natural flower
repeated exactly, but lying north, south, east, and west, are more or
less inartistic, we may say vulgar. (Fig. 14.)
[Illustration: Fig. 15.
Radiated Sunflower.]
A natural flower may be conventionalized and radiated by placing it in
the centre of the composition facing you; and the leaves arranged
surrounding it, so as to formalize the design, though there is nothing
really unnatural in the way in which they are made to grow. The
illustration of a radiated sunflower explains my meaning.
It has been already observed that by repetition almost any object may
be reduced to a pattern, but taste must be exercised in the selection
of what is appropriate and beautiful. Radiation is also really a
useful factor in conventional art, but common sense must guide the
artist here as well as taste. In radiating the forms of a flower,
nature gives endless hints of beauty; but a radiating pattern of human
figures would be ridiculous, and even the branches of a tree cannot be
so treated.
The awning of the classic hypæthral hall or court was often reproduced
in Roman arabesques. Sometimes we find it in a classical tomb, painted
over the ceiling, and recalling its original use. This was revived in
the Cinque-cento Renaissance; and again in Adams' "Eighteenth Century
Decorations," it became an accepted pattern, called "the shell,"
losing its original motive, and descending to fill up the panels of
tea-caddies and surround keyholes. When thus reduced to the appearance
of a little ruff, it needs some thought to recognize it, and give it
credit for its first motive.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
It is amusing to find how a form which it seems impossible to reduce
to a pattern, will yet fall into one by a judicious arrangement of
light and shadow, and by repetition. There is a little frieze in one
of the Indian cases on the staircase in the British Museum, which is
extremely pretty and effective. It consists of a repetition of little
balconies with recesses and pillars and figures in pairs. I give it as
illustrating the way conventional patterns grow. This balcony pattern
is of the sixth century, A.D.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.
Indian Balcony Pattern, from steps of tope of Jamal-Zartri,
Afghanistan. British Museum.]
The ancient palmated pattern called Chrysoclavus, from the beginning
of our era to the thirteenth century was partly a nail-headed design,
and had become a Christian symbol. It was, probably, originally the
primitive spot pattern; afterwards promoted to being an ornament of
discs in colour or metal: this was Assyrian, Etruscan, and
Mycenæan.[128] (Pl. 70.)
Among the conventional patterns which have apparently no hidden
meaning, but which clearly show their descent, are the Chinese and
Japanese wicker and lattice-work designs. The beauty of these is
wonderful.
Semper shows that wicker (including bamboo work) was the foundation of
all Chinese civilized life, for constructing houses, bridges,
utensils, and for decoration. He gives this wicker-work origin to the
universal key pattern, which may, however, have a double source--the
wave, and the wicker-work.
We find the Key pattern in a tomb at Essiout, in Egypt, painted
perhaps about 1600 B.C., in company with some other very old
friends,[129] the Tuscan border, the Egg and Tongue, and the Bead, the
Daisy, and the Wave. (Pl. 17, No. 2.) We meet it everywhere in ancient
and modern decoration. There are several forms of it on a large
terra-cotta vase in the British Museum from Kameiros in Rhodes, and on
Chinese fictiles and embroideries. It is found also on garments in
Iceland, whither the Greek patterns must have drifted through Norway,
and, as they could go no further, there they remained.
I have often spoken of the extraordinary survival of a pattern. This
is easy to account for when fashion, "the disturber," had not yet
existed. Then the ancient motive told its own tale, and its great age
was its claim to perpetual youth; but it is more remarkable where we
meet with revivals at distant periods, and apparently without any
connecting link of ancestry or style.
For instance, the women of Genoa wore large cotton veils, printed with
the Indian conventional tree and beast pattern, down to thirty years
ago, when the fashion changed, and winter bonnets and summer muslin
veils displaced the old costume. These patterns are now being printed
in England on scores of cotton curtains for beds and windows.
GEOMETRICAL.
Geometrical patterns may be reduced to a very few primitive elements.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.
Varied adjustments of Square and Circle.]
1. The Line, including straight and wavy lines.
2. The Angular Forms, including squares, oblongs, cubes, &c.
3. The Triangular, including zigzags, diamonds, &c.
4. The Circular, including all spots, discs, and radiations.
All these can be blended or mixed so as to form endless varieties. For
instance, the square and the circle can intersect each other in
different proportions, so as to give an entirely new effect to the
pattern, each time the balance is altered or the phase of the
repetition varied. The illustration will explain this. (Fig. 18.)
Right angles may intersect each other so as to produce the whole gamut
of Chinese lattice-work decoration, and all the Celtic and
Scandinavian entwined patterns, from which so many of the embroideries
in the Italian pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are
probably descended.
The Moorish patterns are geometrical, and are created on the principle
of avoiding in art the representation of any created thing. They show
much ingenuity in keeping clear of any possible meaning. Most of these
conventional patterns are founded on the ogee-arch and a kind of
honeycomb pattern, involved and inverted. Their tiles, which nearest
approach textile design, have, indeed, certain vegetable forms added
to the others, but always geometrically arranged as no vegetables ever
grew.
Geometrical patterns begin with primitive forms, and come down to the
floor-cloth designs of to-day. They can be extracted in endless
variety from the combinations of the kaleidoscope. This style is well
suited for pavements in mosaic--either secular or ecclesiastical.
The Opus Alexandrinum furnishes us with most beautiful examples and
adaptations for large or small spaces, so as to form the richest or
the simplest floor decorations. How worthily a church may be thus
adorned may be seen on the vast area of the floor of Santa Maria
Maggiore in Rome, or that of the Church of St. Mark in Venice.
The nearest approach to the Opus Alexandrinum in textiles has been in
Patchwork, of which a more artistic use may yet be made. We might
exercise ingenuity in this direction, giving really fine and effective
designs to our workers in patches, whose productions are, in general,
simply alarming.
The fine quilting patterns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
are almost always geometrical, and make the best background to more
resplendent embroideries overlying them, which is partly owing to
their being only forms, and conveying no idea or inherited meaning.
These expressionless designs are well fitted for spaces and borders in
which the centres are elaborated, and require enclosing or framing;
likewise, they are suited for large areas, which must not be perfectly
plain, and yet not too disturbing to the eye, so as to distract it
from the more important ornaments on the wall or ceiling. They suit
carpets in passages or on staircases much better than any other kind
of design, and form the best figured backgrounds for pictures. Both
eye and mind often need repose, and therefore the simpler the
geometrical pattern is, the better. Complicated and too ingenious
combinations are painfully fatiguing. Simplicity and flatness are the
greatest merits in such forms, as in shadowless patterns for textiles,
and especially for embroideries.
If we turn to nature to assist us with new geometrical patterns, we
shall find the most exquisite forms in the crystals of every
newly-fallen snowflake, and in the nodal-points on a plate of metal or
glass, covered with sand, and struck by sound. We shall hardly ever
find in these a repetition of exactly the same combination, and their
variety is only equalled by their beauty.
FOOTNOTES:
[96] Sir G. Birdwood tells us of patterns of an Indian
brocade called "Chundtara" (moon and stars), figured all
over with representations of heavenly bodies.
[97] Pliny, "Natural History," lib. xxx. c. 8, § 34.
[98] There is a shell pattern in gold on a twelfth
century fragment of a Bishop's garment at Worcester.
[99] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," vol. iii. pp.
132, 133, 350, 553.
[100] Bötticher, in his "Tektonik," will allow of but
one origin for the "egg and tongue" pattern. I cannot
give up the evident descent from the lotus flower and
bud; but I have said before that a pattern has sometimes
a double parentage, and it may be so in this case.
[101] The lotus is almost entirely lost as a native
growth in India, and is fast disappearing in Egypt. The
lotus blossom in Egypt was not only a sacred emblem, but
also an _objet de luxe_. At their feasts, the honoured
guests were presented with the flowers, and as they
faded, slaves carried round baskets of fresh blossoms.
See Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Egyptians."
[102] See the Book of Lindisfarne, and the two Celtic
bronze shields in the British Museum. These last are
very curious. The long involved lines show their origin,
and the shields are enriched with enamel and corals, in
repetitions of the prehistoric cross.
[103] See "Album of Photographs of the Marien-Kirche,
Dantzic," Taf. 31.
[104] Woltmann and Woermann, Eng. Trans., p. 202.
[105] Charlemagne's dress, in his tomb, was covered with
golden elephants. This must have been Indian. His mantle
was "_parsemé_" with golden bees.
[106] Elsewhere there is a notice of Miss Morritt's
really beautifully embroidered landscapes at Rokeby; and
all who saw them will remember the extremely clever and
effective pictures in crewels by an accomplished
American lady, Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, exhibited in
London a few years ago. These exceptional cases do not,
however, disprove the objections against employing the
most unfit and unmanageable materials for producing
subjects alien to the art of embroidery.
[107] See Redgrave's "Manual of Design," pp. 50-61.
[108] See Appendix 21, by Ch. T. Newton, to the first
edition of Ruskin's "Stones of Venice." He gives, as
instances of this pattern, certain coins from Prienè,
where the River Mæander is symbolized by the angular key
pattern. Appendix, No. 1.
[109] "(Euripides _loquitur_) Not horse-cocks, nor yet
goat-stags, such as they depict on Persian carpets"
(Aristophanes, "The Frogs," v. 939-944). The Persian
carpets, which are the legitimate descendants of
Babylonian art, are curiously fragmentary. In a modern
design are to be seen birds, indicated by a head, bill,
and eyes; little coffee-pots, and flowers broken off at
the stalks, and small quadrupeds without any particular
form; also the prehistoric cross, the Tau, and bits of
broken-up wave and key patterns. All these, repeated
into a pattern, remind us of scraps in a kaleidoscope,
thrown together accidentally, or else taken up by chance
where history and art have dropped them.
[110] "Soma" or "Homa" ("Sarcostemma Viminale vel
Brevistigma"), from Cashmere and the Hindu Cush, still
used by the Brahmins, and the juice of which was the
first intoxicant of the human race. See Birdwood's
"Indian Art," vol. ii. pp. 336, 337.
[111] "The Hom, the sacred Persian tree, is constantly
placed between two animals, chained to it." See Pl. 23,
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
[112] The Hom or Homa, the sacred tree of Assyrian and
Persian sculpture and textiles, is accounted for as a
pattern by Dr. Rock, who says: "From the earliest
antiquity a tradition came down through middle Asia, of
some holy tree, perhaps the tree of life spoken of as
growing in Paradise." It is always represented as
something like a shrub, and is a conventional portrait
of a palm; but Rock says it has every look of having
belonged to the family of the Asclepiadeæ. For its last
transformation into a vine, see Pl. 24.
[113] Rock's "Introduction," p. cxxxi.
[114] Sir George Birdwood says: "The intimate absorption
of Hindu life in the unseen realities of man's spiritual
consciousness is seldom sufficiently acknowledged by
Europeans, and, indeed, cannot be fully comprehended by
men whose belief in the supernatural has been destroyed
by the prevailing material ideas of modern society.
Every thought, wish, and deed of the Hindu belongs to
the world of the unseen as well as the seen; and nothing
shows this more strikingly than the traditionary works
of India. Everything that is made has a direct religious
use, or some religious symbolism. The materials of which
different articles are fashioned, their weight, and the
colours with which they are painted, are fixed by
religious rule. An obscured symbolism of material and
colour is to be traced also in the forms of things, even
for the most domestic uses. Every detail of Indian
decoration, Aryan or Turanian, has a religious meaning,
and the arts of India will never be rightly understood
until there are brought to their study, a familiar
acquaintance with the character and subjects of the
religious poetry, national legends, and mythological
scriptures that have always been their inspiration, and
of which they are the perfected imagery." See Sir George
Birdwood's "Indian Arts," part i. p. 2.
[115] The Persian tree of life was not alien to the
worship of the Zoroastrian religion of the Sassanides,
and is said to have been the origin of the worship of
Bacchus. It was introduced by Oriental weavers into
Sicilian and Spanish stuffs.
[116] Sir G. Birdwood suggests that the honeysuckle
pattern is derived from the Tree of Life, cone, and
palm, refashioned and combined with the graceful
ingenuity of Greek art, and covering a mixture of sacred
traditional emblems.
[117] Haug, in his "Essays on the Sacred Writings of the
Parsees" (pp. 132, 239), tells us that these people
still hold the homa to be sacred, and from it squeeze a
juice used by them in their religious ceremonies.
[118] See Perrot et Chipiez, "Histoire de l'Art," vol.
ii. pp. 260, 267, Pl. xiv.
[119] See Appendix, No. 1.
[120] India, in return, afterwards influenced Persia,
the successor of Babylon.
[121] In India, the elephant is a very common element in
a pattern; in Egypt, the serpent; in Persia, the lion.
In animal patterns, certain emblems were grouped
together. The lion and the goose represent strength and
prudence; the lion and eagle, strength and dominion; the
lion and dove, strength and gentleness. We may see these
double emblems on Sicilian textiles.
[122] Chinese art is crowded with symbolisms.
[123] The double-headed eagle was the badge of Saladin,
as well as that of the Holy Roman Empire.
[124] Ezekiel xvii.
[125] In the earliest days of Christianity.
[126] "A cloud pattern from which issue two clasped
hands is the device of Guizot Marchand or Guido
Mercator, printer, in 1498. He lived at the College of
Navarre."--Dibdin's "Decameron," ii. pp. 33-36.
[127] See Gori (tom. iii. pp. 20, 84), as cited by Rock,
Introduction, p. liii. The same netted pattern was found
in the grave of an Archbishop of York of about the end
of the thirteenth century. Its name, _fundata_, is
derived from _funda_, the fisherman's net; also, in
later times, it was called _laqueata_. See Rock's
Introduction (p. liv.). See also M. Ch. Clermont
Ganneau's "L'Imagerie Phénicienne," Coupe de Palestrina;
and Chaldée et Assyrie, in Perrot and Chipiez, ii. p.
736. Another instance is shown here of the fundata
occurring in the bronze flat bowl copied from Layard's
"Monuments," 2nd series, plate 62. The whole design of
the bowl is Babylonian, consisting of a rich border of
repetitions of the tree of life; each has the peculiar
ornament of little knobs often seen on their
head-dresses.
[128] See Bock's "L. Gewänder," p. 129; Gori, "Thes.
Dipt." ii. pp. 20, 275; Marquardt, "Handbuch Röm. Alt."
vii. pp. 527-31 (Eng. Trans.). Authorities differ in
describing the Chrysoclavus. Sir G. Birdwood calls it a
button pattern ("Indian Arts," vol. ii. p. 241). The
"Chrysoclavus" was the name given to the palmated or
triumphal pattern with which the consular robes are
invariably embroidered in the Roman Consular ivories at
Zurich, Halberstadt, and in the South Kensington Museum.
The tenacious life of this pattern is curiously shown in
the way it appears in the fifteenth century on Italian
playing-cards. (See "Cartes à Jouer," an anonymous
French book in the print-room of the British Museum.)
The kings and knaves wear the Byzantine humeral, and the
Chrysoclavus pattern is carved on their chairs. Till
lately English playing-cards showed the same
dress-pattern. I shall discuss the Latin Clavus and the
Chrysoclavus amongst ecclesiastical embroideries, pp.
308, 336 (_post_).
[129] See Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," i. p. 125.
The date of these mural paintings may, however, be even
as late as the time of Alexander the Great.