ON FIGURE-WORK
[Illustration: Fig. I.—Christian Coptic Embroidery
A.D. 500 or 600
_Part of a Medallion of a Tunic. From Ancient Tombs in Upper Egypt._
_V. & A. Museum, S. Kensington (No. 124—1891)._]
In the last chapter, when speaking of appliqué, I had occasion to mention
how well it lends itself to representation of the human form, to be
worked on a fairly large scale. I consider it eminently suitable for this
because of the slight amount of stitchery required to produce the desired
effect, the features being merely outlined, with the exception perhaps of
the eyes and lips, which might be worked solid.
Large masses of drapery, &c., are tedious to work and may very well be
represented by a piece of beautiful woven material; while the features
and limbs, if well-drawn to start with, may be outlined accurately by
skilful fingers without calling for a greater knowledge of anatomy or
artistic expression than the average embroidress may be expected to
possess.
But now we have come to figure-work as a special branch of Church
embroidery. My own opinion may be briefly stated that only those who
can _draw_ correctly ought to attempt it, because, of all methods of
representation, needlework is one of the least direct, and therefore one
of the most difficult.
It is possible, perhaps, to get a fairly satisfactory figure worked by a
person who cannot draw, if the principal lines and shading are distinctly
marked out on the material to be worked, as well as a fully coloured
drawing provided by the designer. But stitching is not, so to speak, a
natural medium for expressing ideas, and the slightest deviation from
what is intended by the artist may result in something entirely different
in character—approaching, possibly, very near the grotesque on the one
hand, or frivolity on the other. And as we seem in these days of general
but superficial education of the masses, to have almost lost the feeling
of reverence for religious effigies, looked upon as _symbols_ only,
irrespective of any æsthetic properties they may or may not possess, it
is more than ever necessary to do the _best things_ in the _best way_ we
know of. This is why I would strongly urge all who wish to enrich their
embroideries with the human figure to practise drawing first. I would
further suggest that the drawing should be chiefly from the antique, and
the study altogether more with regard to typical than individual forms,
as this training is not for the painting of ‘pictures,’ but for the sake
of knowing what are the elements of human beauty and how they ought to be
applied or modified. Neither am I including the study of design, which,
as I have before remarked, is a study in itself. I am suggesting only
such a practice of drawing as shall enable the needlewoman to know what
is required of her in following out the idea and intention of her design,
and to be able to carry out the same intelligently; she will not then
place an eye on the cheek-bone or an ear on the jaw, or allow the fold of
a garment to suggest a dislocated limb.
It is taken for granted that the embroidress is already quite dexterous
and proficient in the use of the finest floss-silks and has had a good
deal of practice in the usual stitches. Her mind should be unencumbered
with any thought of _technique_, and the hand should respond without
effort.
There is no new stitch to learn for this work, but there are several ways
of employing the old ones.
Each method being usually associated with some distinct style or date, it
is well to be conversant with the various standards, and then the worker
is able to choose that which appeals to her most, or which seems the
right one for any special requirement.
The decoration and vestments of a church may very well be of a _later_
date than the building, but it seems a sort of anachronism to have it
distinctively _earlier_, unless it actually is a treasure handed down
from past generations.
Among the earliest examples to which we have access are the remains of
Christian Coptic embroidery, done, it is believed, in the fifth or sixth
century (see Illustration I.)
It is all worked in coarse split-stitch or (which has much the same
effect) by threading the needle with two strands of silk at once and
bringing it up from the back between the two threads. The features
are marked out with dark brown silk, and are formed in a somewhat
rough-and-ready way by making almost every stitch express a feature by
its direction and colour, the rest of the face being filled up as best
it can. The hands in the same way; each finger is simply and crudely
expressed by a single or double row of split-stitch. The garments are
shaded, the rows of stitching following the direction of the folds.
[Illustration: Fragment of de Cantelupe Vestment in Worcester Cathedral
A.D. 1236-66]
The earliest English figure work was usually done also in split-stitch,
but much finer. The faces, hands, and feet were worked with the stitch
all in one direction, either vertical or horizontal, and the details
marked out with very fine black silk or dark brown. Sometimes the lips
were put in with red. There was no shading of the flesh-tints, but they
were, so far as one can tell, quite white. The Worcester fragments and
the Durham stole and maniple are examples of this work; the latter, being
in such good preservation, is the easiest to study. The garments and
sometimes the whole figure were worked in gold or silver thread all laid
one way; or again, with the face-lines vertical and the rest horizontal.
The fragments from the vestment of Walter de Cantelupe (1236-1265 or
6) show a particularly beautiful scroll-work in a flowing pattern all
over it. There are many small figures seated and crowned and holding a
sceptre. The whole of the work is done entirely in fine gold-thread laid
in one direction, and outlined with dark brown or black on what seems
to have been crimson or rose-coloured Oriental silk. There is a small
piece of it in the V. and A. Museum South Kensington, and some more in
Worcester Cathedral Church, from which my drawing is taken.
[Illustration: Fig. II.—Early Thirteenth Century
(_From the Syon Cope_)
_V. & A. Museum, S. Kensington (No. 83—1864)._]
But the most celebrated work, which began about this time and flourished
for about a century, making England famous for its embroidery, was the
world-renowned ‘Opus Anglicanum,’ of which we have one of the most
perfect specimens in the well-known ‘Syon Cope’ at South Kensington. One
of the characteristics of this work is the way the faces are treated.
Split-stitch in one shade of fine floss is still used, but, instead of
lying in straight lines, it is begun in the centre of the cheek and
worked round and round, in more or less circular lines, till they merge
into the semicircular ones of the neck, or radiate towards the eye-socket
and the straight line of the nose. The direction of the stitch gives an
_appearance_ of shading, although it is all done in one shade of very
fine silk. The effect of relief is also attained by the same means,
slightly accentuated by mechanical assistance—possibly the round head
of a metal pin heated and pressed wherever such an effect is desired.
The figure of St. Paul (Fig. II.) shows the general effect and the
accompanying diagram (p. 34) the method of work. It will be observed by
anyone who will make the experiment, that fine split-stitch, crewel,
or chain-stitch worked solid in a circular direction in this way, if
done out of a frame, will naturally cause such depressions as are to
be seen in the early specimens of ‘Opus Anglicanum.’ It needed very
little mechanical appliance to make these indentations regular and more
effective; but by degrees this desire for effect grew beyond bounds, and
the modelling became frightfully exaggerated at the same time that the
natural and moderate relief of eyelids, nose, and lips, caused by a few
extra stitches, developed into an actual stuffing, till figure embroidery
was a thing of the past, and a debased condition of taste delighted
itself with dolls dressed in silks and laces attached to needleworked
‘pictures,’ which had to be framed and glazed to keep them free from dust!
The arrangement of stitches, as in the ‘Opus Anglicanum,’ has been
revived in modern times by some of the Sisterhoods, where they make a
point of being ‘Early English’; but it is a style apt to become too
quaint to suit modern ideas of reverence, and it is certainly much
more difficult to manage successfully than the vertical or horizontal
arrangement (see ‘_a_’ p. 34).
‘_b_’ shows a combination of both, and ‘_c_’ of the vertical method.
Fig. III. is a drawing from a figure of the Blessed Virgin in a group
representing the ‘Annunciation’ on an altar-frontal at St. Thomas’s,
Salisbury. The whole of the frontal is closely ‘parsemé,’ with the
typical Cherubim, Angels, flowers, &c., of the period (thirteenth to
sixteenth centuries) and very much ornamented with free and graceful
scroll-work. There is a return to the simpler method for working the
face; or perhaps I should say a continuation of this method, which has
never been entirely given up, in spite of prevailing fashion; probably
the embroiderer instinctively feels it to be the most manageable. I mean
the evenly worked surface (be it split-stitch or satin-stitch) on which
the features are worked in outline. These stitches lie in the vertical
direction, and there is little, if any, shading. The dress is worked in
several shades of blue (also vertical split-stitch or fine satin-stitch),
and there is very little attempt to give the appearance of relief in the
folds. The cloak is worked entirely in gold thread, laid horizontally,
with the folds marked on afterwards in rather scratchy lines of green
silk. The lining of the cloak is in silver thread, flecked with black to
indicate vair. The hair is pale golden-brown, in split-stitch, following
the natural curves, and is very delicately drawn and worked. The whole of
the group is characterised by great simplicity and sweetness. The vase
containing the lilies, which stands in the centre between the Angel and
the Blessed Virgin, is of richly raised gold-work; a scroll behind her
shoulders with the words ‘Ecce Ancilla Dn̅i’ balances the wings of the
Angel in the composition of the design.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there was a spontaneous
growth of feeling for truth and beauty in all the arts; more correct
drawing and richer colouring combined with strong and graceful design
to produce perfection in needlework. In the most beautiful examples of
this period (with few exceptions) the faces are worked in natural shades
of flesh-tints, with fine floss-silks in satin-stitch, either ‘short’
or ‘long and short,’ in the vertical direction, with a fair amount of
shading, but no cast shadows. The garments fall in noble lines and give
the opportunity for a fine variety of colour. Precious stones, metals,
and pearls were used with moderation, not that lavish profusion which
afterwards degenerated into vulgar display.
[Illustration: Fig. III
_From an altar frontal in the Church of St. Thomas à Becket in Salisbury_]
Illustration IV. is taken from part of an orphrey in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, designed by Rafaelino del Garbo, and represents, I think,
the highest point to which ‘effect’ should go in the matter of shading
and appearance of relief, perspective, &c. It is a piece of Florentine
work, and shows distinctly the influence of the place and the age. This
reproduction of course does not do it justice; it is a perfect marvel
of colour, while the drawing shows a master’s hand. The whole of the
architectural background is worked in gold thread laid horizontally, the
effect both of colour and shading being entirely produced by means of the
silk it is couched with. In places the gold is completely veiled by the
stitches, in others it gleams through, and again it is left quite bare
and shining with its own lustre alone. Every line of the architecture
is accentuated with gold twist of different degrees of thickness, and
sometimes varied again by being twisted in the opposite direction.
[Illustration: (_a_) English Thirteenth Century]
[Illustration: (_b_) Westphalian Early Fifteenth Century
_V. & A. Museum, S. Kensington (No. 459—1905)._]
[Illustration: (_c_) Modern, Stitches Vertical]
The garments consist of the _same gold thread_ which forms the
background; it is simply carried through the whole of the work,[4] with
the exception of the head and nimbus, which are worked separately and
appliqué to it afterwards. The hands, even, are done over the gold in
short satin-stitch. The flesh-tints are coloured strongly but finely,
and the shading is put in boldly. The sympathy between design and work
is so marked as almost to indicate the same hand; but we have other
examples, which are known to have been designed by one person and
worked by another, which show the same _rapport_, such as the designs by
Pollaiuolo embroidered by Paolo da Verona (in the church of S. Giovanni
at Florence).[5]
[Illustration: Fig. IV.—St. Andrew—Florentine work, Fifteenth or Early
Sixteenth Century
_V. & A. Museum, S. Kensington (No. 5787—1859)._]
The garments of the figures in the older embroidery were usually worked
in split-stitch in much the same manner as the faces; that is to say, the
stitching is done in rows, following the lines of the drawing.
In the Syon cope, for instance, the tunic of the figure illustrated in
Fig. II. is worked in three shades of blue floss; the palest has faded
so much as to be out of range altogether (a habit unfortunately common
to pale shades of blue); the two darker ones seem to have remained
almost entirely unaffected by age, light, and wear. The upper garment
is worked in gold thread, with a border of green and a lining of soft
yellowish-brown floss silk. The gold-work is done in the same way as
the background of the cope. The threads lie in the same direction
throughout—not merely in the case of the figure I am describing, but
wherever gold is introduced at all—in large masses, as in the vesture, or
in quite small quantities, such as the narrow border of the tunic. It is
stitched so as to form the same zigzag pattern.
The lining of the upper robe is worked in a very fine split-stitch, with
either very little shading or none besides that which is caused by the
different directions of the stitch.
The folds in the gold-worked part are indicated by means of voided lines,
which are afterwards filled up with stitches of black silk. The voiding
at the folds gives a low relief, as the gold goes down and comes up again
instead of all lying flat on the surface.
The hair is in fine lines of alternate blue-grey and white floss, done in
split-stitch. In some of the other figures it is gold and black, or gold
and white, or black and white, but always in alternate lines in the same
style. In early English work the bearded faces have the upper lip shaven.
Three shades of each colour are commonly employed, not often following
each other very closely, especially in the case of the green, of which
the lighter shades incline towards yellow and the darker towards blue.
There were very few different colours in general use for embroidery till
towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they became much
more varied, but still more harmonious, till crude and violent colours
came in with the nineteenth century. The dyes formerly were mostly from
Eastern sources, whence the silks also came, and where, until quite
lately, very stringent rules were in force concerning the colours and
dyes permitted to be used.
_D’or nué_ seems to have been the favourite method of doing the
garments about the sixteenth century. Laid-work, kept down with either
self-coloured silk or gold thread, lightly couched, is also to be seen;
and later, a pretty use of short-stitch in floss, worked vertically
over gold threads laid horizontally—something like _d’or nué_, but very
much coarser and more practical for the larger figures, which were then
becoming more frequently worked (see diagram).
[Illustration: Diagram showing method of working Short-stitch over
horizontal lines of Gold-thread]
Another way of treating drapery is to work it solidly in
long-and-short-stitch (vertical), boldly shaded, and afterwards enriching
it with fine gold threads laid horizontally over the whole garment a
little distance apart, and sewn down singly with fine sewing silks or
split floss of the same shades as those it passes over; or sprays or
diapers may be effective worked over the plain shaded silks.
The background of figure-work is not very often composed entirely of
stitching in these days, when so many beautiful woven fabrics are so
easily procured and time seems shorter than it used to be. But still,
where there is not a very large expanse to fill, a worked background is
not a luxury unattainable; a very satisfactory and glorious one is gold
thread laid in diaper-patterns. Laid-work and darning are quicker—the
latter makes a beautifully broken colour for showing up large outline
figure-work done on unbleached linen or worsted material for hangings.
I do not fancy any of my readers would undertake such a piece of work as
the background of the Syon cope; but the way it was probably done has
been suggested by Mr. Lewis Day thus:—
‘The stitch runs from point to point of the zigzag pattern, then it
penetrates the stuff, is carried round a thread of flax laid at the back
of the material, and is brought to the surface again through the hole
made by the needle in passing down. That is to say, the silken thread
only _dips_ through the linen at the points in the pattern, and is then
caught down by a thread of flax on the under-surface of the linen … it
is a kind of work on which two persons might be employed, one on either
side of the stuff.’[6]
I venture to differ from his opinion on one point only, and that is that
probably the silken or gold thread was not the one worked backwards and
forwards through the stuff, since the flax thread from behind would
do the work just as well. The gold or silk would thus be saved from
friction, and would not need to be cut into needlefuls and threaded in a
needle, but could be used from continuously, as I have before suggested
for long lines of couching; it is, in fact, precisely the same thing,
with the exception of taking the ‘working’ needle back through the hole
it made, instead of at a little distance from it. This method is so often
used in fine gold-work for turning at the end of a row when one does not
want it to appear on the surface that I fancy it would be suggested by
this.