The book of the Science of Art has yet to be written. Art has been called the Flower of Life, and also the Consoler;—adorning the existence of the strong and bright,—sheltering and comforting the sad and solitary ones of the earth. But, rather, it resembles a wide-spreading tree, covered with varied blossoms—bearing many fruits.

To point out the history and the possibilities in the future of each branch that shades, refreshes, and gives wholesome fruit to the world, would be a task worthy of a master-hand and a pen of gold. But less ambitious labourers in the field of investigation which is only as yet partly cultivated, may each assist, by carefully collecting a little heap of ascertained facts; and it is, indeed, the duty of each as he passes to add his pebble to the slowly accumulating cairn of recorded human knowledge.

Some one has said, “Build your house of little bricks of facts, and you will soon find it inhabited by a body of truth; and that truth will ally itself with other houses of facts, and in time a well-ordered, cosmical city will arise.”

My pebble is not yet polished. It is neither a diamond nor a ruby, but I think there are a few streaks of golden light in it, which I may venture to add to the daily accumulating treasure in the house of human artistic knowledge.

My object in writing this volume is to fill up an empty space in the English library of art.

The great exponents of poetic thought—verse, sculpture, painting, and architecture—have long since been well interpreted and appreciated. Men and women have written much and well on these large subjects, and we may hope for more ere long. The secondary or smaller arts have been hitherto neglected by us,—either treated merely as crafts, to which artistic education may give help, or as the natural or inferior outcome of the primal arts, having no claim to the possession of special laws and history. And yet, when Moses wrote and Homer sang, needlework was no new thing. It was already consecrated by legendary and traditionary custom to the highest uses. The gods themselves were honoured by its service, and it preceded written history in recording heroic deeds and national triumphs.

It may be said that ivory carving is sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts and coloured glass windows are painting. But for metal work, whether in iron or gold, a place must be kept apart; and the same privileges are due to embroidery and to metallurgy. All arts must of necessity have their own laws and rules, which ensure their beauty of execution and their special forms of design; these two last, from the nature of their materials, and the modes of working them, must be studied independently of any connection with painting, architecture, or sculpture.

Yet, if the unity of nature is an accepted fact,[3] then the acceptance of the unity of art must follow. Art must be considered as the selection of natural phenomena by individual minds capable of assimilating and reproducing them in certain forms and with certain materials adapted to the national taste, needs, and power of appreciation. If man cannot originate materials, he can invent combinations;—and this is Art.

If proportion, colour, and sound alike depend on certain mathematical measurements, and on rhythmical vibrations, there must be a real and tangible relation between these elements, though applied to obtain different results. In music, as in all art, harmony is, or ought to be, a first consideration. We have seen by experiment how a note of our scale can by touch form geometrical figures with sand on a sheet of glass,—here form obeys the force of harmony. But what is harmony?

By analogy we may argue from the art of music. We who believe that we have acquired the knowledge of music as a science, beyond all preceding knowledge of the subject, have in Europe been able to enjoy only our own musical scales; whereas throughout the East, those accepted by the human ear are very various, and appear to depart from what to our senses is harmony. Those Oriental musics have either been adapted to the Oriental ear, or the ear has been adapted to appreciate the forms and laws of harmony with which it came in contact.

The same questions occur to us while examining into the different forms of decorative art; and we are constantly reminded that the laws which should govern them, are perhaps, infinitely larger and wider than we with our limited human capacities and experience, have hitherto been able to appreciate.

“Ars longa—vita brevis” has been so often said, that from a proverb it has become a truism; but it must continue to be the refrain of those who write upon art. The subject is so long, and its ramifications are so intricate, that it is difficult to include them all under one category. My furthest aim here is to trace back the art of needlework to its beginning, without turning my eyes to the right or the left, though I cannot help feeling myself drawn aside almost irresistibly by casual glimpses of architecture, sculpture, and painting, which here and there touch very nearly the history of needlework.

Except where they visibly influence each other, I avoid dealing with the greater arts, leaving them to the study of the learned in each special branch.

All art, however, throws reflected lights, and gleaning in the track of those authors who have preceded us, we often pick up valuable hints which we accept, and make use of them gladly.

Some writers have thought it incumbent on them to give a local habitation and an abiding place to needlework, and they have regarded it as a branch of painting. But I cannot endorse this classification. According to Semper, indeed, it is the mother-art of sculpture and painting, instead of being the offspring of either or both, as others have maintained.[4] They have, indeed, such distinct functions that each may justly boast its own original sources. Painting is the art of colour; sculpture is that of form; embroidery is the art of clothing forms. They are all so ancient, that in seeking to ascertain their beginnings and dates. It is difficult to fix the precedence of one over another. We may compare, distinguish, and yet again change our opinions as fresh facts come under our observation.

The art of needlework reached its climax long ago, and is now very old. History and faded rags are the only witnesses to its fabulous glories, in Classical, Oriental, and early MediÆval days. It would appear that nothing new remains to be invented. Copies of past styles, and selections from the scraps we retain and value as models, are all that we can boast of now.

Dr. Rock truly says that few persons of the present day have the faintest idea of the labour, the money, the time, often bestowed of old upon embroideries which had been designed as well as wrought by the hands of men and women, each in their own craft the best and ablest of their day.

Time is too short, our life too densely crowded, to allow leisure for the extravagance of what is, after all, only a luxury of art—no longer a civilizer, as of old, but just an efflorescence of our culture.

Embroidery is now essentially “decoration,” and nothing more. It is intended to appeal to the sense of beauty of the eye, rather than to the imagination. The designer for needlework should be an artist, but he need not be a poet. You may omit this art altogether, and you need be none the less sumptuously clothed and lodged. Yet it is worthy of careful study as historical evidence, and that in the present and future, as in the past, it may be an art, and not merely a craft.

For the great web of history is composed of many threads of divers colours, and the warp and the woof are often exchanged, yet so connected and knotted together that the continuity is never broken. On this web, Time has drawn the picture of the past—sometimes faintly, sometimes with indelible tints and pronounced forms. By poetry; by architecture and its decorations; by dress, which represents and distinguishes nationalities; by customs, such as the different forms of burial; or even by such details as painting the eyes; also by the tradition and outcome of the laws of the tribes that flowed consecutively over Europe from the East; by the institutions which remained immutably fixed on their native soil, such as those of the Code of Manu, and those of Babylon, inscribed on bricks or clay; or by the words, their form and lettering, in which these are handed down to us;—out of all these the history of man is being reconstructed.

How valuable is every witness to the ancient records, which were fading into myths in the memories of men. How joyfully is each little fact hailed as a landmark, in the general fog of doubt!

Now embroidery may boast that it is a source of landmarks for all time.

Without presuming to fix a date for its first beginning, that which I wish to impress on the mind of the reader is the long continuity of the art of needlework.

The sense of antiquity induces reverence, and I claim for the needle an older and more illustrious age than can be accorded to the brush. While the great pendulum of Time has swung art in sculpture, painting, and architecture, from its cradle as in MycenÆ, to its throne in Athens in the days of Pericles, and then back again to the basest poverty of decaying Rome—needle work, continually refreshed from Eastern inspiration, never has fallen so low, though it had never aspired as high as its greater sister arts.

The stuffs and fabrics of various materials of the Egyptians, Chinese, Assyrians, and Chaldeans are named in the earliest records of the human race. How much these decorations depended on weaving, and how much on embroidery with the needle, may in each case be disputed. The products of the Babylonian looms are alluded to in the Book of Joshua. Their beauty tempted Achan to rescue them when Jericho fell;[5] and Ezekiel speaks of the embroideries of Canneh, Haran, and Eden, as well as of their cloths of purple and blue, and their chests of garments of divers colours[6].

All these fabrics are named as merchandise, and were carried to the sea-coast, and thence over the ancient world, by the Phoenicians, the great shipowners and dealers of the East.

Indian needlework and design is 4000 years old; and the long perspective of Egyptian art, while leading us still further back into unlimited periods, shows it changing so slowly, that we feel as if it had been all but stationary from the beginning.

The Chinese claim 5000 years as the life of their history; but if, as is now suggested, their civilization is Accadian or Proto-Babylonian, their wonderful artistic and scientific knowledge may have been fragments of the great dispersal, secreted and preserved behind the wonderful wall[7] of stone, silence, and law, where it has lain fossilized ever since. One cannot but wonder at the perfection of the textile manufactures of the Chinese, their marvellous embroideries, and the peculiar modes of construction and design throughout their arts, which have shown but few moments of change in growth—scarcely a sign of evolution. And we may fairly surmise that this Accadian culture (if such it be) is reflected from antediluvian tradition.

The archÆology of Oriental art is most interesting. We contemplate with awe the vast splendours of the consecutive civilizations of the East; the ancient richness and fertility of the whole of the Asiatic continent; the genius for empire and for commerce; the creative power which seemed to pour itself forth, unchecked by wars and conquests; the great dynasties which rose and fell, leaving behind them gigantic works, and the records of fabulous luxury in the empires of China, Assyria, India, and Persia, of which the remains have been of late years excavated, deciphered, and confronted with the historical texts which we have inherited, and had only partly believed. And studying these new aspects of history, we are saddened, thinking that the sunrise comes to us from shining over desert sands or the mounds of empty cities, where the lion and the jackal “reassert their primeval possession,” or where the European and the Tartar, from the West and from the East, dispute their rights to suzerainty. We are dazzled and confused when we look back to those great days when the over-peopled kingdoms sent forth whole tribes, eastward to the confines of Asia, southward over India, and westward over Europe; and we bow reverently before the mighty Power that led the Jews, by a promise and a hope, across the seething nationalities, through the long passage of time from Abraham to Solomon; and which is again giving into the hands of those Oriental-looking men, so much power in shaping the destiny of mankind through their great riches.

Moses commanded the Hebrew people to lend and never to borrow. They have obeyed his precept, except in art; to that they have lent or given nothing. There is no national Jewish art. For music only do they show artistic genius, and that is European and not Oriental. As illustrating their lack of intuitive decorative art, one need only refer to the architecture of the first, second, and third Temple buildings, which apparently reflected Babylonian and Semitic influences on an early Chaldean type. The embroideries mentioned by different writers, from Moses to Josephus, appear to have had always a Babylonian, or later a Persian inspiration.

This absence of artistic genius is very remarkable in a people that had its origin in the Eastern centre from whence all art has radiated.

The reason that so little survives of ancient embroidery is evident. Woollen stuffs and threads decay quickly—the moth and rust do corrupt them—and the very few ancient bits that remain, have been preserved by the embalming process, which has kept the contents of tombs from becoming dust.

As to more modern embroideries, we ought to be thankful that the art has had its fashions; otherwise, the world would be overwhelmed with shabby rags. Human nature has a tendency to dislike the “old-fashioned”—i.e. the fashion of the last generation. That which our mothers worked or wore, is an object for affectionate sentiment, and the best specimens alone are preserved. That which belonged to our grandfathers and grandmothers has receded into the rococo; and a few more generations take us back to the antique, of which so little survives, from wear and tear, carelessness and theft, that we put away and preserve it as being curious and precious. We may hope that the general law of the survival of the fittest has guarded what is most remarkable.

Certain works have been consecrated by the hands that executed them, or by that of the donor, or by the purpose for which they were bestowed, and are mostly preserved in churches or national museums. Of these there are vestments and altar decorations worked by royal and noble ladies; and coronation garments given by Queens and Empresses, such as Queen Gisela’s and the Empress Kunigunda’s at Prague and Bamberg, and Charlemagne’s dalmatic at the Vatican, described in the chapter on ecclesiastical embroideries. Sculptured effigies help us as to embroidered patterns; for our forefathers often actually copied in bronze or stone the patterns of the garments in which the body was buried, or at any rate, those the man had worn in his life. Of these, King John’s monument at Worcester, and the surcoat of the Black Prince at Canterbury, are remarkable examples.[8]

The succeeding chapters will contain sketches of the history of the different stitches, and of the best examples of stitch and style remaining to us; and I shall try to extract from both the best suggestions for guidance in design and handicraft.

Embroidery from its nature is essentially the woman’s art.[9] It needs a sedentary life, industry and patience. It does not require a room to itself, and the worker may leave it at any moment between two stitches when called to other duties. Nunneries produced the finest work of the dark and middle ages; and their teaching inaugurated the workrooms in the palaces and castles, where young girls, whether royal, noble, or gentle, were trained in embroidery as an accomplishment and a household duty.

The history of domestic embroidery ought to be looked upon as that of an important factor in the humanizing effect of Æsthetic culture.

The woman of the house has always been strong to fulfil her part in this civilizing influence with the implement which custom has awarded to her. Every man in the ancient East began his life under the tent or in the palace adorned by the hands of his mother and her maidens, and his home was made beautiful by his wife and his sisters and their slaves. There, as in mediÆval homes, lessons of morality and religion, and the love and fame of noble deeds, were taught by the painting of the needle to the minds of the young men, who would have scorned more direct teaching; and the children felt the influence, as the women wove what the bards sang.

Alas! we have but few specimens of embroideries of which we know the history, earlier than the tenth and eleventh centuries.[10] Yet from the days of the books of the Old Testament and the song of the siege of Troy, down to the present time, the woman of the house has adorned not only herself and her dear lord, but she has hung the walls, the seats, the bed, and the tables with her beautiful creations.

Homer’s women were all artists with the needle. Venus seeking Helen,—

This must have been intended for hangings.

Hecuba’s wardrobe is thus described:—

The women of the Middle Ages were great at the loom and frame. From the Kleine Heldenbuch of the thirteenth century, Rock quotes these lines:—

Gudrun, like the women of Homer, embroidered history—that of the ancestors of Siegfried.

But in the Middle Ages the embroiderers were ambitious artists. The deeds of Roland and the siege of Troy, all romantic and classical lore, provided subjects for the needle.

Shakespeare gives a pretty picture of the graceful weaver and embroiderer:—

Before closing this Introduction, I will take the opportunity to protest against the abuse of the phrase “High Art.” It is generally appropriated by that which is the lowest and most feeble.

An old design for a chair or table, by no means remarkable originally, but cheaply copied, and covered with a quaint and dismal cretonne or poorly worked pattern, of which the design is neither new nor artistic, is introduced by the upholsterer as belonging to “High Art furniture.” The epithet has succeeded to what was once “fashionable” and “elegant.” To get rid of carpets, and put down rugs, to hang up rows of plates instead of family portraits—this also is “high art.” Likewise gowns lumped upon the shoulders, with all the folds drawn across, instead of hanging draperies. The term is never used when we speak of the great arts—painting, sculpture, and architecture. It is, in fact, only the slang of the cabinet-maker, the upholsterer, and milliner.

All true Art is very high indeed and apparent; and needs not to be introduced with a puff. It sits enthroned between Poetry and History. Even those who are ignorant of its laws feel its influence, and the soothing grace which it sheds, falling like the rain, equally upon the just and the unjust. Man’s nature always responds to the truly high and beautiful; only the most degraded are deprived of this source of happiness. And there are but few women, till debased by cruelty, misery, or drink, that do not try in some humble way (but especially with their needle) to adorn their own persons, their children, and their homes; and if their art is not high, it yet has the power to elevate them.[14] While the most ambitious women try a higher flight, into the regions of poetry, literature, painting, and even sculpture (why has no woman ever been an architect?), millions have enjoyed the art of the needle for thousands of years, and it will continue to be a solace and a delight as long as the world lasts, for, like all art, it gives the ever new joy of creation.