ART NEEDLEWORK.
By Minna Crawley.
The artistic faculty latent in so many women who perhaps have never studied drawing or painting, has in this accomplishment been developed quickly and more easily than in the higher class of art.
Art needlework cultivates the taste for design, colouring and general effect; and is also interesting as an ancient revival.
The old historical tapestries, both English and foreign, have been freshly studied of late, as well as the ecclesiastical work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; some of this beautiful work has been equalled if not excelled in some of our modern schools of needlework. There can be no doubt that needlework, from “high art” embroidery down to the plain sewing and making of garments, is excellent for girls, and it is to be hoped that the use of the needle will never be given up in our schools or homes. Both art and plain needlework are now being successfully carried on, even with the very limited time that can be devoted to them, by the pupils of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College.
WOOD-CARVING, Etc.
By M. S. Lyndon Smith, Honours Certificate, Class I., School of Wood-carving, South Kensington.
Wood-carving and kindred handicrafts, which can be used for forming and beautifying the common objects in daily use, have much educational value; they help to develop the æsthetic faculties, and give habits of neatness and accuracy and dexterity, and although children at school cannot be turned into finished artists, an incentive may be given at school; and we may discover in seemingly dull children faculties which, without manual instruction, would remain dormant.
Incidental teaching may be given to elder children in the history of ornamental design, its uses, purposes and meaning; also its inseparable connection with architecture explained, so that they may be the better able to understand the beauties of our own cathedrals, and compare these intelligently with the work of other countries and times. For those who can never attain to great proficiency, an intelligent interest may be awakened in the work of those to whom we owe the renaissance of handicraft, which is so characteristic a factor of our own century.