A comparison of the different hangings available to the amateur, or of the pictured examples given in this book, will reveal more than can be well set down with the pen. The use of flowers in the set of The Baillée des Roses is exceptional, in that here the flowers form a harmonious decorative scheme and are at the same time an important part of the story which is pictured.
In other earliest examples they playfully peep within the limits of the hanging. Important use is, however, made of them in that altogether entrancing set of The Lady and the Unicorn, where they indicate the beauties of a fascinating park in which the delicate lady and her attendant led a wondrous life guarded by two beasts as fabulous as faithful, and the whole region of leaves and petals but serving as a paradise for delectable white rabbits and piquant monkeys. Could any modern indicate by sophistry of brush or brain so intoxicating a fairyland, so gracious a field of dear delights?
COSTUMES
A minute study of all the details of costume and accessories is one of the measuring sticks with which we count the years of a tapestry’s life. This applies more particularly to the work prior to the Renaissance, to the time when all characters were dressed in the mode of the day—another evidence of that ingenuousness that delights us who have passed the period where it is possible.
As we have noted before, a costume cannot be used before its time, so, as much as anything can, the study of its details prevents us from going too far back with its date. When one has reached the point of identifying a Gothic tapestry to where the exact decade is questioned, the century having been ascertained, a careful study of costumes outside the region of tapestries is necessary. This leads one into a department all by itself and means delightful hours in libraries poring over illustrated books on costume. It means to learn in what manner our gods and heroes of fact and fancy habited themselves, how Berengaria wore her head-dress and Jehane de Bourgogne her brocades, and how the eternally various sleeve differed in its fashioning for both men and women.
Head-dresses were of such size and variety that they form a study in themselves, and dates have been fixed by these alone. The turban in its evolution is an interesting study, and makes one wonder if that, too, did not wander north from the Moorish occupancy of Spain and the wave of inspiration which flowed unceasingly from the Orient in the years when Europe created little without inspiration from outside.
A patriarchal bearded man in sacerdotal robes of costly elegance seriously impresses his fellows all through the Gothic tapestries, and his rival is a swaggering, important person, clean-shaven, in full brocaded skirt, fur-bound, whose attitude declares him royal or near it. The first of these is the model nowadays for stage kings, and even a woman’s toilet must vaunt itself to get notice beside his gorgeous array. He wears about his waist a jewelled girdle of great splendour, and on his head some impressive matter of either jewels or draping. His face is usually full-bearded, but even when smooth, youth is not expressed upon him. Youths of the same time are more débonnaire, are springing about, clean-faced, clad in short, belted pelisse, showing sprightly legs equally ready to step quickly towards a lovely lady or to a field of battle.
Soldiers—let a woman hesitate to speak of their dress and arms in any tone but that of self-depreciating humility. Suffice it to say that in the early work they wore the armour of the time, whether the scene depicted were an event of history cotemporaneous, or of the time of Moses. Fashions in dress changed with deliberation then, and it is to the arms carried by the men that we must sometimes look for exactness of date.
LETTERING
The presence of letters is often noticed in hangings of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. It was a fashion eminently satisfactory, a great assistance to the observer. It helped tell the story, and, as these old pictures had always a story to tell, it was entirely excusable—at least, so it seems to one who has stood confounded before a modern painting without a catalogue or other indication as to the why of certain agitated figures.