Well, we have, perhaps, talked nonsense enough about the dinner-cards. It is a pretty Home Amusement for the back piazza in summer, or for the close and guarded warm home parlor of winter. Give us the results of both, young ladies. And since all the wealthy chromo people are offering such splendid sums for the Christmas, Easter, and even advertising cards, why should not every group try their hand at the—perhaps—thousand dollar prize?
Here is a suggestion for a Christmas card: A group of young pagans going out of the Catacombs are represented as strewing flowers and singing gay songs. On the other side a group of austere early Christians are coming in, singing hymns. Between the two a ray of light comes down through a fissure of the roof and forms a cross. The religion that is going out, the religion that is coming in—the cross is between them. How much a clever hand could make of this moment of time, so replete with interest to all the world!
It would seem as if, with all the suggestions of Easter, that no one would need anything but a paint-box and a pack of blank cards to interest them at this season. We should have the World being hatched out of an egg; the Saxon goddess Eastre; the Legend of the Stork; the German children searching for the Nest in the garden where the Easter-hen had laid her egg; the great Sunburst; the Sun dancing on Easter morning; the games of mediæval England, when the women played ball at one end of the town and the men at the other, and one fine couple taking occasion to run away to get married on the sly. The Easter Egg is full of meat for the artist.
Growing out of these thoughts comes up the great and increasing taste for symbolism, which finds its highest exponent in church embroidery. The Catholic Church has ever been a good customer of the decorative art schools. It needs and consumes or uses much embroidery. But the pious women of Protestant communion now also deem it a duty and a pleasure to decorate the altars of their beloved churches with much that is symbolic and beautiful, and it is a favorite form of Home Amusement to create an altar-cloth or some draperies which shall engross an hour or two a day of the time of the best embroideresses in the family.
The favorite symbols are these: The Cross in its various forms; the monogram composed of the Greek letters Χ (Ch) and Ρ (R), the first two in the name of Christ; the Apocalyptic letters Α and Ω (Alpha and Omega), often combined into a monogram; and the Greek characters ΙΗΣ, the first three letters in the name ΙΗΣΟΥΣ (Jesus). This last symbol is sometimes interpreted thus, in Latin: J[esus], H[ominum] S[alvator]—Jesus, of Men the Saviour.
Less frequent is the Fish, which was often used by the early Christians as a kind of secret sign of their faith, the reason being that ΙΧΘΥΣ, the Greek word for “fish,” contains the initials of an article of their creed, thus: Ι[ησοῦς] Χ[ριστὸς], Θ[εοῦ] Υ[ιὸς], Σ[ωτὴρ]—Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Saviour.
Besides the foregoing, we have the Ship, indicating the Church, as typified by Noah’s Ark; the Anchor (always in close connection with the ship) entwined with a dolphin—emblems of Fortitude, Faith, and Hope; the Dove, occasionally bearing the olive-branch—the symbol of Christian Charity and Meekness; the Phœnix and the Peacock—symbols of Eternity; the Cock of Watchfulness; the Lyre of the Worship of God; the Palm-branch—the heathen symbol of Victory, but in a Christian sense that of Victory over Death; the Sheaf; the Bunch of Grapes, with other Biblical signs and allusions, such as the Hart at the Brook; the Brazen Serpent; the Ark of the Covenant; the Seven-branched Candlestick; the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; and, lastly, the Cross, with flowers, with a Crown, with a dove hovering about it. Many of these decorative symbols suggest themselves to the contemplative mind, and enter into the appropriate designs for ecclesiastical embroidery.
This embroidery must be beautifully executed to be worthy of its mission. The face of Christ has been so exquisitely wrought by some devout embroideresses that it is like a painting. The work should be done in a frame, and after considerable study.
And how pleasant a study for a winter evening becomes the universal subject of symbolism! We learn that the Eagle and the Thunderbolt were the symbols of Power under pagan mythology, because the attributes of the highest among the gods. The Rod, with the two serpents, indicated Commerce, because Mercury, whose insignia they were, was the God of Traffic. The Club, the emblem of Strength, was the attribute of Hercules. The Griffin—most useful animal for all decorative purposes—was sacred to Apollo. The symbol of the Sphinx was taken from the fable of Œdipus. We are coming back to the Oriental method of teaching by parables in all our new internal decoration; and for the illuminator the knowledge is priceless.