CHAPTER II.
DESIGN.
Gorgo. Behold these ’broideries! Finer saw you never.
Praxinoè. Ye gods! What artists work’d these pictures in?
What kind of painter could these clear lines limn?
How true they stand! nay, lifelike, moving ever;
Not worked—created! Woman, thou art clever!
(Scene at a Festival) Theocritus, Idyll xv. line 78.
The word design, as applied to needlework, includes the principles and laws of the art: the motives and their hereditary outcome; the art creating the principles; the laws controlling the art.
Design means intention, motive, and should as such be applied to the smallest as to the greatest efforts of art. That which results from it, either as picture or pattern, is a record of the thoughts which produced it, and by its style fixes the date, of its production.
I will first consider the principles of design, and afterwards, in another chapter, inquire into the origin of [patterns]; investigating their motives, and using them as examples, and also as warnings.