In M. Blanc’s classification of ornament, he has placed Gothic design under the head of deliberate complication. The whole of the Gothic decorations, which are a gradual growth in one direction, arose from the study of interlacing boughs and stems, employed as the enrichment of the newly-grown forms of the vaulted roofs. The possibilities of great size and height covered these designs and inspired all their decoration; and the effect of reiteration and long recurring lines in perspective was essentially the motive of these avenues in stone.[93]
Here enter the principles of repetition and progression, and you will find how carefully the designers of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries worked up to these ideas. You will see in their embroideries, shining figures or pictures in gold, silver, and coloured silks, shimmering on dark velvet backgrounds, each design terminating a perspective of architectural forms which enhances their brilliancy. The most effective, probably, were generally employed for the adornment of the high altar, so as to be seen from a great distance. The smaller and less distinct and more delicate ornaments were reserved for the side chapels or for smaller churches, where such distant effects were inappropriate. But the motives of [ecclesiastical embroidery] will be discussed in a future chapter.
All attempts at pictorial art are a mistake in textiles. It does not enter into such designs; and when by chance it is allowed to be so used, it is an error of judgment, and only exhibits a laborious and useless ingenuity. It is no longer an artistic delineation of a natural object, but becomes an imitation of another way of rendering such objects.
Mr. Redgrave says that pictorial art in our manufactures is one of our great mistakes. “The picture must be independent of the material, the thought alone should govern it; whereas in decoration the material must be one of the suggestors of the thought, its use must govern the design.”
Perhaps it will appear to my readers that here I repeat, in different forms, what has been said in a previous chapter on the history of [style]. I think that it is better to do so, than to omit to show where style and design must accompany each other. Style, without any reference to design, would be but a barren subject; and design, without reference to style, would become lawless, and soon be lost in the mazes of bad taste and mannerism. Both subjects are of so large and important a nature that I do not attempt to do more than point out how, in their history and their influence, they belong to the craft of embroidery.
Such influences belong to all art; and though I am anxious to confine myself to only one section of it, I find it difficult to resist the temptation to generalize and stray from the prescribed path, when large and important views are opened on every side, as I travel on from point to point.
In sketching the history of design, as well as I may in so short a space, it is only considered in the light in which it illustrates our craft.
I repeat that the design should be informed by the motive which suggested it, and by the need which has called it forth; and it must be moulded to the space it has to fill, and the position it will occupy. The design must be modified into different outward forms, according to whether it is to be fitted to the edge of a building against the sky; to a high panelled wall; to be applied as a frieze, or round the capital of a pillar; to the embroidered cover of an altar, or the silken hangings of a bed, or the framed flat spaces on the walls of a saloon. In fact, “intention,” “place,” and “shape” are necessary motives and limits to a flat design.
Leaving aside all architectural ornamentation, and adhering only to my own subject, embroidery, I will limit my observations to the three purposes here suggested. Firstly, as the central effect of the holiest part of a church; secondly, in the domestic and comfortable room, to be adorned and made cheerful; and thirdly, as decking the refined and gay saloon or banqueting-hall.
To the church we should devote the most splendid and effective contrasts, to blaze unframed against dark empty backgrounds, or amidst stone and marble decorations; something set apart from its surroundings, and asserting that separation, is the desirable effect to be attained.