Detail from Embroidered Tabard, Sixteenth Century
Indeed, there is no better method of insuring ornamental effect when introducing animal forms than the practice of designing them within certain definite boundaries, which may be geometric, such as squares, circles, and ovals, according to the contours of the masses required in the particular design.
The Japanese give in one of their drawing-books some clear adaptations of birds and animals enclosed in circles, and they are very ingenious pieces of packing.
Detail from Embroidered Tabard, Sixteenth Century
Detail from Embroidered Tabard, Sixteenth Century
The early weavers of the Egypto-Roman textiles of Alexandria and of Byzantium, and of the renowned Sicilian silks from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, and those of Lucca of the fourteenth, all revelled in animal forms, and were adepts in their treatment. In the latter cases they were used symbolically and heraldically, and, indeed, with the development of heraldry in the middle ages under feudalism, such elements became the principal elements in decoration of all kinds, so much so that it might be almost said that heraldry was the ornament and decoration of the mediaeval times.
ANIMAL FORMS IN DECORATION & HERALDRY.
The Robe of RICHARD IInd,
from the picture at Wilton House