Part 15

Professor Moseley[41] records that the same form of painting is to be seen in the case of Japanese children on festive occasions, for after they have been elaborately dressed by their parents they are further adorned with one or two transverse and narrow streaks of bright red paint, leading outwards from the outer corners of their eyes, or placed near to that position. The style is the same as that which survives in the case of adults on the stage. Professor Moseley brings forward a further case showing that such a form of painting possibly existed in ancient times in China. When a man of distinction died in China in former times, a certain number of servants were sacrificed at his burial. Now, figures made of pasteboard and paper, about three feet or so high, are burnt instead at the funeral service in small furnaces provided for the purpose in the temples, together with cartloads of similar pasteboard gifts which are sent by the survivors for the use of the dead in the next world. Earthenware figures were similarly buried with great men in old times in Japan, and we may compare with these customs that of the Egyptians who buried models of servants, as mentioned on page 268, in the graves of their dead.

The pasteboard heads of these funeral servants and retainers are painted with streaks, some of which are put on in almost exactly the same style, at the angles of the eyes, as those of modern Japanese actors. It seems a fair conjecture that the streaks on these heads are a direct survival of an actual former savage form of painting which was once in vogue in China, and probably used to make fighting men hideous.

It is well known that primitive customs survive in connection with funerals all over the world with extreme tenacity. The numerous interesting survivals existing in the case of English funerals are familiar.

We give a figure taken from the head of a Chinese servant, which Professor Moseley bought at a manufactory of funeral properties in Hong Kong. (See Plate X, Figure C.)

With regard to the ordinary use of paint by women in China and Japan, Professor Moseley points out that it is entirely different in principle from that in vogue in Europe. He says: "The use of paint as an ornament in China and Japan seems to me to be of considerable interest. In both countries the women regularly paint their faces when in full dress, of which the paint is a necessary part.

"The paint is not put on with any idea of simulating a beauty of complexion, which might be present naturally, or which has been lost by age. The painted face is utterly unlike the appearance of any natural beauty.

"An even layer of white is put on over the whole face and neck, with the exception, in Japan, of two or three angular points of natural brown skin, which are left bare at the back of the neck as a contrast. After the face is whitened, a dab of red is rubbed in on the cheeks, below each eye. The lips are then coloured pink with magenta, and in Japan this colour is put on so thickly that it ceases to appear red, but takes on the iridescent metallic green tint of the crystallized aniline colour.

"In modern Japanese picture books, the lips of girls may sometimes be seen to be represented thus green. I suppose the idea is that such application of paint shows a meritorious disregard for expense. It is curious that the use of aniline colour should have so rapidly spread in China and Japan. In China, at least, such was not to be expected; but it seems to have supplanted the old rouge, and it is sold spread on folding cards, with Chinese characters on them, at Canton and in Japan. This form of painting the face seems to be exactly of the same nature as savage painting."

The likeness of this painting to that of our clowns is of course quite obvious.

Sometimes the painting of the body has a practical advantage. The Andaman Islanders plaster themselves with a mixture of lard and coloured earth, which protects their skin from the heat and mosquitoes; but, as Dr. Tylor points out, they go off into love of display when they proceed to draw lines on the paint with their fingers, or when a dandy will colour one side of his face red and the other olive-green, and make an ornamental border-line where the two colours meet down his chest and abdomen.

Fashions in paint were quite as slavishly followed as any other, and, as we see, have died hard. It is not a very far cry from painting to tattooing. Of savages, Théophile Gautier has said that, having no clothes to embroider, they embroider themselves. Scar tattooing is connected with various rites such as are followed when a brave arrives at manhood, and certainly tattooing serves to indicate the family or tribe to which the ornamented person belongs. There is no doubt, however, that the intention of much tattooing is to increase individual beauty. Excellent examples of this are to be found in the case of the Maoris, whose faces were most elaborately covered with designs. We are kindly permitted to reproduce some of the drawings which General Robley has made from specimens in his magnificent collection (see Plate X, Figure D). The practice now, however, is dying out. Of the Formosans it is said that their skins are covered with flower patterns until they look like damask.

Tattooing was practised by the old inhabitants of this country, by the Jews and the earliest Egyptians: it is still carried on in modern Egypt, chiefly on the chin, on the back of the hands, the arms and feet, the middle of the bosom, and the forehead. It survives principally in the case of the women of the lower classes and in the country. Among European sailors and among the lower classes, and even occasionally those up in high social scale, we find tattooing carried on, though the original idea of ornamentation is lost when the decoration is covered by clothing.

We have seen occasionally at shows--such as that organized by Barnum--white people who have been tattooed to a very great extent, and even in the case of Europeans the patterns tend to take off the bare look even of the white skin. No doubt the desire to make permanent such ornamentation as that obtained by painting, led to the introduction of tattooing, and just as some marks suggest that they are copied from amulets, so some amulets show traces of having been derived from tattoo patterns. Mr. Lovett has pointed out to us that possibly the floral designs worked on the backs of the bodices of the women of Marken, in Holland, may have originated from tattooing, but no doubt careful research would show some other and undoubted instances.

The painting of the face, which is intended to heighten its beauty and hide the ravages of time, is quite another matter. It survives to the present day, but luckily it is much less common in this country than it was a few years ago. It does not, however, seem to have been at all in vogue in England until the Middle Ages, though cosmetics and false complexions were made use of by ladies in Roman times.

Fairholt[42] quotes from an old French poem of the thirteenth century which describes the wares of a mercer who declares, "I have cotton with which they rouge, and whitening with which they whiten themselves." The cotton took the place of the hare's foot that is now used in making up, to rub colour on the cheeks.

At this point we might consider patches, the use of which made it possible to ornament the skin with patterns that could be removed at will. These patches came into fashion in Charles I's reign, but were banned by the Puritans. As soon, however, as Charles II came into his own again, they made their appearance once more, and took various fantastic shapes: owls, rings, crescents, and crowns; a coach and horses was particularly fashionable, and in the time of Queen Anne it was possible to tell the political views of fashionable ladies by their faces and their fans. Party feeling ran very high at this time, and those who were neutral wore patches on both cheeks, a Whig lady on the right side only, while a High Church Tory dame only adorned the left, and she wore suspended from her wrist a fan on which was depicted a scene from the trial of Dr. Sacheverell at Westminster Hall.

Red and white paint was at the same time universally employed by women of fashion, who, as Miss Helen Gordon[43] says, had perforce to keep their lovers at a respectful distance, lest a kiss "snatched by a forward one might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer." The untimely decease of more than one famous beauty was attributed to the paint with which she besmeared her countenance, a notable instance being the death of Lady Coventry, whose husband had been wont to chase her round the dinner-table in his determined efforts to remove the deleterious compound from her face with his serviette. According to Walpole, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu used the cheapest white paint obtainable, and left it so long on her skin that it had literally to be scraped off. It may be inferred that these fine ladies rarely washed; but "the age was careless in that respect, personal cleanliness at a discount, and the essence pot consequently in great demand."

We spoke just now of fans, which can, perhaps, be considered an article of dress as they are very often fastened to the person. There seems no doubt but that at first fans did not close, and were made of feathers like those still in use in the East from whence they are derived. Probably in the beginning, leaves were used as fans, and palm-leaf fans are still to be seen. Fans were in general use in the sixteenth century, and the folding one appeared in the next.

Sometimes, as at the end of the eighteenth century, large green fans, called sunshades, were used out of doors in the same way as a modern parasol now is. There is another use of the fan still to be noted in China, namely, for blowing up a fire, and from this we no doubt get the expression of "fanning the flame."

Painting apparently was not only practised by women, for male courtiers at the end of the sixteenth century occasionally coloured their faces. If we are to believe some of the writers in the newspapers of to-day, men of leisure are not a whit better nor less foolish now.

Of masks as an ordinary everyday addition to costume we have no survivals, except in connection with some balls and an occasional burglary; but masks such as we see on the 5th of November will remind us, like the face of the clown, of primitive face-painting, and also of the many curious head-dresses and masks which savages wear at certain ceremonies and dances. It is easy to produce grotesque effects by means of masks, and the discomfort that would arise from the paint is thereby avoided.

The practice of wearing masks, and indeed dominoes, by private individuals came from Venice. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries masks made of black satin and velvet often formed part of the toilet of society ladies. At one period the wearing of them was restricted to the times of carnivals; at another, the nobility alone were allowed to use them, and now we only see masks at fancy-dress balls. Of the unwritten laws that rule the wearing of the mask, Mrs. Aria says[44]: "Whether worn privately or in public, its disguise has at all times and in all countries been respected as inviolably sacred. To the masked the greatest extravagance of language and gesture is permitted. He is allowed to indulge in acrid personalities and proclaim scathing truths, which, even if addressed to the monarch himself, go unrebuked. To strike a mask is a serious offence, while in no class of society, however degraded, would any one dare to unmask a woman. Yet another prerogative entitles the masked to invite any woman present, whether masked or not, to dance with him, etiquette decreeing that the queen of the land may not claim exemption from this rule. Dear to romance is the masked highwayman, who flourished until the advent of railways robbed him of his occupation; and a grim figure is ever the masked headsman."

XXIX

STAGE COSTUMES

THE HARLEQUIN, PANTALOON, COLUMBINE, AND ACROBAT

While Punch has left the stage and is now a puppet, some of his coadjutors are with us, for the harlequinade is still introduced into many pantomimes at Christmas, and special plays have been written in which these characters appear. The harlequin, who gives his name to what is now an interlude, was some thousand or two years back one of the important personages in the old Italian comedy which gave us Punch, and which we have already mentioned in a previous chapter.

Harlequin was versatile and many-sided, and he still keeps up his slap-dash character. It is true that harlequin does not now speak, any more than does the columbine, and we may trace the evolution of the Italian Mimi, or buffoons, into the Pantomimi, who were tragic actors. They, by means of certain well-understood signs and gestures, were able to play tragedies in the open air under conditions which would have prevented their voices from being heard. In some theatres also the actors were not allowed by the authorities to speak. Originally the harlequin was a mime. He had a shaven head, a sooty face--for the mimi blackened their faces like our modern niggers--he had flat, unshod feet and a patched coat of many colours which he derived from the ancient peasants of Italy.

Some have seen in the wand of the harlequin a descendant of the rod of Mercury, and have sought for a prototype of the modern pantomime in pagan mysteries. In England, however, we have turned the harlequin into a magician, and his wand is perhaps the gilt wooden sword which belonged to the clown or fool all the world over. Now also we have the character in what Mr. Calthrop terms his tight-fitting lizard-skin of flashing golden colours, for the patches on his rags have now given place to a symmetrical pattern (see Figure 158).

There have been many celebrated harlequins who have devoted their lives to the development of this character, and there is an interesting case which Disraeli[45] gives in his "Curiosities of Literature," in which, as part of a quit-rent or feudal tenure--whenever the Abbot of Figéac entered this town--the Lord of Montbron, dressed in a harlequin's coat, with one of his legs bare, has to lead the prelate's horse by its bridle to the abbey.

In the clown and the pantaloon we still have the dress of Elizabethan times (see Figures 157 and 159). The paint on the former, as we have seen, will carry us back to times of remote antiquity. His hat is of a shape well known in early English history, and he himself is English all through. The pantaloon, again, is Italian. Both he and his Venetian breeches get their names from St. Pantaleone, one of the patron saints of Venice. Pantaleone was by no means an uncommon patronymic in that place. In order to reconcile the statements that the dress of the pantaloon is Elizabethan and his nether garments are Venetian, which might appear to be mutually contradictory, it must be pointed out that the Venetian breeches had been introduced in the days of earlier Tudors, and were still in vogue when Elizabeth was on the throne. The pantaloon's red and green colours and his red heels are also, as we have indicated, Elizabethan.

The columbine, who, like the harlequin, does not speak, and so keeps up the pantomime character, wears the ballet dress of early Victorian times. Originally she was a female harlequin, or harlequinne, and her dress of spangles is still sometimes used in fancy-dress dances. Of the other characters, who once assisted those that we have described, we have none left. Scaramouch persisted for some time, and was, like the harlequin and columbine, a pantomimist. He has gone even from Punch and Judy, though the doctor still remains.

Though not strictly a theatrical performer, but seen in the circus, the music-hall, and still also as a wandering mountebank, we have the acrobat. His dress is simple and eminently suitable for the work which he has to do; it consists of a vest, of very short trunk hose or breeches, and long Florentine hose, or, as we now call them, tights. Though such a costume was worn in the reigns of the early Tudors, in detail the breeches are very much like those which were worn by Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots. Doubtless also in the tights which are so familiar on the stage we have a survival similar to that seen in the acrobat, the clown, and the knights of the older orders.

XXX

NIGHTDRESS

BANDS ON NIGHTGOWNS--NIGHTCAPS--NIGHT ATTIRE WORN IN THE STREET

Going to bed can hardly be called a ceremony; but the dress in which the bulk of humanity now sleeps can claim to be a special one. There are, of course, many people, who are not mere casual tramps, who sleep in their everyday clothes. Drovers who have to go to out-of-the-way places with cattle, where they can never be sure of getting a lodging, will sleep possibly after merely removing their outer coat, and it stands to reason that men engaged in this business can hardly be bothered to carry luggage with them. Any survivals that we may have to deal with in the case of our airiest dresses will not take us very far back into history, because our ancestors, from all accounts, went to an extreme which is the opposite to that which we have just been mentioning, and instead of keeping on all their clothes at night, they took them all off and put on no others. Mr. Calthrop[46] graphically describes a scene which he supposes to be taking place in the reign of William Rufus. A lady is disturbed while getting ready for bed by a cry of "sanctuary," and watches from her window until the fugitive is let into the church by the monks. In concluding his story, Mr. Calthrop says, "The night is cold. The lady pulls a curtain across the window, and then, stripping herself of her chemise, she gets into bed."

A man's nightshirt is severe in cut like that which he wears in the day, and the sides are slit up in both garments as they are in the dalmatic and the tunics worn by the Anglo-Saxons, which were like a day shirt, longer behind than in front. A survival of the latter as an outer garment is to be seen in the short smocks worn by labourers who dig drains and do similar work. The lady's nightgown may be elegantly ornamented with lace in the same way as are the linen garments which she wears in the daytime; but very often we find a large collar edged with lace, which recalls the falling band which we have had so often to mention. (See Figure 160.)

To a great extent sleeping suits of a coat and trousers, which are known by the name of pyjamas, have taken the place of the man's nightshirt. These have the merit of making a man look more presentable if called up on an emergency. We shall see, if we contrast male and female fashions, that it has always been customary for the costume of women to follow that of men, though most ladies draw the line at adopting trousers. We have heard, however, of one young lady at least who does by night what she will not do by day, for she has given up her nightgown in favour of pyjamas.

Here and there we find that nightcaps are still worn. That belonging to an old lady, which we figure (see Figure 161), came from the village of Bishopstone in Wiltshire, where no fewer than twelve old ladies, all of them over eighty, still wear such a head-dress at night. Nightcaps were worn by men in the time of the Tudors, and that of Queen Elizabeth, as is shown by the following extract from a bill of 1547: "Pd. for two nyght caps of vellvet for them, 8s. 0d."[47]

They were very elaborately embroidered at this time, and in Mary's reign were mentioned in a sumptuary law. Old men still wear nightcaps, and the one we figure was used until lately at South Stoke in Oxfordshire. It is of the familiar style that we associate with such a head-dress, and has a tassel on the top. (See Figure 162.)

In the time of Queen Anne ladies wore their nightdresses, or night-rails as they were called, in the streets, and the fashion seems to have been in vogue at later times, though every means were taken to try and abolish it. It was not until a murderess was persuaded to appear at her execution in a bedgown that the fad was relinquished.

XXXI

THE DRESS OF ANIMALS

NATURAL REPRESENTATIVES OF CLOTHES--HORSE TRAPPINGS--AMULETS ON HARNESS--DOGS' DISGUISES--FASHIONS IN THE FORM OF ANIMALS

Here and there in the animal kingdom we find that creatures protect themselves from injury by building up cases and coverings from extraneous materials, and these may very well be compared with the armour and clothes of mankind. Protection may be gained by merely securing something ready made to take the place of a coat, as is done in the case of the hermit-crab or "soldier," which covers itself with the shell of some dead mollusc. The caddis worm, or larva of the caddis fly, builds its home of sticks and stones or twigs, and thereby not only preserves its soft body from injury, but also harmonizes with its surroundings, in the same way as does the soldier on active service in time of war.

To gain protection, also, some molluscs when building their shells introduce stones and other shells and corals into the edifice, so that they become indistinguishable from the sea-bottom on which they lie. Many caterpillars cover themselves with bits of leaves, and even with the help of silk make spiral shells that might easily be mistaken for those of snails. The silk also, from which many of our gay clothes are made, is spun by the silkworm, which, like the larva of many moths, produces it in order to protect the chrysalis while it rests.

We are occupied here, however, with the coverings of animals that they owe to man, and first and foremost of those creatures which have come in for his polite attentions is the horse.

We may recall the armour by which the chargers of the old knights were protected, and the trappings or emblazoned coverings that were put over this in the same way as the surcoat was made to cover the armour of the knights. (See Figure 84.) The trappings were often made of coloured satin, and were embroidered with gold and silver, and at the exhibition held by the Burlington Fine Arts Society in 1905 a chasuble of red velvet was shown, embroidered with the arms of England in gold, which was apparently made from a horse-trapper of the fourteenth century. Figure 84 well shows how the horses carried the armorial bearings of their masters.

In the ostrich-feather ornaments and the velvet trappings of modern funeral horses, we still have some remnants of the days of chivalry.

To-day horse clothing, though not intended to be of an ornamental character, we should imagine, is still often decorated with a monogram of the horse's owner.