Part 8

Delicate plaster relief-work for ceilings and friezes is also a very charming method of interior decoration, and there are very fine examples scattered over the country, though its original home was, I presume, in Italy, whose craftsmen still maintain their pre-eminence in the skill with which they deal with the manipulation of all kinds of plaster-work. Plaster and stucco must have been largely used in ancient Rome, and there are very beautiful, both bold and delicate, examples in the decorations of the famous tombs of the Via Latina. In one instance, on a wagon vault, the figures appear to have been worked directly in the soft plaster and the relief-work is used with vigorous indented lines. The effect of the work is wonderfully direct, simple, and fresh, and suggests having been done with speed and certainty. Raphael, influenced no doubt by old Roman work, introduced modelled portions in his painted designs for the Loggia of the Vatican. The usual modern method is to model the design in clay, mould it in gelatine, and then cast it in fibrous plaster panels (supposing it is for relief work) and screw them in position, stopping the joints afterwards. This, though it has many conveniences, is not so artistic in its results as when the design is worked directly in stucco or gesso in its proper position; but if we could be sure of finding the plasterers and craftsman to do it, we should but rarely find the opportunity, or the client who would allow time for such work _in situ_.

A middle course is to model your design--say, for a frieze or ceiling--in gesso or stucco of some kind on fibrous plaster panels; and the design may be planned so as to cut up into convenient-sized panels to work on an easel in the studio, and be fixed in position afterwards.

I have worked panels in this way using plaster of paris, thin glue, and cotton wool. The ground should be wetted, or the suction stopped by a coat of shellac, or the work is apt to dry too quickly and peel off.

For delicate relief ornamentation, say, in wall panelling and furniture, a kind of gesso duro is good. This is a mixture of whitening, glue, boiled linseed oil and resin. It is mixed to a creamy consistency, the whitening being first soaked in water. The gesso is laid on with a brush--long pointed sable is best. The gesso sets slowly, but very hard, so that any part of the work could be scraped down if necessary.

Another effective method for external and interior work in decoration is sgraffito, also of Italian origin. It consists in cutting or scratching a design through one or more layers of mixed lime and cement on to coloured grounds. A ground is laid on the plaster of the wall, say, of black, made by mixing black oxide of manganese and breeze from a smith's forge with the cement. When this is set, a layer of mixed lime and cement is laid over the black, about a quarter of an inch or more thick. When this layer has partly set, and is about the consistency of cheese, you cut your design out, its lines and masses defined by the black ground beneath as you cut away the top layer. Two or three colours may be used in the same way, one being laid over the other, and the effect produced by cutting down to the different layers as you wish.

I once came to a town in Bohemia, Pracatic, a wonderful old place, with a fine deep Gothic gateway, with a fresco of a knight-at-arms over it. The walls of the principal houses appear to have been entirely decorated with designs in sgraffito. The Rathaus or town hall was the most elaborate and best preserved, and was covered with designs from Bible story, divided by pilasters, and panelled in scroll ornament.

Sgraffito is still extensively used in Italy and Germany, where one sees much more elaborate work in it, and on a more extensive scale than anything here, unless we except the considerable and excellent work of Mr. Heywood Sumner in this material. He, however, has used it chiefly for interior wall decoration and churches. He generally uses three colours, red, green, and black, by which his large, simple, and bold designs are well expressed. Our climate--more especially town climate--is generally unfavourable to the effectiveness and permanence of the work as exterior decoration. There is, however, an excellent object lesson in sgraffito of various kinds to be seen on the back wall of the Science Schools at South Kensington, the work of the late Mr. Moody.

It seems curious that more has not been attempted in the way of external decoration by means of coloured and glazed tiles. The colour in these is permanent enough, and good quality of colour can be obtained. I fancy pleasant effects could be produced by facing the front of houses with coloured tiles, and introducing friezes and plaques beneath and between the windows. The ground story of many brick houses in London streets are cemented and painted. Why not try the effect of coloured tiles instead? Mr. Halsey Ricardo, it may be mentioned, has used De Morgan tile panels most effectively in a house he designed in Addison Road, Kensington, which is distinguished also by a beautiful roof of green glazed tiles from Spain. Mr. Conrad Dressler has also designed extensive mural decorations in a kind of Luca della Robbia manner, which is very effective. For splendour of effect, too, few things could equal designs produced in lustre.

Tiles, of course, have long held an undisputed position as decorative linings for fire-places. A new domestic application of them is suggested in that little gem of a picture by Van der Meer of Delft, recently added to our National Gallery, where white Dutch tiles with blue figures are fixed along the wall on the floor line, where one usually sees the wooden skirting.

Of the beauty of the effect of raised figures treated in faïence colours and glazes as an architectural decoration there is a splendid example in the frieze of archers from the palace wall of Darius, now at Paris, apparently made of moulded bricks glazed with colour, a good reproduction of which was to be seen in what was formerly the architectural court at the Victoria and Albert Museum; where also we could study the bold and beautiful frieze of Luca della Robbia from the Ospedale at Pistoia. One wants to see it in the full Italian sunshine and in its proper architectural setting fully to appreciate its fine decorative effect, and it is to be regretted that these reproductions of architectural decorative works are not exhibited in the Museum with an indication of their framework to show their relation to the buildings of which they form part.[6] It would be better to have fewer examples properly displayed, I believe, than a multitude crowded together, with no means of judging of them in their proper relation to their surroundings. If the examples were accompanied by good and clear drawings or photographs of the entire buildings it would be useful.

At Pistoia, also, there is a charming porch to the cathedral covered with Robbia ware in white, yellow, and blue, in association with black and white banded marble.[7] Such examples show with what beautiful decorative effect majolica can be associated with architecture.

To Italy, again, we must look for the most beautiful illustrations of the unity of painting with architecture, from the work of Giotto at Padua and Assisi to the crowning work of the Renascence, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo. The most perfect example of mural decoration in Italy I have seen, is, however, to be found in the Appartimenti Borgia in the Vatican, painted by Pinturrichio, a very beautiful model of which can be studied in the Victoria and Albert Museum (it was formerly in the Italian Court). Here we have a scheme of decoration at once restrained and rich, in strict relation to the construction, and yet full of variety and beauty of detail; and it is interesting, too, as an example of the use of gilded gesso used both for details in the wall pictures, as well as for arabesque ornament, and bordering on the vaulted ceiling. The lower wall was evidently originally intended to be covered with tapestry hangings, as there is a moulding with the little hooks to hold them; and this would have completed the effect of the whole in a rich and reposeful way. Another very rich and beautiful instance of the earlier Renascence mural painting may be seen in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence by Benozzo Gozzoli. Some full-sized copies are at South Kensington, notably one of Lorenzo de Medici in a gilded dress going a-hunting.

The famous Campo Santo at Pisa, and the frescoes in the town hall of Siena are fine instances of the days when mural painting was a living and popular art, frankly appealing to the love of story and romance, vivid, dramatic, and yet superbly decorative. Superior modern critics might scorn such types of art as "literary," and their _naïveté_ as "childish"; but their story-telling power is an inseparable part of their artistic form, and never oversteps it, just as their decorative instinct is in perfect accord and harmony with their architectural conditions.

This was long before the days of academies and art schools, when there was no technical art education outside the workshop, no competitive examinations, and a man learnt his craft by apprenticeship to it, beginning at the beginning, under a master craftsman.

I fail to see how any art can be wholly taught or learned on general principles, since it is of the nature of art to address itself to particular problems, the conditions of which constantly vary. Certain general principles have been evolved out of collective practice of more or less value, no doubt, in a general way, but they must always be liable to qualification in their adaptation to particular cases. Nothing of the nature of art can be formulated as an exact science, happily, or the limits of its invention and variety would soon be reached. Art, however, has its scientific side, though the science of art is not exactly scientific or theoretic, but practical, and rather consists in recognizing particular necessities of conditions and materials, and the realizing that the frank acknowledgment of the nature of these conditions and materials leads, in all the varieties of design, in association with craftsmanship and architecture, to the highest beauty.

The peculiar beauty of a stained glass window, for instance, is entirely dependent upon this frank acknowledgment of conditions. A screen of transparent colour and pattern, defined and united by leads, and held in position by iron bars. Directly any attempt is made to overstep its natural limits--to make it look like a painted picture, to get chiaroscuro and vanishing points, or to try to ignore the leading as an essential condition of its existence--the charm and the joy of it is lost. There is a distinct character and beauty both in plain leaded glass and roundels throwing a pleasant network of simple geometric lines over the blankness of window-panes. Henry Shaw, in his Glazier's Book,[8] gives a great variety of delightful leading patterns.

Now, any design for a coloured glass window should, in the first place, be a good arrangement of lead-lines, I think--a good pattern, in short, whether figure subject or not--and, secondly, a good pattern considered as an arrangement of colour or jewelled light.

The artistic designer and maker of a wrought-iron gate, grille, or railing, whatever phantasy he might introduce, would never forget the essential requirements of a gate, grille, or railing. He would never forget the architectural relation of his work, or rather he would make the chief beauty and inventiveness of his treatment of wrought iron spring out of that relation.

The practice of modelling in clay (though it may be useful in a student's training) designs intended to be carved in wood, has, it seems to me, been most destructive of the beauty and character of true woodcarving. The same may be said of stone and marble. The essential spirit and go of the thing, the characteristic touch and treatment which each material in which the designer works claims as its own, and which is its own particular reason for existing, these are, of course, lost or tamed out of recognition when a copy is made of something already existing in a material and produced by a method totally different.

Much better keep to simple mouldings and plain painting than bring in ornament which has no character or meaning of its own. We must not confuse the mere spreading of ornament with decoration in its true sense, for Design in all its forms may be said to be governed by an architectural instinct of its own, which makes it a harmonious part of the building with which it is united, and which unites it, and puts it in harmony with itself.

In the limits of a short paper it is impossible to do more than deal very lightly with so vast a subject as the Arts allied to Architecture, and there are many that I have not been able to touch at all, since, properly considered, _all_ the arts are, or should be, allied to architecture, and the history of architecture covers the history of human life itself; and what, let us ask, would architecture be without the associated arts which help to express and adorn it and fit each part for the use and service of man.

[Footnote 6: This was written before the arrangement of the collections in the new building of the Victoria and Albert Museum was complete.]

[Footnote 7: An illustration of this porch is given in my "Bases of Design."]

[Footnote 8: The full title is "A Booke of Sundry Draughtes. Principally serving for Glasiers: And not impertinent for plasterers, and gardeners: besides sundry other professions. London. William Pickering 1848." It is almost wholly copied from an older work "printed in Shoolane at the sign of the Falcon by Walter Dwight 1615."]

NOTES ON COLOUR EMBROIDERY AND ITS TREATMENT

NOTES ON COLOUR EMBROIDERY AND ITS TREATMENT

Embroidery as an art of design may be considered from many different points of view--but none of these are more important than those of colour and its treatment. It is indeed to colour that decorative needlework owes its chief charm, and in no direction is the influence of controlling taste more essential, and in its absence the most elaborate workmanship and technical accomplishment are apt to be wasted.

The choice and treatment of colour must naturally depend, in the first place, upon the object and purpose of the work, which would, of course, decide the scale and motive of its pattern.

As applied to costume, in which direction we find some of its most delicate and beautiful examples, nearness to the eye, the construction of the garment and the proportions of figure would have to be considered.

The Russian peasants have a form of frock or long blouse worn by young girls, which affords an instance of effective use of frank and bright colour upon a white ground. The garment itself is of homespun linen. It has a square opening for the neck, and is put on over the head, like a smock frock. The sleeves are quite simple, full on the upper arm and narrowing to a band on the wrist. The skirt, which falls straight from the shoulders, is decorated with a series of horizontal bands of pattern worked in cross-stitch, the principal colours being red and green, colours which always tell well upon white. The square-cut opening at the neck and the cuffs are emphasized by embroidered pattern of similar kind but on a smaller scale. The garment is ingeniously adapted to the growth of its wearer by adding extra rings of pattern to the skirt, and by enlarging a square piece let in at the arm-pits.

The Hungarian peasant women are most admirable embroiderers, and in their festal costumes display an extraordinary wealth of brilliant colour, employing, like the Russian, principally the cross-stitch on white linen. They are fond of decorating the ends of their pillow-cases which are piled up one upon the other on the bed, usually set against the wall in their cottages, so that only the outside ends show, and these alone are embroidered. Both the patterns, which are traditional and have an oriental character, and their colour show a strong decorative sense and natural taste. Many of them being worked in a single tone of red or blue, always effective on white. In some parts short sleeveless leather jackets lined with sheep's wool are worn. These are made incredibly gorgeous in colour by a kind of combined _appliqué_ and stitch embroidery, the vivid greens, reds, blues, and purples being kept in their place by the broad white of the shirt sleeves which flank them on each side when worn.

More austere arrangements are however found. There is a large heavy overcoat, with hanging sleeves and deep collar, worn by the Hungarian farmers, made of white wool. This is ornamented most judiciously by _appliqué_ embroidery in black and green. The chief points of decoration being the collar, the cuffs, and the hem.

In the Montenegrin section of the Balkan States Exhibition at Earl's Court there were some charming shirts and blouses embroidered with gold thread and colour, in bands. The constructive points, such as the neck opening, the junction of the yoke and sleeves, sometimes the sleeves themselves were richly ornamented with designs in gold and colour with excellent effect.

Good examples of treatment of rich colour in combination with light pattern are to be found among Cretan embroideries. The decoration in bands of the ends of the muslin scarves, relieved with silver and gold thread, often recalls the effect of the illuminated borders of fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts, having a delightfully gay and sparkling effect. These Cretan embroideries are examples of the harmonious effect in the arrangement of a number of different colours in the same pattern, grouped around a central feature which forms the dominating note; this is generally in the form of a large red flower with a gold centre, and this is surrounded with smaller detached star-like flowers, and formal cypress trees in leaf-shaped enclosures of gold or silver thread. The design being repeated, with slight variations, to form a band or border of pattern decorating the ends of the scarf. In a sample before me eight colours are used, besides gold and silver thread. The colours are: (1) red, in centre flower (a light vermilion); (2) crimson (sometimes, alas, magenta); (3) pink (pale salmon); (4) orange; (5) light (lemon) yellow (of greenish tone); (6) olive (dark); (7) pale blue, and (8) dark blue.

As every embroideress knows, colour in embroidery is very much influenced by texture. The colour of a skein of silk looking different from the same colour when worked. Juxtaposition with other colours, again, alters the effect of a colour. As a general principle, especially where many colours are employed, we are more likely to secure harmony if we choose reds, for instance, inclining to orange, blues inclining to green, yellows inclining to green or brown, blacks of a greenish or olive tone. Perfectly frank and pure colours, however, may be harmonized, especially with the use of gold, though they are more difficult to deal with--unless one can command the natural, primitive instinct of the Hungarian, the Greek, or the Persian peasant.

For bold decorative work few kinds of embroidery design are more delightful than the bordered cloths and covers from Bokhara. Here, again, the colours are chiefly red and green in different shades, the reds concentrated in the form of big flowers in the intervals of an open arabesque of thin stems and curved and pointed leaves in green, the whole design upon a white linen ground.

Such joyful, frank, and bold colour, however, would be usually considered too bright for the ordinary English interior, and under our gray skies; and colour, after all, is so much a question of climate, and though for its full splendour we turn to the south and east, we need not want for models of beautiful, if quieter, harmonies in the natural tints of our native country at different seasons of the year. There are abundant suggestions to be had from field and hedgerow at all times--arrangements in russet, or gold, or green. What can be more beautiful as a colour motive than the frail pink or white of the blossoms of the briar rose, starring the green arabesque of thorny stem and leaf; or its scarlet hip and bronze green leaf in the autumn; or the crisp, white pattern of the field daisy on the pale green of the hay field, relieved by the yellow centres and by the red of sorrel; or the brave scarlet of the poppy between the thin gold threads of the ripe corn. Then, too, there are beautiful schemes of colour to be found in the plumage of our birds. Take the colours of a jay, for instance--a mass of fawn-coloured gray with a pinkish tinge, relieved with touches of intense black and white and small bars of turquoise blue and white. A charming scheme for an embroidered pattern might be made of such an arrangement, if the colours were used in similar proportions to those of nature--say in a costume.

The mainspring of colour suggestion, as of design, in embroidery, however, must be found in Nature's own embroidery--flowers, and the garden must always be an unfailing source of fresh suggestion for floral design both in colour and form. But, of course, everything in the process of adaptation to artistic purposes is under the necessity of translation or transformation, and any form or tint in nature must be re-stated in the terms proper to the art or craft under its own conditions and limitations as being essential to the character and beauty of the result, _suggestion_, rather than imitation of nature, being the principle to follow.

But while we must go to nature for fresh inspiration in colour invention or combination, we have a guide in the traditions and examples of the craft and the choice of stitches to influence our treatment.

The colour principles, too, we may find in allied arts may help us.