TAPESTRIES AND COSTUME.
TORD ROSEBERY'S happy thought, that a committee I 4 of the Royal Academy should meet to devise a national portrait costume, was apparently suggested by the contempla- tion of a picture of Lord Salisbury in the robes of a Chancellor of the University of Orford, one of the richest mediceval cos- tumes which still survive. Yet there is a certain timidity in the way in which Lord Rosebery approaches the subject ; and even the Chancellor's robes fail to suggest to his mind any higher ideal than a "neat and appropriate "—or, to quote his own words, a "chaste and interesting "—national official costume.
We wonder whether his ideas would have soared nearer to the magnificent had he attuned his mind to the greatness of his theme by an hour spent among the newly hung ancient tapestries of South Kensington, in place of seeking inspiration from modern portraiture at Burlington House. The gorgeous fabrics there displayed are justly celebrated as the finest examples of their kind, selected from the finest collection in the world. "Fine" they are also in another sense. These magnificent hangings record a feeling for the purely sumptuous,—an actual and daily realisation of the out- ward splendour of apparel, which is now as dead as the hands which wove them for Kings and Princes, in the Nay towns of Flanders. Take, for example, the three immense panels which cover the whole of one side of the hall from floor to ceiling. They represent three scenes in a triumph, such as the designer conceived a Roman triumph might have been from his knowledge of the splendours of the Courts of France, of Austria, or Spain. There is much more imagination in the tapestries than in any merely classical design, for the treatment is rich in allegory and the symbolism of passion,—the triumph of Chastity over Love, of Death over Chastity, of Fame over Death. But this side of the work is not what first strikes the eye. The didactic is wholly subor- dinated to the decorative, and its decoration is derived mainly not from any graces of composition, which are rightly neglected in the tapestry of the best era, as too teasing and solicitous, where the object is to dazzle by magnificence rather than to charm by symmetry; but from the amazing splendour of the costumes of the figures which crowd the web from frame to frame, and the sumptuous abundance of princely trea- sures, not elaborate creations of fancy, or specimens copied from antiquity, but depicted with a literal fidelity which could only arise from a habitual contemplation of the objects themselves in an age when sumptuousness was the form in which luxury found its highest expression. These three magnificent pieces were woven at Brussels, in 1507; and if any one will look into the crowd of figures and objects there represented, and compare these with the descriptions of the costumes to be worn by the happy knights and ladies in the Convent of Theleme, a very striking correspondence will be found between the sumptuous fancy which wrote the one and that which designed the other. In the tapestry, white horses and golden trappings, cupids, cherubs, niches, shrines, cupolas, candelabra, crowns, mitres, priests, kings, queens, maidens, palms, pillars, shields, canopies, columns, trumpets, angels, statues, chariots, are robed, cushioned, hung, wreathed, bedizened, glorified, by draperies so splendid, and textures so rare, as to match or exceed the glories of apparel in the Con- vent of the Thelemites. There, in the sumptuous imagina- tion of the author, the ladies "wore stockings of scarlet, crimson, or ingrained purple dye, having a list beautified with exquisite embroideries, and rare incisions of the cutter's art; their garters were of the colour of their bracelets, their shoes and slippers were of red, violet, or crimson velvet, pointed and jagged, like lobsters wattles. Next their smock they put on the kirtle of vasquin or pure silk camlet ; above that the taffety farthingale, of white, red, tawny, grey, or any other colour; above this taffety petticoat they had another of cloth, of tissue, or brocade, embroidered with fine gold, and interlaced with needlework, or, as they thought good and according to the disposition of the weather, they had upper coats of satin, damask, or velvet, and then either orange, tawny, ash-coloured, blue, yellow, red, crimson or white, and so forth. Their gowns, which corresponded to the seasons, were either of cloth of gold, frizzed with silver raised work, of red satin, covered with gold, of taffety, or of silk serge, silk camlet, velvet, cloth of silver, figured velvet, figured satin, tinselled or overcast with golden threads." The list of the ladies' dresses fills pages, and as for the men, their "gowns-were every whit as costly as the ladies', and no less beautiful." Now we venture to say that dresses of all the materials quoted, and of many which did not occur even to the memory of the author of " Gargantua," will be found represented in the "three triumphs," at South Kensington, with a sug- gestion of texture, material and raised ornament which seems to lose nothing in effect, though the only material
employed is wool, and the number of tints is not mul- tiplied into the infinite variety of shades used in the later work. No one who is familiar with the qualities of wool in the antique rugs of Asia, will wonder at the silky textures which can be represented by its surface. But the frank effects of gems, embossings, and embroideries pro- duced by the artifice of the craftsman in this simple material is indeed surprising. Pages hold trains apparently stiff with gold, yet worked in wooL Elephants wear housings representing of cream-coloured satin, quilted with gold, and set with gems. These jewelled housings of the elephants that draw the car of Fame are the lightest in tone of any portion of the tapestry, and the artist has apparently challenged criticism, in order to show the skill with which he has prepared to turn a difficulty into a triumph of his craft. Next to costume, the repre- sentation of animals is the joy of the old tapestry-weaver. Human faces and limbs are, in the best tapestry, flat and colourless, like the faces of early illuminations, treated by convention, and rightly so, because their pale tints can hardly be material for the splendour which is desired. But the furs and feathers of animals and birds, the pan- ther's skin, the tiger's stripes, the peacock's tail, and the python's scales, these are joyous subjects for the weaver's needle. In the last of the " triumphs " the chariot of Death is drawn by the ponderous and magnificent forms of teams of dark buffaloes, each with a ring of gold through its swarthy nostrils, and horns twisted like the narwhal's spear, while their massive hoofs trample on the crowns of prostrate Kings. Such work was the only complement with which art could match upon the walls the gorgeous costumes which thronged the presence-chamber, when the possibility of a mirror large enough to reflect more than a single figure of full size did not suggest itself even to the imagination of Rabelais. No wonder that Wolsey had a perfect passion for this splendid decora- tion, and filled his palace of Hampton Court with the finest " arras " in the world. "He had not been in possession of the manor for a year before he was in negotiation for its purchase wholesale ; in 1522 he bought at one bargain twenty-one complete sets, for as many rooms, consisting
of one hundred and thirty pieces." So writes Mr. Lane, the author of "The History of Hampton Court Palace;" and in so doing records a characteristic trait of that great Cardinal, the last possessor of the magnificent order of mind which this country has produced; for Charles II., though prodigal, scarcely attained to the magnificent, and in his patronage of the correct and rational architecture of Wren, indulged the latent predilection of his own neglected but decided bias towards scientific inquiry. Yet there is much in the ethical nature of tapestry which must appeal to the "man of taste" who survives in an age when the magni- ficent man is no more seen. The limits of the art are now well understood, and the futility of making a, textile picture, such as those for which Rafaelle designed his cartoons, and to which Gobelin work is devoted, is recognised. In the actual working of the "arms," there is an infinite possibility for individual fancy, and the musing sweetness imparted by leisurely and lingering fingers to the filling-in of the sketches of the designing hand. It is not the mere reproduction of the picture "which the conceited painter drew so proud," which makes the charm of tapestry. If in the woven history of Priam'a Troy—
"A. thousand lamentable objects there, In scorn of Nature, art gave lifeless life ; Many a dry drop seemed a weeping tear, Shed for the slaughtered husband by the wife ;
And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights, Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights," the art was the art of the weaver, not of the painter, as he who has eyes may see. Much, too, of the most ancient and beautiful tapestry must have been woman's contribution to the art of her time, since Penelope worked at her web ; and the facilities offered by the nature of the work for a touch of tenderness here, a thread of fancy there, must appeal irresistibly to tasteful feminine fingers. It is not only in reference to gorgeous costume that there is a place for tapestry, as the beauty of the ancient Norwegian sledge- cushions shows; and there is room to hope that not only the large and sumptuous fabrics of Mr. Morris, but the minor productions of feminine taste, may contribute to the revival of this sumptuous art. - •
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