Studio: international art (9.1897)

Hermann Obrisfs Embroidered Decorations

ME

embroidery, designed by hermann obrist executed by bertha ruchet

dental details which have nothing on earth to do with Transfiguration at St. Peter's is the art of
art, and are mere questions of dexterity or novelty. mosaic.

Stitch, stitch, and nothing but stitch, was the only But such has not been Mr. Obrist's conception of
thing ever heard about when
embroidery was discussed.
As to invention, it never oc-
curred to them. Most of
them got their inventions
ready made, while the few
who had originality, copied
flowers or grasses, the works
of the old masters, or even
of the new ones. For all
these reasons, of course, em-
broidery among us, even

when it has risen above

mere "fancy work," has

never become a genuine art;

for it may be set down as an

axiom that nothing which

merely reproduces an exist-
ing art form is by itself an

art. The reproduction of

mere pictures in embroidery,

whether done at the com-
mand and after the cartoons

of Botticelli, or of Sir E.

Burne-jones, can no more

be the art of embroidery,

than the exact repro-

duction of Raphael's embroidery, designed by Hermann obrist executed by bertha ruchet

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