Studio: international art (9.1897)

Hermann Obrisfs Embroidered Decorations

his art. His embroideries are copies of nothing, its production by manifold threads, as well as that
not even of nature, and although, as mere needle- peculiar subtlety of outline which is one of the
work, they surpass anything that has been ad- most fascinating characteristics of low relief. All
mired in the old embroideries, they do not stop these possibilities have been taken advantage of in
short there. He makes of embroidery a great de- Mr. Obrist's work. Skill in threading and weaving,
corative art, perhaps one of the greatest. A screen in varying the thickness of strand from the finest
of his, a wall decoration, a panel, a rug, or a chair, gossamer to the boldest cord, and the surfaces

from the smoothest plane of
glossy colour to the most
elaborate field of furrows and
cross furrows, is possessed by
his executant, Mdlle. Berthe
Ruchet, the director of his
Munich atelier. No means
by which light can be cun-
ningly ensnared in crossed
lines of thread or silk is un-
known to her, and together
they have not hesitated to
spend many months in ex-
perimenting to get the right
stitch for a particular design.
Not only the workers' indus-
try and ingenuity have been
constantly taxed—this is not
unfamiliar to us — but a
genuine artist's creative taste
—and this is the surprise !—
has been active in the choice
of every detail of handling.

While matters of mere dex-
terity and skill which, laud-
able as they are, call for
nothing more than patience
and ingenuity, are familiar to
us in a thousand forms, and
excessively boring, except to
those who practise the art,
the question of what Mr.
Obrist has succeeded in mak-
ing of needlework is of great

DETAIL OF " DRAGON FLY ' HANGING, DESIGNED BY HERMANN OBRIST interest tO US who do not in-

EXECUTED BY BERTHA RUCHET t£nd tQ hig WQrk but

merely to enjoy it. He has

is not merely a pattern, like any other, that happens raised it from paltry ornament to important de-

to be embroidered, but something that could only coration. Instead of giving us meaningless patterns

be done in embroidery. For in no other form of mechanically applied, without regard to anything

art is there the same opportunity for getting relief except the size and shape of the space to be covered,

combined with the most subtle variations of texture instead of giving us bad substitutes for easel pictures,

and colour. With the needle, touches of gold and he has always borne in mind the principle, undeni-

silver thread can be introduced that will make a able but generally held platonically, that decoration

given line or surface live afresh at every point, is meant to decorate something. He has seen that

while the modelling of the stitches can give all that embroidery, like any other decorative art, must

shimmer of colour that comes from relief and from extract and present to us the significance of the

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