Studio: international art (9.1897)

The Sampler

of praise. If you can draw inspiration direct from if he introduces a pointed arch. The Greek fret or
Nature, and within the limits of your craft, be it the Persian rose is as much one's own as the daisy
embroidery, metal work, or wood-inlay, express the or a wild snowdrop. If you want to make a pattern
essentials of natural forms within the more clumsy of daisies and do not discover any way to weave
and conventional method that craft allows, it is the them into your design except by a painful effort to
most worthy thing to be done. But if, and the imitate a water-colour study of the flower, would it
exception applies to all but one in a thousand, you not be best to forget the daisy and choose some of
can only imitate Nature foolishly and imperfectly, those forms which suggest flowers and foliage ? but
then it is far better to copy blindly and with pains- do not attempt to express botanical facts or pictorial
taking the best work of older hands—designs that impressions. In this sampler any one of its various
have proved their essential fitness, patterns that bands of ornament supplies an example to be
are really fine decoration, ornament that really copied; not this time adapted but imitated exactly,
beautifies the object to which it is applied. and yet the mechanical paraphrase will delight the
It is no proof of originality to imitate Mr. Voysey, eye of a true artist far more than many ambitious
or Mr. William Morris, to adapt a book-cover by efforts of the modern crewel-work and " art em-
Mr. Ricketts, or a wall-paper by Mr. Walter Crane broideries " to rival paintings by stitchings.
to some other purpose. True, it shows better taste The exquisite proportion of this sampler, the
to adapt fine work of the present da)' than to copy length being about three and a third times its
the publi-hed patterns of the fancy-work dealers, width, distinguishes it at a glance. It is unneces-
but also less reverence. The past is free and out sary here to repeat the oft-expressed advice that a
of copyright. No architect is accused of plagiarism parallelogram should always be formed of fractions

of squares ; not exactly two, or three, or four, but
an irregular repeat. In all human probability the
mathematical proportion of this particular panel

» % i fi Z&m&tf a i ft SiB if B B never entered into the mind of its designer any

:-y.'<:>■<?■(' vVv"yy •.. •. VvV more than it does in most cases to-day; but the

--—•-^ . . —~ ^~rr- lucky result proves instinct, and that is the greatest

ft ■ 2'X;ft.'C V j) \"? Ijj '.jL- gift of all. A good decorator does a thing, not by

-\gji^g^^ rule, but because it somehow pleases him most in

~T~7a---------------:----~~C---u—~~---~--~~— one sca^e' or to one proportion. This automatic

rt choice is often enough the one that betrays the

^yonder i Bright mark place real artist even if all else be inept and clumsily

i whence' u riftfn Began race -oo oo carried out.

^iyffXSXS'lT IT'S 17 * - A very beautiful sampler, upon which I cannot

WmtsA*>FmI ' " ?K & ^•f*. • decipher a date, is that shown on this page. There

G r c A *s one not dissimilar at South Kensington Museum

| | 11 1 F v ,. • , which is labelled " seventeenth century." The really

'■" % '• - • ' ^Kj beautiful repeating designs which run across it in

You!i ttow ■ to hit 0'\ <•--> o bands are obviously modelled from Oriental ex-

itjM*?&i .L.-f f.,. c, ^. *1 amples. One would not be surprised to discover

; fta» •■ ) lonp s fetch'd - Far , . ,

■vv£ ' >: both J ■-. old_■■,! vgr^ o ...oo <y> . j their prototypes in Eastern embroidery to-day. tor

v iffir £3 '^tV^vS^V- the patient East, when a masterpiece is achieved,

^jfi?:. .^fil'M / is satisfied to repeat it for generations, while we

^j^g^^^^f^^^*J^| '^S'^l^t |§|/I require a new one annually, and care little if it be

*V&W~■ •^Xr~~—"---— i better or worse than its predecessors so long as it

is novel. To me, I must confess, this sampler is
an object lesson which one cannot look upon with-
' rs out a sense of shame. There is hardly a single

needleworker to-day who would not rank her own
'j%>k- v-* ~"""^KOfSvT original (?) designs as more vital and personal than

f^X Y " V^IBJSTO^D an exact coP)7 °f tnese old patterns. In a visit lately

.;. . ;• '•']r?¥ r'' '•■ to a show of modern embroideries the well-inten-

W""£ " ' " " . B^/ tioned lady superintendent was aghast at the idea

that any one should be illustrated. "They are all
O .o entirely original," she said; " we pride ourselves on
that." Yet, with scarce an exception, they con-
sisted of sprays of jessamine, roses, violets, honey-
suckle, and the like, thrown "carelessly and
gracefully " askew, or dotted about in half-symme-
trical fashion.

anonymous sampler no date I employ the phrase " carelessly and gracefully "

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