Studio: international art (28.1903)

Some Experiments in Embroidery

topsyturvydom of modern ideas on decorative work
which has turned the average house into a mere
shelter for " art treasures."

Probably the reason for the melancholy which
seizes one on entering a museum is largely due
to the fact that one sees there a collection of
objects divorced from their true use and function—
treasures which were once the necessary household
utensils of other days, and which were beautiful
mainly in their adaptability for their uses. In the
museum they are prisoned and doomed to idleness,
like able-bodied paupers in a workhouse of the arts.

In the matter of embroidery, then, let our aim
be to enrol the services of the needle in the great
task of the adornment of the house, and so we
shall find its first and most important use in the
decoration of the walls of the rooms we live in ;
and here the use of broad applique will at once
suggest itself. Or certain portions of the wall may
be reserved for such decoration, notably over the
fireplace, where the desirability of a rich back-
ground for ornaments may be noted. Next may
be considered the advisability of embroidery on
curtains, portieres, and screens. Less desirable is
decoration of this nature on such objects as
upholstered furniture, and such things should be
only so adorned in rooms which are for occasional

use or with patterns which are not easily soiled.
In the bedroom embroidery may be used in the
hangings and coverlet of the bed, and many smaller
objects of household use may be adorned with
needlework. Such are table covers, table centres,
d'oyleys, and the like. In apparel, again, there is a
limitless field for embroidery which can merely be
mentioned here.

Embroidery in the garden may seem absurd at
first; but much might be urged, if space allowed,
for the use of simple and broadly designed flags,
which in this cosmopolitan age need not, perhaps,
be merely national, but some personal and
individual symbol; and one may imagine the birth-
days, for instance, of the members of a family each
celebrated by the display of a particular and
personal flag ; while a further use for similar em-
broidery would be found in gay pavilions and tents.

STUDIO-TALK.

(From our own Correspondents.)

LONDON.—It is a truism, perhaps, yet one
which will well bear to be repeated, that,
to whatever heights an artist's ambition
may soar, he need not despise the having
undergone a mechanic's training and discipline as
the preliminary to his subsequent career. On the

" ECHO AND

284

NARCISSUS

BY RICHARD GARBE