The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-05-26
TAPESTRY.
WHAT 1T is AND WHO MADE IT.

WHAT 1T is AND WHO MADE IT.
The mention of the word "tapestry" is
! apt to induce thoughts and reflections OF
various character. By skips and bounds
| the mind travels from the web of Penelope
| to that marvellous record of the Norman
conquest, written in the tapestry of Fayeux,
to the products of the looms of Flanders
and Spain, of ancient and modern France.
A history of tapestry would be history
of the northern world, of the regions
where draughts and chills deprive ex-
| istence of hafits pleasures. A little con
sideratioa will tell US that long before the
invention of oil painting gloomy Norman
castles were not only made comparatively
warm-they could never have been very
cosey-to the body, but also cheerful to the
eye, by the rich and costly hangipgs which
concealed the cod gray walls. AS art ad-
vanced, the tapestry work advanced to
bold representations of the battle and the
hunting field, and less exhilarating delinea-
tions of the martyrdoms of saints. At the
enaissance, tapestry became, as every
body knowe, the vehicle for the inspira-
tiops of the greatest artists, the mytholog
ical contended with devotional subjects, on
the walls of the richly ornamented palaces
which succeeded the grim fortalices of the
Middle Ages. In later days, knights and
bowmen, saints and martyrs, huntsmen
and falconers, faded from the woven walls,
the place being taken by the ideal shep-
herds and shepherdesses of Vatican, Ian
cret and Boucher, with their crooks bound
with roses and their she ep decked with
ribbons until, had it not been for the
manufactures of Gobelins and Aubussop,
tapestry would have disappeared altogeth-
er as living expression of art. There is,
however, abundant evidence of the various
periods of tapestry still extant. When it's
apparent destructibility is considered it is
wonderful to see how much has survived
fire and the slower but certain ravages of
damp. The country homes of England
alone contain mine of tapestry, often
sadly faded, but full ofin terest. The long,
low rooms of Hay don, and the sunny and
breezy halls of Hardwick, are rich in
tapestry, much of which is still in good
preservation and immense quantities lie
hid away in disused rooms and lumber
closets. It must be confessed that, how
ever rich in color when of only moderate
age, tapestry, when old and faded, hardly
conduces to the liveliness of the rooms it
adorns. The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,
for instance, fayorite subject, is not
joyful repose for eyes just opening to a
wintry dawn and the tall, pale figures in
a Judgment of Solomon, or group of
Apollo f1sying Marsyas, are not likely to
beget pleasant dreams if watched from the
recesses of a vast four poster by the
flickering light of dying fire.
Viewed from an industrial stand point,
tapestry making is apparently one of the
latest born of the textile arts, or at least
the latest imported from the East. Fabrics
woven in the ordinary way, and almost
every kind of needlewoIk, save lace max
ing, preceded tapestry work, which is
neither real weaving nor true embroidery,
but unites both processes into one, Though
wrought in a loom and upon warp
stretched out along it's frame, it has no long
woof thrown across those threads with a
shuttle or any like appliance, but it's weft
is made with many short threads, all
variously colored, and put in with kind
of bobbin. 1t is not em broidery, although
very much like it, for tapestry it not
worked upon web-having both warp
and woof-but itself con stitutes the fabric.
1t is not point lace making, for in this the
ground and the flowers are equally made
with needle. 1t is, in fact, process dis
tinct from that employed in all other tex
tile fabrics. 1t is very doubtful whether
it is of remote antiquity. Scriptural re-
work still, the Eastern orig gin of tapestry
is proved by the fact that the earliest
known specimens recorded in Western Eu-
rope are spoken of as Saracen work. From
the intidels the monks learned the art of
weaving tapestry-thc work retaining it's
generic title of Opus SaracenuE. Save in
the monasteries, tapestry weaving never
took any great hold upon the English
mind. 1t is true that recent authorities
incliae to the view that the Bayeux tapes
try was made in London in the reign of
Henry IL, and presented by that king to
the Cathedral of Bayeux, on it's rebuilding
after being destroyed by FIRE; but this
proves nothing, for the Bayeux fabric is
not tapestry at all, but embroidery, worked
upon coarse linen with a needle.-AH Tho
Year Round