Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving

Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving

Weaving, a most ancient art, naturally precedes embroidery, for this necessitates an already existing ground stuff, which is generally some kind of woven material. All varieties of weaving are done by one little-varied method, that of the weft passing to and fro in and out of the warp, and thus binding the whole into a fabric or web. The kind of weaving which demands from the worker the greatest artistic skill is that which produced the great masterpieces of Flanders, once known as Arras, from the town of that name, and now commonly called Gobelins tapestry, so[Pg 308] named from the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, at which establishment, founded over three hundred years ago, it is still produced. It is this kind of weaving that is now to be discussed, but without the least suggestion that the pupil should work upon a scale so large as is usually followed, though there is no reason against doing so if it is practicable. Tapestry weaving is so constantly associated with objects of large size, such as wall hangings, that it is scarcely realised as an art in this smaller way and as an alternative to embroidery. Yet it can be work of a most interesting kind even when produced in pieces only six inches square, as is well shown by existing specimens of the work of the weavers in Egypt who flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era. Examples of this work can be seen in many museums; they consist frequently of decorative panels of tapestry work inlaid in linen tunics and stuffs that have been used as grave clothes. These early Coptic examples are, like all tapestry, built up by interweaving various threads upon warp-strings stretched in close parallel lines. By varying the colour of the threads that are[Pg 309] thus manipulated upon the warp, patterns of any degree of complexity can be built up directly by hand, and without the assistance of any further mechanical contrivance. The peculiarity of this ancient weaving is that the patterns are frequently woven upon the warp-threads of some fabric, from which the weft either has been removed, or, what is perhaps more probable, been purposely left out when the material was made, to leave space for this decorative pattern weaving to be added to it. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 20386
Author: Christie, Grace
Release Date: Jan 16, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English