Embroidery Definitions — definitions of embroidery techniques, stitches and needlework terms from Apparel Search
Art needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement. William Morris is credited with resurrecting freehand surface embroidery based on English styles of the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century, emphasizing delicate shading in satin stitch with silk thread and a number of novelty stitches, in sharp contrast with the counted-thread Berlin wool work craze that preceded it.
Art needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Artist and designer William Morris is credited with the resurrection of the techniques of freehand surface embroidery based on English embroidery styles of the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century, developing the retro-style which would be termed art needlework. Art needlework emphasized delicate shading in satin stitch with silk thread accompanied by a number of novelty stitches, in sharp contrast with the counted-thread technique of the brightly colored Berlin wool work needlepoint craze of the mid-nineteenth century.
In embroidery as in other crafts, Morris was anxious to encourage self-expression via handcrafts. His shop Morris & Co. sold both finished custom embroideries and kits in the new style, along with vegetable dyed silks in which to work them. Art needlework was considered an appropriate style for decorating artistic dress.
The Royal School of Art Needlework (now Royal School of Needlework) was founded as a charity in 1872 under the patronage of Princess Helena to provide apprenticeships in the new/old style. Morris's daughter May, an accomplished needlewoman and designer in her own right, was active in the School from its inception.
Art needlework was introduced to America at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
Katharine A. Lochnan, Douglas E. Schoenherr, and Carole Silver (eds.) (1996). The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by William Morris and His Circle from Canadian Collections. Key Porter Books. ISBN 1-55013-450-7. Todd, Pamela (2001). Pre-Raphaelites at Home. Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 0-8230-4285-5.
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The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/art_needlework). 9/5/06 |
Art needlework only makes sense as a reaction. By the 1860s the dominant domestic embroidery was Berlin wool work: wool on canvas, copied from printed charts, in colors made newly vivid by modern dyes. Arts and Crafts reformers saw competent copying where they wanted art. The revival Morris led reached back past the chart to the freehand surface work of medieval and early modern England — designs drawn on the cloth, shaded like paintings in silk, and interpreted by the stitcher as she worked. Self-expression was the stated aim: the same kit could, and should, come out differently in different hands. That is why the movement sold materials as much as finished goods — vegetable-dyed silks in muted, graduated shades were themselves an argument about what color in needlework should be.
The movement also carried a social program. The Royal School of Art Needlework was founded as a charity to give women paid apprenticeships and a respectable trade, and art needlework was considered an appropriate decoration for artistic dress — the loose, medieval-influenced garments worn in reform circles, where hand embroidery signaled rejection of machine-made fashion. Its appearance at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia carried the style to America, where needlework societies took it up on the same terms: historic technique, natural dyes, and the maker's judgment valued over the pattern publisher's chart. Modern free embroidery descends directly from this settlement — the design on the cloth, the shading in the stitcher's hands.
The technical signature of art needlework was long-and-short shading in satin stitch: rows of silk in graduated, vegetable-dyed tones blended until a petal or a bird's breast modelled itself in thread the way a watercolor models in washes. That painterly aim separated it from both counted work, where color changes fall on grid lines, and Berlin work, where shading was copied from a publisher's chart. The stitcher mixed tones at the needle, which is why the movement's teachers treated embroidery as a fine art to be studied, not a pattern to be completed.
Artist and designer William Morris is credited with resurrecting freehand surface embroidery techniques from medieval through eighteenth-century English work. Morris and Co. sold finished custom embroideries and kits in the new style, along with vegetable-dyed silks to work them in.
Berlin wool work was counted-thread work in brightly colored wool, copied square by square from charted patterns. Art needlework was freehand surface embroidery emphasizing delicate shading in satin stitch with silk thread and novelty stitches, and it encouraged self-expression through handcraft rather than exact copying.
The Royal School of Art Needlework, now the Royal School of Needlework, was founded as a charity in 1872 under the patronage of Princess Helena to provide apprenticeships in the new style. Morris's daughter May, an accomplished needlewoman and designer, was active in the school from its inception.