John Henry Middleton

“ In some respects the use of burnt clay for sculpture has great advantages over that of marble: the soft clay is easily and rapidly moulded into form while the sculptor's thought is fresh in his mind, and thus terra-cottas often possess a spirit and vigour which can hardly be reproduced in the laboriously finished marble. These qualities are specially remarkable in the best works of the Delia Robbia family (see Robbia) . In the 16th century a more realistic style was introduced, and this was heightened by the custom of painting the figures in oil colours. ”

“ A large number of examples of these beautiful fabrics still exist, showing an immense variety of designs, all of which are imagined with the highest decorative skill, perfect master pieces of textile art, combining freedom of invention and grace of drawing with that slight amount of mechanical stiffness which is specially suited to the requirements of the loom. One of the earliest existing specimens, which shows the existence of the fabrique before the time of Roger I., is a piece of silk stuff in which the body of St Cuthbert at Durham was wrapped when his relics were translated in 1104 ”

“ In ancient times, especially among the Greeks and Romans, terra cotta was employed for an immense variety of purposes, from the commonest objects of everyday use to the most elaborate and ambitious works of art, such as colossal statues and groups. ”

“ Tapestry.The making of tapestry (Gk. TOOTHS) , like the weaving of pile carpets, differs from ordinary fabric in that no visible weft is thrown completely across the loom, but the design is formed by short stitches knotted across the warp with a wooden needle called a broach. It is a sort of link between textile work and embroidery, from which it differs in having its stitches applied, not to a finished web, but to the stretched strings of a warp. [21] It is made on a high loom, and the whole process, though requiring much skill, is mechanically of the simplest kind. ”

“ Any want of truth in the lines of a long cornice becomes painfully apparent, and each moulded block of a door or window-jamb must fit accurately on to the next one, or else the line of moulding becomes broken and irregular. Terra-cotta is now made of many different colours, a rich red and a warm ochre or cream colour being the most pleasant to the eye. In order to avoid defects it is necessary that the clay should contain a large proportion of powdered silica, and that the whole mass should be thoroughly homogeneous. ”

“ There the arts of ancient Greece and of old Rome met and were fused with the artistic notions of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Asia Minor, and this combination produced a fresh and very active art spirit, which for many centuries dominated the whole civilized world. As regards weaving, this new development was strengthened by the introduction of silk into Europe in the reign of- Justinian, and many specimens of early silk fabrics have lasted down to the present time, partly through their being safe against moths. ”

“ A favourite subject is taken from a game in which one girl carries her playmate on her back, a motive which, though difficult to treat in sculpture, is managed very gracefully in terra-cotta. Other very lovely groups are Aphrodite suckling the baby Eros, or with more than one cupid hovering round her. ”

“ In the 16th century the art began to decline; very slight symptoms of decadence are visible in the beautiful tapestries with Petrarch's Triumphs in the South Kensington Museum,— most gorgeous pieces of textile art, of the richest decorative effect. These were worked very soon after 1500 (see fig. 10) . The influence of Raphael and his school succeeded that of the 15th-century Flemish painters, and was utterly destructive of true art value in tapestry. ”

“ The disadvantages of tempera painting are that it will not bear exposure to the weather; the pigments merely lie on the surface and do not sink into the stucco, as is the case with true fresco pigments; moreover, the medium used, being soluble in water, will not stand the rain. Its advantages are that the painter can work at leisure, and can also transfer or sketch his whole design on the dry finished surface ”

“ In those rare cases where want of money prevented the application of colour the stone-work of the interior received the coat of white, so that at any future time the colouring might be added, and also because the feeling of the Middle Ages evidently was that bare stone inside a building had an unfinished and uncomfortable look, [5] and was quite as unsuitable in a richly decorated and furnished cathedral as it would now be considered in a lady’s drawing-room. ”

“ Greek figures and reliefs.No branch of archaeology has during the last dozen years or so developed so rapidly as that of Greek terra-cotta figures; on this most fascinating subject an astonishingly large mass of literature has been published in Germany and France. [2] The discovery of this new world of Greek art began practically in 1873, with the first excavations in the tombs of Tanagra, a Bœotian town on the high road from Athens to the north, which brought to light a number of very beautiful terra-cotta statuettes. ”

“ The tombs Tanagra of Tanagra have yielded by far the richest finds of these statu- figures, the specimens being very remarkable for their es> beauty. These exquisite statuettes do not (in most cases) represent deities or heroic personages, but the homely every-day life of the Greeks, treated with great simplicity and evident realism: they are in plastic art what in painting would be called genre, [6] and in their strong human interest and naturalistic pathos bring us in closer contact with the life and personalities of the past than any more ambitious style of art could possibly do. ”

“ Britain, the Romans often roofed their buildings with stone tiles, fastened with iron nails. Fig. 3, B, shows an example from a Roman villa at Fifehead Neville in Dorset, England. Each slab had a lap of about 2 inches over the row of tiles below it; many large iron nails were found with these stone tiles. In a few cases, in the most magni ficent temples of ancient Rome, as in those of Capitoline Jupiter and of Venus and Rome, and also the small circular temple of Vesta, 2 tiles of thickly gilded bronze were used, which must have had the most magnificent effect. ”

“ Strong marks of Oriental influence are visible in these fine patterns, but the method of weaving is purely native, probably very like what the edicts of Louis IX. call "tapisserie nostrez." Very beautiful fabrics are still produced in India, old designs being followed, and woven in the simplest form of loom. Fig. 8 shows an example of a modern Indian loom used by the hill weavers. In such looms the richest materials, such as gold and silk, and the most elaborate patterns are woven, often by travelling weavers who can set up their whole apparatus in a very short time. ”

“ The common kinds are made wherever good clay exists. In some places pan-tiles are still used and have a very picturesque effect; but they are liable to let in the rain, as they cannot be securely nailed or well bedded in mortar. In Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, and other counties of England, stone tiles are still employed, but are rapidly going out of use, as they require very strong roof-timbers to support them, and the great extension of railways has made the common purple slates cheap in nearly every district. ”

“ Terra-cotta jewellery.In addition to statuettes and reliefs, terra-cotta was used by the Greeks for various minor ornamental pur poses. Delicately moulded necklaces and pendants for ears were stamped out in clay and then thickly covered with gold leaf; this produced a very rich effect at a small cost; many fine examples are preserved in the Louvre. Children's toys, such as miniature horses and chariots, and dolls with movable limbs of terra-cotta fastened with wooden pegs, occur in many tombs. ”

“ The most important application of terra-cotta in mediaeval Italy was to statuary—reliefs, busts, and even groups of many life-sized figures—during the 15th and 16th centuries. Much of the Florentine terra-cotta sculpture of the 15th century is among the most beautiful plastic work the world has ever seen, especially that by Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello, and the sculptors of the next generation. [18] For life, spirit, and realistic truth, combined with sculpturesque breadth these pieces are masterpieces of invention and manipulation. ”

“ Since then there has been a distinct degradation of style, though in many cases older patterns have been worked from and very perfect work produced. At the present day the influence of European taste is rapidly destroying this survival of the best class of design, and especially is introducing the most harsh and discordant colouring in place of the glorious rich hues of the earlier Oriental weavers. ”

“ Modern.Of late years terra-cotta for architectural purposes has been employed for some very important buildings in London, such as the natural history museum at South Kensington, the Albert Hall, and the front of the other museum in the Exhibition Road. The durability of well-fired clay, its dense texture, pleasant colour, and smooth surface make it specially suitable to an atmosphere laden with acids and soot as is that of London. The surface resists decomposition, and affords little hold to the minute particles of carbon. ”

“ Mediaeval low-warp loom, from a cut by Jost Amman; middle of the l6th century.
Wool appears to have been the first substance used, as no skill is required to prepare it for spinning. Weaving was specially the duty of women, and even in the Middle Ages in Europe it was, in some countries, considered a specially feminine employment. [9] An early Christian sarcophagus in the Lateran has a symbolical relief representing God condemning the future world to labour, tillage for the man and weaving for the woman: He gives ears of corn to Adam and a sheep to Eve. ”

“ Modern satin usually has its weft looped in less closely satin of eight or ten. English. Although throughout the Middle Ages the finer stuffs used in England were to a great extent the product of foreign looms, there was no lack of native textiles, many of which were of great beauty. In the use of the needle the women of England were especially skilful, and rich English embroideries were much exported, even into Italy, from the 12th to the 14th century, 5 and were esteemed more highly than the productions of any other country. ”

“ Their immense number shows that they must have been far from costly, within the reach of every one, and certainly not the production of any famous sculptors. Nevertheless, sketchy as they are in treatment and often faulty in detail, they are in pose, in motive, and in general effect works of the highest beauty, full of the most inimitable grace, and evidently the production of men in whom the best qualities of the sculptor were innate by a sort of natural birthright. ”

“ In a chequered cloth the warp was made of two-coloured threads stretched in successive bands, and the cross stripes of the weft were woven in by the two shuttles. To form a more complicated pattern the weft must not cross the warp alternately: the design is formed by either the warp or the weft predominating on the surface in certain places. In all cases each thread of the weft must be driven home to its place after each stroke of the shuttle. ”

“ Collections.The most important public collections are in the Louvre, the British Museum, the museums of Berlin and Athens, and a few fine specimens exist in the South Kensington Museum. The splendid Sabouroff collection is now in the Hermitage Palace at St Petersburg. Many museums in Italy—such as those at Florence, Perugia, Capua, Rome, and other places—contain many examples from Etruria and Magna Grsecia. A large number of the finest of the Tanagra figures and the like are in private hands ”

“ The great improvements which have been made in the manufacture of terra-cotta will probably lead to its more extensive use. The great difficulty is to retain the sharpness of impression given by the mould, and above all to avoid the uneven shrinkage and warping which is so liable to take place when it is fired in large pieces. ”

“ Recent excavations in the tombs of Corinth have produced a large number of fine terra cottas, ranging in date over a very long period. Tarentine busts.Another and artistically very perfect class of figures is being dug up from among the tombs of Tarentum. Some of these belong to the finest period of Greek art, probably about 400 B.C., and others are even earlier. Many are not statuettes, but merely small busts of heroic style, and of the highest sculpturesque beauty. They are certainly not portraits, and do not appear to repre sent deities. ”

“ In the upper and thinner part of the wall two narrow passages at different levels are formed in its thickness. They are roofed by projecting courses of stone in large blocks. The wall on the east side has a similar intermediate platform, on to which open a series of small chambers formed in the mass of the upper wall (see fig. 2) . At the top level the wall was covered by a colonnade of wood pillars resting on circular stone blocks. This supported a flat roof and was open to the inside of the city. ”

“ In most cases the terra-cotta figures and reliefs occur in or close by tombs, but it is only in comparatively rare instances that the subjects represented have any reference to death. Another large class have been found in the vicinity of temples, and are probably votive offerings, such as the small statuettes of horses from the acropolis of Athens, now in the Louvre. ”