Drapery (textile)

“ In the same manner as the historical painter never enters into the detail of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions with minute attention to the discriminations of drapery. It is the inferior style that marks the variety of stuffs. With him the clothing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor silk, satin, or velvet: it is drapery; it is nothing more. The art of disposing the foldings of the drapery makes a very considerable part of the painter's study. To make it merely natural is a mechanical operation, to which neither genius nor taste are required ”

“ It will readily be understood that the natural foldings of drapery, possessing in themselves so much variety and interest, when thrown over a form so beautifully proportioned as is the human figure, gave the utmost grace of line and form, and this fact makes it all the more surprising that the natural foldings of drapery are not taken greater advantage of in modern dress. The peplum was often diapered with sprigs, spots, stars, or other patternings, and was occasionally richly bordered. ”

“ The whole of the drapery is in the most finished style, and the ease and softness of the folds are an admirable proof of the delicate chiselling of the artist. He has shown his natural and pure taste in the manner in which he has placed the feet. The entire position of the figure is faultless; and it represents, with refined fidelity to nature, the female infant form, patiently and slowly perishing beneath the steady undermining progress of irresistible decay. ”

“ The same tendency is observable in the drawing of drapery. The drapery of the thirteenth century 144 was entirely conventional in the method in which it was drawn, but it was always in movement and helped the action of the figures. Fourteenth century drapery, on the other hand, is always at rest, or at most sweeping with the slow movement of a figure, but its folds are drawn in a much more advanced manner than before, and seem to bear evidence of a certain amount of direct study of actual drapery, either on the part of the artist or of those whom he was following. ”

“ Pure ornament, like pure language, should be simple in its construction and expression, clear in its meaning, with just sufficient embellishment about it to interest the imagination, leaving the intention honestly revealed to the passing glance. The truest lines of grace are the plainest; the most majestic designs are those freest from detail; the greatest charm about the disposal of drapery is in the fewest folds, big folds, falling straight; the best dressed men or women are those costumed the quietest. ”

“ He has done what the sculptor or painter of the great periods of art used to do with their historical and scriptural people—he has put them in the dress of his own time and place; and it is impossible to deny him a convincing logic. No sophistry or convention of drapery in the scene could have conveyed its pathos half so well, or indeed at all. It does make you shudder, I allow; it sets your teeth on edge; but then, if you are a real man or woman, it brings the lump into your throat; the smile fails from your lip; you pay the tribute of genuine pity and awe. ”

“ The shape varies with the fancy of the artist; it is a small vase, a casket, a box, a cup with a cover; more or less ornamented, more or less graceful in form; but always there—the symbol at once of her conversion and her love, and so peculiar that it can leave no doubt of her identity.
Her drapery in the ancient pictures is usually red, to express the fervour of her love; in modern representations, and where she figures as penitent, it is either blue or violet; violet, the colour of mourning and penitence—blue, the colour of constancy. ”

“ The moderns, since the epoch of Raphael and his school, seem to have forgot that drapery participates of Grace, by their giving the preference to heavy garments, which might not improperly be called the wrappers of ignorance in beauty: for a thick large-folded drapery may spare the artists the pains of tracing the Contour under it, as the ancients did. ”

“ FRENCH FESTOON DRAPERY
The art of draping is nearly as old as is the manufacture of fabrics. And artists and craftsmen of all ages have taxed their ingenuity to produce ideas unique, original, out of the ordinary—with varied success. Of the myriad of designs and treatments thus produced some of the more pleasing have stood the test of time.
One of the survivors is that generally known as “French festoon drapery,” which, by reason of its voluminous pleats and scallops, presents a showy appearance in almost any class of fabrics. ”

“ A little judicious advice along the line of superabundant decoration is sometimes profitably and kindly received, but the man who presumes to so advise must do so only upon invitation and with the utmost tact. In a great many cases, however, the mantel drapery is still an artistic necessity, and we give herewith a few styles and methods of modern treatments. Figure 30 is a flat-covered buckram pelmet, having a scalloped bottom, and a series of apertures through which a light-weight drapery is arranged in regular festoons. ”

“ To marry your daughters to good drapers, send your sons to be drapers in other towns of France furnished with these wise precepts, and to bring them up to the honour of drapery, and without leaving any dream of ambition in their minds. A draper like a Tournebouche should be their glory, their arms, their name, their motto, their life. Thus by being always drapers, they will be always Tournebouches, and rub on like the good little insects, who, once lodged in the beam, made their dens, and go on with security to the end of their ball of thread. ”

“ This voluminous drapery is of gold- bordered muslin in warm weather, at other seasons a long, straight piece of silk or satin wondrously coloured and exquisitely embroidered. It is wound round and round the body, outlining it tightly at the back, and hanging in straight folds in front, each evolution being accomplished in pleats, to attain sufficient fulness ”

“ Graces and Muses in their perfectness of marbled beauty—what are they to faith, hope, and charity, and the veiled virtues that like our angels shroud themselves? When these became subjects for our Christian art, then was true expression first invented in drapery. "Christian and legendary art" is not denied the nude; but no other has so made drapery a living, speaking poetry. There is a dignity, a grace, a sweetness, in the drapery of mediæval sculpture, that equally commands our admiration, and more our reverence and our love, than ancient statues, draped or nude. ”

“ Fig. 34 is the most usual arrangement of this type of drapery, but in looking at Plate XIII. closely it will be seen that the modern drawing (Fig. 37) is a more exact rendering. This drawing is from a draping of the same shawl as Fig. 34 is wearing, but the fold-over is somewhat deeper, the point e is tied closely to waist belt, and the drapery is rolled at waist while it is being adjusted. When worn thus, with a roll, the drapery will remain in position without the waist cord being tied over it, but it is more secure when it has been thus confined. Fig. ”

“ Even the Graces have arms and shoulders and calves and stomachs all at random; and the most beautiful of them has a slice missing out of her head. But if, instead of looking at heads, arms, legs, bodies, separately, and separate from the drapery, we follow the outline of the groups against the background, drapery clinging or wreathing, arms intertwining, hands combed out into wonderful fingers; if we regard these groups of figures as a pattern stencilled on the background, we recognise that no pattern could be more exquisite in its variety of broken up and harmonised lines. ”

“ Most any type of top finish, shirring or pleats is suitable. A plain valance or cornice board may be used. For a pleated heading, allow 51⁄2′′ at the top for heading and 51⁄2′′ at the bottom for a 21⁄2′′ double hem. Cut strips of crinoline or lawn for stiffening 4′′ wide and 3′′ shorter than the width of each drapery length. Pin strip to underside of heading 1⁄2′′ from the top, starting 11⁄2′′ from the edge. Stitch along lower edge of strip, then turn top edge of fabric over stiffening 1⁄2′′ and stitch. Turn top hem to underside along edge of stiffening. ”

“ Pin lining to hem across the top and slip-stitch. Turn hem in lining and stitch. Allowance should be made for a 2′′ hem, overlapping the hem in drapery approximately 1′′. Use french tacks between lining hem and drapery to hold lining in place. Use either ‘sew-on’ or ‘pin-on’ weight at bottom of side hems.
When lining is machine stitched to drapery, tack seam to interlining.
French tacks hold drapery and lining together.
26 Measuring for Pleats
The use of pleats is one of the most effective ways of controlling the fullness of a drapery that is made to hang in balanced, graceful folds. ”

“ ALL draperies that are not regularly cut and made, according to some design, but depend for their appearance entirely on the way in which the fabric is put up, are classed under the heading scarf draperies. They are at best but an imitation of the cut festoon drapery, and for anything permanent much better satisfaction is obtained by the use of fabric properly cut and made up. ”

“ She should have made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit endlessly to painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter; because the cold decorum of the marble would consist with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely be gladdened with her material perfection in its entireness. ”

“ Their clothing, or rather drapery, is a mystery, for it covers and drapes perfectly, yet has no make, far less fit, and leaves every graceful movement unimpeded. It seems to consist of ten wide yards of soft white muslin or soft red material, so ingeniously disposed as to drape the bust and lower limbs, and form a girdle at the same time. One shoulder and arm are usually left bare. The part which may be called a petticoat—though the word is a slur upon the graceful drapery—is short, and shows the finely turned ankles, high insteps, and small feet. These women are tall, and straight as arrows ”

“ The background is never more than a few gloomy masses of rock, with a tree or two, and perhaps a fountain; the architecture is merely what is necessary to explain the scene; the dresses are painted sternly on the "heroic" principle of Sir Joshua Reynolds—that drapery is to be "drapery, and nothing more,"—there is no silk, nor velvet, nor distinguishable material of any kind: the whole power of the picture is rested on the three simple essentials of painting—pure Colour, noble Form, noble Thought. ”

“ The sculptors of the fifteenth century did not find it so easy to make drapery look purely natural, and we are often confronted by cases where they failed in this respect. It arose partly from a belief that drapery was nothing more than an accessory, partly also from their ignorance of what was so fully realised by the Greeks, that there can be very little grace in a draped figure unless there are the elements of beauty below. ”

“ Pass on to the drapery, and wash in broadly the principal shadows with a still larger brush. It will be effective to preserve the white of the porcelain or china for the lights of the draperies. In the first painting, spirits of lavender are used, so that the color may dry less quickly. You must not be afraid to paint the drapery with large strokes of the brush, the effect is all the better for it. Above all, let there be no harsh or dry marks; in painting there are no marks, but shadows and lights. ”

“ The drapery over the bust is full, and is sometimes confined at the waist by a belt; at others it is suffered to hang loosely until it meets the broad, sash-like girdle which encircles the hips, and which hangs so loosely that the hands are rested in its folds as in a pocket.
The drapery generally terminates at the throat, under a necklace of coins or jewels. The most usual form of head-dress is a veil so voluminous as to cover the head and shoulders; one end of the veil is frequently thrown over the shoulder, or gathered into a knot behind. ”

“ The Greeks used drapery in sculpture for the most part as an ugly necessity, but availed themselves of it gladly in all representation of action, exaggerating the arrangements of it which express lightness in the material, and follow gesture in the person. The Christian sculptors, caring little for the body, or disliking it, and depending exclusively on the countenance, received drapery at first contentedly as a veil, but soon perceived a capacity of expression in it which the Greek had not seen or had despised. ”

“ The legs of those which are to be clothed in flowing drapery need, of course, not be indicated at all, and the roughest approximation to nature in the attitudes is all that is necessary, provided effect only is wanted. Of course, if you wish to study drapery from your small figures, you will have to elaborate them with greater care, and probably have to make them larger than would be convenient for the other purpose. ”

“ The draperies of all the other figures are painted, either terra-cotta or wood, but with these two they are real, being painted linen or calico, dipped in thin mortar or plaster of Paris, and real drapery always means that the figure has had something done to it. The armour, where armour shows, is not quite of the same pattern as that painted on the other figures, nor is it of the same make ”