Drapery

“ 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. ”

“ The masterly arrangement of the drapery and the exquisite finish make it one of the most celebrated ivories of the fourteenth century, but the old simplicity is quite gone, and the studied ease of the Virgin’s pose is chosen to give value to every line of drapery and figure. There is a feeling of movement in all her being, which, with the beautiful broken folds of the drapery has within it the germ of that restlessness which, rapidly increasing, became a painful fault in later Gothic sculpture. The colouring is very delicate, the pupils of the eyes are dark ”

“ When I consider the clouds stretched in stupendous masses across the sky, frowning with darkness, or glowing with downy light, or gilded with the rays of the setting sun, like the battlements of a city in the heavens, their grandeur appears thrown away on the meanness of my employment; the drapery is altogether too rich for such poor acting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The walls of the Church were covered with white draperies, to which were fastened wreaths and garlands and single sprays of flowers, a delicate ornamentation as old as ancient Rome and always used in the Penisola; and every pilaster was panelled from top to bottom with crimson damask trimmed with gold—those precious strips of drapery which the well-to-do families hoard from generation to generation and lend to the different Churches as required. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As showing gigantic power of hand, joined with utmost accuracy and rapidity, the folds of drapery under the breast of the Virgin are, perhaps, as marvelous a piece of work as could be found in any picture, of whatever time or master. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And then his arm supported the head with its long, uncoiling, heavy hair, and lifted the limbs, round which the drapery flowed like a pall on sculpture, till another man took the burden from him and went up to the house with his dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly beings and those of this world, he represents the former as clothed in draperies of the purest color, crowned with glories of burnished gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice of gesture, and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of treatment gives perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which the human mind is capable of forming. ”

“ On the other hand, when a sculptor does succeed in producing a draped figure which satisfies artistic taste, he has achieved much, and merits the highest praise. A drapery which has gracefully composed masses and flowing lines adds great dignity to the figure of a patriarch or a prophet, and there are numerous subjects, religious and monumental, in which a full, graceful drapery is requisite; but when, as is often the case, the sculptor is required to reproduce the actual costume of the day, what can we look for? ”

“ The drapery is simply disposed, and so arranged as to excite in the mind of the spectator the idea of a perfect symmetry of form, slightly veiled beneath its flowing folds. The features are strongly expressive of intelligence, mildness, and benevolence, and were peculiarly admired by Dr. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To arrange the drapery, dating sixth to fifth centuries B.C., on Fig. 41, take the corner b of Fig. 41A in the left hand, letting the rest of the drapery fall down the back, draw the edge b-a across the back, then under the right arm-pit across the chest, and throw the corner a upwards and over the left shoulder; a will hang down the back. It will be noted that this garment is weighted at the corners; this keeps it in position.
Fig. 42 is a modern drawing showing the garment in front view.{83}
Fig. ”

“ A light piece of drapery is thrown over him so that he is completely covered by it, and yet it is thin enough to be translucent, and it can be seen he has not gone down through the floor or ascended up through the ceiling. The audience is told the drapery prevents the sphere or influence or spell that surrounds him from being dissipated. He now begins and repeats, word for word, the sentences written upon any or all the slips of paper. Nothing can be more astonishing ”

“ On the drapery the utmost care is bestowed, and the sitter is invariably represented in the finest raiment he is entitled to wear, and equally invariably with fan in one hand and snuff-bottle in the other. ”

“ 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 drapery sweeps in broader, softer, but less true folds; the handling is far more delicate; exquisitely sensitive to gradation over broad surfaces—scarcely using an incision of any depth but in outline ”

“ What grace and dignity there is in Byzantine figure painting depends chiefly on the skilful treatment of the drapery with simple folds modelled in gracefully curving lines.
Livid flesh colour. The utmost splendour of gold and colour is lavished on this drapery, and on the backgrounds, border-frames and other accessories, while the colouring of the flesh, in faces, hands and feet, is commonly unpleasant; with, in many cases, an excessive use of green in the shadows, which gives an unhealthy look to the faces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this reason they often represent an illustrious person in a Roman habit, or in some other dress that never varies. I could wish, for the sake of my country friends, that there was such a kind of everlasting drapery to be made use of by all who live at a certain distance from the town, and that they would agree upon such fashions as should never be liable to changes and innovations. ”