Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/541

* COSTUME. 465 COSTUME. in dcsifjii, are yet inexpensive — they could be l>rodu(ed by any one wlio has a little skill in the use of the hands, and are, therefore, not a l)art of ceremonial or decorative costume. A few very boautiful weaves exist, as in the Solo- mon Islands, and especially in Xew Zealand, but still they are not of rare material, nor is the elaboration of the design very great. The skill in the working of metals which is great among the Indians of the continent is much smaller among the islanders, and so it happens that personal jewelry also is but little sought for by the chiefs. The result of all this is seen in the simple and tasteful use of natural pro- <luctions. brilliant flowers, and richly colored fruits and seeds, which, strung as necklaces or worn as pendants, have especial significance and are attached each in its way to the traditional ceremonies of these curiously civilized peoples. If now we turn to the race which of all peoples has had the most influence over modern intellectual life, we shall find that the Greeks of antiquitj' limited their desires in the wa}' of textile fabrics to very simple patterns, as of stars or round spots arranged in a seme over all the surface of a stufl', and in somewhat more elaborate patterns of zigzags and frieze in the borders. Their costume, including their jewelry, was, in fact. niar]<ed throughout by extreme sim- plicity, which increases as our studies bring us to a later time. The statues discovered on the Acropolis at Athens since 188.3 are certainly of the century before the Persian invasion of B.C. 480. They show a number of garments, certainly as many as three, worn one over the other by the priestesses represented in the statue : and each of these garments is made of a difl'erent stuff, all the stufTs, or all but the craped under- shirt (the chiton of later dress), covered with elaborate patterns in several colors. There is nowhere a more interesting study of brilliant coloring in costume than were these statues when first discovered, and, fortunately, the finest of them have been reproduced in water-color paint- ing, and these water-colors often multiplied in chromolithography, and published by the archae- ological societies. It is clear that, immediately after the Persian War, during the period of the Athenian hegemony in Greece, beginning with B.C. 477, the use of these' striped and spotted stuffs becomes much less common, at least in the mainland of Greece, and the use of plain mate- rials, white, bordered with stripes, or of one rather subdued color perhaps striped at the edge, becomes the rule. Those admirable bronze stat- ues which were discovered in the famous villa at Herculaneum and now stand in the Museum of Naples (the Room of the Greater Bronzes), show perfectly well — better th.an any bas-reliefs, however elaborately detailed — the true Greek sense of what was beauty in costume. The long chiton, which, left ungirdled. would sweep the floor, is belted up so far as to allow a foot or inore of its length to hang over the girdle out- side of the skirt or lower part, forming a sort of pocket, known as the Icolpos. Outside of this is seen hanging what looks like a cape, and which generally reaches just the line of the girdle, or may fall a little below it. This, however, is not a cape nor a separate garment at all: it is the reverse or turning over of the chiton at the top. Of the chiton there were several forms. The earliest was not sewn at all. and therefore left the right side, thigli and leg, exposed on the slightest movement. A later form was a sewii- up cylinder, a long shirt in the modern sense. The .stately maidens of the reliefs and the vase paintings often wear one of these two forms of cliiton, and nothing else. To sxich a dress, even on occasions of great ceremony, there is nothing to be added, e.xcept perhaps a more splendid brooch on the shoulder, a broader and more brightly colored border to the chiton, perhaps an armlet, perliaps richer and more glittering ear- rings. Splendor in the more modern sense was hardly desired, and beauty was shown in the perfect taste with which these simple ajipliances were disposed. Other garments, however, are seen in the sculptures and vase paintings: the Uiniation and a variety of it, the clilaniys. were square or oblong pieces of woolen cloth, draped about the left shoulder and covering the body more or less as it might be adjusted: it was held sometimes by brooches. Statues show a gjirment arranged nearly as the Scotch plaid is, at times folded long and narrow, falling over one shoulder and passing amund the waist; and this is thought to be a long and narrow himation. It is impossible to distinguish these garments from the epihlematu. The essential fact is that the Greeks, both women and men, wore a long shirt and a loose, square shawl over it, and nothing else on body or limbs. The Etruscans, a people as devoid of refined taste as the Greeks were remarkable for it. bold and dashing designers of the coarser and more thoughtless kind, were still not more elaborately clothed than the Greeks. The later Etruscan work passes by insensible gradations into that Italian work of the centuries during which the Roman Republic and the early Empire controlled the whole peninsula, and introduced insensibly its own strongly Hellenic tendencies into the arts of the subject coiuitries. The eti'ect of this on the art of northern Italy was altogether for- tunate, except in so far as the lover of strongly accentuated national peculiarities found reason to regret their partial disappearance. The terra-cotta sarcophagi, with high reliefs and with what are almost statues wrought upon the covers; the bronze statues and groups, the jewelry of the foiirth century B.C., and the fol- lowing epoch, are almost Greek in their charm, while preserving a certain attractive local color. It is probably because of this constantly increas- ing influence of the Grecian artistic sense upon all the nations of Italy that the Roman dress from the earliest times kno%ii to us remains Greek in its simplicity, although ver>' different in form. The tofia and its relations to the outer cloak of the Greeks is discussed under Dkess. Here there must be some mention of the different ways of wearing it. some of which were connected with ceremonial occasions. Thus, when a statue or a bas-relief shows a Roman draped in a large and elaborately folded toga, one fold of which is brought over the he.ad. he is assumed by modern students to be a person who is performing a sacrifice. The toga, as ordinarily worn, showed the tunica in front, from the throat nearly to the waist, but the long end could be thrown over the right shoulder so as to cover the tunica en- tirely, and in this way the toga would cover the whole person, from the neck to the ankles. Here, as among the Greeks, good taste dictated the utmost simplicity of effect, except in the mere