Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/37

* EMBROIDERY. 23 forms of decorated fabrics which they produced. The writings of Homer contain many descriptions of elaborate needlework. The embroidery of the later Greeks and Romans was largely copied from Oriental patterns, and never equaled the orig- inals in quality of workmanship. During the palmy days of the Roman Empire embroidery was developed to a pitch of the greatest elaboration ; and, being at once the most rapid and most showy, became the favorite method of ornamenting personal apparel. At Byzantium a distinct style of embroidery, as of most other arts, was created. With the fall of the Empire and the banishment of the gentler pursuits to monasteries and convents, embroidery became largely ecclesiastical in its designs and purposes. After the dawn of the seventeenth century embroidery once more became largely secular. The people of the Orient continue as in ancient times to excel in the art of embroidery. The Chinese are perhaps the most laborious and elaborate hand embroiderers of modern times; their best work is upon silk. The figures are either in colored silk alone or combined with gold and silver thread ; sometimes the figures of men, horses, dragons, and the like are outlined in gold cord and filled up with shaded silk. The Per- sians, Turks, and Hindus use, besides silk and gold and silver threads, beads, spangles, pearls, and precious stones. Some of the Oriental em- broideries include a still wider range of materials. Feathers are largely and very tastefully em- ployed, and also the skins of insects, the nails, claws, and teeth of animals ; nuts, pieces of fur, and skins of serpents are among the materials drawn upon. Coins, which are so commonly used as ornaments of the hair of unmarried women, are also worked into embroidery on their dresses. The Indian women embroider with their own hair and that of animals. The oldest embroideries among the civilized nations were executed in thread of cotton, wool, and linen. The use of silk was a later discovery, and was not known to the most ancient embroiderers. It is now con- sidered the material par excellence for effective work. The fineness of embroidery depends upon the fineness of the thread with which it is ex- ecuted. The linen thread used in some Egyptian embroidery was -v^^ of an inch in diameter. Revival of Decorative Needlework. With the revival of art which swept over England and America during the last half of the nineteenth century not any branch has shown more life than that of needlework. We are told that in medi- aeval times the first artists furnished designs for embroidery. So in these later times artists like Walter Crane and Burne-.Tones have furnished de- signs for needlework. At the commencement of the revival, however, little more was done than to copy the ancient embroideries, and so entirelv was the art lost that the various stitches, on the use of which so much of their beauty depends, had to be learned again by close inspection and sometimes by picking out carefully old pieces of work. The Process of Emrroioery. The tools of the embroiderer are the simplest, consisting of needles to draw the different kinds and sizes of thread through the work, a frame in which to hold the material (which may be omitted in small pieces of work). and the' scissors to cut the thread. The different threads and other ma- EMBRYO. terials used in the application of the design have been mentioned. A stitch is defined n- Un- thread left on the surface of tl loth after eai ply of the needle. Eight or nine different stitches are used in the production of embroidery. The simplest is the canvas stitch, in which (he needle goes back and forth in the spaces for d at the intersection of the warp and woof in I lie natural weave of the' doth. Gross Stitch is a form of canvas stitch, ('revel sliteh is a diagonal stitch used in outlining. Some of the other principal stitches are chain or tambour, herring-bone (so called because of its resemblance to a fish's back- bone), buttonhole, feather, rope, of which the French knot is a complicated form: satin, long ami short, darning, and running stitch. Em- broidery may or may not be reversible; for the former the running, darning, and satin stitches are used. About the twelfth century the model- ing and padding of figures became popular; that is, embroidery was performed by sewing onto the material as well as into it. Hence we have the couching stitch, used when one thread is sewed on with another, and applirjuS or relief work, where one piece' of cloth is sewed onto another. To give effectiveness to the applique work the figures are often padded. Not only thread and cloth, but such other decorative materials as braid, chenille, tinsel, and spangles also began to be used in embroidery about the twelfth century. Patchwork, in which different pieces of clqth are sewed together, is sometimes reckoned as a kind of embroidery. In the Egyptian Museum at Ghizeh. it is said, is a large piece of patchwork of elaborate design made of thousands of bits of gazelle-hide and for- merly used as a canopy to cover the body of an Egyptian queen who died B.C. 980. It is exactly the same work technically as the modern cot- tager's patchwork quilt. During the closing half of the nineteenth cen- tury machine embroidery was developed to a pitch of great mechanical perfection, and various machines have been devised for this purpose. Consult: Cole. The Art of Tapestry-Making and Embroidery (London, 1888) ; Lefebvre, Embroid- ery and Lace, translated and enlarged by Cole (London, 1.888) ; Dav and Buckle, Art in Needle- work (New York, 1900). EMBRUN, iiN'breN'. A town of France, in the Department of Hautes-Alpes, situated on a platform of rock on the right bank of the Durance. 25 miles east of Gap (Map: France, N 7). The town is fortified ami has an imposing appearance. The principal buildings are the cathedral, a Gothic edifice dat- ing from the eleventh century, surmounted by a lofty Romanesque tower, the archiepiscopal pal- ace, now used as barracks, a college, and a hos- pital. Embrun manufactures broadcloth, coun- terpanes, hats, cotton yarn, and leather. Pop- ulation, in 1901. 3505. Embrun was the ancient Embrodunum, capital of the Caturiges, and an important Roman station. As early as the fourth century it was the seat of a bishop, and from the ninth century to the beginning of the nineteenth, of an archbishop. It was burned by the Moors in 966, again in 1573 during the religious wars, and in lfin-2 by the Duke of Savoy. EM'BRYO (from Gk. euppvov, embryon, em- bryo, from 4v, en. in + fiptur, bryein, to swell). An organized being in a rudimentary condition,