Well, I _finally_ got
to take a look at the alb gore — Awesome pix!
There is a technique called ‘Italian Smocking’
that creates diamond patterns similar to
that seen in the gore. The directions for it are in a book called MANIPULATING FABRIC . . . I think. I loaned the book to someone before I moved last December and can’t
remember who has it at the moment. I
bought the book from Pastish. Asha would know
the one I am referring to. Anyway, Asha thinks, and I agree, that what the book calls “Italian Smocking”
may be the source of the diamond patterns
we see in so many carvings. And perhaps, the ongoing notion that smocking was one of the techniques used to create
the “Chartes” style bliaut. The
technique involves lines and lines of
matched straight stitches that create small, tight pleats. The pattern is created by skipping the stitch over
selected pleats creating a little
“puff” in the pattern on the front side. Whew! It’s tough to describe without needles and thread. If
we can locate the book perhaps Katherine
can up load the pix/instructions.
~ Isabeau du Lis Noire /
Beth Richardson
Message #1057, April 22, 2003
I’ll bet it is “The Art of Manipulating Fabric” by Colette Wolf. Pages 144-147 describe Italian Smocking. I think I have seen this book for sale in the Clothilde catalog, a nice notions catalog for those unfamiliar. A bonus to the catalog is the ongoing feature of antique needlework tools that is featured.
I can see how that might give the pattern in the alb. So far I have looked
up the email for Abegg-Stiftung. I’ll get busy and write to them for more details.
I have been thinking again about smocking on the Chartres cathedral. It seems
to me, and perhaps others from discussion, that the smocking is not going it
the direction that we smock our clothes, i.e. side to side. I have been
wondering if we are thinking in a modern sense and that if there was some sort
of smocking done it ran up and down instead of side to side. Just a thought – it
might be fun to experiment with and photograph results.
The technique … [is] tough to describe
without needles and thread … perhaps Katherine can up load the
pix/instructions.
I can scan this.
~ Katrine de Saint Brieuc / Katherine Barich
Message #1058, April 22, 2003
I am sure a lot of us will look forward to hearing
the response [from Abegg-Stiftung].
[She found her copy of “The Art of
Manipulating Fabric”] The picture of
Italian Smocking on page 147 sure looks a lot like the gore on the alb.
… if there was some sort of smocking done
it ran up and down … it might be fun to experiment
with and photograph results.
Exactly. Perhaps we need to call it something
else. What I’m thinking of is not at all the
same thing as “baby clothes smocking”.
~ Isabeau du Lis Noire / Beth Richardson
Message 1066, April 23, 2003
The problem with smocking being used as an explanation for the Chartres look is that, as Katherine said, what is done now would result in vertical lines, while the statues have horizontal(ish) ones. Rotate it 90 degrees, and you get the horizontal lines, but the stretch is now vertical. On its own, then, smocking is useless for this effect. It could be used with lacing to even out the rucking, but not to the extent that it would dramatically reduce the belly droop many of these gowns show.
The superbly even belly wrinkles could be held in place by means of smocking, but another possibility is that THIS is what the Victorians may have altered when they possibly “restored” them. [It seems to be a recreationists’ legend (like urban legends) that the Victorians had at the statues, but I can’t think of a single book I’ve read that actually said they’d done it.] The other details match up with details of bliauts in other sources (paintings, literature, etc.), but I’ve not found the match for the even wrinkles yet.
One other place I think I see smocking at Chartres is on the statue I call “Handless Queen”, the third statue to the right of the central portal. Her chainse has lines carved in it that curve high around her neck, then curve down to parallel the (presumed) keyhole opening. I’ve seen this taken to be lines of trim, but all the French bliaut artwork I’ve seen showed white and apparently un-trimmed chainses. To me, these lines look like they could easily be meant to represent smocking. I didn’t stick with smocking long enough as a child (didn’t like the only garments I saw done with it) to know I’m seeing things correctly, but it looks to me like this effect could be achieved by means of vertical-ridge horizontal smocking around a vertical slit neckline. What do the rest of you think? If so, I might just have to take up smocking again!
~ Arianne de Chateaumichel / Grace Payne
Message #1060, April 23, 2003
>The problem with smocking being used as an explanation for the Chartres look is that, as Katherine said, what is done now would result in vertical lines, while the statues have horizontal(ish) ones. Rotate it 90 degrees, and you get the horizontal lines, but the stretch is now vertical. On its own, then, smocking is useless for this effect. It could be used with lacing to even out the rucking, but not to the extent that it would dramatically reduce the belly droop many of these gowns show.
I don’t know. I’ve played a little with simple counter change diamond smocking and find when pulled tight to the side as for lacing it can create a horizontal lozenge effect.
>One other place I think I see smocking at Chartres is on the statue I call “Handless Queen”, the third statue to the right of the central portal.
That’s the one I keep going back to too.
>Her chainse has lines carved in it that curve high around her neck, then curve down to parallel the (presumed) keyhole opening. I’ve seen this taken to be lines of trim, but all the French bliaut artwork I’ve seen showed white and apparently un-trimmed chainses. To me, these lines look like they could easily be meant to represent smocking.
I must admit I hadn’t thought about the chainse that way. But check this out; the pattern across the torso is a horizontal lozenge while the pattern on her sleeve looks to be simple horizontal rucking. The female figure on the left portal has horizontal rucking across the torso and horizontal lozenges on her sleeve. Fabric technique or artist interpretation? Oh, the book I’m looking at is a door-stop volume called THE ART OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING, edited by Rolf Toman, 1998 Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, ISBN 3-9290-1741-3
it looks to me like
this effect could be achieved by means of vertical-ridge
horizontal smocking around a vertical slit neckline. What do the rest of you
think? If so, I might just have to take up smocking again!
I can’t wrap my head around that one but that’s
not unusual:) The pix I’m looking at is big but I’d
need a blow up of the detail might help.
~ Isabeau du Lis Noire / Beth Richardson
Message 1066, April 23, 2003
I think the “urban legend” has embellished a bit then. I know of two statues from the Jamb of the Portal of Notre Dame at Corbeil that were “restored” in the Victorian era, I think the culprit was Enlart. The female figure is sometimes labeled as the Queen of Sheba. As I understand it these two statuses had suffered significant damage over the years and the restorer made some “educated guesses” in his repairs. On the Queen the crown, the hems if the sleeves and skirt and I believe the shoes are all “new” It is also believed that the entire surface has been wire brushed and or re-cut. You can get more detail from Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 by Willibald Saurlander and in Sculptors of the West Portals of Chartres Cathedral by Whitney S. Stoddard.
The Queen of Sheba statue in its “restored” state has been a used by Norris etc. as evidence for the longitudinally pleated “angel wing” sleeve, but since the sleeves were on of the parts “restored” I don’t feel that this particular statue can be held as a reliable source.
As far as I’m aware, the carvings at Chartres have not been restored by the Victorians
What I find particularly interesting is the different ways in which the bliaut is shown by different carvers, both at Chartres and elsewhere. It is generally agreed that the large statues on the West portal at Chartres were done by five different carvers.
Those on the far left are by the “Estampe Master” and are very curvilinear, much like the illumination style called damp-fold seen in the Winchester Bible etc. Only one is female, but there is not much of an impression of smocking in these carvings, and even less in his work at Estampe.
The center carvings are by the Chartres Headmaster and his two assistants. They show lines pulling across the belly only. Over the breast area the fabric pulls as we would expect it to using the blauit patterns most of us are now working to.
Those on the far right, are by the St Denis Master, and are again heavily curvilinear, however the woman wearing the cloak pinned at the shoulder showed a smocked sort of effect all over the belly, breast and right down the arm.
Which leaves the question, are these different styles of dress, or are they different interpretations of the same thing? Looking at the other art sources I’d say they are interpretations.
>I’ve seen this taken to be lines of trim, but all the French bliaut artwork I’ve seen showed white and apparently un-trimmed chainses. To me, these lines look like they could easily be meant to represent smocking.
Are you assuming trim must be coloured? Couldn’t it too be white? My interpretation of those lines is that they are some sort of finishing of the neckline, maybe trim, maybe embroidery, and maybe even smocking. The last few I’ve done have been in whitework embroidery and “shadow work”. See Spanish fashions at this period for evidence of embroidery on chemises.
~ Rowena Le Sarjent / Belinda Sibly
Message #1063, April 23, 2003
Two statues from the Jamb of the Portal of Notre Dame at Corbeil that were “restored” in the Victorian era, I think the culprit was Enlaert . . .
Between Cromwell’s Puritans and the Victorians, we are lucky to have anything left!
The Queen of Sheba statue in its “restored” state has been a used by Norris etc. as evidence for the longitudinally pleated “angel wing” sleeve, but since the sleeves were on of the parts “restored” I don’t feel that this particular statue can be held as a reliable source.
Victorian restoration + Norris = suspect.
The other details match up with details of bliauts in other sources (paintings, literature, etc.), but I’ve not found the match for the even wrinkles yet.
Check out a lovely figure in the Cloisters collection at www.metmuseum.org/collections/view1.asp?dep=17&full=1&item=20%2E157 – page not found
It is from a destroyed cloister at St. Denis.
Which leaves the question, are these different styles of dress, or are they different interpretations of the same thing?
Although I agree that the rucked effect we see on the torso of most figures is the result of tight side lacing, I do think some “high court” bliauts had something more going on. Perhaps we are limiting our thinking by calling it smocking. Whatever it was, it seems to be unique and short lived, not unlike the phenomenon of the steeple henin of the 1400’s which was nowhere near as pervasive as costume designers and children’s book illustrators would have us think, but it did exist. Is a fashion anomaly short lived because it was too costly/difficult to produce and/or difficult to wear? Did a “lozenge shaped form fabric manipulation” (Oh, hell. It’s easier to say “smocking”) emerge in the 12th C. only to fade away until much later? Are looking at a fashion anomaly or a stylistic artist interpretation? We’ll probably not have a definitive answer until someone unearths enough extant bits to say for sure. . . . although the alb gore is a good start . . . 🙂
Are you assuming trim must be coloured? Couldn’t it too be white?
Oooo, pretty. True and stable white in any form would have been highly prized as it was exceedingly difficult to prduce at the time. Its association with purity also made it especially desirable for under clothes.
See Spainish fashions at this period for evidence of embroidery on chemises.
I can’t believe I haven’t looked at that yet. And I can’t begin to tell you all how much I am enjoying this list!!!!!
~ Isabeau du Lis Noire / Beth Richardson
Message 1066, April 23, 2003