60. APPLIQUE--SATIN ON VELVET.]

You can get thus various shades of gold out of the same thread, and even
gradation from one to another, as may be seen in a great deal of
Spanish work of the 16th century, in which the gold ornament is often
quite delicately shaded from yellowish gold to ruddy copper on the one
hand, and to bronzy green on the other. Similar use may be made of
vari-coloured silks in couching white or other cord; but gold reflects
the colour much better than silk, and gives much more subtle effects.

The Flemings and Italians of the early Renaissance went further. They
had a way of laying threads of gold and sewing them so closely over with
coloured silk that in many parts it quite hid the gold. Only in
proportion as they wanted to lighten the colour of the draperies in
their pictorial embroideries did they space the stitches farther and
farther apart, and let the gold gleam through. Except in the high lights
it did not pronounce itself positively. The effect is not unlike what is
seen in paintings of the primitive school, where the high lights of the
red and blue draperies are hatched with gold. The practice of the
embroiderer may be reminiscent of that, or that may be the origin of the
primitive painters' convention. It is more as if the embroiderer wanted
to represent a precious tissue, a stuff shot with gold.

Illustration 80 gives part of a figure worked in this way, relieved
against a more golden architectural background rendered by the very same
double threads of gold which run through the figures. In the
architecture, however, they are couched in stitches which are never so
near as to take away from the effect of the gold. The two degrees of
obscuring or clouding gold by oversewing are here shown in most
instructive contrast. The cords, as usual, are laid in horizontal
courses. That was the convenient way of working; but it resulted in a
corded look, which has very much the appearance of tapestry; and there
is no doubt that resemblance to tapestry was in the end consciously
sought. That the method here employed was laborious needs no saying; but
it gave most beautiful, if pictorial, results.

APPLIQUE.

Embroidery, it has been shown, is much of it on the surface of the
stuff, not just needle stitches, but the stitching-on of
something--cord, gold thread, or whatever it may be. And instances have
been given where the design of such work was not merely in outline, but
where certain deta