the background. This
is usually of a monotonous and formal character in order not to clash
with the primary decoration, though this relationship may sometimes be
found reversed. It has the appearance of being some decoration belonging
to the ground rather than to the primary pattern; in its simplest form
it appears as a mere repeating dot or a lattice (see fig. 22), but it
may be so elaborated as to cover with an intricate design every portion
of the exposed ground not decorated with the main pattern.

Many other distinct kinds of work might be mentioned, such as needlework
pictures, the story-telling embroideries that can be made so
particularly attractive. Embroidered landscapes, formal gardens,
mysterious woods, views of towns and palaces, are, if rightly treated,
very fine. In order to learn the way to work such subjects we must go to
the XVIth and XVIIth century _petit point_ pictures, and to the detail
in fine tapestries. The wrong method of going to work is to imitate the
effect sought after by the painter.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.]

It is a mistake in embroidery design to be too naturalistic. In painting
it may be the especial aim to exactly imitate nature, but here are
wanted embroidery flowers, animals and figures, possessing the character
and likeness of the things represented, but in no way trying to make us
believe that they are real. The semblance of a bumble bee crawling upon
the tea cloth gives a hardly pleasant sensation and much savours of
the practical joke, which is seldom in good taste; the needle, however,
adds convention to almost anything, and will usually manage the bee all
right unless the worker goes out of the way to add a shadow and a high
light. Such things as perspective, light and shade or modelling of form,
should all be very much simplified if not avoided, for embroidery
conforms to the requirements of decoration and must not falsify the
surface that it ornaments. Shading is made use of in order to give more
variety to, and exhibit the beauty of, colour by means of gradation, to
explain more clearly the design, and so on; it is not employed for the
purpose of fixing the lighting of the composition from one point by
means of systematically adjusted light and shade, or of making a form
stand out so realistically as to almost project from the background.

In avoiding too much resemblance to natural forms it is not necessary to
make things ugly; a conventional flower implies no unmeanin