The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, March 2, 1984 Page: 10 of 24
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THRESHER FINE ARTS
Unusual embroidery provides insight into women's history
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A 1788 sampler needlework by Nancy Hall (1776-1863), one of more than 100
objects on display at the Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition focuses upon
samplers and silk embroidered pictures, which are of a consistently high
quality and which, as cultural objects, reveal much about the education and
socialization of young girls during this time.
Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee:
Needlework in the Education of
Rhode Island Women, 1730-1830
Museum of Fine Arts
Through May 20
To be honest, when I was asked
to review this exhibit, I could see
little interest in some embroideries
done so long ago. After getting
there, however, I was fascinated by
the intricate stitches, color, and
designs of these needleworks.
For a bit of history, the Rhode
Island needlework designs began
in Newport and were carried to
places like Bristol, Warren, and
especially Providence. Although
there is an evolution of styles over
time and by different teachers,
bands of design and stylized motifs
characterize many of these works.
This is not to say, however, that
they are identical! Some are fine
silk thread done on silk
background; some are silk and hair
on linen. Others are worked in
pastels or shades of brown; a few
from Bristol show more a daily life
set against a black background;
some use minute seed stitches in
black and gray to simulate
engravings.
In the Mary Balch school of
Providence, an early recurring
^theme is an elegant house and
people enclosed by a formal arch
surrounded by flower motifs, but
each girl's work is unique. One
interesting needlework was done
by Eliza Waterman, finished when
she was 11 years old. It portrays a
state building or college building
with the motif "May spotless
innocence and truth my every
action guide. And guard my
inexperienced youth from
arrogance and pride." Motifs such
as this provide a good insight into
the culture's attitude toward
children and toward women.
Concerning young ladies'
education, Betty Ring writes in the
exhibition catalog: "Needlework,
deportment, reading, and writing
were the principal subjects of
women's early education — and in
that order of importance. Music,
dancing, drama, painting, and
languages also received attention
during classical times and
thereafter, but as fashions and
religious doctrines changed over
the centuries, attitudes toward
girls' partaking of these studies
varied widely. Embroidery, on the
contrary, was always the
irreproachable art — the one
commendable channel toward
artistic achievement. Women were
of the household, not of the
community, and from earliest
recorded history until the mid-
nineteenth century, needlework was
the only female art fully free from
derision. Consequently, for self-
expression as well as necessity,
needlework was a vital part of a
girl's education."
Needlework was also done in
mourning for the dead. While this
may sound like a macabre idea to
us, these pieces are beautiful
memorials. The exhibit has some
memorials done after George
Washington's death in 1799; these
pieces are done for individuals but
most include Washington's
memorial in them. Many of these
embroideries are worked with
fancy silk on silk canvas — often
with painted backgrounds. Abby
Dean's needlework done in 1803 is
a good example of the Mary Balch
school style of mourning pieces:
besides the fine stitches and
technique, the trumpeting angels,
arching willow branches, and
stone monuments are all worked in
a shimmering array of colors.
The accompanying photo can
do little justice to the colors and
precision of these needleworks:
this unusual exhibit is worth seeing
in person. No one today would
have the time nor patience to
create similar works, but
embroidery was an important art
and educational form from the
early Renaissance until the
Industrial Revolution. These
pieces done by Rhode Island girls
are part of our heritage.
—Maureen McKelvey
Hogarth's London paintings appraise human nature, art
The Rowdy London of William
Hogarth
Museum of Fine Arts
Through April I
William Hogarth is probably an
unfamilar name to most, but most
of you have probably seen his
work. Hogarth was a prominent
London painter during the reigns
of George II and George III, but
what has come down to us mostly
are his engravings and their
incisive (and often derisive)
comments abut his times.
Perhaps his most famous works
are a number of engraved series
that he created, such as The Rake's
Progress, The Harlot's Progress,
Marriage a la Mode, Industry and
Idleness, and Before and After.
While these "progresses" are
certainly dated and demonstrate
an excessive moralism, they
remain enjoyable both because of
the delicacy of Hogarth's ability as
an engraver and because of his
satiric, timeless comments on
human nature.
The prints in the MFA's show
come primarily from a bound folio
sold by Hogarth between
November 1759 and November
1761. The prints are on loan from
the Sarah Campbell Blaffer
Foundation, and were guest
curated by art historian Elizabeth
Glass, who has designed an exhibit
spacious enough to compensate for
the clutter of many of Hogarth's
prints.
In addition to the progresses,
Hogarth created many single
frame works, perhaps the most
famous of which is The Five
Orders of Periwigs, an oft-
reproduced favorite. I found these
single-frame works to be more
enjoyable than the series, perhaps
because they lacked the
accompanying sermon. My
favorite was one 1750 engraving
called The Cockfight, which shows
two very large, nasty men trying to
get two very small, rather pathetic
looking cocks to fight.
Another of my favorites in the
show was a 1738 work entitled
Actors and Actresses Strolling.
The print shows a company of
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actors as they get dressed in a barn.
While that is the ostensible theme
of the work, the scene is buried in
miscellania. Among the objects
that I could make out in the
background: a dragon, bales of
hay, cats, devils, imps, babies,
hens, curlicues and gewgaws,
harps, orbs, monkeys, ribbons, sea
monsters, curling irons and
making supplies, scripts, books,
and cots.
Hogarth is able to combine these
myriads of details (many
unrelated) because his work is so
delicate that each image stays in its
proper part of the paper without
distracting from other images in
the work.
The longer series are also
fascinating for the level of detail
that Hogarth manages to include,
and their accompanying texts
(integrated into the design of the
picture). While they tell entirely
predictable stories — the marriage
that falls apart because the wife is
unfaithful, the young man who
goes to ruin because he is a
spendthrift and a drunkard
(despite his faithful Sarah), and the
young man who becomes Lord
Mayor because of his industry —
they are worth taking time with
because of both their detail and
humorous portrait work.
A few of the pieces are very
dated, to the point that lengthy
explanations have been included in
the show to explain the
comtemporary political signi-
ficance. One example of this shows
a lottery in progress, representing
the profligacy of the British
government in South Seas
profiteering. However, some of
Hogarth's political commentaries
have remained accurate, like his
Bathos, showing the desolation
after the destruction of the world
(although he was referring to a
different war).
Hogarth's work bespeaks
another time, when (we like to
think) things were simpler. But the
complexity of his art and the
accuracy of his appraisals of
human nature remind us that, at
least since the Renaissance, things
haven't changed that much after
all.
—Debbie Knaff
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The Contemporary Arts Museum presents the exhibition American
Folk Art: The Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. Collection in the
museum's Upper Gallery through April 1. The show includes 105
works ranging in date from the early eighteenth century to the present,
with the emphasis on late nineteenth and twentieth century objects.
The historical component of the exhibition leads the viewer to a
further understanding of these eccentric and sometimes obsessive
twentieth-century artist and their works. The work above is Prof.
John H. Coates' Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, an
example from 1916 of a penmanship master's work.
The Rice Thresher, March 2, 1984, page 10
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Mitchell, Mark M. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, March 2, 1984, newspaper, March 2, 1984; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245554/m1/10/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.