Hunt For Embroidery

Southland Times, Issue 23674, 24 November 1938, Page 14

Hunt For Embroidery

Adventures In China

TpOR a scientist, Dr. Carl Schuster, of the Universities of Vienna and Harvard, who recently visited New Zealand, has had one of the strangest quests. j ... The quietly spoken American is an authority on the peasant embroderies of China.

When in the United States, his official post is assistant curator of Chinese art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A John Simon Guggenheim travelling scholarship has enabled him to search in the interior of China, for what remains of the old embroideries. Such embroideries do not often come to the notice of the casual traveller. Even missionaries who have lived for decades in the districts in which they are made, are often unaware of their existence. The reason is that the art is dead; it is a thing of the past. By wornari of the' yhunger- generation it is held in varying degrees of contempt. They regard, such - work as absurdly old-fashioned; . Perhaps the impoverishment of the ■ people has ' had something to do with the. neglect and destruction of this work. .The; introduction of foreign materials' and ideas has certainly had a detrimental .effect upon pride in handicraft. - - . \ , Only occasionally, an older woman was found by Dr. Schuster, whose sentiment >for the past was stronger .than the prevailing fashion,- who > cherished a fine old piece, half shamed of. her taste. ■ ■ ‘..i.-. V't -'■ • ■ '

Often, when asked whether she had such things, an old woman would answer: “Nobody wants sUch . things nowadays. I had a very beautiful piece of my mother’s. But I'cut it up last year to make, clothes for my grandchild,’ and now it is all worn to -shreds.”' ' ’

Yet, by dint of patience, Dr. Schuster recovered in each region sufficient representative examples to piece but the

i-inch thick, place in a glass dish with ( some of the cream between the slices i and plenty over and around, whip a t little fresh cream, sweeten and flavour. Garnish with whipped cream sprinkle J with nuts if liked and chopped cherries. The first part of this dish should be pre- , pared the day before using. . Asparagus on Toast. Cream some butter, season it with salt, c pepper, paprika and a few drops of lemon ' juice. Stand aside to cool. Trim slices < of toast to the length of asparagus stalks, < spread with the seasoned butter. Place 4 1 or 5 cooked and drained asparagus stalks s on each, slice of toast. Place a rasher of s

picture of what it must once have been, and he has taken his treasures back with him to the United States. The best available pieces are dateable, by consensus of the villagers, within a period of from 60 to 80 years ago, though an occasional example of strongly archaic character was possibly a century old.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to suppose that this art of the people originated only a few generations or a few centuries ago. Here and there in the vast repertoire of designs, Dr. Schuster came across motifs which took him back in remote and unexpected paths of history. Some designs went back to the T’ang dynasty—more than 1000 years ago. Others , had absolutely no analogies anywhere in -Chinese art. “In such cases,” he explained, “it often happened that one found near relatives of the designs in regions outside China in a corresponding social stratum of the’ West, among the peasantry of Eastern Europe, or among the Western Asiatic nomads." This aspect of the Chinese peasant designs, their deep difference from the rest of Chinese art, is perhaps their most puzzling quality. Sometimes it is with the greatest difficulty that'students can convince themselves that ’ such embroideries are really Chinese. “But there is hardly anything better entitled to-be called Chinese,” he says, “than the art of the Chinese peasantry.” . The articles which' Dr. Schuster. has sought include the whole range of household arid personal linen. The little coats, jackets, bibs, and trousers for children were often most amusing. . But the finest designs were reserved for the decorations of a kind of bed sheet, which the Chinese lay on the rattan floors of their four-poster beds in such a way as to allow about a foot and a half of the material to hang over the side of the

streaky bacon on each portion and put into a hot oven until the bacon is cooked. Serve immediately. Asparagus Soup. Boil a bunch of asparagus in boiling water until it is tender. Cut off the tips and put them in a soup tureen. Return the stalks to the saucepan, with 1 cupful of the liquor in which the stalks were cooked, 3 cupsful milk, and 2 cupsful of white stock, a blade of mace, 10 peppercorns, 1 teaspoonful of salt, a thin slice of onion, the thinly-pared rind of J lemon. Simmer gently at the side of the stove for 15 minutes. Strain and rub the stalks through a sieve. Melt one table-

framework exposed to view in the room. The finest examples were found by Dr. Schuster in the agricultural districts, always -the comriion propertyof the peasantry • and the small towns-, folk. Iri poor mountainous districts there was no sign of-them. - ■ This so-called “linen” was actually cotton cloth, coarse, hand-woven, and of excellent quality. They were embroidered with cotton • thread, dyed dark blue: with : indigo., The same dye, in varying shades, was used in the clothing of the majority of Chinese people. It was customary for young girls to embroider their linen for their future households—just as young women in the West have done for centuries.

Cross stitch, the simplest and rudest in, technique, was the favourite means of execution. ■ Yet ■ with these simple materials and technique, to which the workers brought an infinite patience, the country women produced designs which were always entertaining and sometimes real masterpieces of decorative art.

Many a piece that Dr. Schuster found in an old woman’s bedroom is now in the Art Museum in Philadelphia. These antique treasures of another age, now discarded in fashion, have at last found an appreciative home. But Dr. Schuster’s quest for decoration has led him far from China. Of late he has been travelling through Indo-China and Burma, and, finally in the Solomon Islands.' In New Zealand he has been studying Maori art. While in Sydney he took several hundred photographs of objects, mostly Melanesian artifacts, in the Australian Museum. Soon his discoveries will be revealed to the world in a book. Plans were already made in Shanghai and Peking for publication of his research into Chinese peasant embroideries when the Japanese appeared in China. Now, he hopes to publish the book next year. Most of 1939 will be spent in European museums —that is, if Europe is not precipitated into war.