Heraldry as art: An account of its development and practice, chiefly in EnglandEve, G. W. (George William)
History
Heraldry as art: An account of its development and practice, chiefly in England
Eve, G. W. (George William)
Heraldry -- Great Britain
Another form of banner which survives is that which was, from a very
early period, used to decorate trumpets and is still so employed by
the trumpeters of the Household Cavalry and by those of the Sheriffs
of counties for use on occasions of ceremony. Such decorations usually
contain the arms alone, as a great banner does, but there are also
instances of badges being borne on them and also complete armorial
insignia. They are tied to the instruments by ribbons or laces, and
hang squarely down. The bearings, whether simple or complex, are made
to read upright, when the trumpet is held horizontally, as though they
were on a hanging shield. This is, of course, the natural way, though
there are instances to the contrary.
As we have seen, flags were generally embroidered and with more or
less elaboration according to the circumstances which influenced other
heraldic treatment. Frequently they were done in cutwork, sewn down and
done over with beautiful needlework and even adorned with gems. The
greatest artists were employed to design them, Sandro Botticelli among
many others.
The methods of the missal painter in his use of gold lines for lights
and other definitions and decorations were employed in the needlework,
indeed all the arts of illuminated decoration, taking the term in its
widest sense, copied from each other, but each adapted the method to
its own needs and materials; and that is the gist of the whole matter.
At the beginning, in the seventeenth century, of the period that was
so fatal to all decorative art, when embroidery took what was probably
thought to be a wonderful new departure, its subjects were raised to
an increasing height from the ground where before it had been flatly
treated. Thenceforward the embroidery became lumpy as the heraldry
became weak, and both were alike inartistic until comparatively
recently, until in fact it began to be again recognized that the
mediaeval artists were right, that the right way to use a material was
the natural way and not in attempting to make it resemble something
else. At the time referred to it seems to have been thought that the
more embroidery was made to look like a coloured relief and the less
like embroidery the better embroidery it was, and therefore the lions,
for example, were stuffed up and raised as high as possible and the
whole effect became coarse and clumsy, an effect that was largely
contributed to by the inferior design.
The costliness of embroidery helped the introduction of painted
banners, which in time, assisted by the decay of embroidered as
of other decorative arts, superseded the needlework. However, the
inferiority of the painted banner was always recognized, and although
even the banners of the Knights of the Garter had come to be done in
the cheaper method, that which hung over the stall of the Sovereign
continued to be embroidered, as it is to this day. The present banner
is beautifully worked, and is on the correct lines of flat design.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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