Illustration: Gertrude Jekyll. Iris embroidery design for a cushion cover, 1880.
Although Gertrude Jekyll is today primarily known for her pioneering work in garden design, she was very much an Arts and Crafts pioneer as well. She was proficient in fine art, embroidery, interior design, photography, metalwork, woodwork, she also mastered a number of rural skills including thatching, fencing and walling. She was friends with a wide range of artists, designers and writers including important members of the English Arts and Crafts movement such as John Ruskin and William Morris.
As far as embroidery is concerned she was both an accomplished embroiderer as well as a designer for the craft. The two illustrations shown in the is article were part of a set of floral based motifs produced in a publication entitled Handbook of Embroidery, published in 1880. Along with Jekyll, design work was reproduced by such artists and designers as Edward Burne-Jones, Fairfax B. Wade, George Aitchison, Mary Herbert, Selwyn Image, Walter Crane and William Morris.
Although the book did give practical advice as to the different aspects of the craft of embroidery, it did not give detailed charts concerning the work of contemporary artists and designers. As can be seen in the two illustrations which were Jekyll's contribution to the book, the idea was to give a generalised idea as to how to pursue creative pattern work in embroidery. They were examples of what could be achieved within the craft in 1880, but were clearly only examples.
The Handbook of Embroidery produced in some respects a snapshot of contemporary embroidery in 1880. There was a cross-section of styles and compositions that were both particular to individual artists, but also managed to incorporate more generalised styling from the period. Although all of the contributions are not necessarily those designed specifically in 1880, they do refer to design work that would have appealed to contemporary audiences in 1880.
Jekyll seems by nature and certainly through her broad range of skills, to be firmly part of the English Arts and Crafts movement. However, her two design examples shown here appear as a much more simplified, but also energetic contribution to the style. Her work appears unfussy, practical and paired down to the minimum required, a perfect combination to a book that to be fair, although aimed at a cross-section of embroiderers, was significantly pitched at those with perhaps more limited skills.
Illustration: Gertrude Jekyll. Periwinkle embroidery design for a cushion cover, 1880.
Jekyll's two embroidery designs were meant to be interpreted for cushion covers, although anyone with a little skill could have taken the design work and re-interpreted it in any number of different scenarios. In many respects, this flexibility is the true beauty of this particular textile craft and is probably why it has lasted so many generations and in so many different cultural formats. Because embroidery is an applied craft, one design can technically be reinterpreted and reinvented in a number of different formats using different materials on a wide range of background fabrics. Embroidery has always been particularly effective as a costume embellishment, turning an outfit into a specialised format, depending on the style and type of embroidered pattern and threads used.
Interestingly, the Handbook of Embroidery avoided any real reference to embroidery as an artwork. All bar a few of the examples supplied by the various artists and designers were interpreted by the book as practical accessories, whether they be borders for table covers, curtains or indeed cushions. There were a few examples that were loosely termed panels, but these could easily be seen as framed work within domestic accessories. The only definite wall-hanging designation went to William Morris, even though his design work examples were purely pattern and not a compositional format.
The author, L. Higgin, was well aware that embroidery in 1880 was both a practical domestic choice as well as an aesthetic one and planned to explore the fine art side of embroidery in another publication. It seems that it was the complexity of the issue of art embroidery, with its uniquely creative approach to composition and colour, which was deemed as being a separate subject to embroidery for accessories, and perhaps even a different audience.
The fine art and practical craft aspects of embroidery, producing both domestic and aesthetic versions of the textile craft, give it a broad impact within the decorative arts world, perhaps broader than many other aspects of textile based work. Although fine art embroidery has technically existed throughout much of the crafts history, it is the work produced during the latter half of the nineteenth century that perhaps has come to identify for many the aesthetic quality of the craft.
Although, as already said, Jekyll today is patently and perhaps rightly better known for her pioneering garden design, it is always interesting, helpful and often relevant to see aspects of a creative career used within other formats and disciplines. It often gives an insight into the more obvious aspects of the creative journey of a particular individual, no matter how slight it may appear to some.
Further reading links:
The Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden: From the Archives of Country Life
Gertrude Jekyll: The Making of a Garden--Gertrude Jekyll - An Anthology
Colour schemes for the flower garden
The Unknown Gertrude Jekyll
Gardener's Essential Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll
Arts and Crafts Gardens
Gertrude Jekyll on Gardening
Gertrude Jekyll: A Vision of Wood and Garden
Gertrude Jekyll and the Country House Garden: From the Archives of Country Life. Judith B. Tankard
Gertrude Jekyll's Lost Garden: The Restoration of an Edwardian Masterpiece
The Beauties of a Cottage Garden (English Journeys)
The Gardening Companion (Wordsworth Reference)
Lost Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll
The Illustrated Gertrude Jekyll: Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden
Gardens for small country houses
Wood And Garden
Gertrude Jekyll (Shire Library)
Gertrude Jekyll: Essays on the Life of a Working Amateur Pb
