THE INFLUENCE OF THE GARDEN 
ON WOVEN DESIGN 
LUCY EMBURY HUBBEL.L 
Editors’ Note. —To the artisan of every craft and era the garden has been a primal source of inspiration, for 
plants lend themselves more graciously to decorative uses than any other type of motif, as is amply evidenced by the 
beautifully various renderings of flowers, trees, and fruits found on the textiles, porcelains, jewelry, furniture, and 
other imaginative products of many lands and ages. Gardeners who feel the fascination of such wider relationships may enjoy turning back 
to the earlier articles on “The Garden and The Crafts,” which appeared in our October and November issues of last autumn. 
/GARDENING is not an isolated art, nor 
» * ias it ever t> een a niggardly one. For 
I mPly centuries back it has put into the 
pockets of its companions bright- 
colored, beautiful treasure; as the student, or 
even the casual observer, of the decorative 
crafts quickly perceives. Textiles, potteries, 
precious metals repeatedly bear evidence of the 
garden’s largess—even the aloof marble of an- 
cientGrecianTemples carried the Honeysuckle’s 
light impress on column and frieze. 
There seems to have been a strange reluc¬ 
tance, however, among designers of all eras and 
all lands to avail themselves of the riches at 
hand for out of literally hundreds of possible 
plant motifs only a few score have yet been 
used. And though it is interesting to compare 
the variations and surpris¬ 
ing to note the vivacity and 
recurring freshness of such 
persistent themes as the 
Rose, Peony, Tulip, Iris, in 
the hands of innumerable 
craftsmen both East and 
West, the hamperings of 
tradition are none the less 
regrettable. Freed from 
superstition, thorough mas¬ 
ter of mechanical aids, and 
served by the abundant di¬ 
versity of modern horticul¬ 
ture, the decorative artist of 
to-day steps out on a path 
of superlative opportunity. 
His very earliest prede¬ 
cessors worshiped force and 
in savage woven work we 
find symbols of their fear 
and wonder—the flashings 
of lightning, stern hilltops 
that look down on helpless 
humans, the tree with its 
miraculous message of re¬ 
production. Only when, by 
his wits, man had built a 
shelter about his body and 
fortified it against starva¬ 
tion and, in laying his fears, 
created for himself a little 
leisure, does the gentleness 
of flowers become part of 
his daily living and find ex¬ 
pression in his pictured arts. 
Just what Christianity has 
contributed to art remains 
problematical, but certain it 
is that when worship had 
substituted beauty and 
benignity for blind primal fears and propitia¬ 
tions, freedom and happiness found characteris¬ 
tic expression in the use of floral forms. 
P ERUVIAN design, for instance, fine and 
finished in so many ways, is rigidly bound 
by symbols and only once, so far as 1 know, 
uses a flower. Coptic textiles and the handi¬ 
craft of the Celts show the same superstitious 
abnegation. Egypt, more southern and so, 
though still “pagan,” more susceptible to the 
grace of growing things, includes a trio of vege¬ 
tative motives—the Lotus, the Papyrus, and 
the Palm. Perhaps to Confucius and other 
great leaders of the Oriental mind, the world is 
more deeply indebted than it has ever realized. 
The submissive acceptance, the passive recep¬ 
tiveness of outlook so ha¬ 
bitual an ingredient of 
Eastern character, so re¬ 
pugnant to the Occidental 
man of action, may more 
than conceivably have been 
the final factor in the fash¬ 
ioning of a race of artists 
rather than of statesmen. 
At any rate it is indisput¬ 
ably recorded that the East 
was making and decorating 
beautiful fabrics for un¬ 
countable generations before 
she at last taught her craft 
to Europe and that to this 
day the textile design of the 
West is the richer for Ori¬ 
ental knowledge and love of 
plants. Nowhere else in the 
world have flowers been so 
intimate a part of the inner 
life of a whole people as in 
China and japan whose first 
gardens were created like 
beautiful prayer-mats to 
spread at the feet of their 
temples,* whose first blos¬ 
soms found place on the 
altars of their gods, and who 
still make of Cherry bloorn- 
PLANT MOTIFS FROM BRITISH GUIANA 
A shawl of batik design based on the Wild Cocoa Bean and the clustered red 
flowers of Moronobea by Miss Anna Heyward Taylor. How closely nature 
has been followed without any sacrifice of decorative effect may be seen on 
comparison with the sketch of the Wild Cocoa Bean (upper picture) made by 
Miss Taylor at the Tropical Research Station of the New York Zoological 
Society at Kartabo. (Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History) 
*On page 311 of the July Gar¬ 
den Magazine, in his article on 
“Gardening in Old Japan,” Mr 
Manchester refers to this early ori¬ 
gin of gardens, and on page 101 of 
this issue will be found confirma¬ 
tory comment from the authorita¬ 
tive pen of Mr. E. H. Wilson, Asst. 
Director of the Arnold Arboretum, 
whose extensive familiarity with 
Oriental flora has won him the 
nickname of “Chinese Wilson.” 
87 
