On Jan 23, 2009, at 12:03, bev walker wrote:
I have a theory that if one wants to learn how people
think, of a particular culture, learn exactly how they crafted things.
Through lacemaking, in each regional way to make lace, there are clues
to
the mind operative.
Language, too, reflects the culture in some unexpected ways and shapes
our thoughts in the process. My masters thesis was on social and
cultural aspects of language (specifically in teaching English as a
foreign language) but it wasn't until just the other day (because I was
elbow-deep in paintings showing/not showing lace) that I thought about
one particular phrase, which shows the differences between how people
of a culture see the the same thing.
In English, you say "still life"; in Polish, we say "dead nature". One
is translated as the other, because both cover the same area and are
likely to show the same subjects. Yet... There's that difference of
"life" and "death"... "Still life" makes one think more of a bowl of
flowers, with maybe a pair of gloves or a letter next to it; "dead
nature" makes one think of a brace of pheasants, tossed on the table,
heads down and blood dripping...
The interaction between language and "culture" -- the way one shapes
the other and vice versa -- is another mystery; one which had puzzled
me ever since I started learning a second and third language (@8 &10).
The origins of lace...one can research costume, employment (viz. the
guilds
that made the clothing), trade and commerce (yes, the business deals),
custom from folkways as well as royalty and the priesthood [...]
I'm also thinking "contemporaneous fiction", mostly because the
"ordinary folk" were less likely to have been "pictured", in either
written or painted accounts. A peasant girl's trousseau may have been
negotiated between the fathers with the same exactitude as a patrician
girl's but there'd have been no lawyers to take it down, item by item.
Similarly, a peasant couple were much less likely than a patrician one
to "sponsor" a painting and be included in it ("Saint X, with two
donors" type of thing). Servants were of little interest to painters of
the 15th and 16th centuries, except, perhaps, as models for a saint.
Yet, some of the "unmentioned" (and unmentionable <g>) "classes" might
have been actual leaders of fashion in some circumstances. The
"Venetian book" ("The Dress of the Venetians, 1495-1525", by Stella
Mary Newton) has this little gem in it:
In Venice in the early sixteenth century the only members of the
population free to dress as they pleased were the working classes and
the prostitutes.
Fascinating, especially given that Ms Newton does not differentiate
between the street walkers (of which I'm sure Venice had its share) and
the courtesans (which were a totally different kettle of fish). Some
courtesans did make it into the painted record; the book has a detail
from a Carpaccio painting (undated, but likely to be within that time
frame) showing two of them, and the Arnold book ("Patterns of Fashion
4") shows another one (unattributed, except to "a private collection"),
dated 1600. In both paintings, the ladies of easy virtue are dressed to
the nines, with no indication whatsoever that they cared a whit about
the sumptuary laws. Additionally, the Newton book shows some "portrait
of a lady" kind of painting where the "ladies" are also exhiiting
sumptuous clothing but are *anything but* "ladies".
As for the written accounts... I'm thinking that a re-reading of Pietro
Aretino is in order :) Not his political satires or his
semi-blackmailing letters, but the two books he wrote about courtesans
(the Polish titles were "Nana, the Courtesan" and "How Nana Trained Her
Daughter in Courtesan Arts").
When I read those books at 8, I didn't understand them. When I re-read
them at 15, I understood them but was distracted by both the sexual
innuendo and the richness of language (the translator must have been a
genius; nearly 45yrs later, I still remember that "teapot spout" was
one of the -- many, many -- words used for the male member <g>).
Needles to say, at he time, I paid no attention whatsoever to any
references to clothes; can't even remember whether there had been any.
But, if there had been...They'd have been perfect -- just the right
time and place...
And by 'lace' we are talking about the dentellated textile, not the
cord that laces up a garment - or both?
That's the nub, innit? :) For me, it's the first (though not,
necessarily, "dentellated". A textile, full of holes, yes.). But, if
the early, plaited, bobbin laces are, indeed, the descendants of
passementerie (and there seems to be an agreement on that point), then
the lacing cords *do* have a place at the table -- if only as poor
relations <g> -- because passementerie is made of cords, criss-crossing
and shaped into loops.
There's linguistic support for that, too. In English, there's the
confusion of "laces" (cords vs textile), as you say. The frontspieces
of both Le Pompe books -- which, definitely, show "lace" as we
understand it today -- speak of "Cordelle" (Titziana... What's
"Bindelle"?). The Nüw Modelbuch -- another bobbin lace pattern book of
16thc -- straddles both and says "Däntelschnur" (teeth-cord or
teeth-string)...
Yours, tracking in all directions,
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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