Berlin wool work is a style of
embroideryEmbroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
. It is a subtype of
canvas workCanvas work is a type of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a canvas or other foundation fabric. Canvas work is a form of counted-thread embroidery...
. Typically it is executed with
tapestryTapestry is a form of textile art, woven on a vertical loom. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a loom, and the weft thread is passed back and forth across part or...
woolWool is a fibrous protein derived from the specialized skin cells called follicles. The wool is taken from animals in the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain species of other mammals including: goats, llamas, and rabbits may also be called wool...
on
canvasCanvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other functions where sturdiness is required...
, in petit point stitch only. It was traditionally executed in many colours and
hueHue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as “the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,”...
s, producing intricate
three-dimensionalIn mathematics and physics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
looks by careful shading. The design of such embroidery was made possible by the great progresses made in
dyeA dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
ing in the 1830s.
This kind of work produced very durable and long-lived pieces of embroidery that could be used as
furnitureFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
covers, cushions, bags, or even on
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
.
Berlin wool work patterns in colour were first published in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, early in the 19th century.
Berlin wool work is a style of
embroideryEmbroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
. It is a subtype of
canvas workCanvas work is a type of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a canvas or other foundation fabric. Canvas work is a form of counted-thread embroidery...
. Typically it is executed with
tapestryTapestry is a form of textile art, woven on a vertical loom. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a loom, and the weft thread is passed back and forth across part or...
woolWool is a fibrous protein derived from the specialized skin cells called follicles. The wool is taken from animals in the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain species of other mammals including: goats, llamas, and rabbits may also be called wool...
on
canvasCanvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other functions where sturdiness is required...
, in petit point stitch only. It was traditionally executed in many colours and
hueHue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as “the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,”...
s, producing intricate
three-dimensionalIn mathematics and physics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
looks by careful shading. The design of such embroidery was made possible by the great progresses made in
dyeA dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
ing in the 1830s.
This kind of work produced very durable and long-lived pieces of embroidery that could be used as
furnitureFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
covers, cushions, bags, or even on
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
.
History
Berlin wool work patterns in colour were first published in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, early in the 19th century. The first Berlin wool patterns were printed in black and white on paper and then hand-coloured. The stitcher was expected to draw the outlines on the canvas and then stitch following the colours on the pattern. But soon it became usual to publish counting patterns on charted paper, similar to modern
cross-stitchCross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches are used to form a picture. Cross-stitch is usually executed on easily countable evenweave fabric called aida cloth. The stitcher counts the threads in each direction so that the stitches are of uniform size and...
patterns. This made it easier to execute these patterns, because there was no need for translating the patterns into actual wool colours by the stichers themselves. They were published as single sheets mostly, which made them affordable for the masses.
Soon they were exported to
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
and the USA, where "Berlin work" became a craze. Indeed,
Berlin work became practically synonymous with
canvas work.
In Britain, Berlin work received a further boost through the Great Exhibition of 1851, and by the advent of ladies' magazines such as
The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.
The popularity of Berlin work was due largely to the fact that, for the first time in history, a fairly large number of women had leisure time to devote to
needleworkNeedlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...
.
Subjects to be embroidered were influenced by
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
RomanticismRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
and included Victorian paintings,
biblicalThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
or
allegoricalAllegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal. An allegory is a device that can be presented in literary form, such as a poem or novel, or in visual form, such as in painting or sculpture...
motifIn art, a motif is a repeated idea, pattern, image, or theme. Paisley designs are referred to as motifs. Many designs in mosques in Islamic culture are motifs, especially those of flowers. Two major Roman motifs are egg and tongue, and ball and reel...
s, and quotations such as "Home Sweet Home" or "Faith, Hope, Love".
In the 1850s to 1870s, the demand for Berlin wool work decreased dramatically, largely because the taste of the populace had changed, and the publishers failed to accommodate Berlin work to new tastes. Other, less opulent styles of embroidery became more popular, such as the
art needleworkArt needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement....
advocated by
William MorrisWilliam Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts...
and his
Arts and Crafts movementThe Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, Australian, and American aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century...
.
Berlin wool work today
Today, embroidery resembling Berlin work is available as kits, usually they are not worked after counting patterns but are printed directly on the canvas. The motifs still resemble classic Berlin work, but are typically less intricate. Such kits are stitched by a dwindling minority.
Modern
needlepointNeedlepoint is a form of canvas work embroidery, in which yarn is stitched through an open weave canvas in which vertical and horizontal threads are formed to make precise holes between the thread and then hand painted or printed with a design. Stitchers use different coloured yarn or thread to...
has lost almost all resemblance with Berlin wool work, it uses a great variety of stitches and threads, often with emphasis on creative work by the stitcher rather than simply copying patterns.
In many ways, some styles of modern cross-stitch can be seen as the true descendants of Berlin work. Of course, modern cross-stitch is a kind of
surface embroiderySurface embroidery is any form of embroidery in which the pattern is worked using decorative stitches and laid threads on top of the foundation fabric or canvas rather than through the fabric; it is contrasted with canvas work....
rather than canvas work.
External links
- Berlin Work by Pat Berman, a technical history at the American Needlepoint Guild site