which art has appeared at the beginning cannot
here be discussed; nor how the Chinese and Hindu may have leapt into a
perfection which has stood still for thousands of years, protected
alike from expansion as from destruction, by the swaddling bands of
codified custom; while Greek art rose like the sun, shone over the
civilized world, and set--never again to see another epoch of glory.
These subjects must be left for the study of the anthropological
philosopher, who is working for the assistance and guidance of the
future historian of art.

Style in needlework has passed through many phases since the
aboriginal, prehistoric woman, with the bone needle, drew together the
edges of the skins of the animals she had prepared for food.

For absolute necessity, in forming the garments and covering the tent,
needlework need go no further than the seam. This, however, in the
woven or plaited material, must fray where it is shaped, and become
fringed at the edges. Every long seam is a suggestion, and every
shaped edge a snare.

The fringe lends itself to the tassel, and the shaped seam suggests a
pattern; up-stitches are needed for binding the web, and before she is
aware of it, the worker finds herself adorning, _embroidering_; and
the craft enters the outskirts of the region of art.

The humble early efforts at decoration, called by the French
"primitif," are the first we know and class, and are found in all
savage attempts at ornament. This style consists mainly of straight
lines, zigzags, wavy lines, dots, and little discs.[19]

Gold discs of many sizes, and worked with a variety of patterns, are
found equally in the tomb of the warrior at Mycenae, and in Ashantee,
accompanied in both cases with gold masks covering the faces of the
dead. The discs or buttons remind us of those found in Etruscan tombs,
though the execution of these last is more advanced. They appear to be
the origin of the "clavus" or nail-headed pattern woven into silks in
the Palace of the Caesars. The last recorded survival of this pattern
is in woven materials for ecclesiastical purposes in the Middle Ages.

Of very early needlework we only find here and there a fragment,
illustrated occasionally by passing allusions in poetry and history.

The ornamental art of Hissarlik[20] is so primitive that we cannot
feel that it has any resemblance to that described as Trojan by Homer,
who probably adorned his song with the art he had known elsewhere.[21]