Page 102 - Chiense TExtiles, MET MUSEUM Pub 1934

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
in their bright loosely patterned robes and tinkling
bands, they are charmingly gay and not at all the mon-
sters of depraved magic which so many would have us
think them.

SUMMER ROBES

In the great heat of summer, the court and the whole
country went into thin silk and gauze, the court gar-
ments bearing the same emblems of rank and dignity as
the more formal ones, but of materials fragile and deli-
cate, cool to look at, fresh and varied in color as a garden.
Most of these date toward the end of the Ch'ing dy-
nasty, but some are earlier, notably an imperial robe of
fine petit point (a detail of this is illustrated in fig. I2),
the ground color ecru and the pattern worked in soft
blues, dull orange, dull yellow, sparkling with dots of
violet, a thing as lovely and varied as a night moth's
wing. The male civilian's costumes are usually of a solid
color, sometimes with a woven pattern, but the female
costumes, of which the Museum has numerous exam-
ples, are gay as butterflies, clear in color and embroid-
ered with lotus blossoms, orchids, and the exotic gold-
fish of the gardens where their wearers walked. Im-
agine for a moment the great gardens of China in the
summer, with their majestic trees and cool courts, their
1otus pools and tortuous rock gardens, their moon gate-
ways and singing insects, and then imagine these cos-
tumes as they must have appeared in this harmonious
setting.