Medallion or Motif?

Can't decide which one to use? Well, you are not alone there. Many tatters face this dilemma - pattern books, the Ring of Tatters, CDs, YouTube demonstrations, personal blogs, even Craftree. Some make the right choice, while others don't. There are tatters who treat these terms as interchangeable and, unfortunately, this misleads and confuses people who are new to tatting.

Art students will know that round and oval medallions featured in ancient Greek murals and architecture. The name itself is derived from the French for a large medal, médaillon. Mrs Beeton's 'Book of Needlework' (1870) illustrates a medallion on page 56.

Therese de Dillmont's 'Complete Encyclopedia of Needlework, pp 358-364 (1884) uses the term 'medallion' exclusively, which is also the practice in 'Weldon's Encyclopedia of Needlework' pp 747-750 (c. 1935).

Elgiva Nicholls' book, 'Tatting: Technique & History' (1962, republished by Dover 1984) has a whole chapter discussing medallions and contains a glossary of terms differentiating between 'medallion' and 'motif'. The medallion is one whole design, mostly circular, oval, square. Motifs are dominent elements in a composition, e.g. clovers, rosettes, leaves, crowns.

To summarise for astute tatters, the square MEDALLION and the BRAID below (both designed by Mary Konior) feature repetitions of a similar floral MOTIF in their composition.

Yes. From the number of older pattern books I have perused, it seems some confusion enters when one begins to link medallions into a larger product, however, they are still medallions composed of interesting repeated patterns, or motifs.

Thanks, @JudithConnors, this does shed some light on this question...

Very succinctly put with great visuals to reinforce :-)
Ever since you explained this distinction on InTatters, I have been trying to use the right term.
But when different tatting guilds/groups/forums cannot agree with each other on terminology, techniques, presentation, etc., it is very difficult to come to any standardisation.
for the consistent effort you put in .

Motif
1: a usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts); especially : a dominant idea or central theme
2: a single or repeated design or color

(This definition, which seemed to me the most succinct is from Merriam-Webster)

1 - exactly the example shown by Judith above, here the floral motif is repeated to form a theme.
2 - pretty much any of our smaller patterns which display a single design idea - and this includes medallions

The more I look at it the more I see that medallion is a sub-set of motif, as are stars and stand-alone designs such as flowers or eifel towers.

This is what I came up with trying to make sense of the terms

From a cataloguing perspective (which is what started this particular discussion off), we need to look at what will a person turn to when they are trying to find a pattern. Looking at our patterns, many are listed under motifs because they are an item made up of a motif (case in point - Tudor Rose stick pin was originally catalogued under motif, flowers and brooch). We've got medallions lumped in with motifs at the moment - most of the time they will be found under Motifs - Non-Tiling. However if we renamed this category to medallions then some of the other non-tiling motifs would be in the wrong place. The only reason that I renamed the categories from motifs and medallions is that this caused the category names to wrap which made the tree look confusing .

Currently many of our patterns are listed in categories that are probably not the best fit. A tabelcloth made up of repeating squares might be under motifs for the element that created them, or under tablecloth or if the same base was used to create matching napkins it'll be there too. Does a user find it confusing to see the tablecloth under motifs? And then there's the old bug-bear of at what point does a medallion become a coaster become a placemat become a doily???? I've tried to make the category tree as simple as possible, tags are the best way to refine further if needed.

Actually looking through the category it seems to me that many of them need a re-think in terms of what category they are in. We seem to have tiled motifs in the non-tiling category and vice versa. Many items that I would consider to be a small doily are also listed here. ARRRGGGHHHH!

OH, if only computers had the same flexibility as the human brain! Thankfully, we are able to overcome and move on when we encounter something that doesn't exactly match every criteria. You are doing a wonderful job of "taming the electronic beast", Kersti. We appreciate your hard work and dedication.

When you look at medallions you will notice the way they develop from the centre. This helps designers when they are creating their lace. Here is an Irish wheel where the centre is an ENCLOSED SPACE. Tiny picots are needed to maintain the tension around the space. Larger picots would distort the shape of the medallion.

Mary Konior's 'Patchwork' is a very popular square medallion among tatters on Craftree. It also has an enclosed space, square this time.

I'm sure that tatters will be able to distinguish among their lacy articles other medallions with enclosed-space centres.

Post removed by becky400 for the following reason: Moved to a different thread..

Other medallions have a RING AT THE CENTRE. This one has twisted picots and is surrounded by eight motifs.

The one below has a central mock ring with four thrown rings. The apparent fifth 'thrown' ring is actually a split ring climbing out into the outer round. While the tiny rings appear to be Josephines, they are mock rings created by joining a second time into the same place.

By now you will have realised that most medallions are composed of pattern repeats. The number of repeats dictates the shape of each medallion.

Okay, so maybe a medallion has a centre of symmetry, but a motif doesn't? Nope, that's not necessarily true...

So,.. Do we ignore what designers have labeled their designs in the past? Workbasket used the terms interchangeably, which was my chief source of patterns for decades.. I'm not arguing for this. I like consistancy. But if you know a pattern by a certain designer and go to look for it, you may not find it because its label was "corrected." I do think you have to start somewhere sticking to a formalized terminology and insisting everyone else does to, so that we can communicate without confusion. I'm just wondering if there is a graceful way to handle this small problem.

Leigh

in reply to moraih's post:

Coats also used them interchangeably - which is what I learnt with. I'm looking right now at a lovely runner called a "motif runner" when it's clearly made up of medallions - although they form the pattern repeat motif. Examples like this are why I tend to think of medallions as being a subset of motif.

Also, some of the motifs above would make good coasters and are probably listed as such! It really is a quagmire and there are some days where I think I want to just give up!

Thone are lovely medallions, @JudithConnors, and nicely demonstrated. But my confusion arises from my understanding (mis-understanding? ) that the outer round is much more important in determining whether the piece is a
1) stand-alone ... hence medallion , (even though it is usually comprised of motif repeats) ; or
2) repeatable ... hence becoming a motif. 3 of the 4 tatted models above can easily be joined to each other thus functioning as motifs. The last one, too, can be repeated though not easily.

@Kersti, I don't envy your position. My neurons soon get too bunched up in these Category discussions to make any sense whatsoever. (((Hugs)))

Just about any medallion can become a tile simply by adding picots at strategic places along the outer edge - or become a coaster, or an insert for linens, or strung together in a line to make an ornate edging. Hmm. I don't file doily patterns with linen centers under doilies in my own collection, but under Edging- Curved because what it was used for in the sample isn't as important to me as the design function of the piece of lace. I could just as easily use that edging as a collar, or modify it a bit to go around a much larger cloth, or turn it into an insertion as well. I guess I'm back to- is it important what the designer originally presented it as, or should that be stripped away? I tend to strip away the original presentation when filing patterns at home - but my system is only likely to work for how my brain sees things. We need a system that is intuitive to grasp for anyone coming in late to the party...

Leigh

in reply to muskaan's post:

Ah, now you're on the right path. As discrete (stand-alone) pieces medallions are 'medallions'. When works of art are enlarged by tessellation, artists distinguish each as a 'motif' of the whole design. The differentiation is fine, but most tatters don't bother noticing. When listing them by category, they are 'medallions'.

Another medallion construction has a SHARED PICOT at the centre. This is the one which gives tatters a little grief, as the picot belongs to the first ring and must be large enough to accommodate more joins neatly.

This medallion has 5 shared picots - one in the centre, four between the clover motifs. While the centre picot sits well, the others have too much room and appear floppy.

So to summarise. Medallions are discrete compositions, usually with pattern repeats that contain motifs. They may be constructed with different centres, as follows:
* an enclosed space
* a central ring
* a shared picot.

I believe that a part of the confusion lies in the two meanings of motif - 1 being a repeated design ELEMENT (mo-teef) and the other being a DISCRETE design (mote-if) which may or may not be in the form of a medallion.

Anyway, I was able to rename the categories so that they do not cause the wrapping issue that made such a mess/confusion.

This is a very helpful discussion. Thank you, Judith, for starting it, and to all of the rest of you who have chimed in. I had concluded the terms were interchangeable. I need to update the names of some of my patterns.

@tatknot, you're welcome. We all benefit from sharing.

I was a 'motif' user by habit, no other reason than that I read it in a pattern book. In the mid-1990s I undertook a 3-year proficiency course with the Australian Lace Guild which involved quite a deal of practical and historical research. This led to rethinking what I just accepted from common usage. As you can see above, there is a world of difference when you are prepared to take time to consider other perspectives.

As Kersti mentions above, the problem lies with 'motif' not 'medallion'. And here is why so many tatters become confused. Some tatters take the easy way out, labelling everything 'motif'. Or, as in the introduction #1, many use the two terms interchangeably.

Discrete motifs can take any shape (other than a medallion). Here are a few motifs out of the thousands which exist. I'm sure that you have tatted many of them.

Although medallions were mentioned in pattern books and needlework encyclopaedias of the late C19th and early C20th, they are just as useful and popular currently in the C21st. Renulek often starts her Spring table centres with medallions and most of Jan S'. designs are composed of repeated medallions linked together. The current Italian pattern books on the market feature insertions and insets formed from multiple medallions too.

Medallions usually start off larger circular and square pieces found in the pattern index - coaster, mat, doily, table centre. You have only to look at the Digest and Timeline Views to find medallions being featured somewhere.

Thank you to all for their input on this thread. It has served to get the 'grey matter' working. We have noticed;
* the different constructions of medallions
* the difference between medallions and motifs and
* the two ways of pronouncing 'motif' (depending on their location).

Can you spot the triangular medallion below?

in reply to JudithConnors's post:

I would say the red one is the medallion and the white one is a - well, it seems a bit complicated to just be called a motif...

My initial answer was going to be opposite @GraceT, but I went back over the discussion and changed my mind. The red triangle develops from the center outward beginning with an enclosed space. It also uses pattern repeats that contain motifs. The fact that the white one was a discrete element was what first tempted me to choose it, but I now suspect that was an over simplification. I'm eager to learn the correct answer!

For purposes of the Category Tree, I think @Kersti made the right call in modifying the name to avoid the wrapping. At the same time, I'm glad @JudithConnors is getting our grey matter working and encouraging nuanced analysis of the construction of the lovely designs we all love to work!

@GraceT and @jmjtat, congratulations!

I love your reasoning. It's shows how discerning you are. Yes, the red one. The white one is a triangular motif for a handkerchief corner.