Wives and girlfriends of the American golfers at the washed-out first day of the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, Wales - click on the picture to see more images at WalesOnline...
The first day of golf’s Ryder Cup here in Wales was pretty well washed out by rain, and it got me thinking about the word umbrella (or brolly for short). Lovely word.
Lost umbrella by Ria Hills...
We often have broken brolly days here in the city, when a combination of rain and strong winds leads to discarded umbrellas all over the pavements, their backs broken, whether big golf umbrellas or little collapsible ones, whether traditional black or girly pink, or brightly patterned.
Umbrella means, literally, “little shadow” in Latin. Although my Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1972) suggests we took it from a later Italian version, Ombrello, and moved the vowels back again.
There is a lengthy and interesting history of the umbrella in Wikipedia, so I don’t intend to regurgitate it here, apart from a few points. The confusion to me is that the word umbrella meant a shade against both sun and rain until comparatively recently.
In modern English we use umbrella only for a protection against rain, while we call a sunshade a parasol, from the French, meaning literally a “against the sun”.
Pierre Séguier, Chancellor of France, in 1660, painted by Charles Le Brun
It occurs to me that most early umbrellas and parasols belonged to rich people and were carried by servants.
Portable weather-shades (who knows, they may have given some protection against precipitation as well) are found in images from ancient Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, and even among the Aztecs.
A parasol in this image in the style of a Greek vase from the 1893 book 'Le Corset a travers les Ages'
Hindu hero Prithu chases the earth goddess in the form of a white cow, from an illustrated manuscript of the Bhagavata Purana, Indian, Pahari, about 1740, possibly by Manaku - note the little parasol attached to the chariot...
A light oriental parasol in this lovely poster by Noble - it's beautiful and used all over the web but I can't find out who 'Noble' was...
Personal weather-shades were apparently unknown in Britain until at least the 1600s, maybe because they were mainly for protection against sun, not rain, and we didn’t have much sun here in those days…
Heavy rain by Kuniyoshi Utagawa (1797-1861)
The Chinese were probably the first to waterproof their paper parasols with wax and lacquer. It is thought the first European umbrellas came from there, around the 17th century. It seems likely to me that they hit fashionable Italy and France first – and we adopted the Italian name ombrello (“little shadow”) rather than the more accurate French parapluie (“against rain”).
'Passer Payez', a scene from Paris around 1803 by Louis-Leopold Boilly - the streets of Paris were so muddy that some entrepreneurs offered passage on wooden planks on wheels, for a fee. Great umbrellas, though!
A big black umbrella makes an interesting prop in this portrait of Thomas Gisborne and his wife by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1786
The Victorians had waterproof umbrellas made of wood or whalebone frames and oiled silk, but they were heavy and hard to fold. The big revolution came in the early 1850s, when northern English industrialist Samuel Fox developed a lighter steel-framed umbrella.
Since then there have been many improvements on the basic design, including telescopic umbrellas, and the fabric used has changed to cotton, plastic film and nylon.
While the French say parasol (“against the sun”) and parapluie (“against the rain”), and the Italians use parasole (“against the sun”) and ombrello (“little shadow”), in rather the same way as we do in English. So I’m not sure if we picked up parasol from the French or Italians.
A woman with a parasol by Claude Monet, 1875
Parapluies par excellence! Auguste Renoir's famous painting of 1883, currently in London's National Gallery...
In Spain they say parasol (“against the sun”) or quitasol (“remove-sun”) and paraguas (parar–aguas, “to stop water”). In Portugal they say para-sol (“against the sun”) and guarda-chuva (“guard-rain”).
El Quitasol by Francisco Goya, around 1777 - it was painted in oil on linen so it could me translated into a tapestry.
The Germans use Sonnenschirm (“sun screen”) and Regenschirm (“rain screen”) – they always did like to create their own words for things (see my blog post “The ungothroughsomeness of stuff”).
Aprilregen (April rain), 1855, from the book Christa Pieske: Bilder für jedermann. Wandbilddrucke 1840–1940
The umbrella is a wonderful motif in art as well as a great word, so I am delighted to share some colourful examples in this blog post. Several are Impressionist, some are modern – click on the pictures to find out more.
Auguste Renoir did parasols as well as parapluies - Woman with Parasol, 1876
Gustave Caillebotte: Paris Street: Rainy Day, 1877, now in the Art Institute of Chicago
A Summer Stroll (with an Oriental parasol), by Albert Lynch from the 1880s
Lady with a Parasol by Edouard Manet, 1881 - click on the picture to see a pretty gallery from Sara's Parasols
This painting by Sydney Prior Hall, around 1883, shows three daughters of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, although his mother Victoria was still on the throne at the time. Don't they look like their dad!? It hangs in London's National Portrait Gallery
The bridesmaid by JJ Tissot, 1883-5, now at Leeds Arts Gallery
Sur La Plage, Le Treport, by Albert Aublet, 1887
L'Averse by Paul Serusier, 1893
Umbrellas in the Rain by English artist Maurice Prendergast, 1899
A London Transport poster from 1925
Rainy Etude by Belarusian artist Leonid Afremov (born 1955)
Rainy Street Scene by Debra Hurd
City Slicker with Chihuahua by Amberson
The Squirrelbasket 
It was interesting. Thank you for sharing.