[Image via Sri Theads.]
Our textile of the day is an old Japanese hand-woven cotton from Sri, the Brooklyn-based gallery. In his recent post, dealer Stephen Szczepanek describes the floral cloth as having a "delicate intensity" similar to batik. It seems implausible, but it feels rich yet kind of "soft-spoken" to me, too. The 19th-century dyes used include indigo, an earthy bengara (Stephen explains that this is an iron-oxide-based dye) and a grey-ish black dye. I've read that the term bengara most likely relates to iron oxide originating in Bengal, India. See more and read all about the Japanese piece here.
Related reading:
Japanese Art and Design (new edition)
Blue Nankeen
Sari to Sarong
Posts
11 comments:
This is so lovely. I know just what you mean by "delicate intensity". Thanks for sharing it.
Great pattern - it uses only two blues and an orange, but seems to suggest many more colours. Is it known what plant it represents?
this is amazingly beautiful. love the indigo blue tones and design!
Emile --
Great point about the illusion of more color and great question. I'm not sure. Stephan puts it under the karakusa umbrella -- stylized arabesques. This link mentions the plants/flowers most commonly used:
http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/k/karakusa.htm
RBB --
So glad you like it!
Modern Sybarite -- the indigo tones are so appealing in the dog days of summer, aren't they?
What a wonderful way to describe this textile, I love the color palette!
xoxo
Karena
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Courtney-
I think the print might actually suggest the influence of European document print textiles...they are not traditional Japanese flowers. The late 19th century saw the import/export of everything and Indonesian batiks were in use for kimono by then as well. Change the colorway and make it linen and it could even be a modern day Bennison fabric!
Hi Jacqueline,
This detail view really shows the surprisingly naturalistic rendering Stephen talks about and that also makes me think of the Indian exports to the far east highlighted in Sari to Sarong -- so an Indian influence. But the long view of this piece really shows the classic arabesque too.
I know what you mean about the benison look!
PS
Meant to type "Woven Cargoes". So many gorgeous examples of Indian textiles favored in Japan!
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