TAPESTERIES
INTRODUCTION- Tapestry is a type of weaving. Various designs of looms can
be used, including upright or "high-warp" looms, where the tapestry is stretched
vertically in front of the weaver, or horizontal "low-warp" looms, which were usual
in large medieval and Renaissance workshops, but later mostly used for smaller
pieces.
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Normally
it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and
difficult to make, so most historical pieces are intended to hang vertically on a wall
(or sometimes in tents), or sometimes horizontally over a piece of furniture such as
a table or bed. Some periods made smaller pieces, often long and narrow and used
as borders for other textiles. Most weavers use a natural warp thread, such
as wool, linen, or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton but may
include silk, gold, silver, or other alternatives.
Tapestry weaving- tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all
the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles,
where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft
yarns are typically discontinuous (unlike brocade); the artisan interlaces each
coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area. It is a plain weft-faced
weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to
form the design. European tapestries are normally made to be seen only from one
side, and often have a plain lining added on the back. However, other traditions,
such as Chinese kesi and that of pre-Columbian Peru, make tapestry to be seen
from both sides.
Tapestry should be distinguished from the different technique
of embroidery, although large pieces of embroidery with images are sometimes
loosely called "tapestry", as with the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is in fact
embroidered. From the Middle Ages on European tapestries could be very large,
with images containing dozens of figures. They were often made in sets, so that a
whole room could be hung with them.
In LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE, tapestry was the grandest and most
expensive medium for figurative images in two dimensions, and despite the rapid
rise in importance of painting it retained this position in the eyes of
many Renaissance patrons until at least the end of the 16th century, if not
beyond. The European tradition continued to develop and reflect wider changes in
artistic styles until the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, before being
revived on a smaller scale in the 19th century.
Although few have survived to the present day, many tapestries were used to
embellish Church walls, considered religious “wall hangings” that served both
decorative and spiritual ends.
Coptic tapestries interwove timelessness and artistry; from woolen wefts on linen
warps to bright white cotton, fabrics were alternated between in order to ensure
durability and beauty alike. Embroidery became a staple of most tapestries,
including less traditional carpet variants and ornamental motifs.
Despite the outreach of Christianity in Egypt, some tapestries whisper ancient
influences; many Coptic trimmings drew from ancient Egyptian motifs, including
those of the funerary cult of Osiris and the grapevine or ivy wine amphora
In late medieval Europe, tapestry was the grandest and most expensive medium for
figurative images in two dimensions, and despite the rapid rise in importance of
painting it retained this position in the eyes of many Renaissance patrons until at
least the end of the 16th century, if not beyond. [1] The European tradition continued
to develop and reflect wider changes in artistic styles until the French
Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, before being revived on a smaller scale in the
19th century.
COPTIC TAPESTRIES-
Egypt’s earliest memories were printed on papyrus, and its more modern
ones, woven into tapestry. Tapestry-making has directed stories in Egypt for well
over nine centuries, becoming elemental to both beauty and storytelling, warm
homes and craftsmanship.
By fickle, flickering lamplight early Copts redefined tapestry-making on the
Mediterranean, their skill sets dissolving into masterworks that still, to this day, are
lauded for being a “bridge between the art of the ancient world and the art of the
Middle Ages.”
The craft came with its own morbidities; as paganism faded from Egyptian
ideology, so did the practice of mummification. As a result, emphasis was then
placed on thread: on the clothes, furnishings, and tapestries buried with the dead.
The cult of Osiris was a dedicated, jubilant group of worshippers centered in
Abydos, Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. The locale was considered the
“Terrace of the Great God,” and his actual tomb. An image of him would be
wrapped and buried during an annual procession designed to honor the funerary
deity.
Alternatively, tapestries drew on more than the divine – they became vehicles of
soundless storytelling, provocations of boy-warriors and desert critters, hunters
galloping fields.
Today, Egypt’s most famed tapestry workshops exist in al-Harrania. As a craft that
“demanded dedication” and only just scratched the ideological topsoil of Egyptian
life, handmade tapestries feature in nearly every home. Simple depictions of
camels and horseback hunters, others of rabbits and fauna, feature heavily in
today’s Egyptian art – some elaborate, massive tapestries, while others remain
inconspicuous yet ornate.
Storytelling has evolved in silence – boundless and beautiful – on Egyptian
tapestries.
CHINA TAPESTERIES-
Kesi K'o-ssu in is a technique in Chinese silk tapestry. It is admired for its
lightness and clarity of pattern. At first, this technique was chiefly used to protect
scrolls containing paintings. It was also employed as a support for paintings, later
going on to become an esteemed art form. This art form especially flourished
between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
The Sogdians from Central Asia during the mid-1st millennium brought their art
and technique of textile tapestry to China (the Sogdians established flourishing
communities throughout, and by the 6th century, their textile patterns were already
being seen in China), and it is through this Silk Road influence, resulted in what
became known as "kesi". During the Song dynasty, the art of the "kesi" reached its
height.
It is a tapestry weave, normally using silk on a small scale compared to European
wall-hangings. Clothing for the court was one of the main uses. The density of
knots is typically very high, with a gown of the best quality perhaps involving as
much work as a much larger European tapestry. Initially used for small pieces,
often with animal, bird and flower decoration, or dragons for imperial clothing,
under the Ming dynasty it was used to copy paintings.
"Kesi" means "cut silk", as the technique uses short lengths of weft thread that are
tucked into the textile. Only the weft threads are visible in the finished fabric.
Unlike continuous weft brocade, in k'o-ssu each colour area was woven from a
separate bobbin, making the style both technically demanding and time-
consuming.
