Textiles of India.
The textiles of India form an important section of the industrial arts of that country. The materials used in the woven and embroidered fabrics are silk, cotton, wool, hair, coloured grasses, jute, gold, silver, and various tinsels.
Among the chief artistic productions in textiles are the kincobs, or silken brocades, made at Ahmedabad and Benares, the embroidered muslin of Dacca, the pile carpets of Malabar, the rugs of Madras, and the shawls of Cashmere.
The native excellence, however, in the design, colour, and manufacture that has characterised these textiles for centuries past is now in danger of extinction—and great mischief has been done already—from the influence of European designs, the introduction of magenta and aniline dyes, and by the competition with European markets, resulting in the production of cheaper forms of Indian goods. It is only in the case of a few instances where the textiles are made to order, or under the patronage of some of the remaining Indian princes, that the traditional superiority of manufacture is still maintained. Another exception is the production of the silk brocades, or kincobs (Fig. 261); this is owing in a great measure to the demand for these goods by the Chinese and other Orientals, who have not yet adopted the Western ideas of imitating the European style of dress.
Some of these kincobs are highly ornamented with interwoven gold or silver-gilt patterns of floral form, others are ornamented as in the “happy hunting-ground” patterns of Benares manufacture, with flowers, birds, and animals. This particular form of fabric is no doubt a survival, through Persian channels, of the embroidered garments of the ancient Babylonian monarchs.
In the production of cotton goods the trade of the native caste of weavers has suffered very much by the great importation of Manchester cottons, and by the establishment of monster cotton power-loom factories at Ahmedabad and elsewhere. Many natives of the weaver caste have been obliged to take to agricultural and other less lucrative pursuits, owing to the partial ruin of their trade by English competition.
Fig. 261.—Kincob of Ahmedabad. (B.)
Cotton-printing is still, however, an important native industry, especially in the city of Lucknow, where the colouring and design are still superior to that of the English or French chintzes. Some of the best Indian, or rather Indo-Persian, ornament is found on the printed calico palampores, or bed-coverings, made at Masulipatam and other places. Calicoes woven in varying stripes of coloured threads, checks, and tartans of all hues, are among the specialities of Indian textiles, the material being used for trouserings, skirts, and petticoats.
The once-famous Dacca muslins, that on account of their gossamer-like appearance have been known under the names of “evening dew” and “running water,” are now almost non-existent, a cheaper and coarser variety taking their place. Muslins from Dacca and other places embroidered with silk are still greatly used in India, and are largely exported to the surrounding Eastern countries, including Turkey and Egypt.
Cotton fabrics interwoven with golden thread were formerly made in great quantities to meet the wants of the once-powerful native rulers and the Court retinues, but now, since the English rule in India, this kind of fabric with many others of a sumptuous nature are much less in demand.
Printing patterns in gold and silver foil is a common method of decorating dark purple or deep green cottons; muslins are also stamped with patterns in gold.
Fine gold and silver-gilt wire is used very much in India for lace-making, weaving, and embroidery. The natives excel all Europeans in the art of wire-drawing and in the making of gold and silver foil, tinsels, and spangles. These industries are carried on chiefly in the cities of Delhi, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, and Lahore.
Silk manufacture is still a flourishing industry in many parts of India, but, on the other hand, in some places it has declined very much owing to European competition. The tasar or tusser silk is a native wild silk, from which a coarser variety of silk is now manufactured in increasing quantities, and is exported chiefly from Bengal. It is a useful material, but has not the brilliancy or sheen of the ordinary silk. Plain silk cloth is made in the Punjaub, and the damasked or figured variety is made chiefly at Bhawalpur.
Cashmere has been famed for centuries past for its beautiful woollen shawls made from pushm, the wool of the Cashmere goat, and from camel’s hair wool; the woven material of the latter is known as “camlet.”
The principal design on the Cashmere shawls is the cone pattern decorated with a mixture of small flowers, the fillings between the cones being also a diapering of small floral forms. The cone patterns are also found on metal work, enamels, and carvings from Cashmere and its neighbourhood. On the genuine shawls the ornamentation is embroidered in wide borders, centrepieces, and corner groups of flowers. The Cashmere shawls have been imitated in woven shawls by the French and in the Paisley shawls of Scotch manufacture. Some of the costliest Cashmere shawls are embroidered with a “terrestrial paradise” of singing birds, flowers, animals, and figures.
Indian ornament or decoration, from its mosaic-like or flattened-out character, is extremely well suited to the decoration of textile fabrics. The native ornament consists of a variety of flat renderings of the daisy (sventi), the lotus, the shoe flower (Figs. 91, 92, 261), knop and flower patterns, parrots, peacocks, lions, tigers, elephants, men on horseback, hunting or fighting, &c., and is always rendered in flat tints of alternating colours on flat grounds, in such works as enamels, tiles, pottery, wall paintings, lac-work, and textiles of all kinds. Though at times the vice of Indian ornament is illustrated in a riotous use of small detail, on the whole it is well suited for the decoration of flat surfaces. In the artistic products of the Mohammedan people of India, or descendants of Persian settlers, the ornament invariably consists of Persian or Saracenic types; the former is distinctly seen in the Masulipatam rugs, carpets, and palampores, and the latter in the various art work of the Mogul period, as, for instance, in the inlaid marbles and other work of Agra. (Fig. 293.)
The Sassanian Persian designs in silk, as we have seen, were derived from the more ancient Assyrian and Babylonian embroideries, the motives of which were invariably the Tree of Life, or “Grove of Ashareh,” with divinities, priests, or royal worshippers on either side, the whole usually enclosed in circles.
In the Persian and in the later Mesopotamian Mōsilwork animals took the place of the human figures, and were often placed back to back, divided by a stem or piece of floriated ornament—a reminiscence of the sacred tree—and still enclosed in a circular band. The animals were generally lions, cheetahs, or were griffin forms, all treated as ornamental abstractions, and the intervening spaces between the circles were filled up with forms of parrots or other birds, conventionally treated.
The early Saracenic designs were copies of these (Fig. 262). Later Saracenic designs had less of the bird and animal forms, and more of the purely Arabian ornament, with the addition of horizontal bands of Kufic inscriptions such as texts from the Koran, laudatory compliments to and names or titles of Sultans and Khalifs for whom the fabrics were made (Fig. 263).
It is singular that the rich silken fabrics made for and by the Saracens had nearly always representations of animals in the designs, although this was contrary to the laws of their faith; but this may be accounted for by their practice of copying or adapting the forms of decoration already in use in the countries they had conquered, and their lack of originality in design during their earlier days was, perhaps, the strongest motive in causing them to adapt ready-made inventions to their own uses.
The wearing of pure silken garments was also forbidden by the Mohammedan religion, but the Saracens got over that difficulty by the mixture of a few cotton threads with the silken web. The Egyptian Mamlūks (1250-1390) were very prodigal in the use of silk for dresses, banners, tent hangings, carpets, and horse clothing, supplied from the looms of Cairo and Alexandria, and imported from the Eastern centres.
Fig. 262.—Silk Damask; Eleventh Century; Early Saracenic (L. P.)
In the thirteenth century the silk industry of the Saracens was in its greatest vigour, with designs mostly in imitation of the Persian school, and in the fourteenth the same motives were used, but arranged in rows of horizontal bands—which is essentially a Greek method—and was due to the influence of the Greek and Christian Coptic designers. A good example of this style may be seen in the peacock design, Fig. 264.
Fig. 263.—Silk Fabric of Iconium; Arabian: Thirteenth Century. (Lyons Museum.)
On account of the seaboard of Asia Minor having a mixed population of Jews, Christians, and Saracens, silk fabrics from that country were decorated with imitations of Persian designs, having the “homa” or “tree of life,” Christian elements, such as the cross, seen in the “tree of life” (Fig. 265), and also imitations of Arabic writing. The Syrian examples of textiles are not so good in material or workmanship as the Byzantine or old Persian.
Fig. 264.—Arabian Silk Wall Hanging of the Fourteenth Century. J.
Fig. 265.—Apostolic Tree of Life, with the Cross Emblem.
The most interesting development in the design of silk fabrics is that which took place in Sicily. The Sicilians were first taught the art of spinning and weaving of silk and the rearing of the silkworm by their rulers the Saracens of Egypt, and the early designs of the Siculo-Arabian style have, in addition to the Persian cheetahs, Indian parrots, and antelopes, such animals of African origin as the giraffe, elephant, gazelle, and other fauna of that continent. Gold, silver, and cotton threads were used with the silk in these fabrics.
Mention has been made that in the twelfth century, when the Normans conquered Sicily, of their bringing silk weavers from Athens and from other parts of Greece to work at Palermo. Here and at this time (1130) a distinct alteration of the design took place by the introduction of the Greek classic and Christian elements of ornament in mixture with some of the older Saracenic forms.
Mock Arabic inscriptions were also used very much in these Sicilian fabrics; this may have been done by Christian designers ignorant of Arabic, in order to give to the fabrics an appearance of Saracenic work, which, perhaps, made them sell better when exported (Fig. 266).
Another peculiarity of the Palermitan silks is the multitude of elements found in the designs. All kinds of fabulous animals and birds are used as in heraldic blazoning: sunbursts, cloud-forms, Christian emblems and elements occurring as forms of angels with swinging censers, initials of sacred names, and emblematic plants. The use of these heraldic and Christian elements was in a great measure due to the influence of the Crusaders in the Middle Ages. The favourite colouring of the Sicilian silks was dark red grounds and green foliage; the birds, animals, and mythological elements were usually woven in gold threads as in the example given (Fig. 267).
Fig. 266.—Silk Damask; Sicilian; with Imitated Arabic Characters. (R.)
Towards the end of the fourteenth century and during the fifteenth the designs became more floriated, the vine and pomegranate, with vase forms, were used and were really developments from, and did duty for, the sacred tree of the early patterns, and instead of a circular framing the flamboyant or ogival diaper lines were introduced. This repeating framework was derived from the Saracenic Pointed architecture and adopted in the ogival Gothic at this date (Figs. 268, 269).
Fig. 267.—Silk Damask; Sicilian; Fifteenth Century. (L.P.)
During the sixteenth century the pineapple was used very much under a variety of modifications as an ornamental form in fabrics (Fig. 269), and often in company with the pomegranate. This came about after the discovery of the West Indies, from where the pineapple had been imported into Europe (Fig. 270). Large-pattern damask diapers, brocades, and velvets were now made in many places in Italy, with patterns based on waving lines or ogival forms enclosing bilateral schemes of ornament, all of which were reminiscences of the “tree of life” patterns, and in all may be traced the strong influences of Saracenic design.
Fig. 268.—Silk Damask; Florentine; Fifteenth Century.
From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, and even later, Lucca in Tuscany, Genoa, Florence, and Venice were celebrated for the manufacture of silken brocades and velvets, which have been used for the dresses of priests, kings, and noblemen, as well as for hangings.
Fig. 269.—Diaper in Velvet Brocade; Italian; Sixteenth Century.
The dress patterns of those days were all of a very large size of diaper, such as are now only used for hangings and furniture coverings. The Venetian and Spanish pictures of the period contain many illustrations of these patterns on the dresses of the figures and hangings of the chambers.
Fig. 270.—Velvet Brocade; Italian; Sixteenth Century.
In France the silk weaving industry was first established at Lyons about the middle of the sixteenth century. The designs of the first efforts of the French weavers were very similar if not copies of the prevailing Italian school, but soon after became more floral in character, and more and more realistic renderings of flowers and foliage, until about the eighteenth century, when they partook of the same character as the pottery and furniture decoration, which has been already described. During the Mediæval and Renaissance periods France, like England, imported silks and velvets from Italy and the East, and their linen and drapery from Flanders and Germany.
Bruges in Flanders was especially famous during the sixteenth century for its silks and velvets, and Ypres was even more so for its fine linens and damasks.
Very little silk was manufactured in England prior to 1629, when about this date a company of silkmen was formed in London. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 had the effect of firmly establishing the manufacture of silk in England by the colony of French refugees who settled at Spitalfields, St. Giles’s, and Soho in London, and at Canterbury, Norwich, and Coventry. The trade soon afterwards spread to Manchester, Macclesfield, and Paisley in Scotland, and the first silk mill for spinning and throwing was erected at Derby by John Lombe in the year 1717, which was worked by water power.
The designs for the patterns of English silks have always been more or less imitations of the prevalent French styles, and, in fact, England depended largely until late years on the efforts of French designers for nearly all of its textile patterns. This is not the case, however, to-day, for very few foreigners are now employed as designers by English manufacturers.
The chief seat of the velvet manufacture in Germany at the present day is Crefeld; Switzerland produces great quantities of silk, which is made chiefly at Zurich and the villages on the banks of the Lake of Zurich, at Bâsle, and other places.
China, the birthplace of silk, and younger Japan are still famed for their delicate fabrics in this material, from whence the raw products are imported extensively into Europe. In America the silk industry has made great headway of late years, the principal seat of the manufacture is the town of Paterson in New Jersey.
England has always held its own in the manufacture of woollen goods of good material, mostly of plain cloth, but sometimes inwrought or woven with designs of figures, animals, and foliage patterns. At Bath, Norwich, Worcester, and in the abbeys and great religious houses during the Middle Ages the monks employed a good deal of their time at the loom, and considerable quantities of their work were exported to the Continent during the fourteenth century. The town of Worsted in Norfolk has given the name—worsted—to a cloth made there from a new preparation of the woollen yarn, which consisted of a special twisting of the threads so as to make the yarn of a harder texture. This cloth has been used for church vestments, hangings, and bed coverings.
Cotton, the woolly product of the cotton-tree, and the cloth made from it, has been known in India and the East from the earliest times.
Pliny mentions cotton under the name of a fabric called oxylina, made from the cotton that grew about the branches of the xylon or gossypium tree, or shrub, which grew in India, Upper Egypt, and Arabia.
The Romans imported cotton fabrics from India, and the priests of ancient Egypt used it for their dresses.
The cotton plant was cultivated by the Moors in Spain about the beginning of the tenth century, and they were the first people in Europe to make cotton fabrics. They are also credited with the invention of fustian-making (Spanish, fustes), a cotton material woven and afterwards cut precisely like velvet; it is generally thought that as fustian preceded the manufacture of velvet, the making of the latter may have been suggested to the Italians by the Spanish fustian.
In the year 1585, after the sacking of Antwerp, some Flemish weavers settled at Manchester—now the great seat of cotton manufacture in England—and commenced the new industry of cotton spinning and weaving. Before this date Manchester and its neighbourhood were noted for the weaving of linen. The linen yarn was imported from Ireland, woven at Manchester, and the cloth sent back for distribution and sale in Ireland and other parts of the kingdom.
The power of production in cotton goods was enormously increased by the inventions of Arkwright with his water-frame spinning machine, Hargreaves, who in 1770 invented the spinning-jenny, and by Compton, who improved on the latter by his invention of the mule-jenny in 1779.
In 1785 Dr. Cartwright invented an automatic loom, which others improved on, when finally Horrocks, of Stockport, in 1803 brought to a successful issue his invention of the power-loom now in general use.
Cotton printing and dyeing in colours have been successfully practised in India, Asia Minor, the Levant, and in the East generally from the earliest times. The patterns found in the commoner prints and chintzes of to-day have still reminiscences of Indian and Persian ornament.
Most of the English designs in cotton prints of the more important classes have a strong tendency to floral patterns of a naturalistic type, the outcome of the imitation of French silk patterns that were common in the early part of this century.
Calico block-printing was introduced into England about the middle of the eighteenth century by Robert Peel—the grandfather of the first baronet—who cut his own blocks. Printing by means of cylinders was invented in 1785. Previous to the invention of calico printing “painted cloths” of linen and other fabrics were used as hangings and in the general furnishing of English apartments.