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Title:
Volume 65 - Issue 2
Date:
2013
Table of contents:
- p. 17-19: Balfour-Paul, Jenny, Introduction: Only Connect | In each of the world’s greatest civilizations, people discovered how dyes could be made from local natural resources. Historic textiles and innumerable images in art from antiquity onwards show just how beautiful and vibrant are nature’s dye colours. Until the late 19th century all dyestuffs were provided by nature – whether by plants, insects or even shellfish. However it is generally acknowledged that the “home” of dyeing was the Indian subcontinent, where this art was already advanced in the Indus civilization (around 2600 BCE) and from where dyestuffs, dyed textiles and knowledge spread east and west via trade routes. This issue includes intriguing stories, of chay-root dye and dyestuffs recovered from shipwrecks, the newly discovered BSI historic volumes and contemporary watercolour illustrations from the Roxburgh collection at Kolkata’s Botanic Gardens, commercial revivals of the ancient but sustainable art of producing dyes from nature by the fair-trade organization Aranya in Bangladesh.
- p. 20-27: King, Brenda, Recalculating Colour: Thomas Wardle’s Remarkable Dye Experiments | For over 120 years a unique archive containing thousands of samples of India’s dyestuffs remained undiscovered in Kolkata. Over decades the samples were moved to various sites not recognized for what they were until Dr H.S. Debnath examined them in 2008. Through years of doctoral and post-doctoral research on the work of Thomas Wardle, silk dyer, the writer had searched for the samples. All inquiries in England produced nothing and one never thought they would have endured the extremes of India’s climate. It was, therefore, thrilling to hear that the samples had been discovered in 2009, the centenary year of Thomas Wardle’s death. The writer viewed the samples and realised what an astonishing achievement they were.
- p. 28-37: Ghuznavi, Ruby, Rangeen: Colours of Life | Through the ages, a splendid array of colours has been developed from plants, minerals and insects to add a magical quality to the beauty of decorative arts. The madder-dyed cotton excavated at Mohenjodaro from the 3rd millennium BCE reflects their early history in India. At their zenith some 300 tints were in constant use during the Mughal period. Discovery of aniline dyes in 1856, with aggressive marketing destroyed this centuries old tradition within decades. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay initiated and inspired the revival of natural dyes in India and Bangladesh. Since 1982 Bangladesh has revived and standardized 30 colour-fast dyes; it has also revived the commercial production of Bengal indigo after more than a century. Today Bangladesh is one of the foremost countries promoting natural dyes through extensive training workshops and marketing of natural dye products within the country and abroad.
- p. 38-49: Balfour-Paul, Jenny, Indigo: From Bengal to Blue Jeans | Indigo, the world’s most universal and best-loved dyestuff, has been produced and used in the Indian subcontinent, and traded from there, for over two millennia. From 1600 European East
- p. 50-59: Cardon, Dominique, The Colours of Chintz: Empirical Knowledge of Chemistry in 18th-Century India | Among the most highly regarded of the numerous textile productions of the Indian subcontinent are the painted and printed cottons known as chintzes or kalamkari . They are especially admired for their vibrant lasting colours and technical virtuosity.
This particularly refined method of textile decoration, which involves laborious stages, was precisely described by three key witnesses of the 18th century. The first of these was Antoine de Beaulieu, a naval officer, who described all the stages of production of chintz in Pondicherry between 1731 and 1732. The second witness was a French Jesuit missionary Gaston Coeurdoux, who in 1742 collated the information on cloth production that he had obtained from those of his Christian converts who were professional kalamkari painters. In 1795 the third witness, Scottish botanist William Roxburgh, published his Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, in which he described chay, used for reds and other colours, and the various dyeing processes.
- p. 60-67: Kumar K.G., Pramod, A Calcutta Florilegia: William Roxburgh’s Flora Indica Drawings | In February 2010, Sutra – in partnership with the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), the Indian Museum, Kolkata, the Rabindranath Tagore Centre of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Kolkata and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London – organized an event on the conservation of textiles and textile traditions. The conference consisted of seminars, workshops, exhibitions and demonstrations of traditional weaving, dyeing and patterning. The author narrates his experience on being asked to curate two exhibitions to coincide with the event: Vastra – an exhibition of historic textiles from the early 17th century to contemporary examples from Bengal; and Vriksha – an exhibition of 12 original albums from the collection of the BSI being displayed for the first time. These included four volumes of drawings of Indian plants compiled by William Roxburgh, and prepared by Indian artists between 1794 and 1813.
- p. 68-73: Cecil, Bessie, Chay Red: Forgotten Dye of the Coromandel Coast | Chay-root produces various shades of red depending on the strength of the chemical alum that fixes dye onto fibre in a process known as mordant-dyeing. References in literature to dyeing and painting cloth with chay-root appear from the 17th to 19th century. The colouring principles seem to reside chiefly in the bark of the root. The primary purpose of European documentation of chay-root mordant-dyeing techniques was to emulate the methods in their respective countries; however, they never succeeded. The chemistry of fixing chay red onto cotton was only known to the dyers of the Coromandel Coast, who were well aware that it could not be fixed on silk. Though the art of dyeing with chay-root declined by the end of the 19th century, research on reviving chay dye is ongoing. Scientific analysis of identifying chay dye on historic textiles was carried out at the Calico Museum of Textiles, Ahmedabad in 1988, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 1993 and the Kelsey Museum, United States also in 1993. In 2011, the extant cotton painted textiles that were traded from Coromandel Coast to Southeast Asia from the collection of the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, were also analysed and the results verify the use of chay dye.
- p. 74-83: Ahmed, Monisha, Conversation with Jasleen Dhamija: The Revival of Natural Dyes | Jasleen Dhamija is a pioneer in the research and revival of the arts and crafts in India, more specifically the textile traditions. She started working with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay for the initiation of the movement to reinvigorate the living cultural traditions of India, at the behest of t Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In the wake of Independence, India was keen to revive all that the British had tried to destroy, especially the production of handloom products. During this time Jasleen travelled throughout the country meeting weavers, dyers, printers and metalworkers among others. The aim was to revive lost crafts, look at product development and ensure a stable and sustainable market for craftspeople. After all, this field gave employment to millions, nearly half the workforce in India. This conversation is specifically on natural dyes in India and her contribution to promoting this field and its future.
- p. 84-93: Mukerji, Kanika, Ajit Kumar Das: Using Natural Dyes in Art | Ajit Kumar Das is an artist who has committed himself to the practice of working with natural materials on cloth. Born in 1957 into a family of dyers and washerfolk in Tripura, northeast India, Das imbibed the techniques of bleaching and dyeing from an early age. Experiencing works that use colours derived from barks, leaves, roots and minerals is soothing to the eyes and this elicits a response that sets Das’s art apart. His paintings include dyes of pomegranate rind, myrobalan turmeric, black, catechu, madder and indigo with alum as mordant. Like a soothsayer from another time, this unusual artist who lives in Kolkata makes art that subtly imparts the significance of nature, using colours, imagery and symbolism that are deeply rooted in personal meaning and experience. Today, in collaboration with Sutra, Das has committed to various projects that will help disseminate his knowledge, including teaching the art of dyeing to a group of disadvantaged women and conducting natural dye workshops.
- p. 94-99: Cowan, Rex, Unexpected Treasures from the Sea | In the last decade, historians, archaeologists and textile specialists have become increasingly interested in the discovery of dyestuffs carried as intercontinental cargo. A few main discoveries of insoluble red sandalwood have come from shipwreck sites. Wrecks sites include those of the Svecia, a heavily armed Swedish East Indiaman used by the Company mainly to trade with China carrying large amounts of red sandalwood in variously sized billets; Dutch Baltic trader, the Vrouw Maria in 1771 that was carrying 1,600 kilograms of indigo in wooden barrels, red dyes, 2,300 kilograms of soluble brazilwood and almost 9,000 kilograms of madder; Spanish Plate galleon, Concepcion, was carrying a substantial cargo of indigo and cochineal along with gold and silver. Divers have recovered a substantial amount of dyestuffs from these sites. However dyes at certain sites had long dispersed like 1708’s Albemarle’s cargo that contained indigo which dispersed in turbulent seas, staining the waters blue for weeks afterwards.
- p. 100-105: Nesbitt, Mark, Indian Dyes and Textiles at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew | The Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens contains about 1000 plant fibres, dyes and textiles from former British India, mainly dating to between 1847–1900, but including some older material acquired from the former East India Company museum. There are strong holdings of major products such as cotton and indigo, but minor (albeit locally important) dyes and fibres are very well represented. As well as plant materials, some animal products such as lac dye and silk are also held. The specimens come from many sources including international exhibitions, officials and explorers in India, and manufacturers such as Thomas Wardle. The Collection and the extensive associated archives at Kew are an underexplored resource for the study of dye and fibre plants in India.