Post by vimala on Jun 7, 2008 12:15:09 GMT 5.5
Hand-Printed, Dyed And Printed Fabrics
The discovery of a dyed cotton fabric dating back to the Indus Valley civilization shows that the art of dyeing with the use of mordants was well known to the Indian dyers 5,000 years ago. This form of dyeing was responsible for making India famous all over the world for its dyed and printed fabrics. Printed fabrics have also been found in Fostat, the old Cairo City. Recent excavations of Red Sea ports have also brought out a greater range of printed textile. These date back to 800 A.D. There technique and design point to western Indian origin. Indian dyers had mastered the art of dyeing with fast colors from ancient times whereas in Europe this was unknown. Indian dyers were considered magicians by travelers, who saw them putting a white cloth into a pale liquid of indigo dye and when the cloth appeared from the dye bath it was still white. It was only when it came into contact with oxygen and it became blue. Multiple immersions and exposure to the air enriched the color. People felt this was a magical transformation. Printed fabrics were in common use throughout North India, as well as for home use. They also became important export items.
Recently in the last 10-15 years the ancient Indian printed textiles have been found in Indonesia, they date back to 16th and 17th centuries and display an extraordinary range of textiles never seen before.
The hand-printing industry has important centres all over India. The most important cotton printing centres, which follow the traditional technique of printing, are found again in the desert belt. Here people specialize in the use of alizarin, indigo and a range of vegetable colors.
A number of printing technique have been developed in different centres. They are direct printing, resist printing, and screen printing. In certain cases, the cloth is painted by using by using a pen with dyes and mordants. This method is known as kalamkari, a pen work. In others, the techniques of printing and kalamkari are combined by printing the outline of the design and filling in the details with a kalam, a pen.
Direct printing is practised all over India where a bleached cotton or silk fabric is printed with the help of carved wooden blocks.
In the resist technique, paste made up of different materials is used for printing areas, which are required to resist the dye. The fabric is then immersed in the dye bath. In some case, clay mixed with resin is used for printing areas, which to be protected from the dye: in others, hot wax is used. After dyeing, the fabric is washed in flowing water or in vats of hot water to melt the wax. Some of the dark color of the background material flows on to the protected area, thus creating a soft tonal effect. It is a common sight to see the printed cloth drying on the riverside. This process is also a part of the technique of fixing and developing the dyes and bleaching the white color.
The batik technique is a development from this form of resist printing. Here the fabric is painted with molten wax and then dye in cold dyes after which the cloth is washed in hot water. This results in the melting of the wax and emergence of the patterns cloth. The effect of the resist technique in printing is soft and subdued and the outlines are not so clearly defined in the case of the painted batik.
Another technique employed was printing with the use of mordants. Mordants are chemicals, which are essential for the cloth to absorb the dye. Here the cloth was first printed with mordants and then immersed in a dye bath. Only the sections, which has absorbed the mordant, could absorb the dye. The cloth was then washed in flowing water and spread out to dry on the river bank allowing the sun to develop the color. Then the untreated sections were bleached with local ingredients like goat droppings, etc. Recently, discharge printing with the use of chemicals has been developed. Here dyes when printed react on one another, either bleaching the background material or producing a different shade.
The important centres for hand printing in Rajasthan are Jaipur, Sanganer, Bagroo, Pali and Barmer and many others. Two style of printing was prepared. Those for use by the peasants and others for the urban population. The material used for peasants was thick khaddar or coarse cloth and they carried bold patterns on a dark background. The back color was prepared with iron oxide, the brown and the red are also indigenous dyes, which require to be developed to the sun. The local word tapai is very expressive of this procedure. Flowing water and sandy banks of the river, which radiate sunlight, develop the color, giving them a glow. The red-and-black saturated prints gave the textile and appearance of a rich silk rather than that of a course cotton material.
Barmer located in the heart of the desert, supplied the needs of the desert-people who lead a semi- nomadic existence. There wealth comprised their cattle, camels and sheep, and they moved with them in search of pastures. Their requirement were bold patterns clothes of contracting colors. The chirkala butti was the red chilli with the pods boldly defined, and a blue-black outline, or the jharh, flowering trees with flowers and leaves, worked in two colors, or the bold flowering patterns of sunflowers or lotuses and leaves.
The printers of Jaipur city used to supply the requirements of the court and the city dwellers. As a result, the designs printed were delicate and influenced by the court traditions. Jaipur palace had its own printers who printed on fine mulmul, muslin, for turbans, ordhnis, quite covers, and even chaddars for use during worship. Many of the old printed cotton textile carry the court seal. The printed patkas, sashes, which formed an important part of the dress of men, were a speciality of the printers. Motifs of flowering shrubs carry the imprint of the Mughal painters who during the reign of Jehangir and Shahjahan specialized in making superb stylized drawing of flowering plants. The iris, the sunflower, the crocus, the daffodil, and the narcissus are drawn with their foliage with consummate skill. The cross-borders and pallus and the ordhanis also show a masterly handling of motifs to produce a harmonious and rich effect.
Since many of the rulers of Jaipur were worshippers of Shiva, an interesting pattern for the chaddar to be worn at the time of worship came to be developed. Instead of "Ram-Ram" the chaddar carries "Shiva-Shiva" in rows written in the Devanagari script. The border is made of a flowing creeper enclosing the dhatura, hallucinogenic flower, associated with Shiva. The cross border carries the motif of the damroo, double-sided drum, and the trushul, trident, in one row, enclosed by the border, and single dhatura flowers are distributed in rows.
In Gujarat state, Mandvi, Dhamadka, Mundra, Anjar, Jamanagar and Surendernagar, Jaitpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and deesa are important centers of printing. Many of the excavated pieces found in Egypt and traced to India are from Gujarat. An interesting fact which emerges regarding the importance of this area is that a number of printers communities of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh originally came from Gujarat and many of the families even today speak a Gujarati dialect.
Mandvi, Anjar and dhamadka in Kuch produce direct prints as well as resist prints. Some of the most ancient patterns of the area are found here. Kuch was one of the oldest printing centres of Western India and many of the printing units of the west coast, which are known for their excellent quality of printing having printers who originally from Kuch. The recent earthquake destroyed Anjar and Dhamadka. The printers have had to rebuilt their homes and even make their blocks afresh. Dhamadka , which specialized in indigo dye and alizarin, printed ajrakh, recently revived the vegetable dyes. The ajrakh is used extensively all over Kutch by the Jat and Maldhari men of Banni area has some of the patterns are similar to those found in Fostat in Egypt.
In Kuch, printing on silk and cotton was perfected a long time ago. The local handloom satin, known as gajji, was used for printing ordhnis, chaddars and yardage material for skirts. The prints were normally executed through resist technique, when the motif of one color were printed and the fabric was deep red. The motifs were simple and bold. Highly stylized forms of dancing women, marionettes, peacocks or flowering shrubs were printed. They carried a distinctive border of a lotus flower in bud and full bloom, enclosed between two lines and not linked together by a stem but creating a rhythm of its own by the repeat.
Ahmedabad and Vadodara, also have large printing establishments. Here two types of materials were produced, one for local consumption and the other for export. The local prints were the red and black ones worn by windows and colored prints for sarees the finest quality of which was known as chandan, sandlewood prints. The prints for export were known as sodagiri, trades prints. These were meant for export to South-East specially Thailand and Far-East. The design carried small flowers and a one sided border of fluting lines, or looped garlands-typical patterns of the sarong worn in Thailand and Cambodia. These were printed often by using mud mixed with other ingredients as a resist. Paithapur was famous for the very fine wooden blocks and for its sodagiri prints. Even today some of the finest blocks are carved in Paithapuram, 30 kilometers away from Gandhinagar.
Madhya Pradesh originally had centres, which only produced prints for use by the local tribal population or the peasantry. The All India Handicrafts Board assisted the State government in reorganizing its printing industry to cater to a larger market. Today the hand-printing industry of Madhya pradesh can compete with the best. Tarapur and Umedpura, two villages on the opposite banks of the river Gujari, still use indigo for their prints. The large clay vats, which are in use even today possibly, have remnants of centuries of old indigo. The printer specialize in printing fabrics with a blue background and yellow and red prints, known as nandra, which are simple flowering plants, Jawad also has a similar style of printing: Mandsaur produces excellent bandhanis as well as resist prints imitating the bandhani patterns. Recently, sarees with batik work based on the local mandana traditions of floor and wall decorations have been developed here.
Bherogarh, a suburb of Ujjain, has large printers community, who print course sarees known as lugdha for the tribal women, as well as jajams, cotton printed floor-spreads for the city-dwellers. Today they are printing on silk, on superfine Chanderi and Kotah sarees, which commond an excellent market all over India.
Delhi has a large number of printing establishments, which cater to the local market as well as to export requirements.
Farrukhabad, in Uttar Pradesh is an important printing centre, which continues to produce bed-covers, curtain and hangings for export to England, Europe and America. These export have been going on for the last 150 years or more. The tree-of-life design has been the most popular. Nearly 15 different tree-of-life patterns have been evolved here and even today large wooden blocks for printing a five-foot long tree-of-life with foliage, flowers, birds and animals are available with the printer. Besides these, quite covers and yardage material for the local markets are also produced. Today cotton and silk printing is being carried out here on a large scale largely for export purposes.
Tanda and Kannauj have been important centres, which traditionally produced prints for scale in Nepal. The traditional patterns were executed through fine quality printing with the use of indigenous dyes. Some of the fill-in-blocks carried holes plugged with cotton so as to give a greater saturation of colors. These resulted in deeper colors in certain areas, giving a tonal effect, similar to modern graphics.
Kolkata has developed its own motifs for printing, based on the folk tradition of the area as well as its textile weaves. Alpana design done on the floor and Daccai design have been adapted for printing.
Masalipatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, is the last remaining centre on the Coromandal coast, which used to supply the requirements of the Spice Islands during the 17th century. Here the printers specialized in hand-printed kalamkari prints, block printing and batik. Today they produce hand-painted batik using indigo, as well as sarees printed with indigenous dyes and designs, using the tree-of-life patterns, which were developed for the Persian market. Percian craftsmen were invited to work with the local craftsmen at the end of the last century. It is often difficult to distinguish between Isphahani, and Masalipatnam printed cloths made for the persian market.
Tanjore used to produce very finne quality, and-printed sarees with resist technique at a village called Kodial. This combined gold-work patterns wovens in the body of saree with outline worked with a combination of a kalamkari and printing; this produced a delicate and rich effect. The body of the saree had gold zari roundels in the asharfi patterns, while the pallu, the cross border, carried intricate gold-brocaded tree forms. The printed pattern on the cross border accentuated the gold design by printing the remaining section in red as the background and the out-line of the gold-woven design in indigo blue or black. This technique disappeared but has now been revived through the Vishwakarma exhibition. The credit for this goes to Martand Singh and the Weavers Service Center, Chennai.
The kalamkari technique was used mostly in the large painted hangings used in temples, which depicted scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This technique had died out and revived by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay with the help of the artist, Kora Ramamoorty. A training centre was started in Kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh . along with the art of painting the cloth with a dye pen, vegetable dyes were also revived for the basic colors-deep red, blue, yellow and black. A large number of trainees have set up their workshops in many part of southern India, and the art of kalamkari has a number of master kalamkars producing excellent quality of work on a far greater range of subjects.
The printing-and-kalamkari technique which are used in Gujarat for making the Devi-no-pardo is quite remarkable. Here large hangings and canopies, chandoas, are made with the central figure of the goddest. These are offerings to multi-faced manifestations of the goddest produced by the people of Vaghari community, who are the priests of the goddest for their community. The outline of the figure of the goddest is drawn by hand by the master craftsmen, while the surrounding figure are printed and the colors are filled in with a pen in deep maroon by the women and children.
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The discovery of a dyed cotton fabric dating back to the Indus Valley civilization shows that the art of dyeing with the use of mordants was well known to the Indian dyers 5,000 years ago. This form of dyeing was responsible for making India famous all over the world for its dyed and printed fabrics. Printed fabrics have also been found in Fostat, the old Cairo City. Recent excavations of Red Sea ports have also brought out a greater range of printed textile. These date back to 800 A.D. There technique and design point to western Indian origin. Indian dyers had mastered the art of dyeing with fast colors from ancient times whereas in Europe this was unknown. Indian dyers were considered magicians by travelers, who saw them putting a white cloth into a pale liquid of indigo dye and when the cloth appeared from the dye bath it was still white. It was only when it came into contact with oxygen and it became blue. Multiple immersions and exposure to the air enriched the color. People felt this was a magical transformation. Printed fabrics were in common use throughout North India, as well as for home use. They also became important export items.
Recently in the last 10-15 years the ancient Indian printed textiles have been found in Indonesia, they date back to 16th and 17th centuries and display an extraordinary range of textiles never seen before.
The hand-printing industry has important centres all over India. The most important cotton printing centres, which follow the traditional technique of printing, are found again in the desert belt. Here people specialize in the use of alizarin, indigo and a range of vegetable colors.
A number of printing technique have been developed in different centres. They are direct printing, resist printing, and screen printing. In certain cases, the cloth is painted by using by using a pen with dyes and mordants. This method is known as kalamkari, a pen work. In others, the techniques of printing and kalamkari are combined by printing the outline of the design and filling in the details with a kalam, a pen.
Direct printing is practised all over India where a bleached cotton or silk fabric is printed with the help of carved wooden blocks.
In the resist technique, paste made up of different materials is used for printing areas, which are required to resist the dye. The fabric is then immersed in the dye bath. In some case, clay mixed with resin is used for printing areas, which to be protected from the dye: in others, hot wax is used. After dyeing, the fabric is washed in flowing water or in vats of hot water to melt the wax. Some of the dark color of the background material flows on to the protected area, thus creating a soft tonal effect. It is a common sight to see the printed cloth drying on the riverside. This process is also a part of the technique of fixing and developing the dyes and bleaching the white color.
The batik technique is a development from this form of resist printing. Here the fabric is painted with molten wax and then dye in cold dyes after which the cloth is washed in hot water. This results in the melting of the wax and emergence of the patterns cloth. The effect of the resist technique in printing is soft and subdued and the outlines are not so clearly defined in the case of the painted batik.
Another technique employed was printing with the use of mordants. Mordants are chemicals, which are essential for the cloth to absorb the dye. Here the cloth was first printed with mordants and then immersed in a dye bath. Only the sections, which has absorbed the mordant, could absorb the dye. The cloth was then washed in flowing water and spread out to dry on the river bank allowing the sun to develop the color. Then the untreated sections were bleached with local ingredients like goat droppings, etc. Recently, discharge printing with the use of chemicals has been developed. Here dyes when printed react on one another, either bleaching the background material or producing a different shade.
The important centres for hand printing in Rajasthan are Jaipur, Sanganer, Bagroo, Pali and Barmer and many others. Two style of printing was prepared. Those for use by the peasants and others for the urban population. The material used for peasants was thick khaddar or coarse cloth and they carried bold patterns on a dark background. The back color was prepared with iron oxide, the brown and the red are also indigenous dyes, which require to be developed to the sun. The local word tapai is very expressive of this procedure. Flowing water and sandy banks of the river, which radiate sunlight, develop the color, giving them a glow. The red-and-black saturated prints gave the textile and appearance of a rich silk rather than that of a course cotton material.
Barmer located in the heart of the desert, supplied the needs of the desert-people who lead a semi- nomadic existence. There wealth comprised their cattle, camels and sheep, and they moved with them in search of pastures. Their requirement were bold patterns clothes of contracting colors. The chirkala butti was the red chilli with the pods boldly defined, and a blue-black outline, or the jharh, flowering trees with flowers and leaves, worked in two colors, or the bold flowering patterns of sunflowers or lotuses and leaves.
The printers of Jaipur city used to supply the requirements of the court and the city dwellers. As a result, the designs printed were delicate and influenced by the court traditions. Jaipur palace had its own printers who printed on fine mulmul, muslin, for turbans, ordhnis, quite covers, and even chaddars for use during worship. Many of the old printed cotton textile carry the court seal. The printed patkas, sashes, which formed an important part of the dress of men, were a speciality of the printers. Motifs of flowering shrubs carry the imprint of the Mughal painters who during the reign of Jehangir and Shahjahan specialized in making superb stylized drawing of flowering plants. The iris, the sunflower, the crocus, the daffodil, and the narcissus are drawn with their foliage with consummate skill. The cross-borders and pallus and the ordhanis also show a masterly handling of motifs to produce a harmonious and rich effect.
Since many of the rulers of Jaipur were worshippers of Shiva, an interesting pattern for the chaddar to be worn at the time of worship came to be developed. Instead of "Ram-Ram" the chaddar carries "Shiva-Shiva" in rows written in the Devanagari script. The border is made of a flowing creeper enclosing the dhatura, hallucinogenic flower, associated with Shiva. The cross border carries the motif of the damroo, double-sided drum, and the trushul, trident, in one row, enclosed by the border, and single dhatura flowers are distributed in rows.
In Gujarat state, Mandvi, Dhamadka, Mundra, Anjar, Jamanagar and Surendernagar, Jaitpur, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and deesa are important centers of printing. Many of the excavated pieces found in Egypt and traced to India are from Gujarat. An interesting fact which emerges regarding the importance of this area is that a number of printers communities of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh originally came from Gujarat and many of the families even today speak a Gujarati dialect.
Mandvi, Anjar and dhamadka in Kuch produce direct prints as well as resist prints. Some of the most ancient patterns of the area are found here. Kuch was one of the oldest printing centres of Western India and many of the printing units of the west coast, which are known for their excellent quality of printing having printers who originally from Kuch. The recent earthquake destroyed Anjar and Dhamadka. The printers have had to rebuilt their homes and even make their blocks afresh. Dhamadka , which specialized in indigo dye and alizarin, printed ajrakh, recently revived the vegetable dyes. The ajrakh is used extensively all over Kutch by the Jat and Maldhari men of Banni area has some of the patterns are similar to those found in Fostat in Egypt.
In Kuch, printing on silk and cotton was perfected a long time ago. The local handloom satin, known as gajji, was used for printing ordhnis, chaddars and yardage material for skirts. The prints were normally executed through resist technique, when the motif of one color were printed and the fabric was deep red. The motifs were simple and bold. Highly stylized forms of dancing women, marionettes, peacocks or flowering shrubs were printed. They carried a distinctive border of a lotus flower in bud and full bloom, enclosed between two lines and not linked together by a stem but creating a rhythm of its own by the repeat.
Ahmedabad and Vadodara, also have large printing establishments. Here two types of materials were produced, one for local consumption and the other for export. The local prints were the red and black ones worn by windows and colored prints for sarees the finest quality of which was known as chandan, sandlewood prints. The prints for export were known as sodagiri, trades prints. These were meant for export to South-East specially Thailand and Far-East. The design carried small flowers and a one sided border of fluting lines, or looped garlands-typical patterns of the sarong worn in Thailand and Cambodia. These were printed often by using mud mixed with other ingredients as a resist. Paithapur was famous for the very fine wooden blocks and for its sodagiri prints. Even today some of the finest blocks are carved in Paithapuram, 30 kilometers away from Gandhinagar.
Madhya Pradesh originally had centres, which only produced prints for use by the local tribal population or the peasantry. The All India Handicrafts Board assisted the State government in reorganizing its printing industry to cater to a larger market. Today the hand-printing industry of Madhya pradesh can compete with the best. Tarapur and Umedpura, two villages on the opposite banks of the river Gujari, still use indigo for their prints. The large clay vats, which are in use even today possibly, have remnants of centuries of old indigo. The printer specialize in printing fabrics with a blue background and yellow and red prints, known as nandra, which are simple flowering plants, Jawad also has a similar style of printing: Mandsaur produces excellent bandhanis as well as resist prints imitating the bandhani patterns. Recently, sarees with batik work based on the local mandana traditions of floor and wall decorations have been developed here.
Bherogarh, a suburb of Ujjain, has large printers community, who print course sarees known as lugdha for the tribal women, as well as jajams, cotton printed floor-spreads for the city-dwellers. Today they are printing on silk, on superfine Chanderi and Kotah sarees, which commond an excellent market all over India.
Delhi has a large number of printing establishments, which cater to the local market as well as to export requirements.
Farrukhabad, in Uttar Pradesh is an important printing centre, which continues to produce bed-covers, curtain and hangings for export to England, Europe and America. These export have been going on for the last 150 years or more. The tree-of-life design has been the most popular. Nearly 15 different tree-of-life patterns have been evolved here and even today large wooden blocks for printing a five-foot long tree-of-life with foliage, flowers, birds and animals are available with the printer. Besides these, quite covers and yardage material for the local markets are also produced. Today cotton and silk printing is being carried out here on a large scale largely for export purposes.
Tanda and Kannauj have been important centres, which traditionally produced prints for scale in Nepal. The traditional patterns were executed through fine quality printing with the use of indigenous dyes. Some of the fill-in-blocks carried holes plugged with cotton so as to give a greater saturation of colors. These resulted in deeper colors in certain areas, giving a tonal effect, similar to modern graphics.
Kolkata has developed its own motifs for printing, based on the folk tradition of the area as well as its textile weaves. Alpana design done on the floor and Daccai design have been adapted for printing.
Masalipatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, is the last remaining centre on the Coromandal coast, which used to supply the requirements of the Spice Islands during the 17th century. Here the printers specialized in hand-printed kalamkari prints, block printing and batik. Today they produce hand-painted batik using indigo, as well as sarees printed with indigenous dyes and designs, using the tree-of-life patterns, which were developed for the Persian market. Percian craftsmen were invited to work with the local craftsmen at the end of the last century. It is often difficult to distinguish between Isphahani, and Masalipatnam printed cloths made for the persian market.
Tanjore used to produce very finne quality, and-printed sarees with resist technique at a village called Kodial. This combined gold-work patterns wovens in the body of saree with outline worked with a combination of a kalamkari and printing; this produced a delicate and rich effect. The body of the saree had gold zari roundels in the asharfi patterns, while the pallu, the cross border, carried intricate gold-brocaded tree forms. The printed pattern on the cross border accentuated the gold design by printing the remaining section in red as the background and the out-line of the gold-woven design in indigo blue or black. This technique disappeared but has now been revived through the Vishwakarma exhibition. The credit for this goes to Martand Singh and the Weavers Service Center, Chennai.
The kalamkari technique was used mostly in the large painted hangings used in temples, which depicted scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This technique had died out and revived by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay with the help of the artist, Kora Ramamoorty. A training centre was started in Kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh . along with the art of painting the cloth with a dye pen, vegetable dyes were also revived for the basic colors-deep red, blue, yellow and black. A large number of trainees have set up their workshops in many part of southern India, and the art of kalamkari has a number of master kalamkars producing excellent quality of work on a far greater range of subjects.
The printing-and-kalamkari technique which are used in Gujarat for making the Devi-no-pardo is quite remarkable. Here large hangings and canopies, chandoas, are made with the central figure of the goddest. These are offerings to multi-faced manifestations of the goddest produced by the people of Vaghari community, who are the priests of the goddest for their community. The outline of the figure of the goddest is drawn by hand by the master craftsmen, while the surrounding figure are printed and the colors are filled in with a pen in deep maroon by the women and children.
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