"Roman in the Provinces" life at the edge of empire

Funerary relief of woman, Palmyra, 125 - 150 CE.

The exhibit "Roman in the Provinces: Art on the Periphery of the Empire" is a timely, welcome and fresh look at the material culture of various peoples conquered, in the military sense, but never quite subjugated culturally, by Rome.  In the eastern-most regions of the Roman Empire, today's Syria and Jordan, the emperor was acknowledged in public inscriptions incised not in Latin, but in Greek - the heritage of Alexander the Great's earlier victories.

The woman memorialized in the sculpture shown above is depicted as a proper Roman matron, with the spindle and distaff symbolic of domestic virtue, but her name, Shagal, in carved in Aramaic, the spoken language of ancient Palestine and Judea.  In addition to linguistic traditions, pre-Roman, and, eventually, early Christian rituals, thrived within a framework of Roman governance.

The show, artfully installed in the two floors of the McMullen Museum at Boston College, features a breadth of objects in glass, clay, stone, fiber, and metal.  A special highlight, and the focus of this post, are the more than forty textile fragments, some over 1400 years old, lent by collectors Donald and Barbara Tellalian, and rarely exhibited. One of precious fragments, of a rooster, is featured on the exhibit poster.   A note on dates and materials: dates given are all CE, Christian Era; the textile fragments are made of dyed wool and plain linen.

Left: exhibit poster. Right: Textile fragment with rooster, Egypt, 5-6th cent.

From the exhibit wall text, "Weaving Identities":

While most textiles have perished, a significant number survived in graves in the dry earth of Egypt.  Many date from the fourth to ninth century and are made of linen and dyed wool.  Just as today, in late antiquity textiles were everywhere.  Their principal use was for clothing that in addition to covering the body could also express various identities: gender, age, social status, profession, religion, and cultural and regional affiliations.  In homes, textiles covered cushions and beds and served as curtains and tablecloths.  In churches they were used as altar cloths, chalice covers, and screens.  In pagan temples they were presented as lavish gifts to the gods whose images they sometimes clothed.  Highly valued, textiles often were reused until threadbare.

Commonly produced in the home, textiles were also made in factories in late antique Egypt.  Limits on their cost are set in the price edict of Emperor Diocletian, where they are the most mentioned item.  The demand for textiles throughout the empire and their portability meant that their imagery was widely disseminated.  They bear motifs drawn from the many cultures found within the empire, decorations that also appear in other media like mosaic, glass, stone, ceramic and metal.  Many of these images allow for multiple interpretations depending on the context of their use and their audience.  Grapevines, for example, held significance for both pagans and Christians, though in different ways.

Textile roundel, Egypt 5-6th cent. Photo: Yale University Gallery.

For example, in the textile roundel above we know the central female figure is a deity, because of the nimbus, or halo, around her head, but her exact identity is open to interpretation. She may be Tyche, a Greek goddess whose Roman counterpart, Fortuna, brings prosperity, but, placed in the center of a cruciform shape, she may also represent a Christian saint.

From the wall text we learn that the fragments are, well, fragmentary, because these pieces were cut from larger textiles by dealers who felt only the decorated portions were worthwhile. So it is hard to understand how these little pieces of cloth might have been used in apparel or home furnishings.  A few fortunate survivors show  more of the body of the garments embellished by the roundels and borders.

Fragment of decorated tunic, Egypt, 7-8th cent.

In the image above, the neckline of the tunic featured decorative bands which continue vertically; the vertical bands are clavi (from the same root word as clavicle).  In the image below, a detail of a 3rd century fresco in Sicily, the hunters wear tunics with similar decoration. The roundels near the bottom hem of their tunics are orbiculi.

Mosaic, Villa Romana del Casale. source: http://www.villaromanadelcasale.it/

Tunic, Egypt. 7-9th cent.

The image above is from //www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/byzantium-and-islam/blog/topical-essays/posts/fashion and shows a tunic with its clavi and orbiculi intact. This basic t-shaped garment was the everyday wear for men and children; women wore a longer garment called the tunica.

Elaborate tapestry weaving was used to decorate the home too, including the cushions and covers of the stone couches on which upper class citizens reclined during banquets, in good Roman fashion.  Although the figure below is memorialized dressed in Palmyrene priestly attire, he reclines, Roman style, on a couch covered with banded textiles.

Funerary relief with banquet scene, Palmyra, 200-250 CE.

Cushion cover fragment, Egypt 5-6th cent. 

The image above, featuring a dancer surrounded by bowls of fruit, is a cushion cover which, unusually, retains remnants of its fringed loop decoration; it must have been quite a plush item to lean on when new.

Larger fragments give an exciting glimpse of how color was used in these antique textiles. In the piece below the decorated band connects red and black borders. The image is a bit difficult to see but the pattern features a figure with a halo and upraised arms, flanked by pairs of nude figures with shoulder cloaks, and birds. Bacchus? Christian saint? It's a mystery.

Textile fragment with dancers and birds in heraldic pairs, Egypt 8-9th cent.

Some of the textiles are clearly associated with Christianity, such as the roundel below, which shows an ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol for life, retooled as a Christian cross. The proto-cross is surrounded by a pattern of vines and grapes, suggesting that this fragment decorated an altar cloth used for celebrating the Eucharist, possibly in an Egyptian church.

Textile roundel with interlace, Egypt, 4th cent.

Mosaic, San Vitale, Ravenna. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Vitale_in_Ravenna_06.jpg

The image above, depicting a mosaic from the Basilica of San Vitale, a church whose construction began in 526 CE, shows an altar with decorative roundels.

On the other hand, some of the textile fragments have an imperial Roman connection, such as the fragment below, featuring an eight-pointed star encircling a tree of life motif, with an outer border of dancers. The purple color, which may be true Tyrian purple, or, in this case, an imitation of that expensive dye, was traditionally only permitted on clothing used by emperors or senators; later the color was also allowed on certain religious garments.

Some of the textiles have retained their colors remarkably well, including the complex band below, sandwiched by rare remnants of plain linen weave.

Textile band with birds and foliage, Egypt, 7th cent.

Textile band, detail.

The exhibit included pre-recorded video demonstrations of glass-blowing and intaglio carving, but revealed little about the process by which these decorative bands were created, one of the few weaknesses of an otherwise stellar exhibit. To be fair, perhaps the process has yet to be researched and described.  It's clear, though, this that embellishment was time-consuming and hence a costly luxury, conveying status on the wearer.

Textile fragment with roundels with dancers, grapevines and lions. Egypt, 5-6th cent.

Detail, showing plain linen and dyed wool.

So, aesthetically, the late antiquity approach to the embellishment of clothing seems to favor attaching decorated bands or roundels to plain linen garments. Perhaps some dyestuffs were too costly to use to color entire garments, or perhaps representational motifs on garments gave the wearer status, or even protection, like a woven amulet. The band in the image above features colored ducks, a symbol of abundance, as well as grapevines surrounding a red fruit, which might well be a pomegranate, symbol of fertility.

The narrow bands as well as the roundels typically incorporate beautiful borders as well as central motifs - a lot of thought was given to the transition from field to edge in the design, and this is found in other objects, large and small, in the exhibit. Just one example is the newly-restored floor mosaic fragment below, from the church of Bishop Paul, in Gerasa (now Jorash, Jordan.)

Mosaic floor fragment, limestone, c. 526 CE.

Border detail, floor mosaic fragment.

For an exhibit on culture at the boundaries of an empire, it seems fitting to end with a craftman's careful attention to another kind of periphery, in a timeless work of art.

There is a catalog, with 15 essays, accompanying the exhibit, ISBN 978 1 892 85022 5.

Wedding bouquet memory

Happy daughter with floral arrangement.

My daughter wed last year, carrying the colorful bouquet in the image above.  When the newlyweds jaunted off on their honeymoon the floral arrangements came home with us.  It seemed very sad to just discard the flowers after the ceremony, but how to preserve them?  Dried flowers make me expect Miss Havisham to descend the stairs, ruined wedding dress trailing behind. Not a mental picture to conjure up for a happy memory.  

Before....

 

I happened to have a book on digital printing on fabric, borrowed from the library, lying around, and one of the images was a floral wreath. Eureka! I dug out pieces of white fabric and black fabric, carefully dis-assembled the bouquet and laid everything out on a table in the porch. 

Flowers on white.

 First, I tried the blossoms and stems on white fabric. Not so much impact.

...after!

Voila! On black fabric, dynamite!  Since I hadn't planned ahead for this - and the flowers were fading fast - my only option was a piece of black linen from my stash. I would recommend using black velvet for a nicer background.

I photographed the wreath on the black fabric, played a little bit with it in Picasa to even out the tones and got the image printed and framed in a chunky black frame, with no mat (spacers keep the glass off the photo surface.) This is my gift to the couple for their first anniversary next week. Do you think they will like it?

Bridal wreath picture, sitting in my garden.

Shades of Gray baby quilt

Design is Patio, by Monica Solorio-Snow.

No, these shades of gray have nothing to do with block-buster escapist literature. The baby quilt in the image above, held by DH in bright sunlight, showcases a type of fabric your correspondent loves: prints in shades of gray, or gray with one additional hue, such as pink or yellow.  I have a number of these old fabrics from the days when apparel fabrics came in a 36" width, and the imminent arrival of a baby girl gave me an excuse to feature them in a quilt.

Vintage fabrics in grays with yellow.

The fabric on the left in the image above was a sturdy old apron, carefully picked apart, and upcycled for this quilt - click on the image to enlarge it and check out the covered wagon and log cabin.  Shades of "Little House on the Prairie." 

Prints with representational imagery are properly called "conversational prints"; sometimes ebay sellers refer to these fabrics as "novelty prints" but the phrase "novelty print" is more properly applied to fabrics with flocking, metallic components, or some other exotic (novel) feature.

The name of the quilt pattern is Patio, design by Monica Solorio-Snow, of Happy Zombie quilts, and it's a simple-to-make design. (I have no connection to Ms. Solorio-Snow; just found the pattern while browsing Pinterest for modern quilts.)  I widened the borders, from 1" to 4", to make my quilt, at 38" x 47", a bit bigger than the finished dimensions given in the pattern.

Vintage pink and gray prints.

Initially I mixed in some shot cotton solids with the prints, as you can see below in this tentative layout on my felt design wall, but the solids elements were too singular - they called too much attention to themselves - so back to look for more prints. (I think the pattern would work very well in all solids; it was just the mix that didn't work.)

Early layout.

I didn't have enough gray-with-color prints - this pattern really requires at least twelve different fabrics - so added more from my stash and luckily found the silhouette fabric on the right, below, on ebay.  (Talk about serendipity.) Again, enlarge to see the fairy tale imagery in the print on the left.

Gray and black-and-white fabrics.

For the backing fabric I used another old fabric originally from retailer J. C. Penney. In the post-war era, Penney's sold lightweight cottons with "A Regulated Cotton Never Misbehaves" printed on the selvedge.  The individual fabrics in this line each had a title, as well - this one is "Banjo." The middle fabric in the image above, also from Penney's line, is "Florentine."  The "Never Misbehaves" part referred to the fabric - meaning that the goods wouldn't bleed or shrink excessively.  (I think the women wearing clothes sewn from the fabric could behave in any way they wished.) The "hand" of these fabrics is just wonderful.

For sashing I used Kona cotton in "Ash."  The quilt top was machine-quilted by Martha Garvey, who chose the pantograph quilting pattern "Cotton Candy," and a thread color called "Pearl."  Pattern and quilting thread were prefect for this little quilt, now finished, delivered, and  ready for baby "tummy time."

All pieced, waiting to be quilted.

"Life of Cats" woodblock print exhibit at the Japan Society

If you are a closet cat lady, or a lover of Japanese prints, you will enjoy the Life of Cats exhibit at the Japan Society of New York, on view through June 7, 2015.  DH and I joined a free docent-led tour, and our excellent guide greatly enriched our experience of the artwork. We highly recommend the tour, offered Tues. - Sun. at 2:30 and Fridays at 7 pm.

Prints from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection, in Tokyo, have made a rare trip to the US. Ukiyo-e is the Japanese word for polychrome woodblock prints, many featuring scenes from the "floating world," the entertainment and pleasure quarters of Tokyo in the 19th century. Since these are prints, produced in multiples, many American museums have Ukiyo-e in their collections - who hasn't seen Hokusai's "The Wave"? - but many of the Life of Cats works are less well known here.

Japan Society, exterior, with banners.

A detail of one of the rarest prints   - only three copies are know to exist - is shown below.  Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 - 1861) produced this print of 53 cats. Each cat's pose and activity forms a pun - for those who can read Japanese - for the 53 stations, or stops, on the Tokaido Road, the medieval route from Kyoto to Tokyo. As wordplay, it's a labored exercise, but the cats are nevertheless delightful.

Cats Suggested by the 53 Stations of the Tokaido Road, detail, 1847.

According to his apprentices, Kuniyoshi loved cats and shared his studio with several felines. In the print below, from his series Eight Selected Flowers from the Garden, he paired a beautiful woman, in a fabulous kimono, with a happy cat, no doubt purring up a storm as he gazes at the chrysanthemums from his pampered perch on the beauty's shoulder.  

Chrysanthemums, 1844-48.

The design of the exhibit engages all ages, and even gives us a cat's eye view of the world; this humorous touch reflects the light-heartedness of many of the prints.

Cat face room divider.

Framing our view.

Cats were not indigenous to Japan but arrived on ships from China in the mid-sixth century, accompanying Buddhist scriptures and helping to keep these sacred documents safe from rodents.  Cats were well-integrated into Japanese households by the early ninth century, and appear throughout Japanese art, folklore, and literature.

Kuniyoshi, Housewife Swats Cat, 1845. Right, detail.

Of course, all cats, of whatever nationality, love fish, and are not shy about getting it. In the print above, a woman  makes a half-hearted attempt to stop a cat as it steals a piece of dried fish, or bonito. The cat doesn't look too concerned, does it?  Any exhibit of ukiyo-e, whether cat-themed or not, will feature wonderful textiles designs, such as the brown and white floral fabric of the housewife's kimono.

Sometimes the cat images are even part of the costume of the humans, as in the print below, depicting a famous kabuki theatre actor, Nozarashi Gosuke, who played a warrior with a trademark skull-patterned kimono. Cat-lover Kuniyoshi formed the skulls out of white cats cuddling together, somewhat softening the horror of this otherwise gruesome  imagery.

From the series, Men of Ready Money with True Labels Attached, 1845.

During periods of the 18th century, censors tried to restrict the content of woodblock prints in an effort to protect public morals. Images of beautiful courtesans, famous kabuki actors, and other entertainers  were prohibited.  During these periods of censorship artists' designs for prints had to be approved before the sheets could be made  and distributed; many of the prints in the exhibit have a censor's stamp on them. However,  artists could evade censorship by using anthropomorphic animal imagery in lieu of human forms. This led to a lot of cat pictures, or neko-e; moreover, it was believed that displaying these pictures in the home would scare away rats.

A popular form of street entertainment in the Edo period (1615-1868) was pole jumping, the acrobatic feat of jumping along the tops of upright poles. To get around the censorship restrictions against depicting popular diversions, artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) depicted a cat performer leaping across the tops of upright, giant bonito, sticks of dried fish. The bottom half of this print shows a fox about to snare a human, using - what else? - a sack of coins as bait. The print could be cut and each half sold separately.

Hiroshige, Cat Crossing to Eat, 1830-44.

Inexpensive and fashionable, woodblock prints were sold in shops such as the one re-created at the Edo-Tokyo history museum, in Tokyo. So many prints were reproduced the sheets would be used as packing material; when Westerners unwrapped imported Japanese ceramics, they discovered the prints, which had a big influence on the Impressionists, among other Western artists.

Book and print shop, Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Patrons at a print shop, Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Inexpensive prints, called  omocha-e or "toy pictures," were also produced for children, who clamored for coins from their parents to purchase these play things.  The print below, with the somewhat unwieldy title Newly Published Applications for Cats,  features feline paper dolls - children would cut out the fronts and backs of the cat figures, glue them together, and dress them in the paper clothes.

Utagawa Yoshifuji, 1868 - 1912.

Cat paper dolls, detail.

In addition to the prints, ink paintings and ceramics in the show, there were also cat-themed books available to browse. Here's a partial list of cat-related literature, in no particular order:

Tales of Old Japan, A.B. Mitford. Folktales for all age ISBN 978-0756782016. 
Won Ton, Lee Wardlaw.  Picture book featuring Haiku-speaking cat. ISBN 978-0805089950.
Cat Town, Sakutaro Hagiwara. Poems. ISBN 978-1590177754.
Cat Lady Chronicles,  Diane Lovejoy. Non-fiction, joy of cats by a sane cat lady. ISBN 978-8889854983.
The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide. Novel, stray cat moves in with couple, saves marriage. ISBN     978-0811221504.
Three Samurai Cats, Eric Kimmel. Picture book; samurai cat uses brains to outwit monster rat. ISBN 978-0823418770.

The exhibit catalog is Life of Cats Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection, Miwako Tezuka, ISBN 0-913304-61-1.

Finally, in addition to the preponderance of cute, cuddly cats depicted in the prints, there is also a long tradition of cats as alter egos of witches. In the image below, illustrating a kabuki actor in a role from a famous play based on legend, a cat in human form is shown in her true guise as lamplight reveals her cat head-shaped shadow. In front of her dance two fork-tailed demon cats - in folklore, cats who live a long time begin to wear human clothes, walk on their hind legs and comprehend human speech.

Gountei Sadahide, Cat Witch of Okabe, ca. 1840, detail.

Hmm...my cat turns fourteen next week - if he suddenly sports a kerchief, we'd better watch out!

My cat helping to pack table decorations, 2014.

Kyoto Flea Market quilt

Kyoto Flea Market quilt, on display.

Just finished two quilts, one of which is shown above, in DH's home office. The pattern was inspired by Kathy Adams pattern Japanese Story.

Kathy Adams, Japanese Story.

The geometry is fairly basic, so I didn't purchase the pattern, but worked out the dimensions and construction on my own. However, the pattern gives yardage requirements, cutting instructions and assembly diagrams, so would be useful for someone just beginning in quilting.

Rolls of narrow width woven fabric.

I named the quilt Kyoto Flea Market as I purchased the patterned fabrics at a temple market in Kyoto in 2012. To my dismay, when I returned home I found most of the fabrics had holes and other areas of damage (the fabrics were tied in tight, unscrutinizable bundles at the market). However, there was enough usable material for two nearly identical quilts (a limited edition, if you will). Buyer beware, indeed!

Items at the temple flea market.

This pattern is a useful way to "corral" a collection of large-, medium- and small- scale fabrics and show them to advantage.  Below is a "blankie" for a child assembled from shibori samples made in an Elin Noble workshop.

Shibori sampler quilt.

Detail, Kyoto Flea Market quilt.

The sashing is black Kona cotton, and while most of the hand-quilting is done with black thread, I hand-quilted the sashing using red thread - subtle, but a little zingy.

Cat Gallery quilt

Note the screen saver - we like cats of all types.

Just finished a quilt begun in 2013....talk about the Slow Fiber movement... but now the work has a binding, hanging sleeve, and a good place in DH's home office. We are a family of ailurophiles.

The impetus for this quilt was an old fabric, featuring stylized cat face designs in red and gray, found on ebay.  This fabric can be seen in the large blocks bordered in black in the quilt.  Also used is a recent Michael Miller fabric based on the designs of 1950's artist Tammis Keefe.  I had enough of the old fabric to make three of these quilts, sort of a limited edition; the other two quilts were given to veterinarians.

Quilt on display at animal hospital.

Vintage cat fabric, before quilting.

Red, white and black is a timeless quilt color scheme. The quilt was fun to work on, although I went a bit overboard with the hand-quilting.

Detail showing pieced border.