This week’s woodcut experiment is perhaps more about printing than cutting. Again a piece from Dunhuang but this time a fragment of “clamp dyed” cloth, where wood was used for this form of dyeing/printing as carved pattern blocks.
I have found this method of printing very difficult to get my head around but, simply put, the fabric was clamped tightly between the two patterned wooden boards and then dyed in a vat. The raised surface of the wood clamping the fabric “resisting” the dye and forming the white areas.
These particular pieces of patterned silk are held in the British Museum:
British Museum : MAS.878.b
8thC(late)-9thC
Description: The clamp-resist dyed pattern on the buff-coloured silk consists of interlocking rosettes, each with four petals and four leaves in blue and red….in the dyeing process of these textiles, two sets of patterned blocks were used, however, some of the green leaves have been dyed twice, with painted yellow on dyed blue, just as the purplish brown areas have been dyed both scarlet and blue.
Four pieces of the same textiles are preserved, two in the British Museum, and two in V&A LOAN:STEIN.591 and 298.
Two sets of blocks were used for dyeing, first to create blue, orange, and brown via the overlapping of blue and orange, then
yellow was painted on blue and orange, to create green and light orange, …..
from “Woven Color in China,The Five Colors in Chinese Culture and Polychrome Woven Textiles” by Zhao Feng
Colours were important yin and yang elements and it’s interesting that they are based on the primary colours which when combined would give the greens, browns etc. The following explains a little.
In ancient Chinese culture, there was the yin-yang theory and five-color system that included red, blue,
yellow, black and white. Each color refers either to one of the five directions or positions, east, west,
north, south and middle, or to one of the five planets, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, or to
one of the five materials, metal, wood, water, fire and earth. This theory was recorded in the Zhou Li (Rites of the Zhou)
again from “Woven Color in China,The Five Colors in Chinese Culture and Polychrome Woven Textiles” as above.
For me, knowing the cultural significance of the colours makes the pieces even more interesting. I’m also looking at the pigments used in these early printings which is yet another branch research!
Another 2 clamp dyed fragments in the British Museum also from the Dunhuang caves are these, one featuring two geese which also shows overlaying of colours and another a snippet of an elegant high stepping deer.
British Museum: ref numbers MAS.876 and MAS.874.b also from Mogao: Cave 17 8th/9th Century.
It seems this form of multi coloured clamp dyeing started to decline probably because of the complexity of the process and gave way to the simpler one colour “jaixie” printing. It’s all very lovely and I will be making a sample based on the jaixie (and its Japanese equivalent itajime) techniques in a couple of weeks.
I am definitely not going to try to make clamp resist boards at the moment so my interpretation was to cut the same design but print it in a more conventional way. I used one block and printed the orangey/yellow first using some paper to mask the blue areas, then cut away the orange and printed the blue, so the third colour is achieved by the overprinting.
Printing on Chinese papers in various colours.
I printed some with an overlay of a second block cut with fine lines to unite the colours and give an effect of a weave.
See image below on linen paper.
Because the original fragment was printed on silk I thought I should try and it was rather lovely. I have not printing on fine (slippery) silk before and it was Ok but there must be a good way to get the registration right. I think possibly by stretching the silk and printing from the top, in the way Indian woodblock printmaking is done. More experiments needed but the result is quite nice.
Woodblock printed on pongee silk sample
I had to try the little deer as well with a slightly different way of printing, using a couple of additional blocks for the background and the clouds and a variety of papers/ colour mixes.
No 2: Clamp Dyed Fabric Designs from Dunhuang
3 colours printed on a Korean linen paper.
Deer with clouds: 3 colours on hosho paper.
