Medieval Textiles: circa 1350-1400 CE

Weekly Woodcut Number 9: Medieval European Block Printed Cloth

This week, for my exploration into the history of woodblock printmaking I looked at a beautiful wall hanging, the Sion Wall Hanging from the Basel Museum, produced in Italy in the second half of the 14th Century.
All of life is here, birth, death, lots of fighting and some much needed music and dancing.

Upper Italy, 2nd half of 14th century: Linen printed with woodblocks
Dyes containing lampblack and red chalk : H 106 cm x W 264 cm
Inv. 1897.48
“The top register shows a row of dancing men and women, the middle register Christian knights going into battle against Oriental archers, and the bottom register some rather curious, surtitled scenes from the Oedipus saga.”
from Basel Museum here

European Block Printing on Fabric

In Europe, block printing on fabric predates printing on paper, probably arriving in Italy in the 13th Century, despite being well established in the East and India by this time. If only fragments survive it is, again, possibly because this was a more humble way of decorating fabric and therefore not so treasured. Preservation would have also been an issue as the early dyes used for European printing were not light fast although the use of mordants had been already extensively and beautifully used in India for centuries.

I also imagine that cloth generally would have been used and reused as much as possible, just as paper was. The rare insights into the clothing of working people given to us by contemporary artists show garments often patched and repaired until completely threadbare.  I begin to wonder if hand-me-down fabrics were ever given to the favoured servants,  but having just read about the bizarre “sumptuary” laws, probably not. To be fined or even put to death for using cloth deemed above your station would probably have seemed not worth the risk. But I do know that fabrics were very valuable, disassembled and reassembled according to need.

There is a famous woodblock surviving from the same period, the “Bois Protat” 1370-1380. It is thought this was made for printing on fabric because it is double sided and larger than the paper sizes available at the time. you can read more from Wiki here
Note fantastic early “speech bubble” known as a “banderole”.

Here are other fragments of block printed fabrics produced in Venice and Germany around the same time, from a lovely collection of textiles in the Museum of Applied Arts here

As I am looking at the fabric prints I am struck that quite a few of them are quite blocky, with solid shapes in silhouette, but the cutting style of the Bois Protat and the Sion Wallhanging is fine, detailed and in outline. More like the blocks made for printing on paper which sometimes were hand coloured.
The difference could be to do with; the quality of wood used for the carving, the printing process,  the type of “ink”, the absorbency or fineness of the printing surface and possibly the function and scale of the piece. It’s all very thought provoking.

And then there are the questions of motif in early decorative prints. So many birds, deer and lions, so many leaves, vines and trees. I do not know exactly why but might hazard a guess that in the grim conditions of medieval life it would be lovely to be surrounded by images of the natural world, especially birds.
We gravity bound humans have revered, admired and envied birds for centuries and of course there is so much to admire. For me it is the ability to fly. Over the woods I see the kites soaring and the rooks circling and right now a blackbird sings exquisitely outside our bedroom window from about 5 am and the friendly robins are our constant close companions in the garden.

 

Weekly Woodcut no 9: Music, a Repeat Motif and Ladies in Trees.

I took a couple of details of the Sion wall hanging to work with. Time has been short this week but better to do something than nothing! 🙂

I left the war and fighting to opt for the lute player with the little dog and the disembodied tambourine player. I printed a snippet of a piece of music from the early 1400’s “Old Hall Manuscript” from the British Library (see here) behind a couple of them.

Blocks and trial prints

Again I had trouble with the quality of the wood and managed to lose the dogs right back foot.. sigh. I am fed up with this, so I have rashly decided to try some wood-engraving despite saying I would not. It’s way over the other end of the carving scale from wood-cutting but will be interesting to try.

Lute player and dog. 2 and 3 printings on Japanese hosho paper

The  borders designs are fascinating and I really prefer the way these cuts came out compared with the outlines. Giving into the chippy variations in the wood made these work better, with more energy and life. I took two of the images and made a repeat pattern.
Nice endpapers I am thinking.

Ladies in Trees

I wanted to try another way of cutting this week and so I made a sample piece based on a German textile from the V&A.  This time I used a block of magnolia wood. It’s a different cutting experience as it is solid wood and quite a bit harder than the shina ply so hold finer details. If there is anything wrong with the block it is definitely a problem with the carver, not the wood. It was rather a rush and needs a bit of refinement but generally I rather like the prints.

When I am choosing images I tend to look for non-christian and non-military and non-hunting, which sometimes restricts things. There is a possibility these ladies are collecting birds eggs.. Hmmm. So I have altered this a little and made it more of an overall pattern.

Ladies in trees: Block and prints: image size approx 120 x 160 cm

And because it was originally from a fabric I printed it on a calico scrap. Nice.

I realised after making these samples that the original fragments both have narrative themes, in that they portray action rather than just a simple repeat pattern. The choice should not surprise me because I do love a story!