Il Tessuto tra Sensi e Mito
by Martina Barberis Casagrande
with a contribution by Michela Davo
When I was a young girl I used to visit a friend in Venice who lived in a house rumored to have once belonged to Marco Polo, legendary pioneer of the Silk Road. I remember the lady of the house used to dress me in the bright fabrics she colored, which seemed more like works of art than textiles. In that period, I was also fascinated by another (adoptive) Venetian master that harmonized fabric and the human body: Mariano Fortuny. I still remember his palace, now an important museum, vividly. It was an extraordinary place.
What role have textiles played in our memory? They have certainly had an impact on our emotions and our senses, our sight, touch, and smell. We remember a fabric because we associate it with a dear friend or a loved one whose memory we treasure, or sometimes even a lover we want to forget. A stain marks a fabric with experience, with life, but is an imperfection we can't forgive.
Textiles not only allow us to express who we are, they allow us to highlight where we come from and how we relate to space. A fabric bought while traveling is our first “souvenir,” it represents a different culture and tells a unique story. Fabrics are the end products of traditional craftsmanship, each unique to a specific culture, to a specific set of customs and beliefs, and each employing different materials, such as cotton, wool, alpaca wool, linen, or synthetic. Tell me what materials you like to wear and I'll tell you what kind of a person you are. I've always been fascinated by people who know how to identify fine fabrics and recount the history of each textile, even if it takes more than a superficial glance.
Fabrics have also been at the center of various mythologies. Who can forget Penelope's scheme to trick her enemies into delaying her marriage indefinitely as she awaited Ulysses' return, by weaving a burial shroud for his father Laertes by day and undoing it at night. Does this subterfuge hide deeper implications?
Symbols and mythologies were sometimes on fabric, as is the case for the countless tapestries and carpets that tell the stories of noble courts. Our history, the history of the Renaissance, is inextricably tied to the fabrics that were traded in the Mediterranean and along the Silk Road. Our history is the history of Venetian silk mills that employed great painters to decorate fabrics, and the history of Florentine wool mills, many of which were owned by the Medici.
We should also remember the many decorative themes of the renaissance, a time period characterized by a boom in textile production. One of these is the pomegranate, emblem of many ancient civilizations (the Persians, for example), which symbolized fertility and immortality. Eleonora da Toledo has an image of this fruit on her dress in her portrait by one of my favorite artists, Bronzino. Heraldic symbols were also very common on textiles, growing ever more popular as a symbol of prestige or a way for a family to show off its coat of arms. Then, of course, there are patterns which draw inspiration from eastern traditions, usually Indian, Persian, and Chinese floral patterns.
Lastly modern and contemporary artists make use of fabric as an artistic medium, one notable example being German artist Anni Albers.
I asked the young philosopher Michela Davo to write a brief passage on the relationship between fabric and the body:
The flower of Andalusia is the gypsy skirt of Carmen dancing, opening like a red poppy. Camaron de la Isla, perhaps the greatest voice of flamenco and interpreter of Lorca and Hernandez poems says: “quando canta mira lo que te he traìdo: una rosa pa tu pelo y un vestido.” Look at what I brought you, a rose for your hair and a dress. It pays homage to that sun-scorched land where time is kept by the sound of castanets.
It's hard to imagine Flamenco music with its gypsy themes without immediately thinking of the women in their faralaese al mantòn de manilaand the men in their traditional garb, reminiscent of the torero's traje de luzdei. Lorca, first among duendepoets, has made ample reference to textiles, writing: “Bajo las estremecidas/estrellas de los velones,/su falda de moaré tiembla/entre sus muslos de cobre” (Beneath the trembling stars of the oil lamps, her skirt of moiré shimmies, between her copper thighs.) And again in reference to Amnon's desire for Thamar when he wrote: “Mis hilos de sangre tejen/volantes sobre tu falda” (my strings of blood weave, flying over your skirt,) And finally when he gives us the image of the old man saying “amor, amor, amor, /entre el tisú estremecido de ternura” (love, love, love in the trembling fabric of tenderness.) The erotic theme returns in the verses of Hernandez “Y hecho de alfombras y de besos hecho / tu talón que me injuria beso y siembro de flores” (and, made for walking over and for kisses, I kiss and strew with flowers the heel that wound) where fabrics are part of a frenetic union of lovers, they unite with the body, without, however, reaching the same degree of oneness that would lead Camaron to feel pain in his heart, his breathing, and his hat “por tu amor me duele el aire, el corazón y el sombrero.”
Somewhere Vincente Amigo is still playing for someone who sings “ Soy gitano y vengo a tu casamiento a partirme la camisa, la camisa que tengo” (I'm a gypsy and I'm coming to your wedding to rip off my shirt, the shirt I'm wearing) . . .
Michela Davo
Recently I had the chance to visit the Archives at Rubelli, historic Venetian textile manufacturer, best known for their collection of sumptuous Damascus fabrics and Venetian brocade, textile “documents” that span from the end of the 15thcentury to the middle of the 20th. Stylist Francesco Zampieri, with Sara Boatto, tells me that “fabrics were once so precious they were cataloged like jewels, they were a way to flaunt one's wealth. From the 1stcentury B.C.E. the Silk Road, the caravan route between the East and the West, was a highway of trade and cultural exchange that revolved primarily around silk. The Silk Road became symbol of Venice and fabric facilitated the exchange of ideas and traditions, bringing Persian culture and textile techniques to Europe. The mythical griffin, for example, a staple of Western heraldry, first came to Italy through the silk road.”
Below, a selection of textiles from the Rubelli archive that display myths, stories, and anecdotes.
Of all the textiles in the archive, the “Leggenda dei 100 Bambini” is certainly one of the most interesting: a Chinese fabric embroidered with silk that was gifted to young couples as a lucky charm. Another interesting piece is “Uchishiki,” a textile used by Buddhist monks in their ceremonies. Ornamental patterns in the Eastern traditions are marked by a distinct asymmetry that is absent in Western textile culture.
Then, two Italian textiles in red velvet: one from 15thcentury Venice, the other, from Florence, is adorned with an image of the noble Tuscan family to which it belonged. Red is the color of passion. In fact, the Venetian cloth depicts a pomegranate, well known as a symbol of fertility and abundance. The ancient Greeks believed that Venus created the fruit from the blood of Dionysus. But red also meant power, scarlet was the color of nobility and of the shawls of the “Procurators of Saint Mark,” A position in the Venetian state second only to the Doge.
“Riga” fabric, on the other hand, was of little value as it was made from scraps and featured patterns which were usually not aesthetically pleasing. Its cheap price made it a favorite of the lowest classes of Venetian society. Vertical stripes were also associated with slavery, to such a degree that they became a symbol of the anti-slavery movements created by French enlightenment thinkers.
The textile industry also creates more pollution than almost any other. How can we innovate while preserving traditions, stories, and historic Italian and Mediterranean craftsmanship? What techniques are responsible for pollution?