Albanian Embroidery

Illustration: Albanian silk embroidery.

Albania was part of the Turkish Empire for over five hundred years. Therefore, it would be understandable if certain Turkish cultural and creative aspects were entwined with the craft skills and system of Albania.

Embroidery has always played a large part in Albanian life and was used extensively in costume. Traditionally both men and women were involved in the embroiderers craft, however, women were usually classed as amateurs and limited to that of a domestic base, while men organised themselves on a much more defined and professional base.

Albanian embroidery came in a number of guises and styles, but there were two main groups usually divided by language, with the Gheg to the north and the Tosk to the south. Work was often produced on linen, cotton and wool backgrounds. There was a strong emphasis on the use of gold and silver metal threads, which is said to have originated in Turkey itself. However, hand dyed yarns were also widely used although cotton for example, had to be imported as did silk, although there was a small amount of indigenous silk production.

Illustration: Satellite map of Albania.

Costume embroidery was produced for both men and women and was often produced in bands in order to attach them to different areas of jackets, bodices, shirts, trousers, skirts and aprons. Bands were also used to embellish various styles of hat.

As in many areas of the Balkans, embroidery design work, if not unique to specific local areas, at least gave a certain distinctive flavour of that particular area to a national style.

Albanian embroidery work and craft skills in general are much under-appreciated outside of the country. Admittedly this is partly due to the fact that Albania had self-imposed an isolationist attitude to the rest of the world for over half a century, but another reason is the general lack of detailed information and data concerning the traditional craft skills base of the country.

Illustration: Albanian embroidery using metal thread.

With the collapse of the communist system, many rural Albanians, particularly in the north of the country, found themselves without employment and so moved to the south and the main cities of the country, leaving their traditional craft skills behind them. The Albanian Traditional Embroidery Association (ATEA) was set up with the help of sympathetic groups in southern Italy, in order to maintain the unique embroidery skills and traditions of those northern Albanian migrants, but also of the embroidery skills of the country as a whole. It was hoped that this would be achieved by encouraging embroiderers, mostly women, into producing embroidery work for the international market, thus hopefully giving them some much-needed financial and economic help. Some of the work produced by embroiderers involved with ATEA can be seen here, while the ATEA site itself can be found in the Further reading links section below.

Further reading links:
Albanian Traditional Embroidery Association (ATEA)
Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques, and Patterns from All over the World
Embroidered Textiles: A World Guide to Traditional Patterns
Albania 3rd (Bradt Travel Guide Albania)
Albania (Cultures of the World)
The Albanians: A Modern History
The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present- 2 Vol. Set
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edward Lear in Albania: Journals of a Landscape Painter in the Balkans
Tribes and Brigands in the Balkans: A History of Northern Albania
Travels in European Turkey, in 1850: Through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, and Epirus; with a Visit to Greece and the Ionian ... of Austria on the Lower Danube. Volume 2
George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania
Travels in Greece and Turkey: Comprehending a Particular Account of the Morea, Albania, Etc.; a Comparison Between the Ancient and Present State of ... Geograhical Description of the Ancient Epirus

Dominie Nash and Haunting Studies of a Dying Leaf

Illustration: Dominie Nash. Big Leaf Impromptu #8, 2008.

The Big Leaf series of textile art pieces by the artist Dominie Nash allows us to see both the robustness of the natural world along with the delicate and transient character that we often associate with particular aspects of nature. Leaves seem especially poignant to us with their ability to haunt us with ideas about decay and death. However, leaves should also be seen as an aspect of the cycle of life, dropped leaves in autumn only showing us part of that cycle.

Illustration: Dominie Nash. Big Leaf Impromptu #9, 2008.

Nash may well have been initially inspired to produce a series of textile art pieces using the construction, both delicate and robust, of a leaf, however the sequence of compositions that she has produced go a long way past any mere observational interest or aspect. These pieces have taken the most important features of the leaf from its complex colour tones to the emulation of the skeletal structure of the leaf through the use of hand stitching. All are portrayed within compositions that cover two very different aspects of fine art. On the one hand, is the analytical, almost medical approach to the anatomy of the leaf. Through that detailed analysis, comes an understanding of the anatomy of nature itself. However, another important aspect that Nash includes in all her work is the creative and inspirational character that underlies all of her work. The artist has an intrinsic understanding of colour tone and texture, which she uses with the confidence of compositional arrangement.

Illustration: Dominie Nash. Big Leaf Series #15, 2008.

To bring together the analytical, observational, compositional and creative features of her work while using the often difficult format of textiles, is a feat that Nash has managed to pull off. With these fascinating and at the same time haunting contained studies of both the dying leaf and the larger cycle of nature, the artist has managed to create for us a multi-focused compiled survey of the ever changing environment around us. In some respects, it is similar to one person stopping a moment in life's busy schedule, stooping down and picking a dead leaf up from the ground. That is the job of the creative, to allow us to observe a moment in time that they themselves have captured.

Illustration: Dominie Nash. Big Leaf Series #16, 2008.

Dominie Nash has exhibited her work across the US, as well as in the UK. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be found. The link to her site is as always, in the reference links section below.

Illustration: Dominie Nash. Big Leaf Series #17, 2008.

All images are used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:

Dominie Nash website

Frederick Etchells Rug Design

Illustration: Frederick Etchells. Rug design, 1913.

The English artist, architect and writer Frederick Etchells is probably best known for his association with Roger Fry and the Omega Workshops project, as well as his translation of Le Corbusier's seminal works on modern architecture into English. While the two may at first not automatically seem to be related, the Omega Workshops and Le Corbusier were important elements in the founding of the intrinsic style of art, architecture and design, and the direction that that style would take over much of the twentieth century.

Etchells himself became involved in the Omega Workshops project through his personal friendship with Roger Fry. Etchells produced the rug design shown here for the Omega Workshops in 1913. The design itself immediately shows the designers architectural credentials and training. While the composition is somewhat different to work produced by various Omega artists and designers in other mediums, particularly that of ceramics, furniture and textiles, much of the rug design work produced by the Workshops through various artists and designers such as Duncan Grant, Roald Kristian, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry himself, closely follows a particular style with compositions following and interpreting the shape of the rug. Therefore, as in the case of Etchells, the rug dimensions are used as a guide for the rest of the composition. This led inevitably to a number of pieces, though by no means all, using hard edged verticals and horizontals. It is interesting to note that Etchells himself in this particular rug design overlaid the emphasis of the grid with a series of diamonds at deliberate odds with the vertical and horizontal background emphasis of the rug.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence for a colour photo of Etchells rug design and so we are therefore left with only a contemporary black and white version and can only guess at its true dimensions colour wise.

By the beginning of the 1920s, Etchells had decided to leave art and design behind him and concentrate full time on architectural pursuits. However, the small part of his career that he dedicated to his friend Roger Fry and his experimental Omega Workshops project, gives us an insight as to the dynamism that was becoming such an important element of the English decorative arts scene just on the eve of the First World War.

It is often thought and indeed regularly portrayed, that England in the last years before the war was one of an endless elegant Edwardian late summer. However, it is much more realistic to see, at least in the world of art, design and craft, that England during this period, rather than asleep, was a culture that was exploring a whole range of often imported ideas and theories that was to irrevocably change both the arts and society in such a fundamental way that the First World War in some respects, was the catalyst that was to put these ideas and theories into practise. England in the years following the war was to be a very different one than that in which Etchells designed this rug.

Further reading links:
Towards a New Architecture. Translated from the French by Frederick Etchells.
The City of Tomorrow and It's Planning. Translated from the 8th French Edition of Urbanisme with an Introduction by Frederick Etchells
Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of The Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops
Omega Workshops, 1913-19
The Omega Workshops: Alliance and enmity in English art, 1911-1920 : Anthony d'Offay Gallery
Omega Cuts: Woodcuts and Linocuts by Artists Associated with the Omega Workshops and the Hogarth Press
Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops: Alliance and Enmity in English Art, 1911-1920
A Roger Fry Reader
Art Deco and Modernist Carpets

Owen Jones and the Renaissance

Illustration: Renaissance Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

In Owen Jones 1856 book, The Grammar of Ornament the two chapters that produced the longest amount of text are interestingly both the Italian and Renaissance chapters, both also written by Matthew Digby Wyatt the British Architect and art historian.

The chapter dealing with Renaissance Ornament is firmly placed between those of the Medieval and Elizabethan. This follows the rough chronological history of the decorative arts, especially as seen by those in mid-Victorian Britain. 

Illustration: Renaissance Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

The chapter itself gives a long introduction to the history and European context of the Renaissance period as seen through the eyes of a Northern European critic. That is to say, that although there is an element of fair-minded appraisal for the ambitions and achievements of the Renaissance period, there is also an underlying current of thinly disguised disapproval of some of the perceived excesses of the classical tradition and its Italian revival. This is always seen in direct contrast with that of the largely indigenous Northern European Gothic and medieval architecture, decoration and ornamental work. Digby Wyatt notes on a number of occasions throughout the chapter, of the consistent Italian hostility to Gothic forms and ideas promulgated by Northern European culture and that of the Italian intransigent dependence on the literal revival of classicism.

Illustration: Renaissance Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

However, the author is quick to give credit to the workmanship and skills that were present in Italy during the long period of the Renaissance, but the criticisms persist and are peppered throughout the chapter. They draw attention to the overly fussy and complicated ornamental work, the heavy reliance on forced and often ill-advised perspective and the odd use of pagan symbolism within a Christian context, as in images of satyrs and drinking gods within church and cathedral interiors.

The overall feeling is one of admiration for the technical skills base that was used for much of the basic construction elements of Renaissance decoration and ornament. However, twinned with that was a definite disapproving manner throughout the article for the heavy reliance and invasive qualities of what many in mid-Victorian Britain saw as a dead and somewhat inappropriate culture for Christian Europe to have adopted. As an example, Digby Wyatt drew attention to the case of Germany and the introduction of Renaissance decoration and ornamentation. The author saw this as a disastrous and ill-conceived melding of classical southern European cultural elements with that of an already existing and successful Northern European Gothic decorative structure.

Illustration: Renaissance Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

In conclusion, the chapter views the Renaissance style as being that of a valuable lesson in the cultivation of undoubted beauty and elegance, but also that of the hazards posed by extravagant excess. This could well be seen as a typical mid-nineteenth century British viewpoint of Europe. Elements of the Renaissance that tied in comfortably with the Victorian ideas concerning their own British Gothic Revival were plaudit, while other more excessive elements of Italian culture met with a more troubled and sometimes even dismissive stance.

Needless to say Owen Jones did not use any of the more exuberant and excessive qualities of Renaissance decoration and ornamentation in the colour plates that came with the chapter.

Further reading links:
The Grammar of Ornament: All 100 Color Plates from the Folio Edition of the Great Victorian Sourcebook of Historic Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Grammar of Ornament: A Monumental Work of Art
The Grammar of Ornament. Folio Edition
The Grammar of Ornament - Illustrated By Examples from Various Styles of Ornament - One Hundred and Twelve Plates
Renaissance Patterns for Lace, Embroidery and Needlepoint (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Fantastic Gothic and Renaissance Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Ornament of the Italian Renaissance
Painted Palaces: The Rise of Secular Art in Early Renaissance Italy
Furniture and Interior Decoration of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland
The Renaissance Palace in Florence
Italian Renaissance Textile (International Design Library)
Italian Church Decoration of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: Functions, Forms, and Regional Traditions (Villa Spelman Colloquia)
English decorative plasterwork of the Renaissance,
Decorative Ornaments and Alphabets of the Renaissance (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Renaissance Ornaments and Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
The Italian Renaissance Interior, 1400-1600
Furniture and Interior decoration of the Italian Renaissance