Shaped fabricsIN ISLAM


Shaped fabrics in Islam
Thanks to its climate, Egypt has preserved pieces of fabric from the first centuries of the Hegira. For the most part, they are linen fabrics with tapestry embedding. They are made in taffeta weave: the weft successively crosses the same even and odd threads of the chain. During the weaving, a decorative tapestry is inserted by means of a needle, making intervening on the chain not more a linen weft, but of woven sieves. Invented in the 3rd century by the Copts (the Christians of the Nile Valley), this process is very alive when the Arabs conquered Egypt in 641. The repertoire, which still retains themes from late antiquity, Enriched with more stylized themes, borrowed from Asia Minor or Sassanian Persia. There is no break with the new masters. In the Tulunid period, however, the motives were more vigorous and wider. Everything changes with the Fatimids (969-1171). The linen cloths, very fine, are entirely crossed by strips of tapestries in polychrome silks and gold thread. Torsades and medallions, furnished with animals and tiny plants, succeed each other, often bordered by inscriptions. The "Shroud" of Cadouin or the "Voile de Sainte-Anne" of Apt, which arrived in France at the time of the Crusades, seems to illustrate this tendency. The process disappears in the productions of tiraz at the fall of the Fatimids. In the meantime, it has spread to Muslim Spain (possibly as a result of a movement of artisans), since it is the one used in the veil inscribed in the name of Hisham II, or in The silk with peacocks, preserved at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan.
Another legacy of antiquity is the weaving of the samits. They are silks whose armor is characterized by oblique ribs: every time the weft is felled, the binding point of the floats is shifted on the chain of two threads (then called a twill 2 lie 1), then returns To its initial position after completion of the past: a complete cycle of frames. This technique, used in Alexandria as early as the first century of the Christian era, requires a complex horizontal craft, the picking-up. It was the Byzantine Syrians who made it known to the Persians between the fourth and fifth centuries. In return, it is Sassanian Iran that will give its repertoire to most Byzantine and Muslim samites of the early Middle Ages. The prescription in wheels, tangent or separated, with a cruciform element in the intervals, is then an imperative rule. As for the motifs, they are related to the old Persian and Mesopotamian background: birds confronted on either side of a tree of life, griffons or two-headed eagles carrying nimbus characters, fake antithetical controlled by a paladin. One of the oldest examples of Muslim Samit is provided by a fragment written in the name of Marwan, probably the Umayyad caliph Marwan II (744-750), and bearing the mention of Ifriqiya (Tunisia). The Arabs called these tissues siqlâtûn, sigillés, while the Latins called them pallia rotata. From the twelfth century onwards, patterns tend to be freed from the circular inscription, as is seen on the screws of leopards of Saint Mexme, woven in Egypt or Syria, or on the piece with the eagle Two-headed museum preserved in the museum of Lyon and which is the product of an Andalusian workshop.
If other ancient techniques are perpetuated on the Muslim trades - such as silk taffeta or gold-plated taffeta, or taqués which are taffeta without back since the decoration of one side appears in negative on the other - large Innovation of the eleventh century will be that of lampas. Lampas are silks, the decoration of which consists of floats of weft regularly bound by an auxiliary chain called the binding chain; The patterns formed by the frames are most often detached on a satin background, that is to say on a background with a predominantly chain. It is assumed that the workshops of Baghdad or Shiraz, at the time of the Bouyides (945-1055), are at the origin of this process. Very soon, it will be adopted by the workshops of Antioch, then by those of Egypt and those of al-Andalus. Later, he won North Africa and Ottoman Turkey. But, as early as the thirteenth century, the Italians knew it. For them, as among Muslims, the lampas coexist for a while with the Samits, then replace them and occupy the ground until the 15th century. The velvets then take over, whether in the East or the West. The thirteenth century is therefore a pivotal moment for the history of precious fabrics in the Mediterranean. The improvement of the tooling, the introduction of the pedal craft (known in the East since the Arab conquests), the arrival of the Sicilian silks allow Tuscany and then Venice to compete with the Muslim workshops. The Christian Spain which has seized the manufactories of al-Andalus follows the movement. Moreover, a certain cleavage in the decorative styles is observed then. The Eastern Mediterranean - Syria and Egypt - opens largely to the Asian repertory distributed by the Ilkhanid and then Timurid workshops of Persia, while Muslim Spain and then North Africa turn to more geometric and abstract compositions. In the Mamluk area, silkworms receive seedlings of mandorla enclosing lotuses, or large inscriptions interspersed with figurative medallions; In the western domain, the fabrics are overlaid with patterns of small size, tightly enclosed in complex networks. The Mudejar and Sicilian workshops, guardians of the Muslim traditions, follow this fashion which often reminds one of the Gothic formulations. Although it is still a samit, the eagle play with a network of eight-pointed cartridges and crosses is part of this current (Musée de Lyon). This tendency to geometrization was confirmed in the Nasrid era, with the so-called "Alhambra" style. Under its grip, the lampas multiply the star polygons, crossed by calligraphed bands and merlons. The belts of Fez, in Morocco, will reflect this legacy.
The velvets of Ottoman Turkey are contemporaries of the Renaissance. In velvets, the hair is produced by an additional chain (the hair chain), lifted above the bottom cross by chopsticks. The loops thus formed are then cut. Bursa, who had mastery of this technique and who was in the center of a sericulture region, produced silk velvet, embroidered with gold and silver. The large-scale decoration consists of pomegranates, tulip-shaped mandorla, but also Asian motifs, such as the three balls pointed at two undulating lines. Genoa, Florence, Lucca and Venice have often copied these themes. Unlike Turkey, their velvets are generally velvet "raised", ie cut to different heights according to the zones and which can even have parts in loop. The commercial stakes within the Mediterranean encouraged these phenomena of imitation.
R. G.Source: www.qantara-med.org