Needle art: A proud tradition

It is my theory that most indigenous art or paintings of civilized communities have roots in their textiles. The reasons are not far to seek. For one, the textile forms have a long history dating back to the Harappan civilization, with a madder red piece of linen having being found in the excavations proving my contention. Two, I feel that the innate sense of design that evolved over a vast period of time developed to near perfection as a background for the contemporary artists to work from or rather take off from.

One has to just look at tribal or aboriginal art from all across the globe and the linkages are evident. In the case of India, where we are still fortunate enough to have both the streams of tribal art and weaving still surviving, art emanating from those regions is palpably influenced. Textiles and tribal art from Madhya Pradesh being a case in point. Ditto for art and wearable art from the North-East states.

In India, textile weaving developed as an independent art, and may be divided into two groups; the first group consists of fabrics, which are provided with artistic treatment when on the loom and the second consists of textiles in which artistic treatment are given subsequent to the weaving. This includes all plain textiles from the loom, which receive their decoration and final treatment at the hands of the dyer, the printer or the embroiderer.

Since I am often overtly partial to the woven fabric, only for a change I will talk about the needle art as a form that deserves attention. Embroidery or the decoration of woven fabrics with coloured threads with a needle is probably one of the oldest arts in the world. In India, it dates back from the remotest period of history.

Embroidered garments and needles are mentioned in Vedic texts and the art still flourishes in all parts of India.

Since embroidery is a process carried out only after the cloth leaves the loom, much of the restraint involved in weaving a pattern on the loom is removed. Hence, it is found to possess individualities and characteristics of great beauty and interest. Indeed, it is easy to see why embroidered work has greater individual component when one compares with the shuttle and needle.

The field that embroidery occupies in India is most extensive, and ranges from the simplest yet charming-bone patterns of the aborigines to the elaborate figure compositions of Chamba to the intricate chikan work of Lucknow or the delicate kasuti from Karnataka or the intricate patterns from both Kutch and Kashmir.

A general view of the most important styles of embroidery will also reveal that though needle-work is usually associated with the feminine finger, this great art owes much to the masculine skill. In Kashmir and Kutch, the two regions most famed for artistic needle-work, it is the men who are involved in this art.

This is true of other parts of India too. The art attained its highest development in northern and north-western India, and is probably more developed among the people of the hills than among those who live in the plains — perhaps as it requires little elaborate paraphernalia, often nothing, save a needle and coloured threads.

The thread employed in embroidery is usually of wool or silk, the latter being more frequently used than wool, which is confined almost exclusively to the productions of crewel work of Kashmir.

Silk thread, to be adequate for purpose of decoration, has to pass through several simple processes from the raw to the finished state. The embroiderer usually colours his own thread according to his own ideas of the desired design.

The use of gold and silver thread for embroidery is perhaps the oldest form of embroidery. The origin of the gold thread artwork is said to be from Asia.

In India, even today, different types of embroideries are prepared with the use of gold thread. Gold or silver threads are also widely used, particularly in hangings, trappings, etc., and in garments used for ceremonial occasions. Gold thread embroidery is known in northern India as Kamdani.

The traditional ‘zardozi’ is prepared with the use of salma, sitara (prepared out of twisted gold thread and sequins), gijai, and the crinkled badla silver or gold flat wires and round-shaped sequins known as katori, which are used also with pearls and semi-precious stones.

A charming addition is the mukaish work popular in Lucknow, which entails piercing a flat wire into the cloth and using it to create the design.

The same format is used for pitta (pitta from pitna or hitting) work as well, wherein the created design is flattened or beaten with a wooden mallet to create a flat style.

Another interesting variation, named after the particular style of work in which it is employed, is the phulkari stitch from Punjab, which is purely and simply a darning stitch done entirely from the back, that is, from the wrong side of the fabric. A double satin stitch employed in the production of the Chamba Rumal may also be regarded as a typically Indian device to fill in large spaces and to make the decoration appear identical on both sides of the fabric.

Countless variations abound and this at best the literal point of the needle and just as an interesting study or playful joy, may I request you to look at the work of artists from a specific region and match their work to the popular forms of embroidery from there, and I promise, you will be surprised at the linkages.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com