Fibre

Weaving has been used to create some of our greatest artworks. Iran has a history of weaving incredibly detailed carpets, such as the 17th century “Wagner Garden Carpet”, named after a former owner. The carpet is over 4x5 metres and may once have been even bigger. It shows animals, insects, bird and fish in a blooming garden with water channels running through it. 

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, woven tapestries decorated and insulated castles and churches. They often came in sets which together told a story. The 11th century Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the conquest of England in 1066 by the Duke of Normandy. The artwork is 70 metres in length, comprises of nine panels of linen cloth joined together and features ten different colours of wool thread. The tapestry is on display in the Bayeux Museum in France. Another set made in France in the 15th century tells the story of the Trojan War. Together they would stretch over 100m long. In the 20th century, Anni Albers used weaving to make thoroughly modern masterpieces and Louis le Brocquy designed a series of tapestries depicting The Táin legend - the tale of an epic war between the kingdoms of Connacht and Ulster over a prize bull.

Tapa, or barkcloth, is cloth made in Polynesia exclusively by women. The cloth isn’t woven, it is made by soaking, pasting and beating bark from inside particular trees, usually the paper mulberry tree. In Fiji, barkcloth is called masi and has been used throughout daily and ceremonial life, from room dividers to gifts. Sometimes the cloth is decorated and the use of stencils made from leaves to make patterns is unique to Fiji.  

Katsushika Ōi was the daughter of the famous Japanese artist Hokusai. She had been brought up helping her father and became a brilliant artist in her own right. She created woodblock prints, illustrated books and paintings on silk. One of her paintings on silk from the 1840s depicts a famous warrior called Guanyu who has been poisoned by an arrow and is having blood let from his arm. One figure can’t bear to look at the operation, another is weighed down by a bowl of the blood flowing from Guanyu’s arm but the warrior himself is busy playing a board game! The use of silk for this painting is a sign that it must have been for a wealthy patron.