THE FINE ART OF FABRIC

In her recently published book, Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World, British journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on a worldwide journey to survey the origins of the textiles that have clothed, draped, and decorated people and their surroundings throughout history. It’s a fascinating exploration of what the author calls “colorful, crafted, treasured, traded, material goods.” Not fashion history, per se, although fashions and trends through time certainly come into the discussion. Rather, this is a study of the textiles themselves — from sackcloth to silk — and their significance to society. “They work as metaphors, too,” Finlay explains, “and somehow encompass what is good and what is appalling about human endeavor.”

The good she mentions is not only the visual and tactile beauty of the textiles, but also the sophistication in production and artistry that can be found in even the most prosaic examples. Appalling is the destruction of land, the degradation of human beings, and the bloodshed that sometimes ensued when fabric became a commodity valuable enough to kill or die for. One such instance was the Dogra-Tibetan (or Sino-Sikh) War fought for control of the pashmina wool trade in the 1840s.

Finlay recalls, “I think about my being 19 [working as a volunteer teacher] in Ladakh in northern India and coming across a magic shopkeeper (the kind who tells you something amazing but whom you never find again!). He let me feel the astonishing lightness of pashmina, then told me about how pashmina had caused a war.” Such personal experiences — and there are many — were an embarkation point for her book.

In plotting her course, Finlay devised a list of questions. For example: What makes Harris Tweed special? Why was the tunic of Jesus described as “seamless” in John 19:23? Why was Sleeping Beauty pricked with a spindle when spindles aren’t sharp? Then she set out to answer them, ultimately producing 11 chapters that delve deep into specific areas: barkcloth, tapa, cotton, wool, tweed, pashmina, sackcloth, linen, silk, imagined fabrics, and patchwork.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

The journey of Fabric begins with barkcloth, which is made by stretching, folding, and beating the soft periderm (“inner bark”) layer that lives under the hard outer bark of trees. The papery, pliable fabric is then painted, stenciled, or stamped with plant-based pigments in one-of-a-kind abstract motifs unique to each creator. It’s difficult and demanding work that has customarily been relegated to the women of a community, seemingly since the dawn of humankind: Finlay notes that the oldest known tool made for beating barkcloth was found in China and has been dated back to 5900 BC.

While the book focuses on the barkcloth of Oceania, there’s an equally long and important barkcloth tradition among the Mbuti people of Africa’s Congo region, whose use of organic shapes and spatial composition influenced the work of modernist artists like Pablo Picasso, who owned pieces of Mbuti barkcloth, and Anne Eisner Putnam (1911–1967), a New York-born painter who lived for 10 years among the Mbuti people in what was then the Belgian Congo.

Myriad connections between fabric and paintings arise throughout the book, right down to the image on its cover: a detail of Penelope and the Suitors, a 1912 painting by the third-generation Pre-Raphaelite artist John William Waterhouse (1849–1917). In this scene first imagined in words by Homer, Penelope, wife of Odysseus, sits at her loom near her two maids; one spins the thread to be woven while the other cuts it. Together they complete a metaphorical depiction of the Three Fates from Greek mythology.

Finlay could easily be describing a painter’s technique when she writes of the decoration on a Kani pashmina shawl from Kashmir: “These colors weren’t laid down in blocks and shapes like paper cut-outs or appliqué or embroidery; it was all more marvelous and complicated than that.” In fact, she admits that writing this book has prompted her to pay more attention to the way painters depict fabric: “Now how could I see the work of Joaquín Sorolla (the subject of an exhibition at London’s National Gallery before lockdown) or Paula Rego (shown at Tate Britain more recently) and not think about folds and fabrics, or how the sun makes lace glow?”

In the course of her research, Finlay visited the collections and archives of no fewer than 60 museums around the world. Her recollection of exploring the British Museum on a gloomy day and feeling uplifted by the “luminous objects on every wall” of a textile exhibition is something every art lover can understand. It’s also a reminder for readers to seek out and savor museums’ textile collections during their own travels. Because fabrics are fragile and subject to discoloration when exposed to light, they cannot be exhibited for long periods, which means the objects on display change frequently; there’s always something new to see. It also means that museums often display fabrics in galleries with low light and less visitor traffic, such as the silks dating from before the 9th century that Finlay found at Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum.

In her chapter on patchwork, Finlay recounts the time she spent with the renowned community of quilters in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. After receiving some informal instruction in the making of patchwork, she visited the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to see their quilts on display. Yet the object there that intrigued her even more was an early 20th-century kente cloth from Ghana: “At first, I see five colors in the weave — the white linking bands plus black, yellow, green, and blue — as well as the bold, red stitching holding them together. But as I stand there, I realize that the cloth has a kind of secret… the warps are made of thick red bands interchanged with thinner bands in the other colors. The red makes the cloth seem almost alive, with blood-colored stripes running through hidden textile veins.”

Living Colors

Finlay’s narrative continually returns to the subject of color — not surprising as her previous books include two on that subject: Color: A Natural History of the Palette (2004) and The Brilliant History of Color in Art (2014). She’s also the author of Jewels: A Secret History (2007).

While she confesses that she doesn’t sew with skill or collect fabrics, Finlay is captivated by the influence fabric has had on human history.

“So many things, really, make me see how the stories of fabrics aren’t superficial but about real life,” she explains. “I have on my wall a brocade labeled as the ‘Stomacher of a Dress Worn by Mary Queen of Scots.’ My grandmother always had it framed on her wall when I was a child, and then my parents did, and now I do. I have no idea if it was worn by Mary, but it was always a symbol of how the things we touch can be held as relics.”

Finlay’s career as a journalist, including five years as arts editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, took her around the world to interview artists, museum curators, and collectors long before she’d been approached to write Fabric. Her work with non-government organizations, particularly in the field of environmental conservation, also informs the new book, and insightful threads of her own narrative are woven throughout the text. Overall, it is Finlay’s passion for research and seemingly endless curiosity that make Fabric a pleasure to read. There is a great deal of historical information in this book, yet far from being an inaccessible, academic text, it’s as vibrant as the colors of a pashmina shawl and as personal as the decorations painted on barkcloth by the women of Papua New Guinea. There’s a sense of wonder, discovery, and even magic throughout.

Information: Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World (Pegasus Books, 2022, hardcover and softcover, 512 pages); pegasusbooks.com and victoriafinlay.com