A peek into conservation at the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC, including the remounting of a painting by 16th century artist Wen Zhengming and research into a meteoritic dagger made for Jahangir. 

Golden Spider Silk Cape, on view through June 5 at the V&A

This display showcases the world’s largest pieces of cloth made from spider silk. It includes a brocaded shawl made from the silk of more than one million female golden orb-weaver spiders collected in the highlands of Madagascar, as well as a cape on public display for the first time. The display also features background material and a short film revealing the process. 

(via Golden Spider Silk Cape / Exhibitions & Galleries / Happenings / V&A Channel)

Photos from the Japan Society’s recently completed show, “Fiber Futures”.

thedesigncenter:

Embroidered silk armband. China. 

This armband inspired one of the city of Philadelphia’s vinyl wrapped recycling trucks, a collaboration between The Design Center and Mural Arts Program.

Images from the upcoming exhibition on modern bojagi entitled Wrapping Traditions: Korean Textiles Now at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco.

Yuzen dyed kimono with bleeding heart flower motif by Japanese Living National Treasure Tajima Hiroshi. The myth of the bleeding heart flower is a sad story that ends with a memorial to the perished young man, in the form of the beautiful flower that helps tell his tale.

Printing komon, or small all-over repeat patterns.  This particular design is wa sarasa, “wa” standing for Japanese, and “Sarasa” being the Japanese name for Indian block printed cottons. The printing method is the same as katazome; above, the katagami, or paper stencil, is cut for one color.

Images from Project Japan.

Meisen haori and kimono.

Meisen kimono, although originating much earlier, became the popular kimono of the Taisho and Showa periods and are a form of “mass-produced” kasuri (Japanese ikat). Rather than wrapping and tying the warp threads as in traditional kasuri, they were woven with a temporary weft, printed with the desired pattern, and the weft threads were removed, allowing the warp to then be woven with the permanent weft.

The surface patterns of these pieces reflect the new fashions of a Japan increasingly involved in exchange with the rest of the world. The motifs of wisteria (fuji), cross (juji), and butterfly (chou) all belong to the traditional Japanese repertoire. However, the color and scale of pattern have changed.

The first haori, purple with a wisteria design, shows the change in the large scale and repeating nature of the pattern, where either a much smaller scale repeat or a fewer large motifs would have appeared in earlier designs. The same is true for the third, with its large scale crosses, which were a typical kasuri pattern and traditionally indigo-dyed, but here present a newly fashionable aqua.

Another traditional design element can be seen in the second haori and first kimono; urushi, or gold and silver lacquer threads, are shot through the warp and weft, throughout the haori, and in the center of the crosses of the kimono.

Aside from the reinterpretation of traditional design elements through a new color palette and exploration of scale, other designers borrowed motifs and entire designs from the Western art movements from the late 19th through early 20th century. Many of these kimono feature geometric prints clearly inspired and occasionally even copied from these movements.

More about these meisen pieces can be found at their respective Marcuson and Hall exhibit pages: 1 2 3 4 

Last of the Rimpa school, artist Kamisaka Sekka. These early 20th century works reflect the changes in Japanese aesthetics occurring as exchanges with Western countries increased. New colors, abstract geometric designs, and an increase in the scale of motifs began to appear; yet, traditional motifs, such as the chrysanthemum and maple leaves above, persisted.

Meisen kimono also display the changes in design sensibilities and reinterpretation of traditional motifs occurring at this time, though they deserve their own post.

(Images from the NYPL)