Indigo
What aesthetic elements are essential in the creation of
fabulous textiles? Pattern, Texture,
Color. Without these elements cloth
would be merely utilitarian.
In my blog “The Red That Colored the World”, June 7, 2015 I
told of an exhibition currently at the Museum of International Folk Art
featuring textiles dyed with cochineal.
Today, the topic is indigo and an exhibition at the Museum of Spanish
Colonial Art, entitled “Blue on Blue: Indigo and Cobalt in New Spain”.
Japanese indigo-dyed fabric
The earliest records of indigo dyeing (more that 4,000 years
ago) came from India, hence the word “indicum” which is Latin for India. The main constituent of indigo is indigotin,
which is prepared from the leaves of various species of Indigofera. For thousands of years the secret of indigo
dyeing remained within India and the far east.
In the 13th and 14th C Italian merchants procured
indigo from Muslim lands around the Mediterranean. It was Venice that first promoted the use of this dye-stuff. However, France and Germany relied on woad,
which was produced by their farmers.
Calling indigo the “Devil’s dye” or Devil’s drug they banned the use of
indigo by official decrees. Since woad
was not produced in England and Holland the dyers of these countries embraced
the dye. The attributes of indigo,
(non-fugative , and 30 times more potent than woad) far outweighed the problems encountered with its production.
100 pounds of plant material is required to produce a 4
ounce cake of indigotin. The dye cake
does not dissolve in water but must be prepared in an alkaline bath. At this stage the bath has very little blue
color and the fabric dyed in this bath is a pale yellow-green. It is only when the fabric is exposed to air
that the indigotin is oxidized.
Natural indigo is still used for dyeing traditional textiles
in Japan, Africa and other countries and is experiencing a resurgance in
popularity among dyers using traditional, natural dye ingredients and techniques. More than 20,000,000 pounds of synthetic
indigo are produced annually throughout the world.
The exhibition at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art came as
a result of excavations made at the Cathedral of St. Francis in the 1950s. The sarcophagus containing the bones of two
Franciscan friars was uncovered, and when opened revealed not only the
skeletons of the friars but their blue robes.
This was an important find as the habits of Franciscan friars were brown
or the natural gray of the woven wool.
They were actually called “gray-robed friars”. This example of the use of indigo ( brought up the Camino Real
from Mexico and Central America) to dye fabric in the colonial period of New
Mexico led to the further study of the
use of indigo in textiles, pottery, paintings and sculpture.
The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art is located on Museum
Hill, Santa Fe, NM. spanishcolonial.org
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