Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2016.16
Striped Mattresses Ticking as Painting Support – Historical Overview with an Analysis of Some Examples from Dalmatia
Jelena Zagora
orcid.org/0000-0002-2246-2762
; Umjetnička akademija Sveučilišta u Splitu, Odsjek za konzervaciju-restauraciju, Split, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Striped cloths appear as painting supports from the 16th to the 20th century in and outside Europe. These are mostly flax matress ticking, woven into varieties of twill (diagonal weave) and especially reverse twill (herringbone). Only few historical mattresses have been preserved, e.g. those in royal palace interiors such as the one in Hampton Court in London. Dark blue striped pattern appeared on mattresses as early as the Antiquity, and the terminology for the twill fabrics used (also) for mattress making originated in this period in the regions ruled by the Roman Empire. Reasons for the use of various types of fabrics, including the mattress ticking as painting supports, are not investigated enough, but it does appear that their availability and economic reasons were often the only selection criteria.
Although it is impossible to make general conclusions, some documents and examples indicate that the twill fabrics were used for exceptionally large paintings.
In the context of painting, mattress ticking is mentioned in Flemish, English and French documents and painter’s manuals published from the 17th to the 19th century. In Ita ly, Istria, Dalmatia and Spain, the historical terms for the twill fabrics used for making mattresses and work clothes (traliccio, terlise, trliš, terliz etc.) is of Latin origin (trilix)
and initially did not denote the fabric’s designation but had to do with the type of weave. Variants of these terms are mentioned in the trading documents and archives of textile manufacturers in north Italy, and in connection with the painting commissions in 16th- and 17th-century Italy and Spain.
The studies of painting supports in Flemish and Dutch art of the 17th and 18th century provide the most details about paintings on mattress ticking, with detailed accounts of canvases by Maarten de Vos, Pieter Pieters, Nicolas de Liemaker and Pieter Johannes van Reysschoot. The weave is described as a warp-faced reverse twill (chevron) 3/1. The earliest example of a painting on a mattress ticking from blue-striped reverse twill that is known to the author is The Battle of the Spurs by an unknown artist, made in England around 1540 (Hampton Court Palace, London). Also in England, Anthony van Dyck painted several extraordinarily large pieces, and there are known works by other artists on this type of canvas from the 17 th, 18 th and 19 th century. In France, artists had from the 17 th to the 20th century sometimes painted on a similar support, among them Philippe de Champaigne and François Boucher. The author is aware of only two examples of paintings on canvas with blue stripes in Italy.
The paper also touches upon the issue of research of painting canvases. The technology of making a painting, the natural processes of deterioration and historical alterations and treatments make analyses of the structure, colour and finishing difficult, and by that also make it hard to determine the original characteristics and designation of the fabric the painter had used. With still few specialist studies which would have differing approaches to canvas research, the analytical parameters are sometimes hard to compare or apply. Although their number is in continual decline, in Dalmatia there are still paintings that haven't been restored i.e. lined. Given that indirect methods of analysis of the original canvases for lined paintings still have limitations, amid their many possibilities, each unlined painting represents a precious possibility to study the history of painting supports but also of historical textiles. The differentiation between the warp and the weft is a precondition for a comparison of the parameters of painting canvases; however, selvedges of the fabric are relatively rarely preserved. According to a study by van der Wetering, the differences in the quality of threads that can be seen with some types of handwoven canvases are for the time being the most reliable criterion for differentiating between the warp and weft. The second criterion, that is applicable to canvases without the visible difference in the quality of threads, is the difference in the number of threads.
The comparative analysis of several 17th- and 18th-century canvases from Dalmatia included these parameters: dimensions of the canvas support, width of the fabric, direction of the warp, description of the characteristics of threads in both directions, number of threads of the warp and weft by centimetre, type and unit of the weave, description of the striped pattern. Parameters for painting canvases are difficult to compare according to the place and time of their origin. They vary considerably within the same period and region, even within a single artist’s body of work. Depending on their original designation, they differ in the quality of the material and making, as well as in the type of weave and treatment. Among Dalmatian examples of 17th- and 18th-century paintings on the canvas for mattresses, the one from Šibenik is the oldest. Compared to examples from abroad, it is also among the earliest ones. Out of forty paintings on striped canvas from the 16th – 18th century in England, Holland, Belgium, France and Italy, the most were authored by 17th-century Flemish artists (twenty eight). Judging by the information and examples collected in the research, striped cloths for mattresses with twill pattern from abroad that were described in the paper are much finer than those from Dalmatia (have more threads per cm) and the fabrics are much wider, but they are mostly large-size paintings. With a little over a half of the cases, the warp was set in the length direction of the painting. From the photographs of the canvases of several foreign examples it is evident that the paintings were done on the face of the fabric where the herringbone pattern is more pronounced, as well as the blue stripes. Although this could lead to a conclusion that the choice of the fabric face was a conscious one, owing to its texture, the reasons need to be examined more closely. All Dalmatian paintings featured here were also painted on the fabric face – except the one from Brač that was composed of several assorted pieces of cloth – and with the warp facing opposite directions and the fabric face on opposing sides. Also, there can be observed a rather different relation toward the texture of the canvas – some artists leave it visible, others cover it in a thick painted layer. For now it appears that this research too leads to the conclusions of earlier studies of painting canvases – the reason for choosing striped mattress ticking as painting support may well have been its availability in a certain size, at a particular moment in history.
Ključne riječi
striped canvases; mattress ticking; twill; diagonal weave; herringbone pattern; terlise; traliccio; warp -faced reverse twill (chevron)3/1; analysis of woven painting supports; differentiation of warp and weft
Hrčak ID:
171703
URI
Datum izdavanja:
28.12.2016.
Posjeta: 1.891 *