IKAT FABRIC
Although she was once lucky enough to visit Central Asia, she always remembered the fabrics with surprisingly bright and cheerful transitions. This is one of the calling cards of the ancient and mysterious East, a beautiful and truly interesting souvenir, because today there is no need to go to distant lands.
The term ikat refers to the fabric itself, as well as the way it is made.
IKAT is the pinnacle of craftsmanship of the weaver and dyer, an amazing story of the parallel development of the craft in different parts of the world.
THE IDIOSYNCRASY OF IKATA IS THAT FIRST THEY ARE PAINTED AND THEN FALL INTO THE KNITTING MACHINE, AND WITH ALL THE MAGNIFICENCE OF THIS BEAUTIFUL PRODUCT IT CAN ONLY BE ENJOYED WHEN IT IS READY.
Although she was once lucky enough to visit Central Asia, she always remembered the fabrics with surprisingly bright and cheerful transitions. This is one of the calling cards of the ancient and mysterious East, a beautiful and truly interesting souvenir, because today there is no need to go to distant lands.
The term ikat refers to the fabric itself, as well as the way it is made.
IKAT HISTORY
Ikat can be compared to jazz improvisation, when new themes are intertwined in the background of famous melodies, changing the main canvas of the work to the unknown, filling it with such colors. Ikat is an elegant pattern of a master with a sheet of geometry all to himself, in which lines and colors are strangely intertwined, giving rise to the cunning of images and figures.
Ikat was sometimes called by another name: khan-atlas, direction, Bukhara shoi, the production of it during the Soviet Union was concentrated in a small town of Margilan. There is an interesting legend about Khan’s atlas, which explains the colors of the rainbow. An artist did not want to give up his beautiful daughter for the old woman, but rather the rich ruler of the city and lamented the river. In the water he saw a reflection of a light breeze, a reflection of the rainbow, the image impressed him so much that he took it to the canvas. Ask what happened to her daughter. She married! Because the beautiful son of the ruler Margilan lived a long and happy life with him.
Scholars who are dedicated to the study of the origin of textiles cannot reach a unanimous opinion, where did ikat come from? Some consider it native to southern China, others claim it originated in India. The ancient ikats found in excavations in these countries are very different from those in Central Asia. Researchers unity in one – the Great Silk Road became a driving force and provided the opportunity to develop such a beautiful type of craftsmanship. In the exposition of the Japanese Horyuzi temple you can see fragments of fabric brought in the 6th-7th centuries. from China, very similar to the ikats of Bukhara.
IKAT IS MUSIC FOR THE EYES, HAVING BECOME A HAPPY MASTER OF THE ORIGINAL WITH A RICH HISTORY, YOU WILL FILL YOUR HOUSE WITH THE EXOTIC VOSTOK, THE BRIGHT BREATH OF THE DESERT, THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE COLOR OF THE OASIS, THE DRUNKEN SWEETNESS OF THE DELICIOUS AROMA OF LUKUM.
Among the legacy of ancient Indian masters there are many fabrics, similar in technology, but the ornaments contain typical Indian elements: elephants, figurines of dancing girls, flowers. It is safe to say that the method of dyeing the beam was invented in the 5th-7th centuries. Where? It remains a mystery.
Central Asia is located only once in the middle of the Great Silk Road, it has access to silk and bright dyes, artisans began to produce fabrics that have long been impressed by the highest quality and color brilliance. The first documents confirming the existence of Central Asian ikats belong only to the 18th century, that is, at this time, and especially in the 19th century, there is a flourishing of this unique species of ordinary people.
Color transitions in the first ikats are sharp, after which, when folk masters mastered the production technique well, they became softer, followed by a bunch of new ideas. The drawings partially repeated the traditional ones, but with a different interpretation.
According to one version, the technology of ikata production was brought to Bukhara by Iranians who escaped from Merv, and then brought by craftsmen from Samarkand and the Fergana Valley.
There is and another theory that originated in the territory of today’s Central Asia, in favor of this position speaks of a multitude of ornamental orientations and is good for its time, endowed with a masterpiece of embroidery, embellishment, embroidery and embellishment.
The parish of Soviet power in the Central Asian republics is marked by the collapse of the original craft. The flow of manufactured goods, which was lost at the beginning of the 20th century in the Uzbek, Tajik and Turkmen markets of Russia, caused unprofitable artisanal textile production to gradually disappear.
In recent times, the interest in the oriental culture originating from the time has repeated, as is well known, the demand generated by a proposal.
TODAY IKAT PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN ALL FASHION FESTIVALS IN CENTRAL ASIA, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE AND APPLIED ART, IN WHOSE EXHIBITION A SECTION, TELLING THE HISTORY OF FABRIC PRODUCTION, WAS NOT PRESENTED. DESIGNERS ACTIVELY USE IT TO COMPLEMENT THE INTERIORS AND NOT ONLY THE ORIENTAL ONE.
