By Ann Peters, who is a member of the TSA Board. As an archaeologist, she analyzes textiles and other artifacts created from organic materials, working with museum collections and archives from early 20th century research in Peru.
An unparalleled opportunity to see a substantial number of late Ancient textiles made in Egypt from the 3rd to the 7th century under Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic rule is available in New York City. “From the Desert to the City,” is an intimate, substantial exhibit at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum at Queens College, open until December 13th. The museum’s street address, hours and history can be all found at http://gtmuseum.org/.
The Rose Choron collection is extraordinary for its iconography, textile structures, sheer abundance and variety of examples. Fragments of garment details – panels, bands and roundels – depict figures and scenes in Tyrian purple and cream-white or may include vivid hues of red, yellow and green. The human figures, mythic beings, birds, animals and other aspects of the natural world range from Greco-Roman deities and Bacchanalian scenes of late antiquity to Judaic and early Christian motifs. In some cases, a decorative motif has been cut out and reused in another garment before its placement in the tomb.
The woven images are displayed among ceramics, glass and mosaics of their time as well as examples of 20th and 21st century art that they have inspired, ranging from Henri Matisse to Caroline Wells Chandler. Chandler’s large crocheted panels depict themes from late Antiquity that reverberate today, such as centaurs, swimmers, or portraits rendered in bold and subtle colors and deceptively simple forms. Their scale, design and presentation foreground both the character of the yarns and the looped structure.
Five large paintings by Gail Rothschild honor the ancient weavings and render each visible in new ways. Rothschild employs a language of brush and color that evokes textile structure, first developed in playful images of knit landscapes, then in her “portraits” of torn Pharaonic linens, and now in monumental renditions of garment ornaments. Shifting the scale to that of an architectural frieze, Rothschild captures the visitor’s eye and inspires us to see the original pieces with new clarity. Her fine brushed loops don’t diagram tapestry structure, but rather highlight its texture, while loving depiction of tears and breaks in the fabric provides glimpses of the weave in cross-section and its component yarns. Each monumental ‘portrait’ offers the viewer insight into structure, texture, age and fragility that might otherwise require strong light and a magnifying lens.
The Godwin-Ternbach Museum has produced a catalogue of the exhibit with excellent images. It opens with a discussion of provenance, followed by introductions to iconography, techniques and garment structures by Jennifer L. Ball and Warren T. Woodfin. Woodfin’s essay on “Late Antique Textiles in the Age of Modernism” provides a revealing history of relationships between archaeological finds, operatic costumes and the language of early 20th century Byzantine Modernist architecture and painting. Thelma K. Thomas explores the relationships between subject and portrait in “Monumental Remnants: Gail Rothschild interprets Late Antique Textiles,” while Glenn Goldberg presents “Friends and Gifts: An Artist’s appreciation of the Work of Caroline Wells Chandler,” enriched with well-chosen comparisons with the arts of late Antiquity and early film. The “Handlist of the Exhibit” provides background data for the researcher and many images, studded with brief essays on the iconography and historic context of particular pieces.
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