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FARMERS’ TEXTILE ART

Local Traditions – Global Influences

By The IK Foundation

November 23^rd, 2020

Colourful cushions and bedcovers woven in double interlocked tapestry (rölakan) from southernmost Sweden is one branch of the fascinating world of textile history – deeply intertwined with global influences over many centuries. The preserved woven fabrics up to this day not only demonstrate strictly textile traditions, like natural dyeing of yarn or weaving based on the choice of preferred designs and materials, but also a more interdisciplinary insight of practical aspects linked to production of art woven textiles and women’s work during the 18th and 19th centuries. Weaving of these cushions and bedcovers together with an array of other home woven interior furnishing, became an important part of the family’s social status. In particular due to the built-up of an impressive dowry for daughters of the farming communities, likewise as showing off such textiles at weddings and other festivities.

THE LANDSCAPE

The countryside of Skåne was relatively poor in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and living conditions were harsh. In 1658, the province became part of Sweden, having previously been Danish, and the inhabitants suddenly found themselves living in a remote outlying corner of their new country, without strong cultural ties to other parts of Sweden. Heavy new taxes became a difficult burden for many people and there were further impositions when the farmers were obliged to give Swedish soldiers food and shelter, simultaneously as their sons and workers were forced to go on war service. Skåne was also a theatre of war on several occasions. After years of setbacks came the final blow, in the form of plague, which ravaged the population in 1711 and 1712. The consequence of these problems was not only misery for the people, but also a slowdown or near stagnation of cultural development. As a result, many of the styles of costumes, textiles and household articles of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were preserved almost unchanged for over two hundred years in this southernmost province.

By the beginning of the 18th century there were fewer wars, long periods of peace and far fewer epidemics. The lives of the people in the province gradually improved over the century, especially with the surge in population growth and the decline in mortality rates. The landless classes increased in number, providing cheap labour for well-to-do farmers and noblemen, with unlimited access to workers and paid indoor servants at minimal wage levels. This golden age for farmers and freeholders in the province of Skåne around year 1800 is most clearly seen from the rich contents of their storage chests, which were filled with beautiful textiles produced on their farms. One important condition being that the women of the household were needed less and less for everyday farm labour and housework, so they could devote a greater part of their time and energy to creating a sumptuous collection of textiles for their family.

Even if the textiles themselves were decorative features in the home and magnificent carriage cushions used for the Sunday travel to church, several other everyday traditions were of equal significance. One of those, obviously being the warmth and comfort which for example feather filled textiles could give its owners and the advantages for general health. Whilst the pure emotional links to these cushions, bedcovers or bench covers – used over several generations, undoubtedly gave a feeling of belonging and tradition. Such longterm customs and everyday needs in connection with the actual financial value of rölakan textiles were essential parts of its multifaceted patterning, careful handling and rich traditions, which came to be mostly concentrated to the comfortably living farmers in the villages and countryside of the province Skåne in southernmost Sweden.

The interlocked tapestry technique was also used in other parts of Scandinavia. In Norway, named rutevev and on Iceland known as krossvefnaour. In Denmark, by contrast, no such tapestries have been found to be woven, whilst from Finland we know of only two surviving double interlocked tapestry cushion covers. Rölakan, rutevev, kelim – all these similarly constructed weaves are closely related to the more time-consuming figure-woven tapestries, techniques known in an almost global perspective. Such textiles have been traced to Russia, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Caucasus, Central Asia, China, North America, Central Africa and other places. However, despite the widely dispersed traditions of similar weavings, the technique rölakan was mostly woven by women in the farming communities throughout the Skåne province in southernmost Sweden. The patterns developed a richness and originality not seen elsewhere into magnificent and useful works of art; in turn being inspired by design traditions of ancient and prehistoric cultures as well as Renaissance and Rococo ornamentations among many influences. Many patterns influenced Scandinavian art already during the Medieval period, through transmission of craftsmanship via migrating monks, weavers, stone carvers etc from the Continent.

MATERIALS, NATURAL DYES & PATTERNS

Nearly all of the documented double interlocked tapestries – rölakan used flax for the warp and wool for the weft. Natural dyes primarily came from plants but also in some aspects from various lice, first and foremost cochineal. Generally these textiles were woven in clear, sharp and saturated colours, often with great contrasts. Yellow and brown tones were the easiest to produce when using readily available Nordic flora, like from Tansy, Tanacetum vulgarum here illustrated. Whilst green, red and blue carried with them certain limitations, these colours were therefore preferred in regions of economic prosperity, where it was possible to spend a lot of time on weaving and dyeing or the ability to buy imported dyes. The dyeing was either done with locally grown freshly picked plants or dried material, or imported dyestuffs purchased in nearby towns or cities.

Dyeing blue was complex, not only because the vat dyeing process being more intricate, but also due to the fact that only one plant in Sweden yielded blue dye, woad (Isatis tinctoria) which could be processed at a horse-drawn mill for larger quantities. This dye plant and the imported indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), were the two dyestuffs used in parallel to obtain colour blue for textiles. Madder (Rubia tinctorum), the root of which was dried, imported as well as cultivated in plantations in southernmost Sweden. The cochineal insect provided the other often used red dye. Whilst ‘Coccinella and Coccus’, the dried louse yielding the red dye cochineal which, due to its colour fastness, beautiful colour and lightness of weight, crisscrossed the Globe on all sorts of various trade routes. The imported dyestuff was commonly used in many of these textiles too – particularly in farming areas where citizens lived more comfortably.

Already before the first Swedish East India Company expedition in 1732-33, the European warehouses, manufacturing buildings and living quarters were based in the area of the Canton factories or Thirteen Factories. This somewhat later (c. 1760-70) large-scale bird’s-eye view painting by an unknown Chinese artist, gives a unique detailed view of how the warehouses were situated along the immense Pearl River (Whampoa). Together with the lively boat traffic, mountainous surroundings, high city wall and symmetrically constructed quarters situated outside the wall – also named the suburbs – where the European visitors, merchants et al. lived, managed their businesses and daily lives. Natural dyes were part of the commodities, not seldom via complex networks. The dyestuff cochineal for instance, could be imported from South America, via Spain to Holland – and further on to Sweden. Here some of the desirable red dye material had a market for home dyers and professional dyers alike, whilst parts of the goods was included in the export cargo from Göteborg when some East India ships departed. Most of the many wares, transported from the home country, were then sold at Surat and in the other ports on the west coast of India – Daman, Mangalore, Cananore, Mahé, Quilandi and Calicut – where some ships anchored. In the Indian ports cotton was bought among many other desirable commodities which in their turn were sold on arrival in China. While at Canton, the ship was loaded for the return voyage to Sweden with silks and raw silks, which along with porcelain, tea and other wares were sold at auctions during the 1750s in Göteborg. It was all part of the global trade of commodities.

To succeed with the dyeing of reds, yellows and brown shades for these art woven textiles, alum was the most commonly used mordant to deepen and strengthen the colours of natural dyes. The quarrying of alum became a lucrative local business as well as a long distance trade of great importance – foremost from the early 17th century up to mid 19th century – in many places with suitable geological and geographical conditions. One of the most important areas of use was as a mordant for the dyeing of yarn and cloth. Additionally before the introduction of chemical dyes in 1856, the usage of alum was both one of the simplest and most inexpensive way to get natural dyes to fix the colour to the fibre with a satisfactory result. Here illustrated with alum shale and its processed salt, together with some of the last alum workers and their hard work at Andrarum’s alum works in comparison with a more recent picture of the same quarry area, which today is regarded as a beauty spot.

Rölakan, Private Collection (The IK Foundation).

Humans have always sought to decorate and embellish their lives, patterns and their beauty have been of great importance. There are countless theories from where such patterns emanate and the context in which they were made, at the same time it becomes possible to track the paths these patterns have taken as they have traversed cultures over centuries and millennia. The more basic patterns could also have been spontaneously developed in several different locations without any connection. Primarily this covers basic motifs such as; zigzags, squares, lines and stars. Many of which could be drawn from nature and even served as an inspiration when human designs and ornamentations were not present. Examples of this can be seen in the past but also today throughout several cultures, where simple patterns are created time and time again, from the basis of available materials and techniques.

At a first glance, there seems to be an endless myriad of patterns which spans textile history, but soon we can define groupings within the mass, be it from Coptic textiles dating from the 5th century AD in Egypt to early 19th century Swedish woven cushions. The use of patterns sometimes stretches far beyond this scale of time and its geographical areas, whilst humans universally seem to have preferred symmetry and repetition. Furthermore the space is usually filled in a structured manner, which can be seen in many cultures, a sort of caution or fear of leaving empty spaces and the risk of interrupting the desired symmetry. The similarities within the woven patterns are striking, whilst regional characteristics led to a diffusion of available materials and colours in reflecting the opportunities in different cultures.

Overall there are twelve main groupings of motifs used on these rölakan cushions, bedcovers and bench covers of south-west Sweden: the Star, the Rosette, the Octagon, the Bird, the Lily, the Tree, the Hourglass, the Pomegranate/Palmette, the Human Figure, the Deer, the Supernatural Horse and the Lightning (also named Flame or Zigzag). Even with studying nearly 1,700 double interlocked tapestries – rölakan alone for this project, no two were identical.

A NEW TIME

It can be seen from the surviving textiles and written records that this art of weaving declined in the countryside of Skåne around the mid-19th century. The reasons were multi-facetted. News, in the form of newspapers and books increased which gave ideas of everyday life and designs from a more modern or fashionable perspective. The weavers in the province began to refurbish their homes and often to buy machine woven home furnishing fabrics etc, produced in the textile industry. At best the old treasured textiles were put away at the bottom of a chest, but often they suffered wear and tear as doormats or horse blankets. Despite these changes, an astonishing number of people did keep to some of the old traditions, as can be seen from the surviving textiles such as rölakan among other art woven fabrics, which remained part of the “Sunday culture” – in contrast to textiles for everyday use of which very few examples from the 18th century survived.

In spite of the steady growth of industry, urbanisation went quite slowly. As late as 1870, over 70% of the population still earned their living from farming, but many changes were ongoing in the countryside. First, the guild system ended and trade, artisan handicraft and small industries began to move out into the villages. This process began in 1846 but was not completed until 1864. Another major change was the introduction of compulsory school attendance in 1842, which soon raised the educational level of the population. The younger generation adopted the ideals of a new age, with its belief in the future and its constantly increasing flow of news and quicker transportation. The old practices and customs must in many ways have seemed obsolete and narrow-minded.

At the time when the farming communities let go of their traditional culture, enthusiasts – mostly from other strata of society – came to the countryside to document and collect ordinary people’s traditional customs and objects in different parts of the country. As a result, agricultural societies, museums, handicraft associations and folk associations were established to protect and preserve previous traditions and also developed a new and rising interest in its history. World exhibitions (like in Paris 1900, illustrated), ethnographical documentations, books including pattern and instructions and weaving schools were some of the outcomes.

Nils Månsson Mandelgren (1813-1899) was a pre-runner to the organisations and events mentioned above and in contrast to most individuals involved, he came from a “simple home” in Skåne. Already during the 1840s his documentation work was introduced, but it was foremost between the years 1862-91 when he made one systematical long journey every year. The geographical area for his research stretched across the whole country, from Lapland in the north to Skåne in the south. During the winter months in Stockholm he made fair copies of his field work, drew conclusions and planned the next year’s journey. The most southerly province Skåne was closest to his heart because it was his native place, as well as the area’s rich possibility for research about folk traditions from various angles made him return to the region. The local differences of the clothing for use during everyday life as well as for festivities, took considerable proportions in his material and resulted in a large number of sketches, water-colours and notations. This material also covered the decorative textiles from Skåne, which was particularly recognised by him during the period 1865-75. Among these, seven water-colours and two photographs have been registered to be double interlocked tapestries – rölakan from the Mandelgren Collection.

Textiles woven in double interlocked tapestry – rölakan are some of the many household items mentioned in south Swedish estate inventories during the period from 1700 to 1850. These records are important complementary sources for the studies of the farming homes’ furnishing textiles, among many other aspects of the individual family’s conditions and financial circumstances.

A continuous interest for these textiles have been reflected in a multitude of ways during the last 40 years, not only in the added knowledge of more than 1600 preserved examples kept at Swedish museums, but also from an international viewpoint. Visible via an increasing number of private collectors, publishing of books on the subject, well-visited exhibitions and local as well as international auctions of art woven textiles. This geographically dispersed development stands in contrast to the female weavers in the farming communities, who during their everyday life produced double interlocked tapestries for their own family’s domestic sphere only 200-250 years ago. A tradition deeply intertwined in the dowry and marriage patterns equally as being an important way for women to demonstrate craft skills, add value to their standard of living and overall the household economy, due to that textiles of such complexity had a substantial value already during their lifetimes.

IDEA & TEXT BY

VIVEKA HANSEN

CONTRIBUTORS

We are grateful for the help given by the following individuals and organisations.

SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Pictures by The IK Foundation, London (unless stated otherwise, shown within brackets).

THE LANDSCAPE

By Gustaf Rydberg, 1903 (Private ownership).

Map, 1716 (Lund University Library).

By Gustaf Rydberg, 1868 (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).

By Conrad Dahlberg, 1866 (Malmö Museum).

By Carl Aspelin, c.1880s (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).

Rölakan, Bara old farmstead museum.

By Otto Wallgren, two portraits c.1828-30 Ingelstad, Skåne province (Nordic Museum, Stockholm).

By Jakob Kulle, 1875 (Malmö Museum).

By Jakob Kulle, 1881 (Malmö Museum).

Rölakan. Karlshamn museum.

Kilim, Turkey (Wikimedia Commons).

MATERIALS, NATURAL DYES & PATTERNS

Indigo plant. Lund Botanical Garden.

Flax, in June, Skåne province.

From: Törnsten, O., Nätra sokns lin-säde i Ångermanland …, 1753.

Tansy, in July, Skåne province.

From: Schreber, D.G., Historische, physische und öconomische Beschreibung..., 1752.

View of Guangzhou [Canton] c.1760-70 (British Library, London).

Cochineal cactus & cochineal insect, 1801 (Wellcome Trust, London).

The last workers at Andrarum’s alum-work in 1910 (Museum of Technology, Stockholm).The remains of Andrarum’s alum-work.

Piece of alum and its processed salt.

Rölakan, Bara old farmstead museum.

Rölakan, Private Collection.

Rölakan, Kulturen in Lund.

Rölakan, Malmö Museum.

Rölakan, Private Collection.

Rölakan, Malmö Museum. | Silk embroidery on plain-weave silk, early 8th century China (The MET NY).

Rölakan, Malmö Museum. | Tapestry, 6th-8th century Egypt (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum).

Stone capital, Dalby church Skåne, 12th century. | Two-pile silk velvet, Venice c.1480 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) | Rölakan, Bara old farmstead museum.

Stone baptismal font in Dalby church Skåne, mid-12th century. | Textile, c.1500. Scandinavia, probably Sweden (The MET NY). | Rölakan Kulturen in Lund.