Art museum exhibit shows how Indian chintz changed the world

"Textile Depicting Scenes From the Indian Epic the Ramayana," circa 1880, from "Global Threads" at the St. Louis Art Museum. Courtesy Royal Ontario Museum

"Textile Fragment With Flowering Trees," c.1275-1325, Indo-Egyptian. Courtesy Royal Ontario Museum

"Wall of Bed Hanging (Palampore) with Japanese-inspired Imagery"; Indian for European market. Courtesy Royal Ontario Museum

The fabric's loveliness may have originated in India, but museum pieces in St. Louis also trace their lineage to France, England, Sri Lanka and Armenia. Fragments of Indian cloth, found in Egypt's arid climate, even date to the 14th century.

An example of "globalization" before the term was even used, Indian chintz has traveled the world for several millennia; the country has been growing cotton for at least 5,000 years.

The "Global Threads" exhibition opening Oct. 23 at the St. Louis Art Museum involves more than just decorative art. It speaks to the history of world trade, agriculture, economics, the industrial revolution and slavery.

"Floral overdress (robe a la francaise) and matching petticoat, lined with silk and adorned with silk trim," c.1770; textile: Indian for European market; likely construction: French. Royal Ontario Museum

And although innovation would lead to cheaper goods, nothing about the chintz on display is "chintzy."

Indian chintz could be extremely expensive, says Philip Hu, curator of Asian art at the museum.

The country wove the finest cotton, fabric so coveted that Europeans paid with silver because their woolens held little value in trade.

Wall or bed hanging (palampore), 1725–1740, Indian, for the European, possibly Dutch, market. Part of "Global Threads" exhibition at St. Louis Art Museum. Courtesy Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Running through Jan. 8, "Global Threads: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz" comes to St. Louis from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, its opening the day before Diwali, the Indian "festival of lights."

Historically, to be called chintz, the base fabric must be cotton with hand painted or wood block-printed designs, Hu says.

Early on, Indian artisans used precisely carved wood blocks and natural dyes made from Indian madder and mulberry (red), indigo plants (blue) and turmeric (yellow), explains Genevieve Cortinovis, SLAM's assistant curator of decorative arts and design.

"Woman's Jacket (Wentke) With Flowers and Phoenixes," c.1700s; textile: Indian for European market; construction and trim: Dutch. Royal Ontario Museum

Yellow would be also applied to blue and red to create green and orange. (But yellow fades more quickly than the others, so some prints on fabrics now show bluish, rather than green, leaves.)

To keep the fabric vibrant during washing, "mordants," made of substances such as alum, were used to improve the colors' staying power. An iron mordant could also create violet and black, and other ingredients helped to make golden brown or pinkish red. A mordant (the word comes from a Latin term meaning "to bite") helps dye bite into fabric to make it more lasting.

Creating chintz, however was far more complex than that summary sounds: River water was used to removed alum, and water rich in calcium could brighten color; animal dung could also be part of the process as were buffalo milk soaks, says the exhibition's companion book, "Cloth That Changed the World," edited by Sarah Fee of the Royal Ontario Museum. Each color alone could require a number of steps, with specialist workers focusing on spinning, printing, wax application, stenciling, block carving, bleaching and more.

"Sari with the Scene of Crossing the Ganges River from the Epic Poem the Ramayana" (2018) by M. Kailasham, part of "Global Threads" at the St. Louis Art Museum. Courtesy Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

"The skill required to hand-paint these textiles, not only the mordants but the wax-resist as well, in order to repel certain dyes, it's absolutely incredible," Cortinovis says.

Artisans already had mordants in the 13th century, Hu says, and for years Europeans tried and failed to replicate fine Indian chintz. They lacked not only the subtropical plants used for dyes, but also the skill and technology. And they might not have allowed for the time and patience required.

"When we think of chintz today, we think of sort of a glazed floral fabric, sort of a Laura Ashley style," Cortinovis says. In the 19th century, England was making machine-made fabrics in imitation of traditional Indian chintz, and that's when the word "chintzy" started being used as a criticism, she says.

But that's not the kind of chintz in the "Global Threads" show.

In an interview with Architectural Digest magazine at the time the exhibition was in Toronto, a curator from the Royal Ontario Museum said: "In a drab world where colour would be washed away, Indian chintz offered an option that could decorate the body and interior spaces with colour and design."

That curator, Deepali Dewan, said that although cotton has the reputation today of being a humble cloth "for most of its history, cotton was also considered a luxury fabric and reached glorious aesthetic heights. For a millennium, India was the world's centre for cotton production, and it exported this wonder fabric around the world — to South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. India possessed the knowledge to weave the finest cotton, as well as the knowledge and conditions to produce the most colourful and colourfast decoration on cotton. This cloth became so desirable that it was used like money to trade for other commodities like spices."

There is no one standard motif for chintz, Hu says. "We mostly think of chintz as florals, but the design can be entirely geometric or figurative. That's one of the wonderful things about chintz — it's not a fixed look."

In addition, makers in India produced goods to appeal to different markets. Hu says: "Each destination market wanted favorite patterns and colors highlighted, and the Indians were able to adapt to that need."

Pieces going to Sri Lanka were different than those sent to Iran, Indonesia, Thailand or Japan, he says. So "very early on you could see how entrepreneurial they were: If you want to satisfy your market, you give them what they want. Nowadays we talk about global trade a lot, but this was already happening as far back as the 13th century."

Traders with the Dutch East Indian Co. brought Indian cloth to Indonesia and used it as a barter for Indonesian spices.

In the early 17th century, European traders also realized there would be a demand for the fabric in Europe. By the late part of the century and during the 18th century, European linen and wool merchants were worried about competition from the Indian cotton and lobbied government for protectionist measures, Cortinovis says.

The regulations changed over a century, she says, but many times Indian chintz was banned in European countries. Still, the lightweight, colorful cloth that could be easily washed and was cheaper than silk was surreptitiously imported.

"The Dutch in particular would smuggle in chintz to England and France," Hu says. At other times, British traders would re-export Indian cloth to the Americas. There were different price points, so even some working-class people could afford pieces.

At its peak in the 1680s, Indian cottons, up to 1 million pieces a year, accounted for 74% of the England-bound cargo of the British East India Company, according to "Cloth That Changed the World." Later, the growing European control of cotton trade and its mechanization of textile manufacturing helped launch the Industrial Revolution.

Hu notes that demand for the fabric was one reason cotton became an important crop even in colonial times in America. Clothing could be made more cheaply with cotton, especially if labor was cheap. So concurrent with cotton growing in the U.S. South was the exploitation of labor, he says. Enslaved people were taken to America to pick cotton.

A small part of the exhibit includes a "cotton picking sack" used by workers for the back-breaking job of picking cotton by hand.

The museum show also will include chintz made by contemporary designers, some of whom re-create older processes, and videos will show how artisans work in today's India. On Oct. 23 from noon-4 p.m. children can participate in art-making activities and learn more about Diwali. As part of the SLAM Underground series Oct. 28, music, more art making and performances will be offered.

The exhibition from Toronto gives St. Louisans a chance to see textiles that are not in the local museum's collection, Hu and Cortinovis say. Although there are hundreds of textiles held in St. Louis, perhaps only one is Indian chintz.

The survival of fine 18th- and 19th-century textiles is rare, Cortinovis says, not to mention the even older fragments. But it might be the larger story of chintz itself that also draws visitors.

"The history of India is the history of the globe," she says.

What "Global Threads: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz" • When Oct. 23-Jan. 8; hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday • Where St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive • How much $12 adults; $10 seniors and students; $6 for children 6-12; exhibit is free on Fridays and to museum members • More info slam.org

What Sarah Fee, senior curator of global fashion and textiles, Royal Ontario Museum • When 2 p.m. Oct. 23 • Where St. Louis Art Museum, 1 Fine Arts Drive • How much $5; free for members • More info slam.org

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