Croatian Embroidery

Illustration: Croatian silk embroidery for a cap, 17th century.

The modern state of Croatia could be said to entail at least three distinct traditional areas, that of Croatia proper, Slavonia, Dalmatia/Istria, along with a number of smaller but no less distinct regions. All of the regions that make up modern day Croatia have their own cultural and craft distinctiveness and so any attempt to introduce a craft subject that just talks of Croatia has to take this into consideration. However, an attempt will be made to introduce Croatian embroidery as a subject.

 Illustration: Satellite map of Croatia.

As in much of the Balkans, the Turkish influence on craft and design techniques is strong. As far as embroidery is concerned there are really three main influences on the Croatian craft as a whole, that of Turkish, Venetian and Slavic. The Turkish influence is strongest in the east, while Venice and Italy had the strongest influence in the west along the Adriatic coast. It can be said therefore, that the embroidery work produced in Slavonia in the east is the most Turkish in influence, while Dalmatia and Istria along the Adriatic coast has the most Venetian influence, while Croatia proper in the centre has the most obvious links with Slavic embroidery design work. Although this is not a necessarily strictly rigid explanation of the full influences on the different aspects and regions of Croatian embroidery, it does to some extent help to explain the regional variations.

In many respects, Croatia proper and Slavonia can be seen as having closer links culturally and craft-wise than perhaps Dalmatia and Istria. Therefore, it would be best if the Adriatic coastal area of Croatia was taken as a separate area in a future article, along with its relationship with Italy.

Illustration: Croatian silk embroidery for a cap, 17th century.

As far as Croatia and Slavonia are concerned, although the Turkish influence was strong particularly in the east, the indigenous Slavic culture was also strong. Red, used as an embroidery thread colour often on a white or neutral background was popular throughout the region just as it was in much of Slavic Europe including Russia. Design motifs and pattern work, despite being influenced by a range of different cultures from Byzantium to Turkey, still held some of the traditional formats that can be seen right across Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Croatian women were proficient in most forms of textile crafts and skills including weaving, spinning, lace making and embroidery. Weaving was by far the most widespread and popular of the crafts and it has been said that the weaving skills base of Croatia was second only to that of the traditions of Sweden. Interestingly, often embroidery was incorporated into woven work while it was still attached to the loom.

Illustration: Croatian silk embroidery for a cap, 17th century.

All of the examples shown in this article are embroidered with silk threads and derive from both Croatia proper and Slavonia. They are all embroidered pieces used to decorate women's caps. These caps were status objects as they were used as a symbol of adult womanhood and were given after a wedding ceremony. They were then worn to denote a new stage in a woman's life.

The pattern work in all the pieces does show a remarkable similarity to carpet design work particularly that of Turkish origin. It has to be remembered that much of the weaving that took place in Croatia and Slavonia during and after the period of the Turkish Empire, was that of carpet weaving. Even though Croatia proper was under Turkish occupation for much less time than other areas of the Balkans including Slavonia, it was always on the border of the Turkish Empire and would have been strongly influenced by the culture of carpet weaving that was widespread throughout the Balkans during the Turkish occupation.

Illustration: Croatian silk embroidery for a cap, 17th century.

As with all craft disciplines and particularly when concerned with the often complex patchwork of cultures and peoples that make up the Balkans, the subject of Croatian embroidery can only ever be an introduction. Future articles will take a much more detailed look at much smaller and distinctive areas and regions of both Croatia and the Balkans in general.

Further reading links:
Yugoslavian/Croatian Folk Embroidery: Designs and Techniques
Croatian Folk Embroidery / Kroatische Stickkunst / Narodni vezovi Hrvatske
Croatian Folk Embroidery
Peasant Art in Austria and Hungary
Lonely Planet Croatia (Country Travel Guide)
The Rough Guide to Croatia
A Traveller's History of Croatia
National Geographic Traveler: Croatia
Croatia: Aspects of Art, Architecture and Cultural Heritage
The Krajina Chronicle: A History of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia
Croatia: Travels in Undiscovered Country
Croatia: A History
Croatia Through History

Albanian Embroidery

Illustration: Albanian silk embroidery.

Albania was part of the Turkish Empire for over five hundred years. Therefore, it would be understandable if certain Turkish cultural and creative aspects were entwined with the craft skills and system of Albania.

Embroidery has always played a large part in Albanian life and was used extensively in costume. Traditionally both men and women were involved in the embroiderers craft, however, women were usually classed as amateurs and limited to that of a domestic base, while men organised themselves on a much more defined and professional base.

Albanian embroidery came in a number of guises and styles, but there were two main groups usually divided by language, with the Gheg to the north and the Tosk to the south. Work was often produced on linen, cotton and wool backgrounds. There was a strong emphasis on the use of gold and silver metal threads, which is said to have originated in Turkey itself. However, hand dyed yarns were also widely used although cotton for example, had to be imported as did silk, although there was a small amount of indigenous silk production.

Illustration: Satellite map of Albania.

Costume embroidery was produced for both men and women and was often produced in bands in order to attach them to different areas of jackets, bodices, shirts, trousers, skirts and aprons. Bands were also used to embellish various styles of hat.

As in many areas of the Balkans, embroidery design work, if not unique to specific local areas, at least gave a certain distinctive flavour of that particular area to a national style.

Albanian embroidery work and craft skills in general are much under-appreciated outside of the country. Admittedly this is partly due to the fact that Albania had self-imposed an isolationist attitude to the rest of the world for over half a century, but another reason is the general lack of detailed information and data concerning the traditional craft skills base of the country.

Illustration: Albanian embroidery using metal thread.

With the collapse of the communist system, many rural Albanians, particularly in the north of the country, found themselves without employment and so moved to the south and the main cities of the country, leaving their traditional craft skills behind them. The Albanian Traditional Embroidery Association (ATEA) was set up with the help of sympathetic groups in southern Italy, in order to maintain the unique embroidery skills and traditions of those northern Albanian migrants, but also of the embroidery skills of the country as a whole. It was hoped that this would be achieved by encouraging embroiderers, mostly women, into producing embroidery work for the international market, thus hopefully giving them some much-needed financial and economic help. Some of the work produced by embroiderers involved with ATEA can be seen here, while the ATEA site itself can be found in the Further reading links section below.

Further reading links:
Albanian Traditional Embroidery Association (ATEA)
Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques, and Patterns from All over the World
Embroidered Textiles: A World Guide to Traditional Patterns
Albania 3rd (Bradt Travel Guide Albania)
Albania (Cultures of the World)
The Albanians: A Modern History
The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present- 2 Vol. Set
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edward Lear in Albania: Journals of a Landscape Painter in the Balkans
Tribes and Brigands in the Balkans: A History of Northern Albania
Travels in European Turkey, in 1850: Through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania, and Epirus; with a Visit to Greece and the Ionian ... of Austria on the Lower Danube. Volume 2
George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania
Travels in Greece and Turkey: Comprehending a Particular Account of the Morea, Albania, Etc.; a Comparison Between the Ancient and Present State of ... Geograhical Description of the Ancient Epirus

Turkish Ornament as seen by Owen Jones

Illustration: Turkish Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Owen Jones, in his book The Grammar of Ornament published in 1856, saw Turkish styles in decoration and ornament as being highly derivative. He felt the style particularly that seen in Istanbul, was a mixture of the earlier style of Byzantium and that of the Islamic decorative work of the Arabian Peninsula. 

Jones personally felt that much of the architectural decorative work found in Istanbul had been produced by artisans from across, and even beyond the Turkish Empire. He saw the result of this, not as a fusion of styles, but as a mismatch of different indigenous and pan-cultural styles that seemed to lead, at least in Jones estimation, to a situation where numerous styles could often be incorporated within the same building.

It seems clear that Jones was not so much disparaging of Turkish decoration and ornamentation in general, but of that of mid-nineteenth century Istanbul specifically. The capital of the Turkish Empire, like many other European capitals of the time, was busy redesigning, redecorating and reimagining itself in order to fit the mould and template of modernity as seen by European Victorians.

Jones had more praise for the artists and craftspeople of Asia Minor, rather than that of an international city like Istanbul. He made particular reference to that of Turkish carpet design, and although he saw the skills used as being less than that of Persian carpet makers for example, he was still particular in naming these craftspeople as being superior in many ways to the artisans of Istanbul.

It must be remembered that Jones book was published in 1856 and while, as far as the map was concerned, the Turkish Empire still covered a vast geographical and political area including much of south eastern Europe, it was often seen by the British as either a corrupt and crumbling empire that stood in the way of the British and their own empire, or a convenient buffer to Russian expansionist plans. Either way a prejudiced outlook towards the Turkish Empire was unavoidable and Jones would have not been immune to this narrow perspective of Turkey, even though he often tried to be unaffected by British imperial and cultural snobbery. It was often hard in mid-nineteenth century imperial Europe, as it is today, not to be affected even in a small way by national and cultural stereotypes.

However, Jones did leave some praise for Turkish decoration and ornament. The final illustration shown in this article is the same final plate shown in Jones chapter and was the one that he felt most clearly followed the earlier and purer Islamic decorative style that he so admired.

Illustration: Turkish Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Although the chapter on Turkish Ornament was a small, and in some ways throwaway one, sandwiched as it was between the two large chapters on Arabian and Moresque Ornament in which Jones waxed lyrical about the purity and innovation of style, we should not take Jones and his dismissiveness too literally. Jones was a great first person observer. He travelled extensively and was intimately involved in the Great Exhibition of 1851. These were often the first hand references that he used as his guides towards the critique of cultural and national ornamental styles. As already stated, he was not a fan of the modern European architectural and imperial style, which usually closely followed the static and, as he saw it, culturally divorced classical mould. He gave the distinct impression that he had found this particular European style being used extensively as a construction template throughout contemporary Istanbul, at the expense of the natural historical and cultural style of the city, in other words it was a decorative style with only transitory fashion at its root.

As far as the Great Exhibition was concerned, many nations represented themselves as they wished to be perceived. This usually meant that important cultural traditions were either set aside, or were used within a modern industrial framework, both were seen to fail dismally and the Great Exhibition, though a financial and public success, was largely a design and decoration failure. 

These two factors along with the general European prejudice against both Turkey and its empire, coloured Jones perception of the quality of the decorative and ornamental work that Turkey had to offer. Today we would probably see the Turkish illustrations shown here in an altogether different light and would probably disagree with Jones perceptions and conclusions. Apart from the continuing general European prejudices concerning Turkey, many of the factors colouring Jones view of Turkish ornament have faded away, leaving us with an exceptional Turkish national cultural style of decoration and ornamentation that is admired as a positive addition to that of world decorative art.

 Illustration: Turkish Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Further reading links:
Islamic Decoration and Ornament as seen by Owen Jones
The Grammar of Ornament: All 100 Color Plates from the Folio Edition of the Great Victorian Sourcebook of Historic Design (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
The Grammar of Ornament. Folio Edition
Grammar of Ornament: A Monumental Work of Art
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts: Thirteen Centuries of Glory
Turkish Traditional Art Today (Indiana University Turkish Studies)
Turkish Art and Architecture: From the Seljuks to the Ottomans
Authentic Turkish Designs (Dover Design Library)
Art of Turkish Weaving: Designs Through the Ages
Turkish Art and Architecture
Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts
Turkish handicrafts (Art book series)
Architecture (Traditional Turkish Arts)
The Evolution of Turkish Art and Architecture
Calligraphy (Traditional Turkish Arts)
From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Persian, Turkish, and Indian Drawings from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection
The Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey (Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies)