Before the development of synthetic dyes, coloring matter was often categorized as either "fast" or "fugitive." Although the solidity of the bond between the dye and fibers of the fabric was at the center of this classification, the standards of permanence were different than those that emerged in the twentieth century.

While fugitive dyes did not attach themselves well to fabric, fast dyes reached high prices as they had the ability to resist sunlight, washing and aging.(1)  This was found in blue of indigo and cochineal (red) dyes. Until the introduction of indigo to Europe in the seventeenth century, both were international trade goods, which added to their price.(2)  While cochineal required the use of a tin salt solution as a mordant-—a chemical that fixes a dye to form an insoluble compound—to become colorfast, indigo did not.(3)  This advantage led to indigo's common use in calico printing.

Originally used to describe cotton cloth imported from India, calico became synonymous with expertise that made use of blocks, copper plates and hand painting to produce figured patterns on cotton. As early as the 1670s, sought-after Indian printed fabrics, known as indiennes, were adapted to Western technology.(4)  While Europeans had used mordants in the past, Indian dyers had perfected the ability to combine mordants to create multicolor patterned cottons.(5)  The three printed jackets seen in this section make use of indigo and madder to produce the blue, red and reddish-brown colors block-printed on the cloth. By 1752, multicolor cotton printing became standard in Europe.(6)

Anne Bissonnette, PhD
Curator
Kent State University Museum

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        (1) Agustí Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in Industrial Europe (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 3.
        (2) Philip Ball, Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 202.
        (3) Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition (Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2003), 807.
        (4) Ball, 206 and Nieto-Galan, 52.
        (5) Ball, 206.
        (6) Ball, 207.

Text Included in the Exhibition

Mood Indigo
Broadbent Gallery, September 27, 2007, to August 31, 2008
Dr. Anne Bissonnette, Curator