Days

‘The purest and most thoughtful minds are those that love colour the most. John Ruskin could almost have been describing the weavers of the gloriously colourful kilims of nineteenth—century Anatolia and the Caucasus. lt is colour and the way that colour is shaped by pattern that give kilims their abstract beauty. Throughout all pre-industrial cultures the art of dyeing yarn was an elevated and often highly secretive profession. »- Different regions and peoples became famous throughout the known world for their ingredients and dyes — the phoenicians for their purple, the Indus valley for its reds and blues. Although we know exactly the ingredients used, the processes of manufacture are a mystery. Family and individual secrets were carried to the grave. All natural dyes except indigo and some lichen and bark dyes, and all chemical dyes, need a mordant to penetrate the yarn and fix the colour. A term derived from the Latin mort/ei·e (to bite), the mordant attacks or bites the yarn so that the dye can take, and in so doing weakens the fibres to various degrees, depending on the type of mordant used. Yarn may be mordanted before, during or after the dyeing process, although the best results are achieved if it is mordanted before dyeing, and different mordants produce different colours from the same dyes. Mordants used in ancient times include compounds or solutions of wood ash, roots, urine, leaves and fruits. Today substances such as acetic acid, caustic soda, slaked lime, salt and the metallic salts of alum, chrome, iron and tin are used. Until the mid—nineteenth century only coloured dyes from animal, vegetable and mineral sources were known and there were thriving industries associated with the cropping and mining of the raw materials throughout Asia. ln towns and villages yarn would be taken to professional dyers, and naturally dyed yarn could be bought in the markets. All kilims made before the 1850s were, therefore, naturally dyed, a process that has continued until very recently. Nomadic or semi—nomadic peoples, making kilims for their own use, sometimes had access to natural dyestuffs —substances that grewwild amongst their grazing animals — and so the women would collect herbs, flowers and roots for their own special colour recipes. The migratory life only allowed for the carriage of
small quantities of dyed wool, made up a batch at a time, and this is one explanation for the natural variations in colour found in the older kilims. People in desert areas, like the Balouch, were often unable to obtain dyestuffs from their barren environment and could not afford the pigments from traders and tinkers. Instead, they displayed an acute feeling for natural wool and hair colours. The Balouch are still the masters of this art, using camel hair that ranges from white and light yellow to dark brown, with sheep`s wool in ivory and brown. Black and grey goat hair completes this subtle palette. One of the oldest known dyes is a deep blue from the leaves of the delicate indigo shrub, recorded in use as early as the third millennium B.C.
Indigo is a native plant of southern Asia and was traded throughout Asia in great quantities in powdered form. The crushed leaves are soaked overnight or the powder dissolved in water to release a colourless agent. The yarn is dipped into this dye bath to soak, and as it is withdrawn from the vat, the colour develops on contact with the air.
Each dipping, or a lengthy soak, will produce a darker colour and in this way every shade from sky-blue, through mid-blue, to almost black may be obtained. Indigo blue is pure and fast, resistant to sun, washing, acids and alkalines; but it is susceptible to friction as the less exposed or oxidized central fibres are revealed. Madder root is the most common natural source of red dyes, and is known to have been in use in the Indus valley over 4500 years ago. Madder is a wild perennial, found from Asia Minor to China, With a deeply penetrating root structure; these roots are peeled before being ground into a powder ready for the dye bath. The intensity of the madder red varies with the age of the plant, from a terracotta red from three—year—old roots, to a deep purple at seven years. The mordants used must include a metallic salt and an alkali before the dye will bite and the final colour will also depend on the mix of mordants. Alum
yields a red to orange shade, whereas iron gives a range of colours from violet to lemon yellow. Madder root dyes are light-fast and resistant to friction and alkalis but not to acids. A whole spectrum of natural colours can be obtained from the flowers, fruit, vegetables and insects — even the earth — in the kilim—producing areas. The following list gives a good idea of the sheer range of materials used, and of the ingenuity of the dyers and weavers:

Reds Madder root, poppy, cherry and pomegranate skins, the bark of rhamnus and jujuba trees, roots of roses, rhubarb and apricots, petals from tulips and various insects such as cochineal.

Blues Indigo and egg-plant (aubergine) skin.

Yellows Safflower petals and buds, lemon and pomegranate rinds, onion skin, saffron, turmeric and the flowers of yellow larkspur and sophora, fresh stems of artemisia, leaves of apricot, apple, willow and wild pistachio trees.

Orange Grass roots, bark of plum trees or madder-dyed yarn dipped into a boiled solution of pomegranate husks, or of poplar leaves, or willow leaves.

Greens Walnut and olive tree leaves, sweet violet, double dyeing of a yellow with indigo.

Browns and blacks Tea, tobacco, mud and volcanic mud, iron oxide, and leaves of wild pistachio trees or walnut bark in combination with ferrous sulphate.

All of these natural dyes (with the exception of yellow) retain their colours extraordinarily well, but they do begin to fade naturally after about fifty years and will run if not well fixed. The positive aspect of this is that a kilim will mellow beautifully over the years if traditionally made with natural dyes. Astara. North west of Iran. Chemical dyes were first developed in England, in the l850s, by one W. H. Perkin, a chemist who synthesized a mauve aniline dye from a coal tar solution. He began a colour revolution — the laborious and relatively expensive task of producing colours by natural 
means was superseded. The immediate results of the use of these new dyes in kilims and carpets were a reduction in the cost of dyes for the weavers, and a certain amount of disapproval among kilim connoisseurs in the West. For the first time, the weavers had a complete and relatively easy choice of colours, free from the limitations, and the natural
aesthetic integrity, of the natural sources available to them in their homelands. Vivid oranges and yellows that had been so difficult to fix in the past were now readily available and easier to use. The use of chemical dyes spread rapidly, spawning village industries and reaching even the least accessible and most self-sufficient weavers of all, the nomadic tribeswomen.
Kilims produced in the first flush of this new craze display a rather startling use of many different, not always harmonious colours, and until recently some chemical dyes, such as aniline and acid—based dyes, corroded the wool, faded quickly and would not withstand washing with detergents. But chemical dyes do not always result in clashing
colour effects, or poor durability. ln the last thirty years chrome—mordanted colours have been developed that are indistinguishable, when used well, from natural dyes. Ironically, it is in these same thirty years that the natural dye lobby among consumers and collectors in the West has met with some success. Classes of instruction in the art of natural dyeing and a price premium for kilims with vegetable dyes have ensured a contemporary revival in traditional techniques among the kilim producers of Anatolia.