WORLD’S TRADITIONAL TEXTILE DESIGNS 

by: Dr. Gauri Goel

Textiles have been produced in India since antiquity. The creation and development of Indian textile has a pre-historic origin. However very few of the old designs still exists. One reason is that cloths have long been regarded solely as an article of consumption, rather than as an art form and design are lost through everyday wear and tear. During the earlier phases of the class society, all designs were functional or utilitarian. The very first notifications of designs were fount in Egypt, where people used to decorate the walls of their caves with some hunting scenes and animal motifs. A design with flowers or other plants as a motif have been the most common of the traditional designs, for the past several hundred years. Motif is smallest repeat unit of a design. Orderly and artistically arranged motifs are called as design. 

For creating variety of designs, motifs, weavers were always inspired by their environment. This is reflected in the creation of fish and flowering streams in orrisan weaving, chinar tree in Kashmir, parrot in Gujarat, and court scenes, boats and steam engines in Bengal weaving. The textile craftsman had adopted several techniques to enrich their art and craft. These techniques include dyeing, printing, embroidery, appliqué, painting and weaving etc. 

Traditional motifs were simple and most influenced by the nature and day to day life. Symbolic motifs of earlier period had a hidden massage behind them. For example:  the peacock was found in the arts of most post-Indus cultures. It symbolizes immortality, love, courtship, fertility, war and protection. The parrot is the symbol of courtship and passion is seen in Indian art mostly in the company of radha and Krishna.  The goose or hansa was common prior to mughal times. It represented spiritual purity. The lotus is complex and enduring symbol of both Buddhism and Hinduism. It was the seat on which pantheons of both religions rested, represented their spiritual power and authority. It also symbolized the material world and its depiction of petals or mandals depicted the multiplicity of world.  It also symbolizes wealth

At the very early times in Egypt, when the design or we can say that the textile art was on its dawn, some specific designs were used there. After that we can see that each country like Rome, Persia, France, and Greece etc had some specific types of motifs which they were using on their textile items. Some of the world’s traditional textiles designs of the primitive period are given below. 

The pomegranate is the symbol of Spain, and a crowned pomegranate was the personal badge of Catherine of Aragon. Pomegranates show up on all sorts of period textiles, including cut velvets, looped velvets, and silk.

Traditionally in India, each of its state has a distinctive type of textile art, for example tie & dye in Rajasthan, patola in Gujarat or ikat in Orissa etc. each form of textile art has some distinctive way of presentation by as they use different techniques and different designs. If the technique is same then also the art is distinctive because we can recognize it with the designs used on it. Some traditional textile motifs of Indian textiles by which we can identify a particular artwork are: floral, creepers, leafs in chikankari of Uttar Pradesh; fish, bold flowers in Orissa ikat work; lotus, trees, birds, and floral borders in kantha of west Bengal; chinar leaves, kunjbuta in Kashidakari; rudraksh, malli moggu, gopuram, star, tample motifs in south Indian weaved textiles etc.  So we can say that the design form an important role in any type of textile art. There are thousands of traditional designs used in different parts of the country.  Some examples of the popular designs of traditional Indian textiles are given below.