Arts & Humanities

Traditional textile patterning: an artistic and stylistic comparison of Western Ukraine and Lithuania

Traditional patterning is an ancient craft where dyes and various patterns are used to decorate home-woven fabric. Patterns are created on the surface of the fabric by using wood-carved matrices. In Eastern Europe – in Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Ukraine – the decoration of fabric using wooden stamps has been practiced for centuries and was rather widespread in folk textiles up to the late 19th to the first half of the 20th century; the same may be said about Lithuania, too. The material required for this research was collected from museums in Ukraine and Lithuania. The collections of Lithuania’s museums have very few cliches/stamps and the small number of works displaying this decoration technique shows that patterning was not very popular here. Among Lithuanian interior textiles, we find tablecloths, bedspreads and rugs decorated with such printed patterns, and among items of clothing, we can mention vests, skirts, scarves, shawls, aprons and accessories. Among Ukrainian interior textiles, bedspreads, tablecloths and towels would be decorated in this way, while among clothing items – skirts and trousers. The Ukrainian patterned ornaments can be said to be more graphic in their appearance than are Lithuanian designs.