EMBROIDERY
Embroidery is a textile craft through which women could express their imagination and creativity and shape their own visual language. Clothing was decorated with embroidery more than any other kind of object. The materials embroidered included linen and silk fabrics, woollen cloth, purchased felt, as well as knitted wool and leather. Embroidery was worked with home-spun or purchased wool and with gold and silver thread. There are two basic methods of embroidery. Counted-thread embroidery is worked by counting the threads of the ground fabric. Free-style embroidery flows freely and is laid onto the ground according to a drawn or imagined motif.
Embroidery could be worked in white thread or in colour, and the choice of colours carried a special symbolic meaning. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, women dyed embroidery thread themselves with plant dyes, which gave the finished pieces a calm, subdued character.
A special type is whitework embroidery, whose technique is close to decorative openwork. In whitework, open motifs are formed on the threads of the linen and edged with white cotton thread. They often serve as decorative seams joining two pieces of cloth.
In mountain regions embroidery was also worked with silver wire—srma—and in Slavonia with gold as well.
LACE
Lace is an independent openwork handicraft made from linen, cotton, silk, agave, silver or gold threads. The two basic techniques of making lace are needle stitching and plaiting with bobbins. This craft rests on embroidery and on the knotted intertwining of threads. Netting, knitting, crochet and machine-made lace are also counted among lacework.
NEEDLE LACE
The first laces appeared in the Renaissance. Early needle lace grew out of so-called whitework embroidery—sewn drawn-thread work and filling stitches. In drawn-thread work a certain number of weft threads are withdrawn from the fabric, while the remaining parallel threads are wrapped with needle and thread and tightened to form particular patterns. The filling stitch is in fact a buttonhole (air) stitch.
With needle and thread a small knot is formed that always continues onto a taut cross thread or the stitch of the previous row. Drawn-thread work is bound to the vertical and horizontal threads of a geometrically drawn ground, while buttonhole stitch builds the intended ornament more freely.
BOBBIN LACE
Bobbin lace developed when the free warp threads, after the cloth was taken off the loom, had to be secured—that is, interlaced with one another—so that the fabric would not unravel. As the plaiting technique developed, the threads were at one point, for ease of working, wound onto holders—bobbins of lead, bone or wood.
Needle lace requires a needle, thread and a support in the form of a round or curved, firmly stuffed cushion. For bobbin lace, besides the cushion support, an even number of bobbins onto which the thread is wound is needed, as well as pins that secure the worked part of the pattern row by row.
Examples of the earliest needle lace in Croatia can be found on white linen garments such as women’s shirts in the area from Istria to the Dubrovnik coast. In central Dalmatia we find examples of more complex ornaments—reticella, small nets of threads. Around the reticella, the desired ornaments are worked in buttonhole stitch.
Women’s head coverings were also decorated with whitework, occasional drawn motifs and, in places, a decorative band of early reticella together with an edging of bobbin lace.
PAG LACE
Pag lace, a needle-made lace, is worked with whitework, cutwork, drawn-thread work and filling stitches. Also well known is the Pag teg—an ornament worked in needle-lace stitch in the form of early reticella, with geometric motifs: a small filled or open circle; a smaller or larger circle; a semicircle; a small triangle; a rhombus; a rectangular or triangular leaflet; zigzag bands; and a true or false four-petalled rosette. Small edge circles give the overall design its airiness.
LEPOGLAVA LACE
In earlier times bobbin lace was more widespread in Croatia than needle lace. Bobbin-lace edgings accompany linen textiles throughout Croatia. In more recent history they are associated with the north-western part of the Pannonian region of Croatia—Podravina, Međimurje and Hrvatsko Zagorje. One of our most important centres of bobbin lacemaking is Lepoglava.
Around the year 1400 the Pauline fathers brought lace to Lepoglava. Over time lacemaking also became a distinctive form of folk creativity. In shaping the lace, geometric motifs of narrower or wider bands are used, ranging through to Baroque stylisations of floral patterns.
AGAVE LACE
In our country we also encounter another speciality: lace made from agave. According to tradition the skill originated in the Canary Islands, and it has been present on Hvar since the mid-nineteenth century. Today it is made only by the nuns of the Benedictine monastery in the town of Hvar. The lace is worked from threads obtained by a special process from the centre of fresh agave leaves. After processing the threads are white, quite fine and of a fixed length. By technique we distinguish lace called tenerifa, tenerifa with netting, and frame netting. Tenerifa is worked on cardboard: first a ground is made in the shape of a radial spider’s web. Then, with a needle, various mostly geometric ornaments are interlaced around the ground threads. Agave lace is made without a pattern or drawing. Each piece is unique.
FOLK VISUAL EXPRESSION
The visual expression of Croatian folklore is not uniform, and it is hard to grasp as a whole because of the diversity of cultural regions and of regional and local specificities.
At the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, under the influence of the urban environment, greater changes came about in traditional culture and in visual expression as well.
Textile handicrafts, examples of which we find on clothing and other textile objects used on the rural farmstead, were almost always made by women.
Numerous techniques of embroidery, appliqué and lacemaking were a very important finishing process through which the distinctive appearance of folk costume was achieved.
We regard as more archaic those methods of decoration carried out during the weaving process itself, while techniques of decoration worked in embroidery with cotton, wool or silk, and decoration with braids and pieces of leather, we regard as more recent.
The precise making of individual ornamental details and the colouristic and ornamental rhythmisation in many examples testify to the high creative and aesthetic achievements of local women.
Different materials, techniques and local particularities are linked by an almost unified principle of ornamental design. Flat design, symmetry and geometric ornament predominate (parallel lines, zigzag motifs, rhombuses, curved lines, the “S” motif and spirals in various combinations, and the motif of the rosette and circle).
Geometric and geometrised ornaments are most often composed in a horizontal row, and sometimes within a circular field. The basic method of composition is a uniform sequence created by repeating the same motif or by the rhythmic alternation of groups of motifs, especially on woven and embroidered decorations and on lace.
Plant and animal motifs are stylised to varying degrees. The plant motifs that appear most often are flowers and twigs in various compositions. The heart motif and Christ’s monogram IHS are attributed to Baroque influence.
Zoomorphic motifs range from strongly geometrised variants to some almost realistic interpretations.
The human figure is a relatively more recent and rare motif.
The colours most often used are achromatic combined with primary colours.
Folk costume and the motifs that decorate it express a deeper unreal–magical meaning as well as a particular social significance. Folk visual works need to be viewed within the traditional culture in which they arose. Folk costume is an indicator of an individual’s status in the village community and of a particular stage of life or event.
Colours also have their traditional meaning in dress. Girls, brides and young women wore an abundance of red ornaments to protect themselves from evil forces and to secure a happy future. Women who had become mothers of several children wore more subdued colours. The older a woman became, the simpler the ornaments on her clothing. In the central lowland region, white clothing without ornament was worn in mourning.
The ornaments used for decoration have their own symbolic meanings. Motifs need to be seen within the complete object—the whole composition that decorates it.
