- Title
- Man's Tunic
- Culture
- Nasca, Wari-related
- Date Made
- 500-800
- Medium
- Camelid fiber plain weave with discontinuous warps and wefts, and tie-resist dyed
- Dimensions
- 33 × 45 1/2 in. (83.82 × 115.57 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.75.50.1
- Collecting Area
- Costume and Textiles
- Curatorial Notes
Due to their importance, Wari textiles were never cut but were instead woven to the size necessary for the finished garment. Inventive Wari artists took this method even further by creating an entire textile composed of “cut” sections that were in fact separate and complete.
By using “scaffold” threads as a temporary armature, each square and S-shaped meander was woven separately, with threads turning back on themselves. Strips of finished shapes were tie-dyed different colors using tightly wound threads that resisted dye and left a pattern of colored rings. After the scaffold threads were removed, the pieces were reassembled by reinserting a thread into the alternate loops of two shaped pieces (like dropping a pin into a hinge) and sewing the vertical sides of adjoining pieces together.
Splintering the integrity of the cloth, originally woven on scaffold threads before dyeing, the textile artists shuffled and reassembled its random component parts into a completely new “whole.” In the global history of textiles, this complex manipulation of discontinuous warp and weft was practiced only in the Andes.
Nicole LaBouff via Kaye Spilker
2009
- Selected Bibliography
- Phipps, Elena. "An Artist's Journey." Hali no.219 (2024): 138-147.
