Salute the Batak Textile Weaver’s Genius!

Sometimes the beauty contained within a subject is so deep and limitless that the soul is never satisfied no matter how long one beholds it. There is always one more angle, one more view that is waiting to be discovered! One could sit for hours doing nothing other than soaking in the parts and the whole.

One such object of beauty is presented below: An exquisitely woven, perfectly preserved textile meant to be used as a headcloth by Batak Shamans.

Antique Batak Shaman's headcloth Texile Weaving

The Selvedge weaving in the end-panels

The Back – where the maroon & the black are completely invisible

These dozen photos are not enough to showcase all of its elements – even a dozen more might not suffice!

The Main Body of the textile

A closer look reveals rows of interlaced diamonds …

And a closer look still reveals that the diamonds at the centre are larger than the diamonds towards the edges of the textile.

Who was the mind that conceived & created this complex work of art!!

Without any tools of CAD-CAM – and only a rustic loom made of wood to assist the imagination.

Salute to that Batak genius!!

This is part of the WOVENSOULS collection and more images may be seen here.

June 2016

One comment on “Salute the Batak Textile Weaver’s Genius!”

Leonie Andrews
June 28, 2016

Thankyou for explaining the diamonds. I was trying to work out why the centre diamonds were more obvious. This is a stunning piece of work. Thankyou for sharing the photos.

Loading...