Cotton kalamkari prayer mat, with natural dyes. 20th century. Museum of Art & Photograpy.
Cotton kalamkari prayer mat, with natural dyes, for Iranian market. 20th century. Museum of Art & Photography.
Hanging, printed and glazed plain weave cotton, featuring paisley. 19th century. Victoria & Albert Museum.
Cotton altar cloth foregrounding Christ/Eternal Father. early 18th century. Victoria & Albert Museum.

The Cypress Tree

These images show stylized cypress trees embedded within a familiarly complicated visual format. The overarching symmetrical construction, flowering cursive viner bordering the image, fine geometric detailing, and abstraction of natural symbols point to the cloth’s origins. As “a powerfully graphic spear-head, with a need-like trunk balanced on a tiny spray of roots” (Jain 2011, 152), the cypress seems to lend itself to further aesthetic experimentation. Within the cloths themselves, a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, have all been explored within the repetitive cypress pattern. The spindles emanating from the cypresses on the prayer mats—jagged edges creating a sense of dynamism and movement not unlike the earlier lotus—grow to adorn, or even mark the visual identities of, floral imagery in later works, situating themselves firmly within kalamkari’s history. Additionally, unlike the lotus, which resonates with many cultures, but also Hindu religious mythology in particular, this motif has an Islamic origin (as evidenced by some of the script on these prayer mats) that can likely be at-least partially attributed to Mughal patronage at the time.

Note the last image, certainly made for a Christian audience (the inscription is in Armenian), centering a Christ-like figure bearing a cross. He is flanked by stylized cypress trees and bordered by a recognizable vine. Here, it is clear how deeply embedded the cypress was within the visual vocabulary of kalamkari artisans.