Punica I

Gouache on bristol

This gouache-painted pattern is based on a 14th-century velvet textile panel housed in the RISD museum. I visited and studied the textile several times over a period of two weeks, isolating, abstracting, and arranging shapes from it in order to form the finished piece. The colors I used were also derived from colors observed in the velvet. (Though the fabric appears, at first glance, to consist only of burgundy-red and a muddy gold hue, a closer examination reveals a multitude of other colors.)

The pattern is composed of three primary shapes which overlap and interact in different directions:

A fan shape in the background (additionally, a series of diamonds and circles can be found in the negative space around the fans)
An organic-looking scalloped hook shape
A pomegranate

The original silk velvet textile from which the elements of my pattern were derived. This beautiful artifact is Italian (likely Florentian or Venetian) velvet, a traditional craft which is sadly vanishing in modern times but which is preserved by a single surviving producer, Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua.

The pomegranate symbol in this piece is associated with fertility and regality and is common in similar velvet textiles of the time.

After creating this pattern, I also developed a font based on it (see Punica part II).

Courtesy of the RISD Museum, Providence, RI.

Museum Appropriation Fund 30.002

An unpainted sketch of the pattern.

A palette pulled from colors in the velvet.