"Eye-Dazzler" Weaving
Navajo (Diné) (Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, United States)
1880/1900
- Medium
- Cotton and wool, single interlocking tapestry weave; twined selvages and heading, overcast finish terminating in tassels
- Classification
- Textile
- Dimensions
- 214.5 × 155.7 cm (84 1/2 × 61 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Navajo
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. William Bross Lloyd
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Navajo weavers, most of whom were women, developed a new, more colorful and complex style of weaving in the late 19th century: they began incorporating wool yarns that had been dyed with vibrant commercial dyes, made available through expanded railroads. They often rendered the junctures between colors as serrated, zigzag lines, creating dynamic patterns that visually vibrate. For this reason, these textiles have come to be called “eye dazzlers.”
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
