Wedding coverlet “suzani”

One of the most ancient and revered art forms in the Central Asia was embroidery. Large decorative embroidery called “suzani” (from Tajik "embroidered with a needle") were very popular among farmers - Tajiks and settled Uzbeks. These embroidered blankets in each family were made before the wedding of a daughter; among them were large "suzani", bedspreads for honeymooners; bed sheets called "ruidjo"; cape for a pillow "bolinpush"; and "joynamaz" - a prayer rug and curtains for a niche.
Suzani played an important part in a wedding ceremony - underneath suzani the bride was led to the groom's house, a veil of embroidered curtains shielded a place where a bride spent the wedding celebration. All the space where the celebration took place was covered up by a variety of embroidery and carpets. After the wedding, "suzani" was the main decoration of the newlyweds’ room.
Until the end of the XIX century embroiderers used silk threads dyed with natural dyes, which gave them deep, soft, unique colors. The basis was an artisanal white cotton fabric called "carbos". Craftswomen («kalyamkash») whose craft was handed down painted patterns. She took a cloth, pre-sewn from narrow strips of fabric, and laid on contours of ornament by hand with a sharpened reed. After patterning narrow fabric, strips were embroided individually and only after completion, they were assembled together into a single cloth. So often in the finished blanket pattern near seams do not match, and details of the same ornament are embroidered with threads of different shades. In different cities and villages, craftswomen used local patterns and seams species.
A feature of many "suzani" is ornament that densely filled all the blanket. This embroidery of Ura-Tyube is covered with embroidery without leaving almost any background fabric.
The pattern of this embroidery, at first glance, one perceived as highly dense thickets of overgrown garden, but numerous flowers and floral motifs establish a centric composition of four rosettes. There is no doubt that this lush floral pattern embodied idea of the fairy tale, of magical gardens of the Muslim paradise.
Ornamental composition of the blanket from Shakhrisyabz is based on several points of view, distant and close, as well as takes into account the color contrast and brightness law that helps to create the illusion of depth and perspective. The flaming large terracotta rosettes and palmettes are associated with fire and heavenly bodies, or with the moon as source of femininity, a sign of fertility, ever renewing nature, which symbolism dates back to ancient pre-Islamic faiths.