Color in textiles is produced by dyeing, by printing, or by painting. Until the nineteenth century, all dyes were derived from vegetable or, more rarely, animal or mineral sources. Since madder plants could be grown practically everywhere, the roots of some species of the madder plant family were used from the earliest period to produce a whole range of reds. Red animal dyes, derived from certain species of scale insects, were also highly value from ancient times through the Middle Ages. Blues were obtained from woad, a plant common in Europe and also used in the Near East from the beginning of the Christian era. Before the first, nonfading “solid” green was invented in early nineteenth century, greens were achieved by the overdyeing or overpriting of yellow and blue. However, yellow dyes, whether from weld or some other plant sources such as saffron or turmeric, invariably fade or disappear. This accounts for the bluish tinge of what were once bright greens in, for example, women tapestry.
The range of natural colors was hugely expanded and, indeed, superseded by the chemical dyes developed during the eighteen hundreds. By 1900, a complete range of synthetic colors had been evolved, many of which reached a standard of resistance to fading from exposure to light and to washing that greatly exceeded that of natural dyestuffs. Since then, petroleum industry has added many new chemicals, and from these, other types of dyestuffs have been developed. Much of the research in dyes was stimulated by the peculiarities of some of the new synthetic fibers- Acetate rayon, for example, seemed at first to have no affinity for dyes and a new range of dyes had to be developed; nylon and Terylene presented similar problems.
The printing of textiles has involved a number of distinct methods. With the exception of printing patterns directly onto the cloth, whether by block, roller, or screen, all of these are based on dyeing; that is, immersion of the fabric in a dye bath.