Piece of Wool Plaid c. 1938

Here we see a fragment of wool plaid, rendered with watercolor on paper by Raymond Manupelli. The plaid pattern, with its intersecting lines, is not merely decorative; it echoes the ancient human impulse to organize, to find order in the chaos of existence. Consider the tartan of Scottish clans – each pattern a badge of identity, woven with threads of history and belonging. But even before the kilt, the grid appears in Neolithic textiles, in the warp and weft that bind us to our ancestors. Now, think of a spider’s web, a natural grid that snares its prey. The grid can be a symbol of entrapment, of systems that confine us, but it can also be a protective structure, an ordered framework within which to build our lives. This humble fragment, then, encapsulates our timeless struggle with structure and freedom, a pattern repeated across the loom of history.