One of China's contribution to civilization is Chinese silk,

the textile material of commerce and beauty for more than four thousand years. Initially spun by peasants, woven, and then worn by the upper class, it slowly became an fabric for all classes of Chinese society.

In its native land it functioned as currency for buying expensive things as well as government offices, and as early as the second millennium B.C. there was a goddess of sericulture. The network of trade routes that connected China, India, and Europe, known as the Silk Road, was one of the world's main thoroughfares for goods and ideas traveling both east and west.

The exhibition Chinese Silk traces the history of silk in China from its Neolithic origins to the twentieth century. It is on view at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from March 10 until June 27. The curator is Shelagh Vainker, who is also the author of a new book on the subject. Both book and show explore the cultural history of Chinese silk, telling its story from the time when its cultivation was a closely guarded secret through the early years of foreign trade in the Middle Ages to the extensive use of silk in Chinese and European households by the eighteenth century.

Vainker's book, entitled Chinese Silk: A Cultural History, is published by the British Museum Press and distributed in North America by Rutgers University Press. It can be ordered by telephoning 800-446-9323, and the Beautiful: Silks of the Eighteenth Century.

It examines the development in Europe of what are known as bizarre silks, which are defined by their juxtaposition of various patterns and the use of fantastical imagery. The show, which is on view until the spring of 2007, comprises fifteen examples of these silks, a few of which were fashioned into dresses worn by stylish women in Philadelphia.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, bizarre silks were gradually supplanted by those that were ornamented with greater

fidelity to nature. This was particularly the case in England, where the picturesque landscape movement introduced by such figures as Capability Brown influenced textile designers in the use of flowers, plants, and other natural elements on their fabrics. In France, designers were inclined to exaggerate the actual appearance of fruits and plants, making them much larger and coloring them more boldly.

This changed by the 1760s when English designers fell under the sway of French fashions in which patterns incorporating swags, lace, fur, and small floral bouquets were popular. Finally, with the advent of the neoclassical style around the turn of the nineteenth century, more balanced and symmetrical designs incorporated stripes and small patterns, which were woven into silk of a much lighter weight than had previously been popular. Copyright Brant Publications, Inc. & Gale Group