Though often associated with the field of craft, textiles have many fine art applications and have grown in recent decades to greater appreciated within the art world. Artists sometimes fabricate their own textiles through techniques like weaving, knitting, or crocheting and may also incorporate ready-made textiles into two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. An early form of textile art, decorative tapestries were popular in the grand palaces and chateaux of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Painstakingly woven in workshops, such hangings visually conveyed narratives from religion and mythology in their colorful silk and metallic warp and weft threads. Seventeenth century Ashanti weavers, in present day Ghana, wove colorful kente cloths with the vibrant silks imported from Europe. They used a complicated technique to craft richly patterned strips, which were sewn together. Due to their complexity, certain patterns were reserved to be used exclusively by members of the royal family. In Indonesian culture, batik, a method of dripping dye-resistant wax onto fabric to form complex designs, has existed for many centuries.

The development of the textile arts continued well into the twentieth century. Anni Albers, associated with the Bauhaus School, was an important early textile artist. Influenced by both developments in European avant garde art and indigenous weaving techniques of Peru, Albers produced luminous weavings that transcended the lower status often bestowed on the craft. Working in another vein, minimalist artist Robert Morris used industrial felt to make large artworks that both hung on a wall and onto the floor, invading the viewer’s space. Many contemporary artists use textiles in their work, including Christa Maiwald, Jennifer Levonian, Amber Cobb, and Maria Lynch.