The historical background shaping these interactions will be dealt with at a later time. Also, a reason will be given why an Eastern influence is favoured for some designs rather than other artistic traditions although closer to the Islamic context. The 'Interwoven Globe' term, coined by the groundbreaking exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum, 2013 (Interwoven Globe: the Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800), verifies, in fact, to be consistent also with many centuries earlier circumstances. We would like to expand it into a term forged in the 1970s, 'Intercultural Style'. Referred to some Bronze Age artistic expressions in South-West Asia, it conveys the interesting concept that different civilisations either for porous borders or any necessity of status representation embraced a few commons designs in different media (see Softstones in Arabia&Iran, A specialist workshop organised by The British Museum & the Society for Arabian Studies; The Intercultural Style Revisited, Intercultural Interaction in South-West Asia during the Mid-Third Millennium, by Klaas Zevenhek, Amsterdam 2013)
Such behaviours are obvious and well researched in later periods, as in the case of Chinese art influence in the Western lands during the Mongol and Ilkhanid Era. Far less studied are the reciprocal interactions between Eastern Asia and Western areas before the creation of the early Turk Islamic kingdoms in around the year 1000. The participation of Turko-Mongol nomadic polities in shaping new forms to be spread along the trade routes complicates the events.
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| Split Leaf Arabesque in a Safavid silk carpet, 'Polonaise', early 17th. |
While time unfolds, eye sharpens and information grows. Parallels not always proved, yet reasonable.
There are in the ruggy world several design names which may be misleading on their true source. They have been forged for multiple reasons. Myth, lore, trade needs and fantasy often interlaced, contributed to a basic 'dictionary' not necessarily to be discarded, but to be verified and clarified.
Ethnographic research on the field not always offers safe results. Often, weavers have long lost memory of the original name and source of designs harking back centuries before. Impossible, altogether, to distinguish and claim an ancient foreign influence. This may explain the discrepancy between the name of a design and what conversely the eye can detect in it. The difficulty should be all in the long and complex process of stylisation provided by time and multiple transliterations, not in a fancy and captivating terminology. The rug world is enough imbued with exotic and fabulous stories to need other riddles.
A Caucasian Rug
Ian Bennett wrote regarding designs' terminology in Caucasian rugs - names 'appear out of nowhere and often do not stand up for scrutiny' .
The popular nomenclature for Caucasian rugs was established by the German dealer and connoisseur Ulrich Schurmann mostly based on Latif Kerimov work (Latif Kerimov was an Azerbaijani designer and collector of and writer on Caucasian rugs).
In particular, Kerimov seems to have recognised and termed a specific pattern used in a group of rugs whose provenance is allegedly reported as Goradis' vicinity, an area on the Iran-Azerbaijan border half way from the Caspian Sea and Armenia. The unmistakable design offers a slanted tapered shape at whose larger pointed top two curved element opens as reclining leaves.
Obviously, many variations are offered with more or less stylised design, more or less floral or even zoo-morphic (the curved elements may be read as crab pincers).
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| Goradis carpet, fragment, 18th, Azerbaijan, published U. Schurmann, Teppiche aus dem Orient, dated 1115 AH= 1700 AD |
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| Goradis carpet, detail, Azerbaijan, 19th, published S. Azadi, Azerbaijani Caucasian Rugs. |
Caucasian rugs do often present decorative schemes characterised by bold and large designs. Often single designs of complex patterns, they were favoured either because better impressed in the weavers' memory, or more suitable to their decorative sensibility. Not necessarily a complete classic pattern was apt to a rural context. As well, memory can keep alive only some parts of it.
Since the Safavid rule vanished in the mid 18th and, afterwards, the Russian conquest disrupted a long cultural unity, a change may have occurred in these lands, and carpets usually were a very sensitive reflecting ground.
As to now no source for this pattern has been seriously ascertained, unless a Western influence from the French taste is claimed. Specifically, there exists a family of carpets echoing the Rococò and Neoclassical style. They usually come from the Karabak district. In the case of the Goradis Buynuz (ram's horns), the Bizarre silk patterns may offer interesting parallels.
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| Bizarre silk panel, France or Italy, 17th-18th, courtesy of Sarajo |
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| Bizarre silk, Europe, 18th |
Similar results of contamination appear also in Eastern Europe as in piled rug from Ukraine, 19th, pictured below
Said Western influences may carry some weight given the historical situation of the Caucasus in the 19th century. In 1864 the last Caucasian regions lost their autonomy and were forced to enter the Russian empire partly imbibed with French taste.
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| Floral design carpet, Ukraine, 18th, photo courtesy Hadi Maktabi |
But a traditional Eastern source can't be excluded. After all, Latif Kerimov termed the design 'Buynuz', that is Horn. And, horns, meant like ram's horns, are largely distributed in almost all the nomadic traditions, the ram been variously worshipped and revered in the whole of Eurasia.
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| Silk samite, rows of rams, Iran, Afghanistan or China, 5th-8th, Metropolitan Museum |
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| Stucco plaque, Royal Farnah, Sassanian culture, 5th-6th, The Field Museum of Natural History Chicago |
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| Ritual vessel, Ram shape, late Shang, China, 13th-11th BC, formerly Fujiita Museum Osaka |
In this perspective one may also infer the slanted tapered shape to represent the ram's head and horns. It is one established habit to depict only a part of a design, the whole to be deduced.
Moreover, another evidence of Turkic art is to 'embellish' designs with appendages. They may be in the form of latchook, bird-head, trefoil. Ram's horns, called also kotchak, are among the most used in Anatolian, Caucasian and Central Asian rugs. Usually though, they receive a quite different depiction.
The Anatolian village rug below offers the iconic form.
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| 'Flayed Skin' carpet, Anatolia, 18th, published Hali 112 |
One should then look at the Goradis/Buynuz motif imagining as if the original zoomorphism had been remolded into an unrecognisable point. All is possible in carpets, is it?
Things are never ever easy, that's fun.
One parallel to the Goradis pattern has recently surfaced to my mind, the easiest and closest for obvious historical reasons, perhaps. A fool not to recognise it before.
The Caucasian regions received multiple influences during the centuries, not to mention the multifaceted ethnic mélange that characterised its population ever since. Turkomans, Armenians, Azeris and Kurds gave the main contributions, among others. A group of carpets (so called 'Golden Triangle' carpets) testify to this sometimes uncertain identity oscillating between Turkish, Persian and 'Caucasian' types. And indeed the Turkish/Anatolian and the Persian/Safavid played a big role in the whole Caucasian output, often intermingled as Serare Yetkin suggested in her seminal work on early Caucasian carpets (S. Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey).
In the case of the Goradis it is unavoidable to put it into the Safavid mainstream of the split leaf design. Having a long life in Safavid art, and Islamic well before, the Split Leaf appeared in the early decorated cursive kufic script. It was also appropriated in the vegetal allover decoration developed thence in Islamic art, punctuating the infinite revolving racemes (arabesque/islimi).
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| Floriated cursive script, Iran or Uzbekistan, 900-1000, V&A |
The Tabriz frontispiece painted in 1478 verifies the diffusion of an International Style (imbued with a strong Chinese influence) featuring the split leaf arabesque as usual grammar. The Tabriz court in the 15th was in the firm hands of Turkoman dominion which extended also to the Karabak area whence the Goradis design appeared in the 19th. It would be interesting to find forerunners in the region so as to exclude an abrupt birth for this late split leaf guise.
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| Frontispiece, Tabriz 1478, the Khalili collection |
It populated the decoration in any form of visual art, and carpets too, in conventional background and building design as well. Often it also is enriched with a bulging flower head in the centre. The Safavid carpet output had the lion's share.
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| 'Kirman' carpet, 16th/17th century |
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| Arabesque with yellow split leaf in border and field. Kirman carpet, 18th, Rothschild collection |
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| 'Kirman' lattice carpet fragment, late 16th (?), published Five Centuries of Rugs from Kirman, T. Sabahi |
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| 'Polonaise' silk carpet, 17th, formerly Getty collection, rugtracker.com photo cs. |
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| King Umberto's 'Polonaise' silk carpet, detail 17th, Hali photo cs. |
The Safavid solar system built on a rich combination of trajectories and celestial bodies (racemes and flowers).....
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| Palmette and Arabesque carpet, Safavid 17th, the Metropolitan Museum |
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| Arabesque field, Safavid carpet patchwork 16th , Bardini Museum |
left the slanting split leaf lonely. A larger and courtly choreography turned into a bold impressive folk dance. A symphony into a solo.
Other times the design is termed 'scorpion'.
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| Goradis carpet, 19th the Metropolitan Museum, azerbaijanrugs.com photo credits |
M. Eiland (Afshan. A Study of Design Development, Hali 1999) identified the split leaf in the Caucasian language where it is commonly termed 'Afshan' and where it achieved an extremely geometricised version in the 'Karagashli' type. Yet, the Goradis was not identified, although the parallel with Safavid designs is illuminating.
Whether a split leaf was still in the weaver's mind or mistaken for horns and scorpions is a riddle we can't solve so far. Afterall, designs survived to or surfaced in different epochs serving new functions and meanings.
In the vast universe of possibilities a similar shaped design appears in a class of 'Beshir' rugs variously interpreted by the cognoscenti - cloudband, tulip, serpent.
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The 'Scorpion' rugs, allegedly from the Ushak region small center of Selendi, presents a different design construction - an ogival device with serrated profile and lateral asymmetrical vines. Most probably it relates to period Ottoman floral patterns re-elaborated into the knotted technique by village weavers. Serpentine design often characterises them in an almost realistic vein. Cut versions are common in embroidery.
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| 'Scorpion' carpet, Selendi Ushak, 17th, Budapest Museum of Applied Arts rugrabbit photo cs. |
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| Ottoman court kaftan, 16th Topkapi Museum |
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| Ottoman court kaftan, 16th detail. |
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| Silk embroidered cotton, 17th century, Hali ph.credits |
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Bibliography
U. Schurmann, Caucasian Rugs 1974
L. Kerimov, Azerbaijan Carpets, Baku 1961, vol.II, III, 1983,
L. Kerimov, Rugs and carpets from the Caucasus, 1984,
L. Kerimov and S. Azadi, Azerbaijani-Caucasian Rugs, 2001
U. Schurmann, Teppiche aus dem Orient, 1976
S. Azadi, Azerbaijani Caucasian Rugs, 2001E.
S. Yetkin, Early Caucasian Carpets in Turkey, 1977
I. Bennet, Caucasian Village Rugs, Hali, winter 2007
M. Eiland, Afshan. A Study of Design Development, Hali 1999
I. Gans-Ruedin, Caucasian Carpets 1986
K. Erdmann, Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets 1970
M. Beattie, Carpets of Central Persia with Special Reference to Rugs of Kirman 1976
T. Sabahi, Five Centuries of Carpets from Kerman 2012
Inscrutable Isfahans, rugtracker.com
R. B. Sargeant, Islamic Textiles. Material for a History up to the Mongol Conquest, Beirut 1972
Abd al-Rahman Mahmud al-Cailani, The Origins of Islamic Art and the Role of China, Edinburgh 1973
http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00126/cloudband.htm?fbclid=IwAR3aSc9_w7pQYRYkGnDWWTcjwE1agnaAb7VeufMe9ZSxpAcmUDv9M-fNuKQ
A. Levi, Renewal&Innovation, Hali August-September 1993
http://richardewright.com/0908_bukhara.html
