A Universe Apart

Esprit de geometrie and esprit de finesse are deeply assimilated in Oriental carpets. History, documentary evidence and research are, in fact, inextricably melted into artistic merits. To be able to discern and enjoy them all is hard yet fulfilling.

Rugs display two different styles due to tradition, culture and technical requirements, namely the geometric (plate 1) and curvilinear design (plate 2). Both they affect the visual perception of western eye, conveying different empathic reactions which accordingly suit to one's sensitivity. 

1 - The Marby rug, Anatolia, 15th (?), Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm

2 - The Anhalt carpet, Safavid Iran, 16th,The  Metropolitan Mueseum of Art

While it is fairly easy to give reason of historical, technical and artistic merits, it is hard to realize and account for the sensitive effect a rug provokes any time it comes across the eyes. Nevertheless, we are challenged to make a choice, wherein expert advice and personal inclination are the only guides to follow.

Collectors, connoisseurs and amateurs,  all them share the same curiosity in different scales. All them as well are aware of the decorative merits of rugs, which, far from diminishing their value, do convey the primary desire of Beauty. Whether a famed artist or an obscure nomad, the weaver struggled to grab its elusive essence and embody it in a real image. Just this process rises the artifact to the rank of treasure, where colour, design, material and symbol join together and cause artistic uniqueness (plate 3).

3 - Central Anatolia, XVIII (?), MATM

Rugs happened to be made and used in most of Eastern regions often stereotyped as 'Orient' and mostly parallelling the wide belt traced by the Silk Roads (plate 4). Otherwise, the numerous types account for as many cultures and traditions. The actual differences among them have deep origins hard to summarize in a short context, yet a few facts can shed some light. 

4 - The Silk Roads

In all social classes the rug's appearance reflected the complex of art, culture and tradition to which the weaver belonged, that is one's own identity. Generally speaking, the eastern cultural identities in the early modern period were set and defined by leading dynasties (as the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal) which conceived and elaborated distinguishing styles in their laboratories so to create a new official artistic vocabulary and assimilate the diversities. 

5 - Ottoman Cairene carpet, Ottoman culture, 16th

6 - The Bardini medallion carpet fragment, Safavid Iran, 16th, Museo Bardini 

7 - Pashmina fragment, Mughal India, 17th, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although spread over the large territory, they at times coexisted with deeply rooted iconographies as well ethnic traditions. Furthermore, trade and political relations contributed to transmit models to faraway countries and cause unexpected influences. The following pictures show how the famous Iranian 'Garden' theme (Chahar Bag) masterfully depicted in a Safavid Kirman carpet has been later developed and possibly influenced a 19th century rug in Central Asia. (plate 8, 9, 10)

8 - The Wagner Garden carpet, Kirman, mid 17th, Glasgow

9 - Garden rug, Moghan, 19th, A. Boralevi courtesy

10 - Garden pattern derived rug, Central Asia, 19th, S. Ozen courtesy

Since early times the city populace could enjoy and appropriate the artistic language seen in the decorative apparatus of the buildings which the royal agency made available (madrasas, mosques, mausoleums, caravansaries, baths). Inspired by them, many textiles were accordingly depicted following court demand and thereafter creating a taste. 

11 - The Green Mosque, Bursa, first quarter of the 15th

12 - The Stroganoff medallion Ushak, western Turkey, late 15th

A similar process spread in the smaller villages too, where yet the influence was looser and the artisans could integrate the models to the local tradition. 

13 - Village rug, Ushak type, 16th, in Zipper-Fritzsche-Jourdan, Tappeti orientali tirchi e turcomanni, plate 80

In turn, the nomadic people, proud with their life, had seldom contacts with the urban milieu, rather clinging to their ancestral beliefs and customs which were plausibly hidden in their woven vocabulary. As influenced later on by urban design, they partly reworked them in the traditional vocabulary often echoing an almost vanished animal style bond to the ancestral and per-Islamic lifeworld.

Religions were as well a further source for decorative motifs  both scattered in the pattern and completely informing it. While plate 1 likely refers to the sacred Tree of Life flanked by two Birds, messengers of a supernatural spirit, the Prayer or Nice design is one of the most famous pattern connected with a religious or spiritual meaning (plate 14). 

14 - Bellini prayer rug, Turkey, late 15th, Berlin Museum of  Islamic Arts

All these weavings are gifted the talent to express an individual artistic vocabulary in the flow of a given tradition.

However, any attempt to classify oriental rugs should remark an important point that is the pervasive Turkic lineage of the weavers in the area encompassed by the Near East and the western borders of China. The Turkic lineage is in fact represented in Anatolia, Caucasus, Persia, west and east Turkestan. A passionate eye will be fascinated identifying the appearance of similar motifs in different provenances, although disguised by different sensitivity, technical requirements and distance.

Post Scriptum

The 19^th century is thought to be a turning point for the Oriental rug output for the eastern empires had to front the pervasive European influence, though in different times. Notwithstanding, numerous exceptions of resilience are to be discovered in any deeply rooted tradition as well secluded areas. This is the reason why History is so much important, it helps recognising longtime symbols.