The Rug and the Fruits of Wisdom

The visit to the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin a few years ago was indeed a wonderful journey through some of the most beautiful rugs I had only seen in picture. All were worth to be seen yet the one that struck me most was the Spanish so called Bode-Synagogue carpet. 
It appeared just on my left entering one of the rooms: alone, tall and thin, ravaged and dearly conserved, almost an etching on an antique pink woollen ground. This how my memory downloaded it.

I rested shortly for the design was to me unprecedented, and it is indeed, one of a kind in all the carpet history. Moreover, possibly the earliest of Spanish carpets.

Recently, during my on line vagrancies I met with an image that, to my eye, belongs with its pattern. And, I could finally give it a meaning.
Not that it didn't receive the attention of important experts, but only in that moment I distinguished it.

Well, the carpet is  difficult to render by picture due to its size, cm 292 x 94. Here scans from the catalogue of the Museum where it is dearly conserved.

The Bode-Synagogue carpet, Spain, 14th , Museum fur Islamische Kunst zu Berlin

detail

The carpet stems from the Islamic multicultural milieu of 14th century Muslim Spain, Al-Andalus . The typical Spanish knotting one significant proof.

The pink field is framed by a large yellow band inscribed with an early style kufesque design and an outer dark-blue guard beaded with two pearl strings.
The kufesque design presents two alternating motifs intertwined every three with a stylised rosette. The shorter upper band sports a restricted version with only one design repeated each time intertwined with a rosette.
The field pattern depicts a thin trunk all along the rug height with two repeating orthogonal stems on both sides . An elegant calyx with curled leaves sustains a large bold device similar to a flower.

Wilhelm von Bode, director of the Friedrich Kaiser Museum in Berlin and first curator of the Islamic Department by him inaugurated 1904, acquired it 1880 allegedly in Tirol and donated to the Museum. 
He wrote "these (large flowers) are of a remarkable form. In the centre is a closed door surmounted by a pyramid, on either side is a hook-like leaf, much conventionalized, and angular in its outline; the interior of these figures is filled with a variety of small birds, stars, zigzag lines and similar ornamentation". 

detail of a 'flower'

F. Sarre, director of the Islamic Department of the same museum 1921-1931, first noted a strong similarity of the devices with the classical form of the Torah Ark, the Ark of the Covenant.

So far nothing new, until I met the picture of this wondrous silk cloth.

Sogdian silk trousers, 7th, Central Asia, Sotheby's

A Sogdian pair of trousers, Central Asia, 7th-9th century, sold at Sotheby's.
I couldn't but notice the similarity of one of the three abstracted floral species depicted in the pattern to the Bode carpet's one.

detail

The gorgeous design of this silk is a most spread in Central Asia from pre-Islamic times. It belongs with the many varieties of floral patterns often referred to as Tree of Life. It appears in the Central Asian Pearl Roundel silk fabrics as part of the main roundel design or in the usual quadripartite floral device staggered in the field. 
An exquisitely drawn and woven silk fragment held and conserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum sports the continuity of earlier patterns although adapted in new styles and artistic achievements. 
Found in ancient Rayy, today Rey in the province of Tehran, testifies to the art of the Seljuk Iranian period during which it was one of the capitals. The  octagonal medallion depicts two Harpies from Hellenistic heritage harking back to the Seleucid time. The two mythological figures flank a Tree of Life elegantly embellished with a fluently drawn flower much similar to the form here at issue. Note how the basis lushly enriched with Chinese derived appendages significantly emphasizes  the roots as much as the flower ('roots' of Life and Knowledge). 

Silk double cloth, Rayy find, 11th , the Victoria and Albert Museum

One more example shows the use of the flower as if a tree itself, one motif in a varied pattern.

Silk weft compound weave with Tree motif, Eastern Turkestan, Turfan find, 7th-9th, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum

The Islamic courts arising to power in Central Asia and Iran adapted and adopted these designs. Starting Arabic, the dynasties were soon replaced by diverse stock families, such as Persian and Turk. Indeed, the fundamental basis of Islamic art was set in the early Caliphates, the Omayyad and the Abbasid, to be quickly spread West and East. Scrolls with templates, trade, continuous journeys to the Mecca, diplomatic gifts, all contributed to diffuse a style all along the Islamic regions, the Mediterranean coast of Africa and Al-Andalus included.

That struck me: the Synagogue carpet depicts a classical Tree of Life where flowers are replaced with Arks, its Jewish context declared.

The trilobed flower alone appears in some Islamic decoration in prominent Muslim and Jewish buildings, often creating a uniquely shaped grid quite typical in Moorish North African and Spanish style.

Granada, The Court of the Lions in the Alhambra, mid 13th to mid 14th, detail

Cordoba synagogue, Amidah wall, built 1315
(Amidah is the wall dedicated to the prayers turned to Jerusalem where the Ark of the Torah is treasured)

The two examples above witness the degree of cultural commonality achieved in Al-Andalus between Islamic and Jewish culture, despite the ongoing mutual friction, rivalry, and suspicion. The influence of Islamic culture injected into Jewish life was significant. Jews accepted many customs and traditions of the Moors and interweaved them into their life. The Arabic language was often used instead of Spanish and Hebrew. Hebrew songs were sung into Arabic melodies. The tight social and cultural dynamics powerfully shaped also the material culture.

The period Andalusian visual art offers a quite consistent image in any field. One of the most prolific was the silk production mostly elaborating complex and stunningly beautiful geometrical patterns. One rare piece of silk brocaded tapestry weave shows in the 13th century a similar floral form as the Bode carpet's, but in a neatly floral guise gracing an elegant arch pattern.

Silk brocade tapestry weave, Nasrid Spain 14th, The Cleveland Museum of Art

However, it is in architectural decoration that we find a close parallel to the Tree of Life in the carpet at issue, in Toledo specifically.

It is worth to remind the lush cultural environment of this centre. Toledo was renowned as the Sephardi Jerusalem from the Sephardi Jewish school of thought arisen in the Iberian peninsula in the early Middle Age. 
The extraordinary School of Translators during the 12th and 13th c. offered to the whole of Europe the tradition of ancient knowledge of Greek, Persian and Chinese authors thanks to its famous translators. 
In the late 14th Toledo had ten synagogues and five to seven yeshivas (Hebrew schools) testifying to the influential role the Jewish community had on the social life. 

Codex Vigilanum, 976, the city of Toledo, Library of El Escorial

The kingdom of Toledo was regained to Christianity from the Muslims in 1085 by Alfonso VI of Castille, but the 'convivencia' was still to be an important social habit so that the city could become that universally renowned cultural centre. 
During the 13th century the Jewish community gained a significant role in the public affairs and in the 14th reached its apex.
Samuel Ha-Levi, a Jewish councillor and treasurer at the court of Pedro I the Cruel of Aragona obtained to have built a private synagogue attached to his magnificent mansion (not survived) completed 1357, the Synagogue 'El Transito'.
The interior walls of the prayer hall are decorated with splendid colourful geometric and floral motifs in plaster. It is said that their patterns might have been inspired by the lavish textiles imported by the Jewish themselves, among others, from Muslim ruled regions of Southern Spain. The most elaborate decoration was reserved for the eastern wall, the amidha, the most glorious as the place of honour where the reading and the commenting of the sacred scripts took place and where the Ark of the Covenant was enshrouded.

Once more, the  decorative style declares how thoroughly the Jews had assimilated themselves with the general population in language, customs and art, inasmuch the congregation minutes were kept in Arabic down to the end of the 13th.  In fact, in the decoration still Arabic scripts appears despite the end of the Arabic rule, and the Alhambra finest and most elegant designs are reminded.

The Synagogue 'El Transito, built mid 14th, Toledo

detail

Detail, Islamic Kufesque scripts

The two coloured plaster panels flanking the triple arch within which the Torah scrolls were conserved depict two typical floral meanders attached to a repeating central flower. Again, appears the flower seen in the silk tapestry of the Cleveland Museum. And, the Sogdian pattern turns to mind.

It is difficult not to relate the Synagogue-Bode carpet design to this plaster pattern. Indeed, the carpet seems to properly fit a place for praying and studying in the Moorish context of the period.

Detail of the floral meander, Toledo Synagogue 'El Transito' www. alamy.com image courtesy

The Tree of Life is an all-encompassing design/symbol, most ancient and imbued with the most sacred wisdom of humanity.
Expanding on it is an impossible task for these short lines, but a few interesting readings are added in the bibliography. 
Part of a shared legacy under each and every latitude of the globe ever since, it enjoyed a paramount meaning also in the three monotheistic religions. More so is difficult to give an account of the Jewish version for the most complex implications it  was imbued with in this very context.  The Al-Andalus cultural milieu, in fact, was one of the richest in Europe and the known world. Its Islamic courts were rivalling with the Abbasid scientific and artistic niveau of the famous Baghdad House of Wisdom, yet characterized by a unique philosophical and mystic vein. Platonism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism favoured in the three traditions resident, the Muslim, Jewish  and Christian, a blooming of highly refined intellectual elaborations often intermingled.

In the Book of Genesis the Tree of Life appears as part of the World Tree and aside the Tree of Knowledge arising the thorny question about the three as a unit or separate. Traditional Judaism actually identifies the study of the Torah as the Tree of Life promising wisdom to the Righteous aiming at reading and understanding it.
It is plausibly, then, intermingled with the Tree of Wisdom. 

In the Jewish tradition  the Tree of Life is called also 'Etz Chaim' , that means 'the Eye of the Righteous'. The same term is used to refer to Synagogues and Yeshivas, places dedicated to the prayer and the study of the sacred texts.
This image consists of the trunk that is the body of the written and oral Torah, the branches that are the diverse matters and ways of interpretation, the leaves/flowers, finally, are the glorious fruits of  wisdom. 

In the Berlin carpet the Ark in place of the flower, as traditional repository of the divine wisdom,  seemingly represents the inner secrets and mysteries of the Torah scrolls to be unveiled.
From the Book of Proverbs: the Torah is a Tree of Life for those who hold fast to it, and those who uphold it are happy.



Note
Most particular, and therefore likely a different topic, is the  Tree of Life, Etz Chaim, called also Sephirot. Esoteric and mystic symbol, it rather pertains to the Judaic Kabbalah symbolism historically emerged in Southern France and Spain  in 12th-13th c. from the ancient roots of Judaic mysticism.







Short Bibliography:

Genupfte Kunst, Teppiche des Museums fur Islamische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Edition Minerva 2011

Erdmann K., Seven Hundred Years of Oriental Carpets, English edition 1970

Sarre, F. & Flemming, E., 1930, A Fourteenth-Century Spanish Synagogue Carpet. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 56, pp 89-95

A. Felton,  Jewish Carpets, London.

A. Felton, Jewish Symbolsand Secrets: A Fifteen-Century Spanish Carpet, 2012

Ferrandis Torres, J., Catalogo de la Exposición de Alfombras Antiguas Espanolas, Madrid, 1933.

E. Kühnel and L. Bellinger, Catalogue of Spanish Rugs: 12th Century to 19th Century, Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, 1953.

F. Spuhler, Die Orientteppiche im Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin, Berlin, 1987, pp.118–20, no.137.

H. Nitz, Rugs of the Lost Ark, http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00114/salon.html 

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14435-toledo

Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages by Mark R. Cohen
Princeton University Press

Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

C. G. Ellis, Admiral Heraldic Carpet, in Oriental Carpets in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 1988.

E. Kuehnel and L. Bellinger, The Textile Museum, Catalogue of Spanish Carpets, Washington 1953.

A. Van de Put,  Some Fiftheen century Spanish Carpets, Burlington Magazine, vol. 9, n. 102.

J. Ferrandis Torres, Exposicion de alfombras antiguas espanoles, Catalogo general ilustrado, Madrid 1933.

G. Serkina, Traces of Tree Worship in the Decorative Patterns of Turkish Rugs
(from 11th International Congress of Turkish Arts - Utrecht, the Netherlands, August 23-28, 1999), see also here http://www.tcoletribalrugs.com/article11trees.html

R. Pinner, The Animal Tree and the Great Bird in Myth and Folklore, in Turkoman Studies 1980, p.204

S. Busatta, The Tree of Life Design in the Old World,

http://www.antrocom.net/upload/sub/antrocom/090113/20-Antrocom.pdf, Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology 2013, vol. 9. n. 1 – ISSN 1973 – 2880

Hali: Spanish Rugs in Vizcaya, R. Taylor August 1990; Hispanic Synthesis, Linda Wooley, Summer 1995; E. J. Gruber, Infinity Made Visible, Winter 2000; Andalusian Harmony, Spring 2003; Hispanic Bounty, Summer 2003;  A Museum of Masterpieces, Michael Franses, Autumn 2008; Cultural Chronicles-Confessions of a jewish Carpet Collector, Winter 2008;