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As a native New Yorker, I became interested and attracted
by old nomad and peasant weavings shortly after the Second World War. This
followed naturally from an earlier interest in antique furniture, paintings
and ceramics. It was the period right after The Great Depression and all
antiques were still incredibly cheap. There was little interest in and
less money available for such things. This was a reaction to the previous
decade, The Roaring Twenties, when money was plentiful and antique-collecting
was all the rage. I well remember when a fine, old Kasak brought as much
as forty dollars at auction and an excellent, antique Tekke Bukhara main
carpet might fetch ninety. Dear reader, may I ask you for one minute of
quiet contemplation of those days beyond recall!! At this time, such interest
as existed, was divided into two categories. The first belonged to the
ladies who bought mainly new, main carpets as floor-covering to compliment
their decor and the second to aficionados who collected specimens produced
before 1800. Since only the super-rich could afford the latter in complete
condition, the less affluent contented themselves with fragments which
they framed under glass and hung on the wall. For the ladies, God bless
them, Iran was manufacturing room-sized carpets made especially for the
American trade, These had a very high pile to withstand the harsh, chemical
treatment required to "antique" them and which were later processed through
hot rollers with paraffin to give the pieces the luster of age' The favorite
was the Kirmen with a Savonnerie or a Koran-Cover design and the so-called
American Saruk. The latter , of this period, is very popular today as an
"antique" collectible! A minute group of rug-lovers were interested in
19th century nomad and peasant weavings. Then, one paid about five times
as much for a new chemically-washed carpet as for an old, beautiful rural
creation! These were the unwanted, lovely examples of folk-art, both knotted
and flatweave I recollect, at an auction, watching a bidder buying a large
number of these delightful items. Approaching him, I asked him if he were
a collector. He replied, "Oh, no! I own a rooming house and I am buying
these rugs for my furnished rooms" He was able to outbid me because I had
very little money. The low values placed on these creations were extremely
important to me because , although my passion was boundless, my funds were
extremely limited. Current fashion determines the desirability of most
things. It is often man-made and the result of ardent promotion. This holds
true for both new and antique artifacts! In the West, the vast majority
considered carpets as floor-coverings and an integral part of interior
decoration. Consequently, every change of style in the latter was reflected
in the tastes of the rug-buyers and their demands. If, in the period before
the Second World War, one would have mentioned the words, "Oriental Carpet"
to the average person, he would have visualized a floral-patterned Persian
work-shop rug. This was the stereotype of the time! The great Occidental
revival of interest in these artifacts, in the late 19th century was the
result of intense promotion by certain museum curators whose alleged expertise
was actually was 17th and 18th century Dutch and Flemish oil paintings.
Their so-called "Scholarship" stemmed from the specimens depicted therein.
Their chief once said that there were fifty known Rembrandts of which five
hundred were in the U.S.A. These self-appointed "Experts" held that only
the "Classical" carpets 0f the 16th and 17th centuries were truly great
art and that all those later were degenerate!! On their field trips for
the museum, they collected, not only for it but also for themselves! Many
of these were fragments. During this period, these pieces were out of fashion
and relatively inexpensive. Complete specimens were rare. And so these
fledgling entrepreneur businessman promoted fragments which were practically
given away!!! The evidence for this is in "Siebenhundert Jahre Orientteppich"
by Kurt Erdmann, a very junior member of the clique, which is replete with
these derelicts!!! He also explains that they delayed their promotion of
these objects until AFTER they had completed their buying to prevent a
rise in prices!!!
RUGLORE
It was the practice at this time to weave the missing fragment in a paler addition of the of the colors but with the original design so as to complete the original textile. This was done so that the observer could detect what was antique and what was new. Early in my career, I saw, at an auction, such a piece where the original fragment was approximately 35% of the entire textile!! This did nothing for the weaving aesthetically but seemed proper to our pundits from an art-historical viewpoint. Regarding the threat to the gang's hegemony, the following was reported by Werner Grote-Hasenbalg in :"Der Orientteppich" Band 1, page 83, with my liberal translation: "Now something brief about the value of Anatolian prayer rugs from Melas, Kula and Giordes: Bode rejects these completely and Martin said 'Some collectors of prayer rugs, especially in Germany, think perhaps that I devote too few words to these prized rugs. But I claim that these are artistically and of such little value, that one actually does not need to waste more words on them." (my emphasis). Grote-Hasenbalg then asks (apologetically?), "Why shouldn't one collect these carpets since these are typical, beautiful representatives of their class?" Further he states, "However, one must demand from them: really good condition and not some old rags around which a new rug has been created" (my emphasis). I would assume that the last is an obvious commentary on the aforementioned practice. Above all, it illustrates how sternly this late 19th century "Oriental Carpet Mafia" responded to the competition of the Anatolian prayer rugs to their merchandise!!! It may well be assumed that these academicians had a stern dedication to self-welfare!!! It was shortly after my interest in Oriental weavings had developed that I began a critical appraisal of the eulogies bestowed on the Safavid carpets by the "Gang" Everybody in the rug world had been sold on the concept that the Ardibil carpet was one of the greatest works of art extant! It became clear to me that although this and other of these creations were technical masterpieces, "THEY WERE NOT WORKS OF ART!!! How were they produced??? The greatest miniature painters were at the Safavid court. It was the first Safavid ruler, Shah Ismail, who introduced the miscegenation of marrying the knotted textile, essentially a folk-art to the creativity of the court, miniature painters. The offspring of this union were decadent descendants of the original inspiration which have lost, in the process, the passion, virility and strength of their predecessors. THE RESULTING PRODUCT WAS NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL!!! The actual artistic achievements are the cartoons by the wonderful, miniature painters on which these textiles are based. It would be as if I became enamored with Pieter Breugel's "The Return of the Hunters" in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum and commissioned the weavers of Hereke to make me the finest, silk rug which would be an exact copy. The ensuing artifact would be a technical masterpiece BUT IT WOULD NOT BE A WORK OF ART!!! The work of art would still be hanging in the museum!!! Although I had never met and read Dr. Grube's commentary in McMullan's "Islamic carpets" until many years later, I finally found someone who agreed with me! He states the following, "The woolen knotted rug of the
Muslim world is not a court product, and its origins goes back not to the
high culture of the Ancient Orient, but to that of the Turkish nomads of
Central Asia. It seems that the rug was actually introduced into Western
Asia by the Turks that penetrated into Afghanistan and Iran as early as
the 9th century, and that eventually ruled all of the Eastern part of the
Muslim world including Iraq and Anatolia. And it was at all times that
the Turkish rug remained true to its origin in use, design and pattern.
The painter and the illuminator had lost their position as creative artists and the rug became just another medium through which the same basic themes and ideas that dominated painting, book illumination and even architectural decoration of the Safavid period, were expressed." For the purpose of simplifying further discussion, I will replace the term, "Nomad and Peasant Rugs" with "Rural Rugs' so as differentiate those from those produced in urban workshops. The great distinction of the rural rug as contrasted with its workshop counterpart, is that the former is usually made by ONE PERSON who is solely responsible for its creation from the original conception to the completed piece. ONLY UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES IS TRUE ART POSSIBLE!!! The story is told that an anthropologist, on a field trip in Turkestan, saw a native woman weaving a rug without a cartoon. She said to her, "You must have the design in your head." "No", she replied, "In my heart." All art is essentially emotional communication between the artist and the viewer of her creation. This simple, uneducated peasant woman was well aware of the truth contained therein! It would be folly to imagine that every rural weaving is an artistic masterpiece. Every nomad and peasant is NOT endowed with genius, but then every painter is not a Rembrandt! However, their work embodies the traditions, fears, hopes and religious fervor of its creators! As one compares the travesties of some of our modern artists, Andy Warhols "Tomato Can" for instance, with the creations of these illiterate, unsophisticated weavers' who have no academic training, but only their innate sense of color and form, the inferiority of the former becomes obvious!!! I fully realize that this opinion will traumatize many art historians and museum curators! As the style in interior decoration changed from "Traditional" to "Modern", it brought with it the need to find accessories which would complement the latter. Folk-art proved to be the perfect answer and the Oriental rural rug replaced the floral, workshop weavings in public taste. No longer was it considered strident, naïve and primitive but took its rightful place in popular appreciation. Regrettably, many art-historians have lagged behind in this development and still cling to outworn prejudices!! Exhibitions of these collector carpets in the Frankfort and Hamburg Folk Museums sparked similar events in European and American institutions One of the most successful of these was held at the Gewerbemuseum in Basel, Switzerland under the aegis of Willy Burkhardt, a prominent Swiss collector. If any one person should be given the palm for this development, it must go, in my opinion, to Joe McMullan for revealing the beauty of the late 18th and early 19th century Anatolian village rugs! Sam
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