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Once upon a time, so runs an
eastern legend, a weaver met a prophet and pointing to
the work upon his loom, said: "O Prophet, I passed
through the wood and heard the voices of young birds and
I took and put them into my carpet, and their mother came
fluttering about my head."
These lines from a Persian poet
were quoted in an American publication not long ago by a
writer who was discussing carpet weaving in the East and
there is a deep and subtle meaning in the words of the
weaver. Consciously or unconsciously, perhaps, the poet
was emphasizing the truth that he who interprets that
which is all about him, is greater than he who divines
the future.
It is
when one is standing before one of the comparatively few
remaining antique specimens of Persian loom-craft, that
the full significance of the weaver's words is
understood, for in no other handicraft are the colors so
wonderfully reproduced as in the Oriental rug. The
weaver, by some strange alchemy, extracts from root and
bark, leaf and blossom, lotions that give back to him the
glories of the sunset, the shadows of forest and jungle,
the mystery of the sacred river. Under his hand, the
roses so beloved by the Epicurean Omar, bloom again and
the individuality of his soul and brain is wrought into
the pattern of his fabric.
But for us the story of the rug
holds very different associations from those suggested by
rose gardens, royal palace hangings, and the ceremonials
connected with the sacred bull.
For Jew and Christian the history
of the handicraft of the loom holds an especial interest,
and there is not a woman in Jewry or Christendom who can
but feel a thrill of pride when she reads in that ancient
chronicle of Moses of the "free gift offerings"
given in response to the command: "Whosoever is of a
willing heart, let him bring it, an offering to the
Lord." The story is told simply, directly: "And
all the women who were wise-hearted did spin with their
hands and brought that which they had spun, both of blue,
and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all
of the women whose hearts stirred them up in wisdom spun
goats' hair."
Here indeed are two things of
•especial interest. In the first place, we find the
earliest mention in sacred literature of the weaver's
craft; in the second place, that spinning and weaving
were especially woman's work. This is now and has always
been true in all parts of the Orient. The earliest
representations on Egyptian and Babylonian tiles show
women at the loom with the figure of a man standing
behind them, whose business it was to call out the number
of knots to be tied in red, blue or purple, which were to
develop the design.
The rug frames used to-day are like
those used thousands of years ago. The structure is
simply made of four poles lashed together upon which
first the warp and then the woof is strung. Then, little
by little, the design is made by tying in short bits of
wool or silk, and the greater number of these finger-tied
knots there are to the square inch, the more costly the
rug. Sometimes there are as many as eleven thousand, two
hundred and seventy of these knots to a square measuring
twenty-seven inches, a space technically called a
"pick."
In
the Dagestan, Herat,
and Bokhara rugs, one may,—if one has the fever of
statistical accuracy upon him.—count from one
hundred and forty-five to three hundred knots to the
inch. Think of the patience, the skill of eye and hand,
that must be acquired in slowly fashioning geometrical
figures, flowers, trees, birds and in some instances, as
in the Royal Persian Hunting Carpet, animal and human
figures, through the long years of an uneventful life!
Yet this is what the rug makers of the East have been
doing for thousands of years gone, and will be doing for
centuries to come, unless, indeed, the vulgarity of
occidental commercialism and machinery and aniline dyes
invade the East and destroy an art whose origin is an
unsolved mystery!
Egypt, the birthplace of so many of
the arts, was probably the land in which the rug was
first made, but since the time of the conquering Cyrus,
Persia has maintained the first place in the rank of
carpet makers, teaching in turn Greek Arab, Afghan and
Hindu, how to make poems in color from the fleece of
their flocks and the hair of their goats and camels;
leaving in geometrical lines, flower and leaf, temple
lamp and niche, textile records of the manners, customs
and religion of the people of that region of mystery and
prophecy that we generically call "the East."
The advent of the rug in Europe was
the result of two contemporaneous events; the conquest of
Spain by the Saracens and the wars of the Crusades.
Curiously enough, the exchange of the cross of the
cathedral for the minaret of the mosque in the West, and
the conflict of Christian with infidel in the East,
brought into Europe the first specimens of an industrial
art hitherto unknown. Tapestries and embroideries were,
indeed, fashioned by court ladies and convent recluses
long before this period.
Tradition claims, and its
appearance apparently justifies the claim, that it was
Matilda, the wife of William of Normandy, and the first
Norman queen of England, who left
that famous historical record of the battle of Hastings
and the events that preceded the defeat of Harold,
written in worsted and known as the Bayeux tapestry.
Master Wace, who extols the value of the chronicle,
assures us "that short would be the fame of any
after their death if their history did not endure by
being written in the book of the clerk." The loyal
wife of the conqueror thought likewise, perhaps, and
determined to leave the story of her husband's fame, not
indeed in the "book of the clerk," but in a
scroll of needlework that should tell to succeeding
generations how Harold fell and William conquered.
History and tradition agree that
William, on the occasion of his first return to Normandy,
took with him a train of Saxon nobles who had not yet
realized how Norman ambition was to trample upon Saxon
pride. In this train there were Saxon dames and damsels
and Matilda eagerly sought to engage their skill in her
enterprise, for "En-gel-land" was already noted
for the beautiful needlework of its ladies. Imagination
makes a pretty picture of the fair-haired, blue-eyed
maids and matrons of England and the dark-eyed, vivacious
French court ladies, sitting in Matilda's boudoir plying
their needles in and out of the long linen scroll,
fashioning pink-legged horses and green and blue dogs as
they worked and talked, but always making a faithful
representation of the costumes, customs and manners of
the period. Bizarre as the coloring of their work was,
those high-born dames, all unconsciously, as they worked
and chatted, were making history! This remarkable piece
of early embroidery was preserved for centuries in the
Cathedral of Bayeux. It contains an astonishing number of
figures on the scroll, which measures two hundred and
twenty-seven feet in length.
It is
said that when this tapestry was exhibited in Paris in
1803, Napoleon, who was contemplating invading England,
was singularly impressed by that portion representing the
appearance of a meteor which presaged Harold's defeat. A
meteor having just made its appearance in the south of France,
might, he fancied, foretell a like conquest to the
invader, and France once more might wield the scepter in England.
The earliest production of the
tapestry art made since the Bayeux tapestry, are the
tapestry maps •which were made in the sixteenth
century, the date being 1579-1588. These curious relics
of feminine patience are now preserved in the Lecture
Theatre of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society Museumin
the grounds of St. Mary's Abbey, York, and are said to be
well worth an antiquary's journey from London.
But the
story of tapestries, though akin, is different from the
story of the rug, the latter becoming the symbol of home
life and connected with religious observances from the
earliest times. Such an authority as Sir George Birdwood,
in speaking of the civilizations of the world, says:
"I deliberately indicate Egypt first, and Chaldea,
or archaic Raby' Ionia, with Syria second."
Although tapestries and
ecclesiastical embroideries employed the fingers of the
ladies and maidens of castle and convent long before the
war was waged in Palestine for the recovery of the holy
sepulcher, the oriental rug was not known in Europe—certainly
not in England —until the period of the Crusades,
when sometimes a mailed knight with a cross on his breast
returned from his wanderings in the land of Saladin with
a gorgeous rug to lay before the altar of some cathedral
or, perhaps, as a gift to the "faire ladye" of
his love and devoir. Perhaps the offering might have been
filched from some mosque or temple, or it may have been
an heirloom for generations, or maybe it had been
transferred from Moslem to Christian hands in the great
tidal wave of exchange and barter that brought at the
time much that was alien to both eastern and western
shores alike. Be that as it may, the rug of the Orient
had found its way to the more progressive but less
artistic West, and, as the centuries passed, it gave the
impulse to a new industry in Europe, which had its
initial movement in France.
At
first, only churches, castles, mansions, palaces and
chateaux possessed these floor coverings, but gradually
the rush-strewn floors fell into desuetude and floor
coverings of European make began to be made.
Under the direction of Colbert,
minister of Louis XIV, the manufactories of the Gobelins,
and those at Beauvais and Aubusson were established,
where an effort was made to weave carpets and rugs after
oriental designs, and, in a certain sense, by oriental
methods. At Mortlake in Surrey, England, James I
established looms in the seventeenth century, but civil
war is always destructive to the arts and crafts of
peace, so the Mortlake looms stood idle while royalist
and roundhead fought out their terrible battles. Then
when France was deluged with the blood of Frenchmen and
La Guillotine had martyred the good, unfortunate Louis
XVI, frightened French dyers and weavers who were skilled
in eastern rug art hurried across the channel and found a
refuge in England, where they gave a new impetus to
carpet weaving.
So we
find that more than three centuries ago Turkish carpet
looms were set up in France, yet in spite of this the
long brown fingers of the eastern weavers were still
making rugs and carpets which fetch the highest prices in
the western markets.
It seems
strange how all these products of many different tribes,
who are unlike in faith, customs and speech could have at
last reached a common goal, but the methods by which the
seaside marts are reached and the wares of various
localities are distributed until their final destination
is attained is as ancient as it is interesting. King
Ahasuerus held the first "exhibition," a
learned archaeologist has remarked, and the festival of
"Shushan" which lasted one hundred and
forty-four days, mentioned in the Book of Esther, was the
forerunner of all the fairs that have followed that first
great collection of handicraft. Many centuries later, in
1268, the Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo ordered the great fair in
Venice where all of the guilds brought their wares,—gold,
silver, glass,—every handicraft known by them, to be
examined and praised by the "Dogaressa."
The idea of King Ahasuerus was one
that easily found favor in the East, and from that day to
this "fairs" have been an established custom;—once
a week in populous districts, annually in the larger and
more remote cities. In this way, for example, the traders
journey to Baluk-Hissar in Asia Minor, where a great fair
is held. Then three months later, they all hurry to
Yaprakli which is packed with merchandise and humanity
through the month of August and is tenantless for all the
rest of the year. At Mosul, the traffic centre of Mesopotamia,
another great fair is held, and there gatherings of
artificers and merchant traders from remote quarters
effect an interchange of the products of the various
localities, and by this means, rugs brought on camels
across the sun-scorched desert finally reach European
collectors.
VERY ANCIENT PRAYER RUG WITH
INSCRIPTIONS, FROM A MOSQUE AT ALEPPO
As the
manufacture of textiles was one of the earliest of the
handicrafts, Sir George's dictum strengthens the
supposition that Egypt was the first home of the Oriental
rug. Babylonia coming next and one understands how Job
might naturally say—"my days are swifter than
the weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope,"
for no doubt he had many times looked upon the weavers at
their looms, •either upon the hillside or within
their humble dwellings.
With Orientals, their rugs took the
place of general furnishings. Upon their rugs the family
slept, entertained its guests, sat and prayed, each one
having its special and individual purpose and use.
Although the Oriental rug is
universally used in Europe and America, very few people,
comparatively, know very much about it, though certain
types have become so familiar that they are easily
recognized, as for instance the Bokhara.
Mr. John Kimberly Mumford has
rendered a great service by his "chart." which
shows the various oriental weaves and their
classification as to locality. Under Caucasian, Mr.
Mumford places Dagestan, Trans-Caucasian and Mosul.
Under Turkish he places the Konia with its five
sub-classes: Koniaproper, Kir-Shehr.
Kaba Karaman, Yoruks, Anatolian; and the Smyrna, which
include Ghiordes, Kulah, Demirdjik, Oushak, Bergamoand
Ladik. Ak-Hissar and Milez or Carien. To the Persian
nomenclature belong the three classes of Azerbaijan;
first Tabriz, second Heriz, third Kara Dagh; also the six
weaves coming under the general head Eastern Kurdistan: Sehn
Senneh, Kurdistan proper, Kermanshah,
"Sarakhs" or Bijar, Koultuk, and Sonj-Bulak. The
thirdgroup under the Persian is the Feraghan, to
which belong
the Sultanabad and Saraband (variously spelled), the Hamadan
and the Kermanich. The Shiraz, Mecca and Herat are
included under the latter. Under
Turkmen come the well known Bokhara or Tekke Yomud, the
Afghan, Baluchistan,
Samarkand,
Yarkand and Kashghar.
The most striking and easily
remembered Persian designs are the small palm leaf of the
Saraband (or Seraband) rug, the large palm leaf of the
Herat, the
Tree of Life of the Kerman, the
inscriptions and floral designs of the Sarouk, the long
floral design in the border of the Khorasan and in
the Kierkish rugs. The Anatolians are very soft and of
varied designs and are used as pillows by the natives. The Bergama
is distinguished by its soft, silky pile, its floral or
large geometrical design. The small sizes only of this
class are antique, as the modern Bergama is always made
larger. The writer of this article has lately seen
one genuine antique in the collection of the Paul West
Company in Boston. This rare textile poem is a brilliant
yet soft mass of rich colors that harmonize as perfectly
as a field of parti-colored flowers, and reminds one of
Walter Crane's beautiful suggestion that these designs
were meant to represent the walled-in garden that has
always been so dear to the oriental heart. The idea is
carried out all over the East, and in the story of the
Garden of Eden it is recurrent. "The Angel of the
Flaming Sword" might typify the outside world—the
stranger at the door— all over the land of curious
symbolism, dreams of prophecy and revelation. It is the
idea of seclusion, 1-Vie hint of mystery, that the
weavers and designers—unconscious poets and
historians—wrought into these products of brain and
hand and loom.
The term Smyrna is rarely applied
to rugs of oriental weave, because so-called "Smyrna"
rugs are manufactured in large quantities in America. The
Smyrnas, under the Persian grouping of Mr. Mumford, are
so grouped because the city of Smyrna in Turkey is the
market for the angora goat's hair rugs made in the
interior from simple old designs handed down from past
generations. The
Yoruks are made by the Nomad tribes, who possess large
flocks of goats in the mountains of Anatolia.
The
Oushak rugs are called after the name of the chief city
of Asiatic Turkey. These are woven by Moslem women and
girls, and an antique of this class may be known by one
thing: if green is seen in the coloring, the purchaser in
spite of all the eloquence of the seller, may be sure it
is a modern, for the Mohammedan law forbids the faithful
to use green!
Of the
Caucasian rugs, the Dagestans are most easily
distinguished, because the figures are diamonds,
octagons, hexagons and small hooks, and many of these are
marked by the weavers. This district is under unholy
Russian domination and many of the rugs may be known by
that emblem so entirely the visible and only sign of
Russian Christianity—the cross.
The rug weavers of Asiatic Turkey—these
are classed Turkmen, —are conscientious workers.
They are very careful that their dyes are
"fast" and steep the wool in alum and water.
The Bokhara, Miss Holt tells us, is the most popular
eastern rug in America. Certainly it is one of the most
readily recognized when once known. The octagonal figure
is usually of white or ivory, laid on a soft red or old
rose field; orange, blue and green are also often seen.
![[graphic][merged small]](clip_image006.jpg)
When rugs were first made they were
intended for some specific purpose. For instance the
Namazlik or prayer rug was that upon which the faithful
follower of Mahomet must kneel while repeating his
devotions, with his head in the corner pointing towards Mecca.
The Hammamlik or bath rug was an essential accessory of
his ablutions, while the Odjaklik or hearth-rug, which
was spread before the fireplace when a guest arrived,
gave token in its beautiful design and texture of the
dignity in which hospitality was held.
But it is with the ancient rug
weaver and his work, not the modern with which this
article deals. Though the methods are almost the same
that were used thousands of years ago, western influences
have recently tended towards degenerating this old
industry that holds so much romance and poetry in its
history.
That the eastern rulers are
conscious of the threatened danger is evidenced by the
edict of the Shah, issued January I, 1900, and printed in
French and Persian.
"We, Mazeffer ed Den, King of
Kings, Absolute Sovereign of the Empire of Persia,
Whereas, upon different occasions, our glorious Father
Nasser ed Din Shah, whose memory is illustrious and
revered, desiring to maintain the fine quality of Persian
carpets, the fame of which is universal, forbade the
importation of aniline dyes; which certain persons use to
give a meretricious coloring to carpets; and
Whereas, It has come to Our
knowledge that these prohibitions, as well as some
others, are frequently disobeyed by Persian subjects as
well as strangers, and since it is necessary to reinstate
them, and at the same time give power to punish whosoever
shall violate them hereafter, for all these reasons We
utter the present law. Article i: It is forbidden to
bring into the kingdom aniline dyes, whether in dry or
liquid form, into which aniline enters as a
component."
It has
also been decreed in one part of Persia that any dyer
found using aniline decoctions "should have his
right hand cut off." This mandate has not, so far as
is known, been enforced, but the severity of the penalty
shows how much the Persian government dreads the
deterioration of its most famous industrial art.
Through the entire existence of the
native of the Orient—in his home life, in his
spiritual life, in his social relations and at last at
his death, for when he dies the Tuberlik or grave carpet
is spread above his grave—the rug plays a prominent
part. The somber colored funeral cloth shows the cypress,
the widow and the myrtle in its design, and has been
completed by the combined efforts of each member of the
household, from the eldest to the youngest, each one of
whom has tied some of the knots so that it may express a
general sorrow. Here and there the somberness is relieved
by bits of bright color which typify a happy future life.
Sidney Churchill gives some
interesting facts about the Turkmen girl, which shows
what a valuable accomplishment carpet weaving is
considered in that region. "Among the Turkmens/'
says Churchill, "a young girl costs her husband one
hundred tomans; should her husband die or be killed, her
second husband has to pay two hundred tomans to be
allowed lo marry her. On her third, three hundred tomans,
increasing by one hundred tomans each time up to the
tenth time. . . . The reason for this increase in the
price paid for the privilege of marrying the girl is that
she is supposed to have acquired greater experience as a
housewife, and also increased skill as a weaver."
Certainly it would appear that widows are the vogue in
the East at present, a great improvement upon the old
custom in certain parts of the East where it was
etiquette for the bereaved lady to cast herself upon her
deceased spouse's funeral pile. The former fashion
insured extreme care and solicitude for the husband's
health and comfort. The modern arrangement puts widowhood
at a premium.
In the
secrets of the eastern dye pots lies a great part of the
unrivalled beauty of the Oriental rug. The colors
themselves are significant and form part of the
cabalistic meaning of the inscriptions and designs. The
unsurpassed old Persian red is said to be made from
sheep's blood by a secret process— all of the
eastern dye processes are secret, however, and a lasting
and curiously beautiful vermilion is the result. Odd reds
are also obtained from onion skins, beets, ivy berries,
and other indigenous plants, in a manner unknown in the
West. The blues are based on indigo and the rich browns
are secured by the application of indigo over pure
madder. The Persian berries produce wonderful yellows,
and their yellows combined with indigo form a number of
greens.
A writer
on rug making has broadly stated that the designs may be
generally classed in this wise: Caucasian, Turkey,
Turkmen, and Tartarin fabrics are geometrical; Persian
and Indian are floral. The poems of nature have been
represented by Caucasian and Turkestan designs, by
geometrical figures,while Anatolians have
conventionalized the Persian flower and tree forms.
That Chinese art influenced Persian
fancy in the sixteenth century, the famous "Royal
Hunting Carpet" now the property of the Imperial
Royal Austrian Courtbears witness. This magnificent
specimen of the loom is said to have been presented by
Peter the Great of Russia to the Austrian Court, but this
cannot be vouched for. This Persian Hunting Carpet, an
illustration of which is here shown, was photographed
from one of the plates of "Oriental Rugs," a
volume published by the "Imperial and Royal Austrian
Commercial Museum" by the order of the
"Imperial and Royal Ministries of Commerce,"
the English edition of which was edited by Sir C. Purdon
Clark. The "Hunting Carpet" is a textile
picture of horsemen in full chase of deer and other small
native animals, while winged gods do combat with lions
and buffaloes. The dragons, and cloud bands and the line
of mollusk shells in the border (the latter having the
significance of immortality) are distinctly Chinese. The
singular combination of Persian and Chinese art designs
has produced a really wondrous fabric.
There is another remarkable antique
Persian carpet which holds a special interest because of
its inscription, which tells him who can read the woven
words that it was made by "Maksoud of Kashan, the
Slave of the Holy Place," in the year 1535. This
carpet, which is known as the "Ardebil Carpet"
is owned by the South KensingtonMuseum, London, and was
bought for $12,500. There are thirty-two million, five
hundred thousand knots
in the fabric! Think of how many
years it must have taken Maksoud, the "Slave of the Holy
Place," to leave the signed testimony of a patience
and skill as great as his art!
Another rug of great interest is
one now in the Imperial Royal Commercial Museum of
Vienna, the main scheme of which in the centre and border
consists of Arabic inscriptions. In the centre is a cross
and all the other space is covered with arabesques,
creepers, cup and palmette. At the four ends of the
"cross-beams" twice upwards, twice downwards,
runs the inscription which Professor Wahrmund says,
means: "God is the greatest! He is great!" The
inscription filling the rest of the centre consists of
the ninety-nine names of Allah, partly in the form of a
petition written upwards and downwards. Around the long
sides and the narrow ends are inscriptions from the
Koran, beginning:—"Allah! No God exists besides
thee, the Living, the Eternal!" Professor Wahrmund
says the meandering lines seen in the yellow facings
signify the sacramental form of faith and mission of
Mahomet.
The strong resemblance between
Arabic characters and geometric figures makes the
deciphering of these prayer rugs a matter of extreme
difficulty. This rug was found in a mosque at Aleppo, and
may be classed as a product of Asia Minor, woven probably
from a Persian design.
The art of rug weaving, though it
belongs in the East, where in the sixteenth century it
reached the climax of its development, may however find a
new outlet in another hemisphere! Products of the loom
have always attained their highest excellence in
agricultural rather than commercial centres. This may be
because the great harmony of nature can be best
comprehended in open stretches of forest, vale or plain,
or desert or in mountainous districts where lights and
shadows are forever forming varying effects. In such
environments life is more •contemplative. In the
still spaces imagination and thought begin their
utterance.
Why cannot the loom and brain be
put again to artistic uses here among us? In New England
there has been an effort made to revive vegetable dyes
and carpet making. In Donegal, Ireland, a Scotch firm has
succeeded in establishing a local industry which employs
hundreds of bare-footed girls, who like the nomad tribes
of mountainous Arabia and Turkey, carry their portable
looms with them and out on the hillsides weave floor
fabrics, as they tend their grazing flocks. In certain
parts of our "great West" we have ideal
climatic conditions for such an enterprise. Near the
great sheep centres the rug and carpet making might
become a lucrative business, the ranchmen and weavers
finding mutual advantage in an interchange, while a means
of livelihood peculiarly adapted to female labor might
bring about the much desired feminine colonization in the
vast regions where a woman's face is a rarity. In
localities unfitted for agriculture and close to
commercial centres, such an experiment is likely to fail,
but in our great agricultural and sheep-raising sections
it might gradually become a profitable manufacture. But
there is still another way in which hand woven rugs and
carpets might become an American industry under
government control in a certain sense. I mean the
establishment of jail manufactories. At a small outlay
apprentices could learn this industrial art, and in the
mastering of an industrial art in which individuality is
the keynote, what growth of inward harmony might be
stimulated in the weaver?
Sir C.
Purdon Clark says that only in the jail manufactories in
the East, where the commission for a rare design of
carpet is given, arc the best results obtained. No
mercenary motives nor undue haste nor intermittent effort
retards the completion of the work, and meantime the
somber tone of prison life and prison work is touched
with color. Under the hands of the rug weaver, the
flowers, the vines, the trees he knew and loved bloom
again and a new freshness comes to his heart and soul. If
such a convict industry were established in America, the
result might show not only practical profit to the
government but spiritual benefit to the prisoners.
There is much that is beautiful in
our country. Who knows but that some day in the future an
American weaver might stand before an American inventor
and say as he points to the fabric on his loom: "O
Inventor of great machines, I passed through the forest
and saw the sunshine through the tender green leaves and
heard the songs of birds, and I put them into my carpet
with love and thankfulness in my heart for them. And
therefore is my work, O maker of machines, greater than
thine because that I deprive not my fellow man of the
right to work out from his soul the thought that is in
him!"
The New England magazine, Volume
34, New England Magazine Co., 1906
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