Persian rugs

Persian rugs

First artistic expression of Persian civilization, historical symbol of the passage from life nomade to the sedentary one, the processing of the carpet with rich decorative motifs undoubtedly deserves a detailed and exclusive treatment.
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The originsProcessingdecorationsreasons

THE ORIGINS OF THE CARPET

It is in the Pazyryk valley that the first hand-knotted carpet was found in almost perfect conditions because it was preserved by a thick slab of ice that had protected it for many centuries. The attribution of this carpet has been the subject of numerous debates among scholars and scientists since its discovery. In the end it was established that its origin must have been Persian, given that, despite having been found thousands of kilometers away from what were the territories of ancient Persia, the Pazyryk carpet was discovered in a Scythian tomb.

The Scythians were a Middle Eastern population native to the North of Iran and suffered irremediably the influence of Persian customs. On the basis of the subsequent discoveries made over the years, we can say that, if we analyze the history of the Middle Eastern populations in the period prior to the fifth century BC and that is before the era of the Pazyryk carpet, it is evident how the peoples of the Mesopotamia possessed all the prerogatives necessary for having lived a period of splendor in the history of the oriental carpet.

Once the presence of the carpet has already been established in the Mesopotamian civilizations, it remains to be determined when it was introduced in Persia, the undisputed epicenter of the carpet handicraft that is deeply linked to Persian history and has undergone the same evolutions and involutions. It is very probable that, even before Cyrus the Great, the Persian nomads knew the use of the knotted carpet, but almost certainly there was no real handicraft and the function of the carpet was more practical than artistic. One thing is almost certain, namely that the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargade was covered with precious carpets. There are no quotations that validate the presence of the carpet during the reigns of the other Achaemenid sovereigns, nor are there reliable quotes on the existence of this art during the reigns of the two successive dynasties, that of the Seleucids and that of the Parthians. However, there are documents on the existence of carpets during the period of the Sassanid dynasty and it is precisely to this dynasty that the carpet passed into history as perhaps the most precious of all time: the Bahar i Cosroe or «The spring of Cosroe».

The Sassanid dynasty was followed by a period of influence by the Arab Caliphs. During the rule of the Caliphs of Baghdad, several Arab historians visited Persia and mentioned the carpets among the artifacts of those regions; especially those produced in the Khorasan region, still known today as a carpet production center.

The rule of the Caliphs was followed by a period of almost two centuries of which very little is known about this form of craftsmanship, even suggesting that the art carpet had almost disappeared. After this long period of oblivion, the country was conquered by the Seljuks, a Turkish population extremely sensitive to every form of art. In the provinces of Azerbaijan and Hamadan, where the influence of the Seljuk was greater, the Turkish node is still in use today.

A period of devastation began with the arrival of the hordes of Genghis Khan and one can be sure that, being the Mongols a wild people, they did not know the Persian arts, which were most likely only cultivated by the nomadic tribes.

However over time the Mongols were influenced by the country they had conquered and this would explain why the Tabriz palace of Il-Khani Ghazan Khan had the floor entirely covered with carpets.

At that time a fundamental period began in the country's history: in fact, after more than seven centuries of foreign rule, a national dynasty took over and seized power, the Safavid dynasty. Liberation from the foreigner created a new ferment throughout the country, causing all the Persian arts to experience a moment of rebirth. Shah Ismail facilitated the recovery of traditional art by creating craft centers in the cities for the manufacture of carpets in which the most expert craftsmen flocked from the villages who, under the guidance of miniature masters, knotted those carpets that made this kind of Persian handicraft so famous. The first concrete proofs of the existence of the carpets date back to this time and there are more than 1500 specimens of this period that are preserved in the various museums of the world.

Among the most important specimens we have to mention the carpet found in the Ardebil mosque, kept in London in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and that of hunting kept in the Poldi Pezzoli museum in Milan.

Under the reign of the great Shah Abbas, the Persian carpet spread in Europe and acquired fame and fame in a very short time. Shah Abbas moved the kingdom's capital to Isfahan, building what is still considered one of the most beautiful squares in the world today. He asked his court for the best craftsmen and designers who created carpets of rare beauty, almost all knotted on silk threads, very often in gold and silver.

With the end of the Safavid Empire, the courtly period of the Persian carpet also came to an end, which began to flourish in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, above all thanks to the merchants of Tabriz who had initiated exports to Europe via Istanbul.

In the 1925 came Shah Reza, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, dynasty that gave great impulse to the craftsmanship of the carpet creating real imperial manufactories where they were knotted specimens worthy of the great Persian tradition.

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

A peculiar characteristic of Persian rugs, like all oriental rugs, is hand knotting. The fabric is composed of three parts: the warp, the fleece and the weft. The warp is the set of threads, generally of cotton, parallel to each other and arranged vertically between the two ends of the frame. The fleece is the visible surface of the carpet and is formed by short threads, generally of wool, knotted on the warp; the nodes are lined up in rows along the width of the carpet, never in the length. The plot consists of one or more threads, almost always of cotton, arranged between a row of knots and the next one.

The materials used in the knotting are three: wool, silk and cotton. The wool used is mostly of ovine origin, almost never goat. The finest wool is obtained by combing the fleece of the sheep during the winter and shearing it in the spring. The best wool always comes from live animals: this is one of the peculiarities of Persian rugs.

Some rare examples of carpets have silk fleece, but these are mainly made-to-order carpets. The most famous center for this kind of work is Kashan.

Cotton, in Persian carpets, is used exclusively for warp and weft threads, with the exception of nomad carpets that are entirely in wool. Cotton, however, tends less to give way and to loosen over time than wool and gives the carpet greater adherence to the floor.

The production of Persian rugs is characterized above all by a wonderful palette of colors. The dyeing operation is extremely delicate and is preceded by a bath of alum that acts as a mordant. Then the yarn is immersed in the dyeing bath where, according to the different colors, it remains for a few hours or for whole days. Finally it is left to dry in the sun. Until the advent of artificial dyes, those used by dyers were exclusively of natural origin, almost all vegetables. The Persian dyers acquired considerable fame, given that they were the only ones who managed to obtain an inexhaustible series of colors from vegetable substances. Red, for example, did not have a single gradation, thanks to the use of various insects as well as the whey. And so also for the other colors. Progress has allowed the Persian dyers to take advantage of innovations in the field of chemistry and today only nomads make exclusive use of natural dyes.

The knotting work is really colossal if you consider that to package a medium quality rug (2500 knots per square decimeter) and the format of two meters by three, you need, at the rate of ten thousand knots per day, five working months. On average, a good worker does ten thousand to a maximum of fourteen thousand knots a day.

The miracle of the birth of the Persian carpet therefore occurs at the time of knotting: millions of knots of different colors that, patiently aligned next to each other, form the designs and motifs, now geometric, now floral. In the nomads, colors and designs are almost always born from instinct, from imagination, without a prearranged project; this is not true, however, with regard to the other production of rugs that are born, instead, from a very precise project prepared by specialized artists who create the design on a millimeter cardboard in which each square corresponds to a knot. When the knotter is only one, the design is placed on the frame in front of the eyes of the knot. When more people participate at work, one of them reads aloud the number of nodes of each color. Once the carpet is finished, it is removed from the frame and the shaving and then the washing are carried out, an operation that has the purpose of removing the rigidity of the carpet and restoring its original clarity to the colors. The carpet is then laid out in the sun to dry.

The name of the carpets always has a direct reference with its origin and is always classified with the name of the place of origin. As for the carpets of nomadic origin, they take the name of the tribe of origin.

DECORATIONS

Oriental rugs can be divided according to their design into two large groups: those with a geometric design and those with a curvilinear design, known as floral rugs. Summing up briefly the difference between the two types, we can first of all say that geometric carpets are the expression of a taste, while floral ones are the expression of an art. The geometric carpets, in fact, reflect the taste of the handicraft or tribe of origin, while the floral carpets are works of Islamic art and have had, over the centuries, the same evolution and involution of the different expressions of art itself.

The geometric patterned carpets are all those rugs decorated with linear elements composed of vertical, horizontal and oblique lines. The whole of the drawing is very simple and often consists of repetitions of the same motif. It is mostly carpets knotted by nomadic tribes, although this design is also found in some small scattered villages where, due to the distance from the major centers, the decoration of the carpet has remained the primitive one. The first carpets were in fact with geometric designs, while those of floral type date back only to the sixteenth century. The motifs of the geometric carpets are practically handed down from memory and this particular facilitates the attribution of the tribe or place of origin.

The carpets with floral or curvilinear design appear on the scene at the beginning of the Safavid dynasty, which certainly could not be satisfied with the carpets knotted by nomads and peasants. Thus the first craft centers were born where floral patterned carpets were knotted. nomads and peasants were transferred to the cities and here, under the control of masters, they undertook the working of richly decorated carpets that in a very short time gave further prestige and prestige to Islamic art.

The floral carpets, like all Islamic art, reached their peak during the reign of Shah Abbas I and this period of splendor continued until the invasion of Persia by the Afghans, that is about a hundred years after his death of the great Shah.

The main difference between nomad and artisan work lies in the function that the master draftsman occupies, ustad in Persian. Because, if the nomad carpets are handed down from memory or spring from the imagination of the person who runs the carpet, the design of the floral carpet is instead executed on a cardboard and is meticulously reproduced by the craftsmen involved in the knotting. The work of these is resolved in a simple manual execution, while the artistic merit must be recognized to the ustad that has designed and colored the cardboard.

THE REASONS

The decoration of oriental rugs is made up of similar motifs that are frequently found in specimens of different origins. However, the motifs can be divided into three main groups: field motifs, border patterns, decorative motifs.

In this regard, if we wanted to deepen the discussion, we would have to dwell for a long time, and this is not the right place. But here is a brief description of these various reasons.

The field motifs have the peculiarity of repeating the same design several times until the entire carpet is decorated. There are various types: from the boteh, also known as an almond drawing, whose shape resembles that of a drop of water with the upper part facing on one side, to the gul, which in Persian means flower and which has a octagonal shape but can differ considerably from area to area; from the herati, composed of a central rosette enclosed in a rhombus with two other smaller rosettes at the ends and along the four sides four elongated leaves are reminiscent of the shape of a fish, the joshaghan, formed by a succession of rhombuses decorated with stylized flowers.

Very dear to the Persians are the border patterns, which, as its name indicates, decorate the side bands of many carpets of different origins. Also in this case there are all kinds: cufica border, which owes its name to the similarity of its motifs with the Kufic script; edged leaf border, formed by a succession of toothed leaves arranged obliquely; border herati which is completely different from the field herati and consists of rosettes and flowers that alternate with each other and from which flowering branches branch out.

However, we must focus on a very important aspect of the borders. In fact, in the borders of many carpets there are also inscriptions containing quotations from the Koran, poetic verses, dedications and sometimes also an indication of the origin of the carpet and the period during which it was manufactured. The dates are obviously expressed according to the Islamic calendar and, to transform the Muslim year into the corresponding year of the Western calendar, a series of non-simple calculations must be made.

It must also be said that the border of the carpets is always composed, in addition to the main strip, of some secondary bands that frame the main one. Even the secondary frames have some typical decoration motifs in carpets of different origins, among which we must remember: the motif composed by the succession of small diamonds of different colors that generally defines the main strip of the border; the motif composed of an alignment of rosettes between which a flowering branch passes (this is a motif that is found in many rugs with different origins and is interpreted in very different ways, from the rich and floral execution typical of Kashan, to the extremely linear of the Kazaks); the motif consists of a rhombus and a triangle with a common vertex that is repeated with its various elements next to each other along the entire outer frame of some carpets.

The motifs of decoration are those drawings, frequent in specimens of different origins, which serve to complete the decoration of the field and the border. The most famous motifs of decoration are the eight-pointed star, the rosette, various types of Greek (including the hooked one known as "running dog") and the swastika.

To conclude it must be said that unfortunately in Iran, compared to ten years ago, there is only one fifth of the laboratories specialized in knotting carpets. A really worrying and rather surprising figure. This can be explained, however, if one takes into consideration the fierce competition faced by the country; competition that comes mainly from countries like India and Pakistan. However, in defense of the original Persian rugs it must be said that we immediately notice the difference, which lies above all in the choice of the material which, in Iranian carpets, is almost always of excellent quality. Obviously there are also carpets and rugs in Iran, and you should always try to get advice from someone who is really expert in this art form before buying one.

Apart from this brief generic guide regarding an extremely complex art form to which scholars and specialists from all over the world are dedicated, it should be stressed that anyone wishing to buy a carpet in Iran should not be content with a few general signs, but should turn to those of carpets really know it.

In the individual chapters dedicated to the various regions of the country, the particularities of the carpets of those specific areas will be described from time to time. This is a way of looking at the country from another point of view, quite technical and complex but certainly of great interest.

 

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