Quick, File a Restraining Order-Grandma's rugs are back

If all rugs looked like these the Braille method of structural analysis would certainly be the method to strive to learn. But why bother? Sue

Hi Sue,
You are cryptic as usual. Care to explain?
Regards,
Filiberto

Persian "City" Rugs Not to Everyone's Taste

Hi Sue -

It is true that Persian "city" rugs are not to everyone's taste. I don't own one.

But there are some that are interesting, as well as some folks who are interested in them.

Jack Williams seemed to observe, in the "Pieces of a Puzzle" thread on 16th-17th century Persian Khurosan fragments, that that thread seemed a departure from our usual preoccupations, and that perhaps some types of Persian weaving are being systematically neglected in our conversations here.

So they are, since most collectors now find other types more interesting.

But there are some interesting Persian city rugs, as well as some folks who actually collect what they see as elevated instances of them. And there may be things to be learned, both by ourselves, and by others who are perhaps closer to just decorating with oriental rugs.

So you are granted a "by" if you find this mini-salon not to your taste.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Well, Filiberto,
I'm talking about structural analysis. What can come of the TM's touted talk of advances in structural analysis that can be taken away from their current exhibit and tie-in rug morning lecture?
Structural analysis is an infant being thrown into an orphanage by our public institutions, so far as I can see, while they drag onstage old tired blindfolded in the dark methods of analysis like a parlor trick to wow current patrons.
Turning on the lights and dragging out the magnifying glasses for examining masterworks of various categories of rug production is what is necessary to further the public's understanding of the subject. Doing that would, too, show structural analysis is truly taken seriously by them as a tool for facilitating the advancement of rug studies -- by example. People can learn by example.
Real structural analysis can be learned by anyone dedicated to learning it and whether they chose that route or not the general level of rug appreciation can only be raised by such teaching.
Such teaching can be done but it is not the job of experts to do it. They probably won't do it. Such teaching, though, because it is rather intense, will serve experts, too. Most students of structural analysis will understand, once they are let in the door, why and when they should buy some expert advise as surely as every tax lawyer I know hires someone else to do their own taxes.
So it is not a matter of aesthetics I'm speaking of, as John suggests, but a matter of "Where's the beef?" Sue

Actually It's "What's Your Beef?"

Hi Sue -

Again, I think you speak prematurely, or else aren't reading what has already been written.

Jerry Thompson made some technical points in his presentation (he is fact is death itself to anyone who claims to be able to attribute rugs reliably on the basis of design and colors alone).

More, I am gradually putting up threads on some of the major "city" varieties and there are technical distinctions addressed in what I report there too.

We've even had Marla's technically-drive answer to why the back of a Senneh pile rug feels like sandpaper. And we're just beginning. Yes, design and color are likely to be important, but technical considerations are not being ignored.

I plan to do Kerman next. Kerman rugs have a quite distinctive structure which I will address.

So, for me, the question is "What's your beef?"

The gallery labels in the TM "Pieces of a Puzzle" exhibition don't include the technical information you'd like to have. That has been acknowledged. But it's a pretty large jump from that to suggesting that the TM and this particular rug morning have jettisoned their previous claimed interest in technical analysis.

Regards,

R. John Howe

John,
I have read what has been written. The TM presented technical distinctions written of are not the stuff of what leads to new understanding in rug studies nor are they anything new. Many of the technical distinctions are barely even technical distinctions. Ask Marla if you don't believe me. She knows what I'm talking about. Sue

Hi Sue -

I think you have a basic misundestanding about what the TM rug mornings are about.

Now it may be that its curated exhibitions might be expected (in part) to sometimes provide "new understandings," although even there exhibitions might be mounted for quite different purposes.

But you're way off base if you think the TM's rug morningsare linked organically to some "frontiers of rug knowledge" research agenda.

And about whether the structural points raised there or here turn out to be "new" or not, I expect that it varies by participant and reader.

We're attempting to share a potentially interesting TM rug morning about "city" rugs. We will draw on technical things as they seem useful, but please be clear that we are not here pursuing any "new knowledge research agenda" at all and if that is your demand, you are excused for the duration.

We attempting to foster an interesting, possibly modestly useful conversation about "city" rugs. The agenda is "interest" and "enjoyment," and we will be happy for "learning" if that occurs (and some already has for me; I did not fully appreciate previously the extent to which "Sarouk" is really a description of quality rather than geography, more similar to a term like "Serapi" than to ones like "Tabriz" or perhaps "Kerman") but are not preoccupied, myopically, with achieving that latter result here.

So please don't just stand on the side throwing stones. Bug out, if it doesn't interest you....

Some people....

Regards,

R. John Howe

I am interested in the subject, John. I have no demands. I am not throwing stones. Saying "bug off" is throwing a stone. I didn't say anything like that. Sue

Hi Sue

I was puzzled by the title you put onto this thread when you opened it:
Quick, File a Restraining Order-Grandma's rugs are back

I couldn't interpret it as anything except an objection to discussing urban Persian carpets, and while the text of your message hinted that you thought discussing them was a waste of time, it was ambiguous.

I hoped the meaning of your title it would become clear as the thread progressed. But now there are 7 replies, and it is as mysterious to me as it was the first time I read it. So, here's a straightforward question to which a straightforward answer would be appreciated:
To whom would you have the restraining order apply, and what would be the action that it ordered him/her to cease doing?

It might make it easier to understand the cause of your obvious irritation if this was clarified. As things now stand, your most recent post contradicts just about everything in all of your previous ones, and I'm sure that isn't your intention.

Thanks.

Steve Price

My grandma had machine made rugs

Hey gang,

That really was cryptic.

I welcome this mini-salon and the several threads. I think Persian "city rugs" (and their cousins) of, say, the nineteenth century get hit with a kind of reverse snobbbery. I think it has something to do with the perceived fact that they aren't "tribal" or "nomadic," but rather "commercial." Whatever that's worth (not too much in my opinion), I think some of the better examples are fantastic and show as much artistry as any other rugs of the period. I must admit I don't generally get excited over the twentieth century Isfahans and Nains with their 600 knots/sq. in. But I look forward to seeing what we have coming up, as well as discussions about the structural distinctions among these pieces.

Thanks to Jerry for getting this going.

__________________
Rich Larkin

i imagine that in a few centuries time, people will comment on 'paint-by-numbers' pieces as having artistic merit as well? i do suppose that it shall happen..

Hi Matheus

It might be worth remembering that just 75 years ago the urban workshop rugs were the collectibles, tribal and rustic rugs were seen as crude and primitive and, therefore, unworthy.

I don't know any a priori reasons why a paint by numbers product couldn't have artistic merit, although I agree that the person who paints by numbers isn't an artist.

And I don't see what this has to do with whatever it is that Sue was trying to say when she opened this thread.

Steve Price

Ahem..

Hi all,

Perhaps our energetic city rug critics would be kind enough to explain to all those museums around the world that, they should ship their uninteresting, mundane, paint-by-numbers "Classical 16th-17th Century Persian Rug Fragments" to Chuck Wagner at their earliest convenience. This will save the curators from further embarrassment.

I'm open to donations of Mughul carpets as well.



Regards,
Chuck

"Designing" Not "Paint by the Numbers"

Mr. Osalhyrir -

I think Edwards would be puzzled by your emphasis.

He spends a lot of time bragging about how good he thinks Kerman rug designers are (the best in Persia, which he says is, the best in the world) and says that an explicit objective of his book was to capture in it some of their marvelous designs.

The weavers in Kerman for a very long time were emaciated children working in ugly conditions for nearly nothing. No one was particularly valuing their abilities to place desired dots of a particular color on a cotton grid.

But if you are criticizing his Kerman designers, I think Edwards would likely have you by the throat as he made his countering arguments.

Welcome to Turkotek.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi Steve,
No problem. On the line of the form for "who/whom" write "grandma's decorator rugs". Does that answer that for you? If not I can walk you thru the whole form after I've replied to other posts and have answered a question of my own which Richard has got me asking myself. "Am I a snob or am I a reverse snob?" Hmm, sometimes I puzzle myself. Sue

Hi Sue

I'm afraid your reply leaves me more baffled, not less. A restraining order against some unspecified activity by an inanimate object makes no sense to me, even if I try to see it as figurative.

Steve Price

Chuck,
That is a great idea. I'd like to see all of the museums send ALL their old rugs to you.
You understand structure and photography well enough to make a real difference in understanding such things if you felt like doing it. My two bits would be on you feeling like doing it before any museums do. I wouldn't count on it saving anyone embarrassment though.
Maybe an online petition with a list of museums and addresses would help your cause. I'd be first in line to sign them and send the off, no problem. Sue

mr. price: i have been alive most of these past seventy five years and am quite familiar with the history of rug collecting.

mr. howe: if the violent image you supplied of a person's hands around my throat was intended to be amusing, then so be it. however, if you were using the image for some other purpose less benign, then you may care to consider a different means of delivering your point.

as well, i would add that i never mentioned any specific group of rugs explicitly in my previous post, but was thinking of modern production rugs as i wrote, specifically those woven to a 'program'.




-m

Hi Matheus

Your first post, the one to which John and I both responded, is reproduced here in its entirety:

i imagine that in a few centuries time, people will comment on 'paint-by-numbers' pieces as having artistic merit as well? i do suppose that it shall happen..

While I don't doubt that what you say about your knowledge of the history of rug collecting during the past 75 years or so is correct, that is not obvious from your post. I don't read minds.

Since your post neither mentioned nor made reference to rugs of any kind, the only way John or I could know the genre you had in mind is also by being mindreaders.

If you express yourself in riddles, you have no reason to be annoyed at anyone else when you are misunderstood.

Steve Price

Mr. Osalhyrir -

Humor is something that often does not travel well internationally. Yes, I was attempting humor since Edwards is so partisan about his Kerman rug designers.

As Steve says, on reconsideration I'm not sure of your point in your post.

But if you read Edwards at all you know that he would no doubt take clear offense if someone suggested that the designs by Kerman rug designers were analgous in any sense to what we now describe (it seems to me nearly always in a denigrating way) as "paint by the numbers."

That is why I began by wondering about your emphasis.

I am sorry for any offense. I probably should used a smiley to avoid misunderstanding.

By the way, I am 70 years old myself and, as far as I know, no one is "giving me any points" for that.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Granny's Got it Going!

Sue,

I think your Restraining Order title is hilarious, almost like the Keystone Kops chasing around little old ladies because of their tasteless decorating foibles.

It seems there is some confusion about your original post and your remarks in subsequent posts in this Salon.

If I read your first post correctly, you think most of these City Rugs are very similar in appearance and are rather boring, the very reasons our grandmas bought them in the first place. Differentiating them is not even worth the effort.

It appears that in later posts, you are joining together your concern about the TM not providing comprehensive structural details in the "Classical 16th-17th Century Persian Rug Fragments at the TM" thread and that you feel these City Rugs are so oriented to the standardized dictates of the mass export market that structural details discernable by merely feeling the rugs is the only method needed to tell them apart from one another - but, as you say, "why bother".

But, back to structural analysis. I saw a pictorial rug last weekend of Darius slaying the lion. My first impression was Tabriz. The owner said the dealer who cleaned and stabilized the rug told her it was Tabriz, but she thought it might be Kerman. It was a very finely woven rug and impossible to tell the structure without a magnifying glass. So I went back home and brought my magnifying glass. The rug had asymmetric knots on a depressed warp foundation. Kerman, not Tabriz.
I personally support your concern about structural details. It is "where the rubber meets the road" and is frankly often the only way to tell one rug from another. On another note, some of these City Rugs are exceptionally artistic, beautifully made and meritorious.
I even recall at the ACOR in Burlingame that Jim Opie showed us the only rug he had bought that week. It was not a tribal rug, it was a little gem of a Kashan that literally sparkled.

Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat

It's true, even in my brain, that structure plays an important role in attribution. My difference of opinion with Sue is that I don't think the typical museum attendee is any more interested in that than he is in the ways of telling a real from a fake Samurai sword or a real from a fake Medieval suit of armor (also by structural criteria, also of interest only to dealers and serious collectors, never appears on a museum exhibition label for that reason).

The "American Sarouk" is a genre that is boring because of its sameness from one specimen to another. But most Persian urban rugs of any particular type are actually rather varied, and if a collector looked at them with the same attention to detail that he uses when looking at Turkmen textiles, he'd see the variations in an instant. Indeed, the criticism of Turkmen rugs that you hear from non-collectors is that most Turkmen rugs look pretty much alike and are boring for that reason. Remember, non-collectors make up the overwhelming majority of people. Even of educated people. Even of educated people who appreciate other forms of art and collect them.

Steve Price

Pat -

I'm not getting the point you're making here.

1. Structural factors were NOT ignored in the TM exhibition of these Khurosan fragments. A major, perhaps THE major structural distinction is that they ALL use (in larger areas of a single color) one of two jufti versions of an asymmetric open left open left knot. There is a display in the exhibition that depicts this very clearly. This seems likely to be a defining criterion of Khurasan rugs of this period but what would be the point of repeating this nine times on the gallery labels.

2. Now Sue wants ALL of the structural information on these rugs and I'll bet detailed technical analyses of them have been conducted and that such information exists. More, it could well be that it could be obtained with a polite request to the TM. I don't know what Sue's suspicions are, but I don't understand her accusation that structural matters seem likely to have been jettisoned just because she didn't get the gallery labels she wants.

3. Now Jerry Thompson noted some structural distinctions in his presentation and I have been mining both Edwards and the Eilands for additional ones. Take your "is it Tabriz or Kerman?" issue. We provided the central techical features: "Tabriz pile not only have symmetric knots and deeply depressed warps" we noted that they are tied with a hook and are very uniform in appearance (sometimes they can look almost machine-made); and on the Kerman side we have said that not only are asymmetric knots open left used but the real defining distinction is three wefts each in their own shed.

I also gave a weft appearance method for distinguishing Kashans and Sarouks.

So I'm not understanding the sense in which some are feeling that technical features are being neglected here.

Regards,

R. John Howe

John,
Where I am, out here beyond the beltway, this smaller and lessor version of structural analysis and other technicals is called "dumbing down". Sometimes DC humor doesn't travel well, either. Out here it is no laughing matter. There aren't enough smileys in the world to cover that that is what is going on. It doesn't fool any one of us who knows something about structure. It stinks. Sue

parallel lines do not cross

We have a misunderstanding here.

John, I have not said that structural factors were ignored in this salon nor that they were ignored by the TM. I just agreed with Sue that they are important. I for one truly appreciate the opportunity to investigate and analyze city rugs on Turkotek in this salon.

Steve, Turkotek is not viewed by the "typical museum attendee". We would like to have the option to consider structural analysis of rugs shown if it is available. The more, the better. It is like the credits at the end of the movie. You can ignore them or stay till the end and absorb, analyze and appreciate them if you like.

Sue was bothered that structural analysis was not presented in a previous salon. She also is not interested in the merits of city rugs. This has caused two issues to be intertwined and confused.

Matheus said:
"i imagine that in a few centuries time, people will comment on 'paint-by-numbers' pieces as having artistic merit as well? i do suppose that it shall happen.."
Well, we are commenting on them now, in this salon, according to Sue.
And, Steve's comments appear to say that, in fact, "paint by numbers pieces" (as designated by some to describe "city rugs") have artistic merit, individuality and valid interest:
"Persian urban rugs of any particular type are actually rather varied, and if a collector looked at them with the same attention to detail that he uses when looking at Turkmen textiles, he'd see the variations in an instant.".

It appears to me that we do not disagree at all. Some of us are just having a hard time believing that we agree with some folks we do not like to agree with.

Sue, city rugs are boring to some people.
John, you are doing a great job in this salon describing, differentiating and analyzing in structural detail many of the Persian city rugs we often do not encounter in the collecting arena.
Matheus, you are right. Someday we will analyze the artistic merits of what some consider bland, uninteresting and formulaic rugs.
Steve, I agree that city rugs can have a personality that we often underestimate.

I am glad we all agree on this topic!

Patrick Weiler

Hi Pat

I never suggested that structural details would be out of place on Turkotek, for exactly the reason you mentioned (the readership here is not the typical museum attendee, especially if the museum in question is TM). My disagreement with Sue is about whether not including complete structural information on the exhibition labels at TM is unreasonable. I think it's completely reasonable, she appears to believe that it is a betrayal of core values.

Regards

Steve Price

Folks,

I'd like to suggest that equating the aggregate body of rugs woven in urban Persian settings for commercial sale over the past, say, 150 years to paint by numbers "art" (using the word advisedly) is both unfair and unhelpful in assessing their merit. There is a conceptual similarity between the use of pre-drawn and numbered canvases and the cartoons used in weaving, but that fact does not detract from the beauty of many finished carpets woven with the aid of cartoons. Edwards made it clear that there were carpet designers in Iran in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were highly serious about their craft and who were greatly respected for it by peers who appreciated the traditional arts of their people. The fact that their designs were executed by others does not necessitate the relegation of the product to the schlock column. It's not that much different in concept from a good musician executing a little Mozart.

Anyone who has handled a large number of Persian carpets of this type must be left with the impression that if most or all of them were woven from cartoons, the weavers must have frequently deviated from the strict norm dictated by the cartoon. As Steve Price observed, there is a great deal of variety within the genre.

It is true that there are many dreary and boring "fancy" carpets out there,probably woven from cartoons, but to say all the Persian city carpets are just so many "paint by numbers" items is to miss a lot.

__________________
Rich Larkin

Asthetics still is not the issue.

Can an oil painting on linen canvas have no artistic merit? Of course
.
Can a picture of a painting in a magazine have artistic merit? Of course it can.

These are questions and answers pertaining to aesthetics and as I have tried many times to convey--That is not the issue.

The misunderstandings of the issue can only be successfully conveyed, by me at least, as a non-collector to collectors, if I take the real issue and put it in terms of that which is not collected. I have to do it this way as it seems impossible for most collectors to even hear what pertains to the real issue without emotional attachments to their tastes seeming to be confronted.

It is absolutely necessary that this emotional attachment be stepped back from to understand the situation and the issue. This will be difficult for collectors to do and is difficult for me to explain so please try to overlook my lack of teaching skills and try to understand because there are premises so deeply rooted in Western, at least, rug studies, that they are going undetected and must be dragged into the light from the depths for examination at the very least.

Whether anyone eventually agrees with me or not that these premises are false and need uprooting I leave for later. Now I just will give a very simplistic primer in an analogous, and what I know of as a mostly misunderstood medium, in the US at least, both by the general public and many collectors of such things. Fine art prints.

1. A painting made by an artist is one thing.

2. A painting made by an artist on a lithographic stone from which the artist pulls his own limited edition prints is another thing.

3. A painting made by an artist on a lithographic stone which is turned over to a professional fine art printer for inking and pulling a limited edition of the image is another thing.

4. A painting made by an artist turned over to a professional printer for photographic transferring onto a lithographic stone, inking, and pulling prints for a limited edition print run is another thing.

5. A painting made by an artist in all ways the same as those told of in 4. with the exception being that the print run is for an unlimited edition is another thing.

6. A painting made by an artist turned over to a print house specializing in the making of posters is another thing.

1. Is the image which will have the most value. The products resultant of each step away from the 1. product being both one step down the $ value scale and one step further removed away from the artist's hands and control of the production of the product. Knowledgeable fine art print collectors are aware of these distinctions and the many others I have not gone into.

Knowledgeable fine art print collectors are aware that there are many distinguishing characteristic which point to which classification along the gradient a print can be classified as belonging to and the tricks at each turn that can be used to make one thing appear to be another. What I've laid out here is essentially analogous to one of the corner pieces in the rug studies puzzle known as "technical structural analysis".

There are other corner pieces. There are puzzle pieces with one straight edge. The joining of these corners and edge pieces, to my way with artdom puzzles, serves to establish a framework. I do this before flipping over all the pieces for the leisurely and pleasurable sorting and joining in a few pieces here and a few pieces there manner which, I am aware of, and have no problem with, is the way that scholars, academics, and most collectors like to do things. But artists born in relatively dark ages of art who want to understand what has been lost and take things from there have nowhere much to turn as the system of art training, as any objective person looking at the results of current training can see, ain't what it used to be.

Textiles is different from most other niches of artdom because of the technicals, as has been said here, and begging doesn't work I've found, so maybe explaining better will lend some insight. In any case I'm doing my own hands on research and am at the point where begging is no longer necessary but pointing some things out is, I think. I hope no one takes offense at this but the truth is that museums and art in public places came into being not for the sake of scholars, and collectors but to insure that artists had examples to work from so that the knowledge of art would not be lost. Sue

Hi Sue -

You said at the end of a long post:

"...the truth is that museums and art in public places came into being not for the sake of scholars, and collectors but to insure that artists had examples to work from so that the knowledge of art would not be lost."

My thought:

I don't really know myself what the historians say about "why" "art museums in public places came into being," but my bet is there were multiple objectives.

And to come to the present, museums spend lots of time considering and trying to cater to a real variety of publics. It may be that being a resource for artists is still one of those, but I spend a fair amount of time at the TM and in its library and can't recall encountering an artist looking for technical specifics to feed his/her art.

It has probably happened, but to seem to say that this is the major objective toward which museum should always visibly strive (I take it you're still talking about wanting ALL of the technical information displayed in a museum's exhibitions) seems both myopic and unreasonable.

There are a lot more publics than artists to be considered.

Why don't you just write the TM politely?

http://www.textilemuseum.org/feedback/feedback.htm

Resist lecturing them, just ask for what you want and give your surface mail address.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Hi John,

Resist lecturing me. I' m sorry you can't understand but you can rest assured, I do not take it personally. Sue

Hi Sue

I'm having a lot of trouble finding anything in your last post that's much more profound than the pretty well known fact that collectors prefer originals, and the less removed an object is from the hand of the artist, the more desirable it is to them. Am I missing something?

The sentence on which John focused, ...the truth is that museums and art in public places came into being not for the sake of scholars, and collectors but to insure that artists had examples to work from so that the knowledge of art would not be lost pretty much made my head snap when I read it. I not only think it's off base, I'm not even sure there's a germ of historical fact in it. I've spend a little time pondering public art from antiquity to the present, and can't think of any that appears to have been created for the purpose of preserving examples for other artists to work with. I confess to not knowing much about the history of the institution known as the museum, but doubt that it was created for the benefit of artists. Can you cite any examples of public art or museums that can be documented to support your claims?

Regards

Steve Price

Hi Steve,

I think I'm going to wait to answer your questions until other's have a chance to post. Maybe someone understands what I've said and can lend a hand. Sue

Hi Sue

This thread now has more than thirty posts in it. You originated it, and by my quick count, nine of the 30+ posts are yours. Most of them include a sentence or two telling anyone who replied to you that they simply don't understand what you were saying, although none clarify the misunderstandings.

This is a discussion forum, not a venue for your personal amusement. If you prefer not to bother with expressing your thoughts in ways that others can understand, you might give serious consideration to keeping your musings to yourself. They contribute nothing to the discussion (in fact, they sidetrack it), enlighten nobody, and amuse nobody except you.

Thanks,

Steve Price