Re: "Ethnographic": An Attractive Distinction Hard to Maintain

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: : : I recommend reading Tom's article in Hali 67, which will help you to understand the truth of a statement I heard him make several years ago: "There are no real Chinese rugs." : : : If you would like to understand more about the Han people and their seemingly perpetual conflict with the wool-using "barbarians" to the north, read Thomas J. Barfield's The Perilous Frontier, Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge, MA, 1989 (paperback, 1992). : : : Even at the time it was published, I doubted Jon Thompson's theory as to the cloud collar origin of Turkmen guls and all that I have read and seen since then has merely reinforced my skepticism. Undoubtedly, some Chinese motifs have influenced weavings far to the west, but the Turkmen gul is not one of them. : : : During the most recent Rug Convention at the Textile Museum on Turkmen rugs, there was on exhibit in the upstairs gallery a Coptic roundel from the 4th or 5th Century AD bearing so similar a design to some of the Turkmen rugs that we were seeing simultaneously that one could not escape the conclusion that these weavings shared an ancient but common heritage. I plan to do an article on this subject before too long. : : : There is, perhaps not coincidentally, an undeniable similarity between Turkmen guls and the "Holbein" patterns of Anatolia. The connection between Anatolian and Turkmen designs is infinitely more likely than that with the motifs of Han China. : : : Exactly how, when and why designs traveled across the Rug Belt is one of the most intriguing questions to me, but they have done just that. When seeking the "origins" of a particular motif, one cannot look to 19th Century examples or to 15th Century Chinese porcelain. One must look back to the Mamluks, the Copts, the Romans, the Greeks and perhaps even earlier civilizations for the answers. To paraphrase a saying: There is nothing new off the loom. : : : I will reserve for another time my vehement disagreement with Tom's assertion that it is "ludicrous" to believe designs traveled from urban centers to rural locales. : : : Wendel : : : : Wendel- Before you start quoting me out of context, please note that I followed that statement with the idea that it was a two way street, not must design moving from urban to rural areas or vice versa. There are most assuredly examples of movement in both directions which we can touch upon. So save your "vehement disagreement" and understand what I have written in context, not out of context, please. : : Tom Cole is a scholar of the oriental rug. His statements concerning the origin of Turkoman motifs leave me a little numb. I realize that they are not his statements. Turkoman iconography is a proto-language. It is akin to heiroglyphics. For Gods sake people Turkoman design is meaningful, it is WRITTING. This is the fountain head of their design. It isn't decoration it is information. It is pretty script that sells to stupid white people who buy it. Stupid from the nomads perspective. They wonder why you just don't make your own. JIM

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