Posted by Jerry Silverman on February 11, 1999 at 01:43:05:
In Reply to: Re: Let's face it posted by marvin Amstey on February 10, 1999 at 18:11:04:
: : For years this Sil-I-Soltan published in Oriental Carpets by Robert de Calatchi as plate 69 has puzzled me. For the longest time I refused to believe that human faces were intentional.
: : However, as I said in a prior post, there is a tradition of duality of images in Persian weaving and I now could accept that this rug expresses duality as botehs with human faces.
: : Although it doesn't show here, the botehs are the bottom of the rug are just botehs, not either real or imagined faces.
: : Wendel
: They certainly look like faces to me. They are in the tradition of the very interesting article on mythical creatures in Hali 102. I'm most familiar with them in Sehna rugs. On the other hand, these rugs are all in an urban tradition; not tribal, ethnographic images. The Hali article points out that the images represent fairy tale creatures or animist traditions from stories about bears. However, I submit that these are not usually found in ethnographic rugs unless they are hidden; similar in manner to what Jim Allen was talking about. I still haven't had anyone comment on why human images don't appear in 18th/19th c. Turkish rugs - or at least in the western half of the country. Regards, Marvin
I'll see about getting scans made of the following:
1) "Carpet with Head Masks and Guls" (Karapinar District) - from Chris Alexander's "A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art", pgs. 234-235.
2) Mejid-Kirsehir, pgs. 270-271 - from J. Iten-Maritz "Turkish Carpets" (There's a pendant vase with flowers that looks a lot like a face, now that I'm looking for faces everywhere.)
3) Plate #10 - from Balpinar/Hirsch's "Carpets from the Vakiflar Museum", pgs. 196-197 (Okay, these are just stick figures at best; but it's attributed to the 19th c. and Western Anatolia, so maybe it counts.)
-Jerry-