Carpets constitute a branch of art that has been synonymous with the name of the Turks for centuries. Travel accounts and documents attest to the beautiful and valuable carpets woven in Seljuk Anatolia, and the carpet was an important Anatolian export in the period of Principalities that followed.

The Ottomans, who inherited the art of the carpet as a legacy, raised it to even greater heights. Examples of carpets from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods right up to the present day are exhibited at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, which has the world’s richest collection.

THE SELJUK TRADITION
Carpet-making is believed to have started as a nomadic art. Knotted carpets, the oldest examples of which were found in a region heavily populated by nomadic tribes, in other words west and Central Asia, were spread on the ground for protection again severe climatic conditions.
Their invention was motivated by the need for something to replace the animal skins that constituted the backbone of the nomadic economy.

The ready availability of wool, the basic stuff of the carpet, and the easy assembly and dismantling of the horizontal and vertical looms used for weaving as well as versatility and portability of the product closely link the origins of the art of the carpet to the nomadic tribes. Turkish tribes played a major role in bringing this art to the West in the great westward waves of migration out of Central Asia.

The art of the carpet underwent a major development in Seljuk Anatolia, making carpets an intensively traded commodity. Many travellers who passed through the Seljuk lands beginning in the 12th century mention the extraordinarily beautiful carpets woven there. Like many other arts, the Ottomans took over the art of the carpet from the Seljuk tradition.

The group of Seljuk carpets dating back to the 13th century and known as ‘Konya Carpets’ for the area in which they were found has a special place in the history of carpets and constitutes the best known group after the Pazirik carpet, the oldest known example of a knotted carpet, which was found in a fortress in the Altay Mountains and dates to the 4th-5th century B.C., and the findings from Lou-lan in East Turkestan which date from the 3rd-4th century A.D. and, finally, the Turfan findings, again in East Turkestan, dating from the 5th-6th century A.D. Some of these carpets are in Istanbul’s Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art today. With their striking reds and dark blues, these carpets exhibit geometric shapes and, on their borders, Kufic letters.

OTTOMAN CARPETS IN PAINTINGS
Stylized animal motifs and the mythical creatures we know from other branches of art are found on the carpets produced in the major weaving centers of 15th century Western Anatolia. Due to increasing stylization, however, they have become almost unrecognizable. The Kufic letters used as border decorations on Seljuk carpets, for example, diminished in size in the 15th century, eventually giving way entirely to geometric forms.

Although Ottoman carpets are known to have been exported in large quantities, on account of their high prices they were purchased in the West only by the palace and its circle and the newly emerging class of wealthy merchants. On account of their prestige value, they were also a popular decorative element in western painting in portraits as well as depictions of religious subjects.

Certain types of Ottoman carpets are therefore known by the names of the western artists who frequently painted them. The general composition that predominates in these carpets, known in the literature as ‘Holbein’, ‘Crivelli’, ‘Memling’ and ‘Bellini’, is that of a field covered with geometric shapes such as squares or octagons of various sizes.

THE GIANT CARPETS OF USAK
Although Ottoman carpet production was concentrated in several different regions, the most important center was at Usak with its colossal looms. Bergama was a second center. Meanwhile Konya, the leading city for Seljuk art, always maintained its importance in carpet production. The classical period of the Ottoman carpet commences in the 16th century.

The small prayer rugs and giant carpets woven in workshops there from a repertoire of designs developed by palace artists have an important place among the furnishings of the period’s great mosques, palaces and stately mansions. The best known types of Usak carpets are the ‘medallion’ carpets inspired by the art of bookbinding, the ‘star’ carpets with their geometric designs, and the ‘bird’ carpets so-called for their foliate compositions reminiscent of bird shapes. With some variations in size and composition, such carpets were produced to the end of the 17th century.

PALACE CARPETS
With the conquest of Cairo in 1512, Ottoman art underwent a transformation. A new type of carpet emerged, recalling the Mamluk carpets in pastel colors woven of extremely soft wool and, dismissing the compositions predominant to that time, incorporating vegetal forms scattered over the entire field. The prayer rugs among these carpets, which came to be known as ‘Palace carpets’, are striking for their small medallions and large foliate compositions. Palace carpets are thought to have been made in Istanbul and Bursa.

The subsequent rise of centers like Konya, Ladik, Gordes, Kula and Mucur in the 17th and 18th centuries did not hamper production at Usak.

Meanwhile carpets known as ‘Izmir’ or ‘Smyrna carpets’ took their name from the port in the west from which they were shipped up to the 19th century. Nineteenth century western taste and the houses and palaces furnished under European influence naturally triggered a transformation in the art of the carpet as well.

Workshops were established like that at Hereke, where carpets that copied the compositions of Persian rugs were woven with the Iranian ‘Sine’ knot which allowed a finer and denser weave, replacing the typical Turkish technique known as the Gordes knot, and at Feshane in Istanbul, where large-size carpets of Baroque design were produced.

The Istanbul – Kumkapi carpets known for their high quality silk prayer rugs also stand out in this late period carpet production. The art of the Turkish carpet was widespread outside these centers as well, with the production of carpets as a folk art, known by the name of the locale in which they were woven. Source: Skylife / January 2004