TURKMEN CARPETS: MASTERPIECES OF STEPPE ART, FROM 16TH TO 19TH CENTURIES, THE HOFFMEISTER COLLECTION (Arnoldsche, $95). Peter Hoffmeister, a rug scholar and collector in Germany, has spent 40 years researching how Turkmen tribes designed, wove, used and repaired their tent hangings and floor coverings. “Turkmen Carpets,” by the Russian textiles historian Elena Tsareva, analyzes 168 weavings. Mr. Hoffmeister has subjected them to carbon dating, and individual knots of goat and camel hair have been counted.
Ms. Tsareva has determined which tribes favored different shades of red madder dye, ranging from salmon pink to purplish brown. The zigzagging rug patterns represent pomegranates, wheels, vines, birds, trees and serpents. The pile textures are subtly ridged because makers intentionally dropped stitches here and there. A single textile could take years to produce.
Ms. Tsareva writes that weavers would hunch over gossamer strands on outdoor looms “only during the hottest summer period, primarily in mountain pastures where the dry air helped to prevent the warps sticking together.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/arts/design/books-on-antiques-gold-silver-voodoo-gems-and-textiles.html?_r=1
1 comments:
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