Art
On the carpet
John McEwen
The Eastern Carpet in the Western World, from the 15th tO the 17th century (Hayward Gallery [Arts Council] till 10 July) Carpets in Paintings (National Gallery till 24 July) Carpet Magic (Barbican Centre till 19 June)
This weekend (9-12 June), 'The Fourth International Conference on Oriental Carpets' takes place at the Barbican Centre, and to coincide with such an important event a number of carpet auctions and ex- hibitions have been arranged. The full pro- gramme is far too long and complicated to be listed here — details can be had by telephoning (01) 727 2566/235 3360 — but it is most distinguished by three purposely related public exhibitions: carpet master- pieces at the Hayward, paintings from and at the National Gallery which include depic- tions of carpets and an educational in- troduction, touching on both these exhibi- tions, at the Barbican.
Obviously the Hayward exhibition takes precedence and it proves a stunner, as beautiful as any that has taken place there: the quality of the exhibits matched by the installation, in itself a work of art. The building's odd angles and wide-open spaces may be dreary enough in themselves, but they are the most exploitable in London, as has been shown before and is spectacularly shown again now. The Hayward disap- pears, to be replaced by Aladdin's cave. This cavelike effect, itself a prescription — a low-light level, brilliantly modulated by Michael Franses, being imposed for the safe- ty of the colours — is turned to cavernous advantage; as is the more obvious ruling that treading on the carpets is strictly for- bidden, two of the most enormous being viewable from above, with greater involve- ment encouraged by the provision of opera- glasses. But, as the selection of pictures at the National Gallery demonstrates, luxury carpets were as commonly used in the past for draping furniture and balconies as for covering floors, no doubt the better to show them off; so, if to sit or walk on them is still the best way to appreciate their liberating effect, to disfunctionalise them altogether and view them as 'paintings' seems a logical development.
This is how we are made to look at the majority of them at the Hayward 'cascaded' from or. hung on the walls and screens — with, in most cases, only the very largest spread on the floors. It is partly imposed through the exhibition be- ing granted only the ground floor, but the relationship between the hung and the spread is so successfully balanced that clear- ly the designing principle would have been the same however generous the space. The exhibition thus vindicates the hanging of carpets as 'paintings' in a way that the more grounded display of the McMullan Collec-
tion of Islamic Carpets at the Hayward in
1972 did not. The quality is also of a much higher standard. In the opinion of David Sylvester, who installed that exhibition and who, in collaboration with Donald King (former Keeper of Textiles at the V&A), has selected and installed the present ex- travaganza, only seven or eight of the carpets in the former case would have been old enough or good enough to qualify for today's exhibition. This time the carpets are limited to those either brought from the East into European collections or made in Europe from Eastern designs, but they nevertheless constitute some of the most treasured in the world.
Dr John Mills, research chemist at the National Gallery and a carpet scholar in his own right, introduces the exhibition with an excellent short film demonstrating the historical importance of pictures in pin- pointing the types and times of the Eastern carpets and their arrival in Europe in the 15th-17th-century period under considera- tion. The film is instructive, and has the ad- ditional use of preparing the eyes for the subdued lighting of the Hayward after- wards. In this way you will not be blinded to the importance of the carpets in the first room, especially not to the originality of the Moorish examples from Spain, a noble 15th-century example displaying the arms of Aragon and Castile properly centred to proclaim the grandeur of what is to come.
Round the corner is surely the most beautiful view so far contrived at the Hayward: in the foreground a misty Cairene carpet the size of a lake in green, blue and red, introduces a vista of hung carpets culminating in the distant sparkle of what must be the brightest antique Turkish carpet in the world. The Cairene is also in pristine condition (though here perhaps it should be said that carpets can be improved by wear and tear). Made for Cosimo de Medici in the 16th century it was discovered only a few months ago, rolled up in a storeroom of the Pitti Palace along with the palatial and similarly pristing Ottoman carpet made for a Medici half a century later. They constitute the most remarkable discovery of recent times in the field of Oriental carpets, and it is the privilege of this exhibition to show them for the first time. But extraordinary though they are, and magically though the Cairene works `Thanks for your help, officer, but I'm not protesting, I'm just pissed.' for theinstallation, they fall far short of the highest standards. They were made for moneymen and look it, announcing as they do the slow transformation of the into nto the hotel. The greatest carpets
surmount luxury and description, transfor- ming decoration into art. They are mystical, intentional visions of paradise, their designers visionaries.
At the Hayward it is Persians, of one sort
or another, who emerge as the most sublime of these masters. No group of carpets is more lovely in the exhibition than three early examples of the medallion style from north west Persia at one end of the largest gallery; no small rug more perfect than a silk medallion masterpiece from central Persia. Beside them the savage Indian carpets look brash, the famous Polonaises (also Persian but designed, in many cases, to European specification) vulgar, the Tur- kish and Egyptian (with notable exceptions — a mystical Mamluk fragment from the V&A in the first room, for instance) secu- lar, the English derivative. Only the ascetic nobility expressed by the Southern Spanish carpet designers bears intellectual compari- son, but they lack the sensuality and sense of transport of the greatest Persians. The other exhibitions clear the educa- tional ground for this splendour. Carpets are usually classified by their country of origin. It is Dr Jon Thompson's achieve- ment at the Barbican to provide a more understandable classification based on techniques. In his illustrative exhibition he successfully argues the point that the main difference in carpets lies between those designs that have been repeated and preserved through memory and those that have been invented by master designers and woven in 'factory' workshops. This prime division subdivides into four categories of ascending technical merit: tribal weavings, cottage industries, town workshops, court workshops. The difference between the simplicity of the first and the sophistication of the last is memorably described as that between folk music and a Bach concerto: Two ladies flown in from the depths. f Turkey demonstrate the memory technique in practice, while at the other end of the ex- hibition some court carpets hint at the Hayward's consummate concertos to come, On the way we are reminded that the Chinese carpet does not fall within the pre- sent sent subject, and that oriental carnet' were pushed out of fashion in 18th-centurnY Europe by the craze for French 'saw nerie'. In 19th-century England they return . ed to favour thanks, largely, to theromaps ticised views of the so-called oriental painters, just as the taste for abstract art has revived interest in them today. Pictorial connections are more fully developed at the National Gallery in Dr John Mills's colic,: exhibition of four previously ed carpets and 24 pictures, grouped .by type. Pictures by Holbein, Cry/ell! three Lorenzo Lotto remind us that all painters have given their name tocarepnet.. categories. The three exhibitions are larged by useful catalogues.
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