Persian Rugs Research Articles

Threads of Tradition and Global Expression: Persian Rugs Unraveled through Paintings and Globalization

Abstract: Unravelling Persian Rugs: Art, Tradition and Globalization This study investigates the dynamic relationship between Persian rugs, art, and globalization, following their transformation from functional objects to powerful symbols of identity. The study examines representations in paintings from various historical periods, highlighting the nuanced interplay between these textiles and global influences. Persian rugs have served as conduits for cross-cultural communication throughout history, from luxury in the Renaissance to modernistic interpretations in the twentieth. Through case studies, the paper delves into narratives that connect tradition and transformation, contributing to a better understanding of art, culture, and our shared human journey.

Pre-Islamic religious motifs (550 BC to 651 AD) on Iranian minor art with focus on rug motifs

This article reviewed the influence of pre-Islamic religions such as Mithraism and Zoroastrianism on decorative elements of ancient Persian rugs. The article then evaluated the effect of the Islamic religion on Persian rugs. This was examined through extant evidence from pre–Islamic empire artefacts and publications in Persian carpet history, iconography and religious studies. Using spiritual motifs on some ancient rugs results from the important position of rugs in ancient Iranians’ lives. Believing the existence of religious motifs on Persian carpets is because the first carpet in history (Pazyryk) was attributed to the ancient Achaemenians, decorated with symbolic motifs from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism. Pazyryk shows how rug-weaving evolved during the Achaemenids, and it represented spiritual foundations through visual concepts. This article reviewed the symbolic Persian rug motifs from ancient religions through Pazyryk, with support from museum collections. With the emergence of religions, these effects are seen in all aspects of life, including the production of rug design.Contribution: The main contribution of this research was that it investigated the effects of religion on Persian art focusing on the Persian rug. The findings showed that religion had directly influenced the decorative motifs of the Persian rug among high-class families that might have cascaded into visual elements found on commoners’ rugs.

Review: Explosions in the Mind: Composing Psychedelic Sounds and Visualisations, by Jonathan Weinel

Review: <i>Explosions in the Mind: Composing Psychedelic Sounds and Visualisations</i>, by Jonathan Weinel

“Traces of the exotic” in Vernon Lee’s “Oke of Okehurst; Or, The Phantom Lover”

ABSTRACT Okehurst – the stately home in Vernon Lee’s “Oke of Okehurst; Or, The Phantom Lover” – is the epitome of English architecture, dating back to “Norman or Saxon” times. Yet inside, the house is populated with far-flung objects and traces of the exotic: Persian rugs, majolica ornaments, and “rose-leaves and spices put into china bowls.” The house and its contents are intoxicating, and nothing is more exotic, perfumed, or exquisite than Alice, who with her husband (and cousin) William Oke are the last members of the family’s line. Okehurst also reverberates with the presences of its previous inhabitants which drive the current Okes to repeat the family’s history of madness and murder. The haunting of Okehurst is particularly interesting when considered alongside material from Lee’s archive. This paper will consider the traces of Lee’s own complex ancestry and the problems of empire and matrilineal ancestral wealth and inheritance, whilst utilising correspondence from Lee to her mother, and her partner, Mary Robinson to suggest the possible inspiration for Cotes Common and Okehurst Manor. Throughout this consideration of haunted spaces – both inside and outside – this paper will also make reference to the 1886 manuscript of “Oke of Okehurst,” which has never previously been studied.

A Comparison of the Compression-Recovery Behavior of Conventional and Double-Base Persian Rugs: Compression Behavior

One of the most important behaviors of a rug is its compression-recovery effect. This paper compares the compression properties of a conventional and a new Persian rug. In the new rug, some free spaces are created in the base part within the warp sheets. To do the comparison experiments, five rug samples were produced: A conventional Persian rug as the comparison criterion plus four new types of rugs named Double-base Persian (DBP) rugs. At first, a theoretical analysis of the compression process in both conventional and new rugs is presented for further comparisons and validation. Then, using the tensile tester compression-recovery curves of the rug samples were obtained and experimentally investigated. Results of the theoretical analysis showed that in conventional rug, diameter, length and young’s modulus of pile yarn and applied load are effective parameters, and in DBP rugs, in addition to those parameters, the gap size and warp yarn diameter are effective parameters on the compression deformation. Also, the experimental results showed that when a gap is introduced in the rug base, the comfort and compressibility were significantly improved. Besides, increasing the distance between the two warp sheets effectively improves the comfort and compressibility of the DBP rugs.

The Evolution of Iranian Carpet Designs with the Influence of Islam and Chinese art; Ilkhanid, Timurid, Safavid

This article reviews and analyses the characteristics of Persian rugs through a historical background in the Islamic era, and design motifs that applied to the Persian rugs during the beginning of the Islamic era in Iran. Ilkhanid, Timurid, and Safavid as Islamic dynasties are considered, which were influenced by Chinese design motifs and religious style during said periods. Exemplar rug designs have been selected from illustrations from Shahnameh books (Demotte, Ferdowsi, Shah Tahmasp). Islam and Chinese artists and philosophers had a significant influence on the Persian rug. With the presence of Mongols and Islam in Iran and the establishment of the Ilkhanid dynasty, Chinese design elements had a noticeable effect on the Persian rug. The Mongols with no significant cultural and artistic backgrounds borrowed Chinese design style with Islamic taste applied a new form to their artifacts and goods, which is also highly evident in Iranian carpet design that continued for centuries.

Constructing an Index of Persian Rug Prices

A number of researchers have studied the price appreciation over time of art objects. However, to our knowledge, no previous academic research has focused on Persian rugs. Using hedonic regression techniques in this paper we address this deficit and construct an index of Persian rug prices from data provided by Christie’s auction house. We find that the average, annual real price appreciation of this index between 1995 and 2015 is 4.10%, a higher real return than generated by many other art objects studied previously in the literature. We also found that the returns on this index had a low correlation with the returns generated by the UK stock and government bond markets. Given the estimated return and the low correlation with traditional asset classes, an investment in a diversified holding of Persian rugs might represent an attractive diversifying option, particularly for long-term institutional investors like university endowments, insurance companies, pension funds or family offices.

Department of Development

Department of Development Bettina Drew (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 33] In 1980 I had so little success aptitude that in three years since college I'd never been hired for anything but gardening, painting, housecleaning, or cooking. I told an intake clerk at the New York State Department of Labor that I was working as a poet, and I got the job at City Hall because on the way to the interview I asked directions from a delicate graying man loping leisurely down the marble hall. "Why, it's right this way," he said in mock surprise and gestured with a flourish, and that I raised my eyebrows and mimicked his little bow seemed to please him. My meeting in the Department of Development with Gerri Corvado, who smoked, swore, and barked questions demanding that I prove myself, typically did not go well, and I was surprised when she called me in to meet the commissioner. The federal government's CETA program was going to pick up the tab, and David Kendig, the spectral vision I'd met in the hall, had told Corvado to hire me. Our mission was to "develop" the city of New Rochelle, thirty minutes by rail from Manhattan. Its main street with eight neon-marqueed movie theaters had collapsed when Bloomingdale's, its anchor department store on the Boston Post Road, had closed and moved elsewhere. A new downtown mall five or six blocks away, anchored by Macy's, had been built but had not stuck. Corvado wrote grant proposals that brought in great rehab sums from Housing and Urban Development, and my job was to gather the grant materials and program cultural events like art shows and noon concerts in the downtown. We worked in a smoky, windowless cube strewn with papers, which adjoined the commissioner's office, a large, sunny, airy room with plants and Persian rugs. When the commissioner was wooing a developer in there, his feet would have to grope under the desk for his loafers so he could go get Corvado to explain the numbers. She was the brain and moneymaker of the department, forever making hushed telephone deals, and I was a little scared of her. "Get me the New York State Council on the Arts file," she'd command from the phone, and in a panic I'd pull the N, S, C, and A drawers. When I did manage to produce a file, it was always too late. I preferred the chain-smoking Kendig, who seemed too irreverent and bohemian for a political figure but nonetheless haunted Corvado's office through a back door from the main hall. When I asked him what he did for the city, he replied with exaggerated flair that he was a "consultant to the arts." "And what does that mean?" [End Page 34] "I answer the mayor's mail," he said flatly, "and"—he crossed his legs in theatrical snobbery while lifting his head with closed eyes—"I chair the blue-ribbon panel." "Can't he answer his own mail?" "Rocco Barsarollata couldn't write a letter if he tried," Gerri cut in to explain. "Our mayor"—she looked to Kendig—"is really stupid. Fortunately, he's just a figurehead, so nobody gives a shit. The city manager, G. Lemuel Bassinger, really runs things." "And the blue-ribbon panel?" "Some rich housewives from the North End started writing letters to the Standard–Star about the lack of kul-cha in our city," David chuckled, "so the mayor appointed a blue-ribbon panel to study the situation." He sighed. "Actually, I was only hired because they felt sorry for me." "That's enough." Gerri cut him short with her cigarette and pulled the chair up to her desk, but I soon knew his tale. Every day after five I drove him to a neon-signed bar called Flanagan's, where he recovered from work with vodka martinis and told me about his life. "My grandfather invented the tea bag," he soon began after a first savored sip. He'd spent his childhood in a Waspy Connecticut home held together by a crew of black servants with...

Die liefde wat die son beweeg en die ander sterre: Digterlike transendering – tot die vermenigvuldigde lewe ontroer

The love that moves the sun and the other stars – Poetic transcendence, stirred to live the multifaceted life: The oeuvre of T.T. Cloete may be characterised, among other possibilities, by a sensitive perception of a mystic interconnectedness in creation. This interconnectedness is developed and interpreted in many ways. The poetic potential of the female (Woman), in different forms, is one of the central themes being activated. In a recently published de luxe publication, Uit die wit lig van my land gesny, the poet focuses on the creative role of woman in the grand act of creation, identifying her role as a kind of hair-spring of poetic inspiration and design. Woman, alternatively Anna Perenna, the Universal Mother, is not only bearer of an embryo being transformed unto spirit, but she also acts as a source of light (’sun woman’), actualising cosmic insight. It is part of the interwoven patterns characterising humankind’s place in a hologram of life. The poet compares these poetic patterns to the weaving of Persian rugs. The ancient forms inscribed in the memories of ancestors are communicated to the next generation. Poetic transcendence is developed as a process through which a wealth of colours of life and death is inspired by individual as well as universal femininity.

Mapping the Future—Merging the Old with the new across Disciplines

The human genome is far from random. Much like the master craftsman of fine Persian rugs, nature has injected subtle variants into the genetic sequence, giving uniqueness to every rug and reminding us of the cosmic grand scheme of life. Unraveling the complexities of this system is akin to understanding and fluently speaking an alien language, should extraterrestrials one day land in our backyard. Deciphering this code and finding discernible patterns lies at the heart of cancer informatics. Developing the tools of the modern cancer informatician will encompass merging the ways of the old with the new, integrating ideas and concepts across disciplines, and taking risks to develop cutting-edge techniques and methodology.

Inherited Slides: Photo(auto)biography

Inherited Slides: Photo(auto)biography Judy Elsley Weber State University Aftermy uncle died ofAIDS in 1994, 1 tried to write abouthis life. Jack was my father's twin brother, a man I knew both very well and not at all. I made copious journal entries while he was sick and dying, especially during the last year when I went back and forth from Utah to California, visiting him. After he died, I sorted and organized his possessions and my memories, cut and pasted my writing, wrote and rewrote his life. Even with my house full ofhis Spode china, Persian rugs, and Waterford glass, Jack evaded me. He was no more present in my writing than he was in the AIDS quilt panel I made for him. I cut up fabric from his own shirts, held together with buttons from those shirts. My writing was as flat as that panel. Defeated, I cut my text into journal entries, fragments of my life and his, going back and forth in time, entered it into a local writing contest under"Adult Personal Essay," and won 2nd prize with a $15 gift certificate from the sponsoring bookstore. I found myselfagreeing with Shari Benstock that, "Every exercise in memory . . . demonstrates the futility and failure oflife writing"(1053). My problem, I realized as I wrestled with Jack's biography, was that so much ofhis life was hidden from me: as a sales rep. for an electronics company in the '60s and '70s, he had never felt safe enough to come out ofthe closet. Only in retirement, when he moved from Chicago —"Ifyou can make it in Chicago," he'd say, "You can make it anywhere"—to Palm Springs, did he finally make open gay alliances, particularly with the local AIDS support group, and drop the pretense ofheterosexuality. For years, he maintained a neutral appearance of heterosexuality for the family, keeping his gay life quite separate, a life that was so "other," I caught only glimpses of it. As his heterosexual niece, his closeted life excluded me, as did his deliberate decision to leave no written records. Trained in literary criticism , I feel most comfortable unraveling meaning when it's packaged in a textual form. Jack's life was marked by its absence of writing. He kept no personal letters, threw out most of his well organized files in the last few months of his life, wrote no memoir. Even his final written text, his will, was inaccessible to me. He set up a trust fund, administered by recently acquired friends in Palm Springs, which sidestepped 19 20Rocky Mountain Review public disclosure. After his death, I wrote to the lawyer asking her where and how his money was being distributed, but met a wall of silence. Like Richard Rodriguez, my uncle was Mr. Secrets, and probably for the same reasons: to keep his gay life hidden. Jack was an intensely private man who made it his business to leave no traces. He "passed" as straight in the 1960s business world, a debonair and handsome bachelor who hadn't met the "right" woman. Women fell for him all the time. As a young woman so did I, playing, I realized much later, an important part in his appearance ofheterosexuality. The first time I came to the States from my native England, in August 1974, Jack took me on a business trip to San Francisco where we stayed at the brand new Hyatt Regency hotel, the very essence of elegance at the time. When we checked in, we found we'd been booked into the same room because we shared the same last name. "No," Jack explained, "this is my niece." The clerk looked up at this fifty-year-old business man with his young companion. 'Tes, sir," he replied with a wink, and put us in adjoining rooms. Jack told this story dozens oftimes over the years. It pleased him that the clerk thought him sufficiently virile to have attracted a woman thirty years his junior, and at the same time, I was unwittingly playing my part as "safe woman." I covered for Jack, providing him with quasi-heterosexual credentials in places where being gay was not acceptable...

Inherited Slides: Photo(auto)biography

After my uncle died of AIDS in 1994, I tried to write about his life. Jack was my father's twin brother, a man I knew both very well and not at all. I made copious journal entries while he was sick and dying, especially during the last year when I went back and forth from Utah to California, visiting him. After he died, I sorted and organized his possessions and my memories, cut and pasted my writing, wrote and rewrote his life. Even with my house full of his Spode china, Persian rugs, and Waterford glass, Jack evaded me. He was no more present in my writing than he was in the AIDS quilt panel I made for him. I cut up fabric from his own shirts, held together with buttons from those shirts. My writing was as flat as that panel. Defeated, I cut my text into journal entries, fragments of my life and his, going back and forth in time, entered it into a local writing contest under Adult Personal Essay, and won 2nd prize with a $15 gift certificate from the sponsoring bookstore. I found myself agreeing with Shari Benstock that, Every exercise in memory ... demonstrates the futility and failure of life writing(1053). My problem, I realized as I wrestled with Jack's biography, was that so much of his life was hidden from me: as a sales rep. for an electronics company in the '60s and '70s, he had never felt safe enough to come out of the closet. Only in retirement, when he moved from Chicago -If you can make it in Chicago, he'd say, You can make it anywhere-to Palm Springs, did he finally make open gay alliances, particularly with the local AIDS support group, and drop the pretense of heterosexuality. For years, he maintained a neutral appearance of heterosexuality for the family, keeping his gay life quite separate, a life that was so other, I caught only glimpses of it. As his heterosexual niece, his closeted life excluded me, as did his deliberate decision to leave no written records. Trained in literary criticism, I feel most comfortable unraveling meaning when it's packaged in a textual form. Jack's life was marked by its absence of writing. He kept no personal letters, threw out most of his well organized files in the last few months of his life, wrote no memoir. Even his final written text, his will, was inaccessible to me. He set up a trust fund, administered by recently acquired friends in Palm Springs, which sidestepped

Indios con Levita, and: Paredón, and: Mulata, and: Boleros, and: The Cloud

INDIOS CON LEVITA /Ricardo Pau-Llosa When she returned home, The Divine Sarah Bernhardt caUed them "Indians in frock coats," the Cuban bourgeoisie that had partied her to boredom in hot and primitive Havana, and who knows anything there about theatre anyway? The rich had tried so hard to please, and just three words were enough to ravage the spectacle, the memories. I remember the looted house of the batistiano down the street in 1959. Outside, a queue of neighbors was quietly waiting to tour the plundered mansion, a museum of disaster. We gazed at the masterpieces of rage, the singed curtains, the stabbed paintings, books toppled from shelves that rose to the ceüing, shit smeared on the Persian rugs slashed because they were to big to roU and carry, chandeUers battered Uke piñatas. We got into the whispering Une and slowly we entered as if we had tickets, Uke sheep into a cyclop's mouth. "Cubans making an orderly Une, this is a revolution!" recited an old man with snide arms. Ropes had been put up to guide the crowd along a cleared pathway through the punitive rubble. Green milicianos were posted in each room, armed with rifles, sUence, and a sneer luce teachers. The crowd moved naturaUy in waves stopping here and there where the damage seemed particularly imaginative or cruel or inimitable, and they compared the methods Uke connoisseurs. "Inimitable" was the one word I took with me. A fat weU-coiffed lady in red ahead of us repeated it several times, and I asked my elders what it meant. "It can't happen again," my grandmother said, just Uke 1933 when Machado feU, not again, not again, over and over. One room in the mansion looked pristine 128 · The Missouri Review after the looting, or I thought it was a room because it was so large, but later she told me it was a closet. The elegant clothes were exorcised. A few hangers were tossed on the floor and strangely flattened Uke trampled birds but more Uke flowers in an old lady's book. "You'U see those gowns and frocks in the carnival this year," my grandmother said scornfuUy so that a miliciano could hear her. Carnival would soon be outlawed. This time the show needed no stage. Ricardo Pau-Llosa The Missouri Review · 229 PAREDÓN / Ricardo Pau-Llosa Staring down the mountainous waU, I imagine my ear against the suicidal waves as if the sea itself were a sheU against my cheek. The wall hoists the sound of the waves to the parapet. A tourist atop el Morro in San Juan, I squint across the harbor entrance to see a tiny ruined house, half a stone shelter once still lumbering among the surf-singed rocks. It is called Isla de Cabras, the Island of Goats. It was a leper colony during colonial times, and now, nesting among the blackened flanks and crannies, facing down the cobalt horizon and the colossus who partners the bay, it merely marks a torn page of island history. Who among the heavy with pain, the ragged in moment had heard of glory? How did they ponder the flagging galleons and the Dutch voUeys, the native fears and the pirates' rage? The goats were guarded by their sores. No one's plunder or slaves, not even to themselves treasure, they must have sat atop these rocks that shine Uke dropped jewels to watch the comedy of battles and trade, owning the world the only way it can be owned, in unlosable distance. They were free to stalk the Isla's narrow ceU much as inmates in Havana's Morro have always done. Across the bay from that castle is the capital, waUed and briUiant, unlike San Juan, a hub for flotas and armies, cathedrals and books, aU of which mattered Uttle. Cuba's lepers are the free. They are sent to the Morro 220 · The Missouri Review to rot or to be lined against its wet, green waUs and rehearse their executions before finaUy being shot. For centuries the scene has not changed. The famUies wait to visit what's left of the Uving inside the Morro...

The manufacture of antique persian rugs

The manufacture of antique persian rugs