“The Orientals, the Persians and others, have above all else, printed a complete dictionary of this language of the eye that listens; they have endowed their carpets with marvellous eloquence. Painters in search of a colour technique, study these carpets, and you will find a fount of knowledge. And yet, who knows, the book may be sealed, and you cannot read it. And then, the remembrance of a bad tradition stands in the way.”
Paul Gauguin
This remark by Gauguin summarises perfectly my approach to carpets.
A carpet is not simply a decorative object, as many would like to think, but an art marked by a philosophy, just like painting, in our part of the world.
Just like painting, which initially drew inspiration from religion, the weaving of fabrics and carpets is an expression of the cosmic dimension.
Whereas the décor of the field is an opening onto the universe and the divine, the border represents the window frame.
Where the décor of the field is a heavenly vision of the Garden of Eden, the border is the wall that encloses that garden to protect the vegetation from the hot breath of the desert.
Unfortunately, as Gauguin says “the book may be sealed, and you cannot read it.” This ignorance is due in part to the lack of knowledge in our civilisation about the oriental carpet. We must not forget that knowledge of carpets in our part of the world is only about a century-and-a-half old, and this ignorance has enabled certain swindlers to get rich quick.
So, when a customer walks through our door, I try to apprise him or her with a maximum of notions, both from the technical and the artistic point of view, and my greatest pleasure is to recommend a book on the art of the carpet to this future enthusiast.
Guy Sauvage
