Oriental rugs, antique and modern (1922) (14778070064)

Identifier: orientalrugsanti1922hawl (find matches)
Title: Oriental rugs, antique and modern
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Hawley, W. A. (Walter Augustus), 1863-1920
Subjects: Rugs, Oriental
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead
Contributing Library: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
thattrue believers might rest beneath them and enjoy its fruits andthe companionship of beautiful houri. In the ancient lore of Chinais the Taoist tradition of the Tree of Life, growing by the Sea ofJade, that confers immortality on the fortunate who may gatherand eat its fruits; also the tradition of the mountain top wheregrows the sacred tree on which the elect may climb and mount toheaven. Even among the ancient Chaldees was a story of a treethat grew to heaven and sheltered the earth. In different countriesthe Tree of Life is represented by different kinds; in Yarkand ofEastern Turkestan it takes the form of a cedar; in Persia it is gen-erally the cypress. Wherever employed it is symbolic of knowledge,resurrection, immortality. No other form of vegetable life was so universally employedin Oriental symbolism as the lotus flower (Plate O, Figs. 16a, b,and c), since the Egyptian, Assyrian, Indian, Chinese, and Persianalike did it reverence. It was, perhaps, first employed emblemati-
Text Appearing After Image:
Plate 12. Carpet from Northwestern PersiaLoaned by C. F. Williams, Esq., to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York DESIGNS AND SYMBOLS 69 cally in the valley of the Nile, but later it was held in high esteemby the inhabitants of India where the floating blossom is regardedas an emblem of the world. It was inseparately associated withBuddha, and its religious significance must have extended with thespread of Buddhism. Professor Goodyear regards a large numberof designs that apparently are not related in form as derived fromit through a long series of evolutions. During the highest develop-ment of the textile art in Persia it appears most realistically drawnin a large number of the carpets, especially the so-called Ispahans,or Herats, and the so-called Polish. It is also most artisticallyrepresented in the fabrics of India, and is a favourite design forChinese weavers. But in other modern rugs it is seldom used as amotive, and is so conventionalised as often to escape notice. If the l