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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CAR-CAU |
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CARPET , the name given to any kind of textile covering for the ground or the floor, the like of which has also been in use on couches and seats and sometimes even for wall
plain or enriched with needlework or printed with patterns; others are woven after the manner of tapestry-weaving (see TAPESTRY). or in imitation of it, and a further class of carpets is made of felt. (see FELT). This last material is entirely different from that of shuttle or tapestry weaving. Although carpet weaving by hand is, and for centuries has been, an Oriental industry, it has also been, and is still, pursued in many European countries. Carpet-weaving by steam-driven machinery is solely European in origin, and was not brought to the condition of meeting a widespread demand until the loth century. In connexion with the word " carpet " (Lat. carpita, rug; 0. Fr. car pite) notice may be taken of the Gr. Tams and the Lat. tapetium, whence also comes the Fr. Lapis (the yjstory. present word for " carpet ") as well as our own word " tapestry." This latter, though now more particularly descriptive of hangings and curtains woven in a special way, was, in later medieval times, indiscriminately applied to them and to stuffs used as floor and seat coverings. From a very early period classical writers make mention of them. In ancient Egypt, for instance, floor and seat coverings were used in temples for religious ceremonies by the priests of Amen Ra; later on they were used to garnish the palaces of the Pharaohs. If one may judge from rare remains of decorative textiles, in the museum at Cairo especially, dating from at least 148o B.C., such Egyptian fabrics were of linen inwoven with coloured wools in a tapestry-weaving manner, and were not tufted or piled textures. Taken from the palace at Nineveh is a large marble slab carved in low relief with a geometrical pattern surrounded by a border of lotus flowers
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The simple traditional Oriental method of making these latter is briefly as follows:The foundation is a warp of strong cotton
piled the fineness or coarseness to be given to its pile. carpets. Short lengths of coloured wool or goats' or camels' hair or silk are knotted on to each of the warp threads so that the two ends of each twist or tuft of coloured yarn, of whatever material it is, project in front. Across the width of the warp and above the range of tufts a weft thread is run in; another line or row of tufts is then knotted, and above this another weft thread is run in across the warps, and so on. These rows of tufts and weft as made are compressed together by means of a blunt fork or rude comb-like instrument, and thus a compact textile with a pile or tufted surface is produced; the projecting tufts are then carefully clipped to an even surface. In the East the rude wooden frames in which the warp-threads are stretched either stand upright upon, or are level with, the ground. They are easily transported and put together, and the weaving in them is done chiefly by wandering groups of weavers. The local surroundings, often those of rocky arid districts, in which Kurdish and other families weave carpets are well illustrated in Oriental Rugs by J. H. Mumford. For making pile carpets and rugs two traditional knots are in use; the first is termed the Turkish or Ghiordes knot, from Ghiordes, an old city not far from Brusa. It is in vogue principally throughout Asia Minor, as far east as Kurdistan and the Caucasus, but it is also used farther south-east in parts of Persia and India. The yard of the pile is knotted in short lengths upon the warp-threads so that the two outstanding ends of each knot alternate with every two threads of the warp. The second traditional knot is the Persian or Sehna knot, which, though better calculated to produce a close, fine, even, velvety surface, has in many parts of Persia been abandoned for the Ghiordes knot, which is a trifle more easily tied. The Persian or Sehna knot is tied so that from every space between the warp-threads one end of the knot protrudes. The number of knots to the inch tied according to either the Turkish or Persian method is determined by the size and closeness of the warp-threads and the size and number of weft-threads thrown across after each row of knots. The patterns of the fabrics made by country weavers are usually taken by them from old rugs. But in towns where weaving is conducted under more organized conditions new patterns are often devised, and are traced sometimes upon great cardboards, on which the stitches, or knots, are indicated by squares each painted in its proper colour. In some of the Persian carpets and rugs made at Sehna, Kirman and Tabriz, the warp is of silk, a material that contributes to fine compact pile textures. There is much uncertainty as to the period when cut pile carpets were first made in the East. Their texture is certainly akin to that of fustian and velvet; while that of the Date of finer Persian carpets, which were not made much original ' earlier than about the 15th century, is practically not, Pile distinguishable from velvet, having long or heavy pile. textures. Fustian, the English name for a cut short pile textile, is derived from Fostat (old Cairo), and such material is likely to have been made there, as soon as anywhere else, by Saracens, especially during the propitious times of the Fatimite Khalifs, who for more than two centuries previously to the 13th century were noted for the, encouragement they gave to all sorts of arts and manufactures. It seems that velvet came into use in Europe not much earlier than the 14th century, and various French church inventories of the time contain entries of " tapis velus (cut pile carpets) d'aultre mer, a mettre par terse" (see Essai sur l'histoire des tapisseries et tapis, by W. Chocqueel, Paris, 1863, pp. 22-23). It is an open question if the making of cut pile carpets in Persia or by Saracens elsewhere preceded that of fustians and velvets or whether the developments in making the three proceeded part passu. The making of carpets with a flat surface, however, is probably far older than that of cut pile carpets, and characteristic of one such old method is that in the making of Soumak car-pets (Plate II. fig. 5), the ornament of which done in close needle stitches with coloured threads completely conceals the stout flax or hemp web which is the essential material of these carpets. Soumak is a distortion of Shemaka, a Caucasian town in the far east of Asia Minor. But so-called Soumak carpets are made in other districts, and the particular needlework used in them is practically of the same kind as that on a smaller scale used for the well-known Persian Nakshe or woman's trousering, and again that used on a still smaller scale in the ornamentation of valuable Kashmir shawls. Quilted and chain-stitched cotton
Another method of making carpets with a flat surface is that of tapestry-weaving (see Plate II. fig. 4), which, according to existing and well-authenticated specimens of considerable antiquity (already referred to), appears to be the oldest of any historic process of ornamental weaving (see TAPESTRY). Very broadly considered, the traditional designs or patterns of Oriental carpets fall into two classes: the one, prevailing to a much larger extent than the other, seems to reflect motives In the austerity of the Sunni or orthodox Mahommedans traditional in making patterns with abstract geometric and designs La. angular forms, stiff interlacing devices, cryptic signs pnt and symbols and the like; whilst the other suggests the freer thought of the Shiah or unorthodox sect, in Carpets with flat surface. designs of ingenious blossom and leafy scrolls, conventional arabesques, botanical and animal forms, and cartouches enclosing Kufic inscriptions (see the splendid example known as the Ardebil carpet, Plate III. fig. 7, and another in Plate IV. fig. 9). Types of the more austere design occur in carpets from Afghanistan, Turkestan, Bokhara and Asia Minor, N.W. India and even Morocco, the other types of freer design being almost special to Persian rugs and carpets.Next in historic importance to Persia, Turkestan and Asia Minor is India, where the making of cut pile carpetsknown as Kalin and Kalichawas presumably introduced 14th century. But the industry did not apparently attain importance until after the founding of the Mogul dynasty by Baber early in the 16th century. The designs mainly derived from those of Persian carpets of that period do not as a rule rise to the excellence of their prototypes. Historical centres of Indian carpet making are in Kashmir, the Punjab and Sind, and at Agra, Mirzapur, Jubbulpore, Warangal in the Deccan, Malabar and Masulipatam. Velvets .are richly embroidered in gold and silver thread at Benares and Murshidabad and used as ceremonial carpets, and silk pile carpets are made at Tanjore and Salem. For the most part the best of the Indian woollen pile carpets have been produced by workers of repute engaged by princes, great nobles and wealthy persons to carry on the craft in their dwellings and palaces. These groups of highly skilled.. workers as part of the household staff were paid fixed salaries, but they were also allowed to execute private orders. During the 19th century the carpet industry was developed in government gaols. Produced in great quantities the prison-made carpets as a rule are less well turned out, and the competition; set up betewen them and the rugs and carpets of private factories has had a somewhat detrimental effect upon the industry generally. Older in origin than the cut pile carpets are those of thinner and flat surface texture, which from almost immemorial times have been woven in cotton with blue and white or blue and red stripes in the simplest way. These are called daris and satranjis, and are made chiefly in Benares and northern India. They are also made in the south and by such aborigines retaining primitive habits as the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills, a fact which points to the age of this particular method of making ground or floor coverings. A condition that has always controlled the designs of Oriental carpets is their rectangular shape, more often oblong than Condition square. As a rule, there is a well-schemed border, controlling enclosing the main portion or field over which the designs of details of the pattern are symmetrically distributed. Oriental Simpler patterns in the field of a carpet or rug consist carpets. of repetitions of the same device or of a small number of different devices (see Plate II. fig. 4). Richer patterns display more organic pattern in the construction, of which the leading and continuous features are expressed as diversified bands, scrolls and curved stems; amongst these latter are very varied devices which play either predominant or subordinate parts in the whole effect of the design (Plate III. fig. 7). Angular and simplified treatments of these elaborate designs are rendered in many Asia Minor or Turkey carpets (Plate I. fig. 3); but the typical flowing and more graceful versions. are of Persian origin (see Plate III. fig. 7, and Plate IV. fig. 9), usually of the 16th century. Mingled in such intricate stem designs or " arabesques " are details many of which have been derived on the one hand from Sassanian and even from far earlier Mesopotamian emblematical ornament based on cheetahs seizing gazelles, on floral forms, blossoms and buds so well con ventionalized in Assyrian decoration, and on the other hand from Tatar and Chinese sources. The style, strong in suggestion of successive historical periods, seems to have been ,matured in Mosil engraved and damascened metal work of the 12th and 13th centuries before its occurrence in Persian carpet designs, the finest of which were produced about the reign of Shah Abbas. A good deal earlier than this period are carpets designed chiefly according to the simpler taste of the Sunnites, and such as theseappear to be mentioned by Marco Polo (12561323) when writing that " in Turcomania they weave the handsomest carpets in the world." He quotes Conia (Konieh in Anatolia), Savast (Sivas in Asia Minor), some 3oo m. north-east of Konieh, and Cassaria (Kaisaria or Caesaraea in Anatolia) as the chief weaving centres. It is the carpets from such places rather than from Persia that appear to have been the first Oriental ones known in European countries. Entries of Oriental carpets are frequent in the inventories of European cathedral. treasures. In England, for instance, carpets are said to have been first employed by Queen Eleanor of Castile and her suite during the latter part of the carpets la Europe. :13th century, who had them from Spain, where their 'manufacture was apparently carried on by Saracens or Moors in ,the southern part of the country. On the other hand, Pierre Dupont, a master carpet-maker of the Savonnerie (see below), gives his opinion in 1632 that the introduction of carpet-making into France was due to the Saracens after their defeat by Charles Martel in A.D. 726. But more historically precise is the record in the book of crafts (Livre des metiers) by Etienne Boileau, provost of the merchants in Paris (12581268), of " the tapicers or makers of lapis sarrasinois,l who say that their craft is for the service only of churches or great men like kings and nobles." In the 13th and 14th centuries Saracen weavers of rich and ornamental stuffs were also employed at Venice, which was a chief centre for importing Oriental goods, including carpets, and distributing them through western Europe. Dr Bode, in his Vorderasiatische Kniipfteppiche, instances Oriental carpets with patterns mainly of geometric and angular forms represented in frescoes and other paintings by Domenico di Bartolo (1440), Niccolo di Buonaccorso (1450), Lippo Memmi (148o) and others. Of-greater interest
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t The tapissiers sarrasinois were apparently the makers of piled or velvety carpets, and have always been written about in contra-distinction to the tapissiers de haute lisse or tapissiers nostrez, who it appears did not weave piled or velvety material, but made tapestry-woven hangings and coverings for furniture. 2 In Hakluyt's Voyages mention is made of directions having been given to Morgan Hubblethorne, a dyer, to proceed (about 1579) to Persia to learn the arts of dyeing and of making carpets. Indian by the Mahommedans during the latter part of the carpets. finer carpet belongs to the Girdlers' Company (Plate IV. fig. 8), and is of Persian design, into which are introduced the arms of the company, shields with eagles, and white panels with English letters, the monogram of Robert Bell the master in 1634, but this was made at Lahore 1 to his order. Before dealing with later phases of the carpet industry in England, mention may now be made of Spanish carpets, of European as distinct from Saracenic or Persian end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century. It is only within recent years that specimens of them have been obtained for public collections, and at present little is known of the factories in Spain whence they came. A large and most interesting series is shown in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a portion of one of the earlier of the Spanish cut pile carpets in that museum is given in Plate IV. fig. 1o. The inner repeating pattern has suggestions of a lingering Moorish influence, but a superior version of it with better definition is to be seen in extant bits of Spanish shuttle-woven silks of the 16th century. The border of distorted dragon-like creatures is of a Renaissance style, and this style is' more pronounced in other Spanish carpets having borders of poorly treated Italian 16th-century pilaster ornament. Beside cut pile, many Spanish carpets of the 17th and 18th centuries have looped and flat surfaces, and bear Spanish names and inscriptions ; many too are of needlework in tent or cross stitch.Another interesting class of very fine pile carpets that has also become known comparatively recently to collectors is the so- called Polish carpets, generally made of silk pile for gold and silver thread textile for the ground, very much after the manner of early 17th-century Brusa fabrics. Many of these carpets are in the Czartoryski collection at Cracow. They are discussed by Dr Bode in his treatise on Oriental carpets already referred to. European coats of arms of the persons for whom they were made are often introduced into them, sometimes different in workmanship from that of the carpets, though there are specimens in which the workmanship is the same throughout. The details of their designs consist for the most part of arabesques and long curved serrated leaves similar to such as are commonly used in Rhodian pottery decoration of the 16th century, though more typical of those so frequent in 17th-century Turkish ornament. Various considerations lead to the conclusion that these so-called Polish carpets were probably made in either Constantinople or Damascus (tapete Damaschini frequently occur in Venetian inventories of the 16th century) rather than, as has been thought, by the Persian workmen employed at the Mazarski silk factory which lasted for a short period only during the 18th century at Sleucz in Poland. The European carpet manufactory, of which a continuous history for some two hundred and fifty years is recorded with exceptional completeness, is that which has been Carpets maintained under successive regimes, royal, imperial made in and republican, in Franceat the Hotel des Gobelins France. in Paris. Seventy years before its organization under Colbert in 1667 as a state manufactory (Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne), Henry IV. had founded royal art work-shops for all sorts of decorative work, at the Louvre; and here in 1604 a workroom was established for making Oriental carpets by the side of that which existed for making tapis Jlamands. In 1610 letters patent were granted to the Sieur Fortier, who has been reputed to be the first inventor in France of the art of making in silk and wool real Turkey and ether piled carpets with grounds of gold thread, which must have been sumptuous fabrics probably resembling the so-called Polish carpets of this date. Some ten years later it is recorded that Pierre Dupont and Simon Lourdet started a pile carpet (tapis veloutes) manufactory at Chaillot (Paris) in large premises which had been used for the manufacture of soapwhence the name of " Savonnerie." To this converted manufactory were transferred in 1631 the carpet- ' The Royal Factory at Lahore was established by Akbar the Great in the 16th century,makers from the Louvre, and under the direct patronage of the crown it continued its operations for many years at Chaillot. It was not until 1828 that the making of tapis de la Savonnerie (pile carpets of a fine velvety character) was transferred to the Hotel des Gobelins. Here, in contradistinction to the Savonnerie, carpets are made others which, like those of Beauvais (where a manufactory of hangings and carpets was established by Colbert in 1664), are lapis ras or non-piled carpets, being of tapestry-weaving, as also are those made by old-established firms at Aubusson and at Felletin, where the manufacture was flourishing, at the former place in 1732 and at the latter in 1737. Returning now to England, there are evidences towards the end of the 17th century, if not earlier, that Walloon and Flemish makers of Turkey pile carpets had settled and set up works in different parts of the country. A protective charter, for instance, was granted in 1701 by William III. to weavers in Axminster and Wilton. The ultimate celebrity of the pile carpet industry at Wilton was due mainly to the interest
2 A wealthy serge-maker of Swiss nationality, who had been settled for some years in Exeter, and bought up the plant of Parisot's Exeter works. (See Bulletin de la societe de l'histoire de ''art franfais, p. 97, vol. 1875 to 1878.) Spanish design; the making of them dates at least from the carpets. Polish the ornament, which is distinctively Oriental, and of carpets. 396 carried on at Axminster died towards the end of the 18th century, and the name of Axminster like that of Savonnerie carpets now perpetuates the memory of a locally deceased manufactory, much as in a parallel way Brussels carpets seem to owe their name to the renown of Brussels as an important centre in the 15th and 16th centuries for tapestry-weaving. Before the existence of steam-driven carpet-making machinery in England, employers, following the example set by the French, applied the Jacquard apparatus, for regulating and modem machineryfacilitating the weaving of patterns, to the hand . manufacture of carpets. This was early in the 19th century; a great acceleration in producing English carpets occurred, severely threatening the industry as pursued (largely for lapis ras) at Tournai in Belgium, at Nimes, Abbeville, Aubusson, Beauvais, Tourcoing and Lannoy in France. The severity of 1 he competition, however, was still more increased when English enterprise, developing the inventions of Erastus B. Bigelow (18141879) of America and Mr William Wood of England, took the lead in perfecting Jacquard weaving carpet looms worked by steam, which resulted in the setting up of many power-loom carpet manufactories in the United Kingdom. It was not until 188o that French pile carpet manufacturers began to adopt similar carpet power-looms, importing them from England. These machines for weaving pile carpets, either looped (boucle) as in Brussels, or cut (veloute) as in Wilton or Axminster carpets, were similar in all respects to such as had been in use by the important English manufacturersCrossleyof Halifax, Templeton of Glasgow, Humphreys of Kidderminster, Southwell of Bridgnorth, and others. A so-called tapestry carpet weaving-loom was invented by Richard Whytock of Edinburgh in 1832, but it was not brought to sufficient completeness for sustained manufacture until 1855. The essential feature of Mr Whytock's process was that the warp-threads were dyed and parti-coloured, in such a way that when woven the several points of colour formed the pattern of the whole fabric. Although the name tapestry " is used, the texture of these wares has but a remote likeness to that of hand-made tapestry hangings and carpets such as those of the Gobelins and Aubusson manufactories, no; is it the same as the texture of Brussels carpets. Machine-made tapestry carpets are also called " ingrain " carpets, because the wool or worsted is dyed in the grain, i.e. before manufactute. Germany in her manufacture of carpets resorts chiefly to the " ingrain " process, but in common with Holland and Belgium she produces pile (looped and cut) carpets from power-looms. In the United States of America there are many similar and very important carpet manufactories; and Austria produces fine cut pile carpets (velcutes), the designs of which are largely derived from those of the Aubusson tapestry-woven carpets (tapis ras). Lengths or pieces of felt and other substantial material are frequently made for floor and stair carpeting, and are often printed with patterns. These of course come into quite another class technically. The technological aspects of the several branches of carpet manufacture by machinery are treated in the articles on TEXTILE-PRINTING and WEAVING. Briefly, the products of carpet manufacture practically fall into three main divisions: (1) Pile carpets (tapis moquettes) which are either looped (boucle) or cut (veloute); (2) flat surface carpets (tapis ras) as in hand tapestry-woven material; and (3) printed stuffs used for carpeting. Whilst the production of carpets by steam power predomi- nates in Europe and the United States of America, and at one time appeared to be giving the coup de grace to d hand -made the craft of making carpets by hand, there has been in carpets, recent times a revival in this latter, and many carpets of characteristic modern design, several of them made in England, are due to the influence of the late William Morris, who devoted much of his varied energies to tapestry weaving and pile carpet weaving by hand, both of which crafts are being fostered as cottage industries in parts of Ireland, as well as in England. At the same time leading English carpet manufactures continue to produce hand-made carpets asoccasion requires. In France a much more systematic existence of tapestry weaving and pile carpet making by hand has been maintained and is of course attributable to the perennial activity of the state tapestry works in Paris (at the Gobelins workshops) and in Beauvais, and of corresponding works managed by private enterprise at Aubusson and elsewhere. Designing patterns for English carpet manufacture is now more organized than it was, and greater thought and invention are given to devising ornament suitable to the purpose of floor coverings. Before 185o and for a few years later, rather rude realistic representations of animals and botanical forms (decadent versions of Savonnerie designs) were often wrought in rugs and carpets, and survivals of these are still to be met with, but the lessons that have been subsequently derived fromintelligentstudy of Oriental designs have resulted in the definite designing of conventional forms for surface patterns. The early movement
France retains that facility of execution and liveliness in invention which have been nurtured for over three hundred years by systematic. governmental solicitude for education in decorative design and enterprise in perfecting manufacture. Her Aubusson and Savonnerie carpets have maintained a style of design. in form and colour entirely different from any that clearly throws back to Oriental principles, and many of the designs for the finer and larger of these carpets are schemed with large central oval panels, garlands of flowers
The more important art museums in Europe contain collections of Oriental carpets, and the history of many is fairly well established. The subject has become one of serious study, the results of which have been published and elucidated by means of well-executed coloured reproductions of carpets and rugs preserved in both public and private collections. which precedes by nine or ten years the more learned works by Riegl and Bode, there are two examples, one ascribed to the manufactory at Alcaraz in La Mancha, and one to the supposed manufactory of the 17th century at Warsaw. By the light of later and more complete investigations Mr Robinson's ascriptions are scarcely borne out. (7) Oriental Carpets, by Herbert Coxon (London, 1884, 8vo). (8) Altorientalische Teppiche, by Alois Riegl ( Leipzig
Leipzig
illustration
(16) Rugs, Oriental and Occidental, by Rosa Belle Holt (Chicago, 1901), well illustrated, with colour-plate reproductions of various types of rugs, including less known Chinese and Navajo specimens. (17) The Art Workers' Quarterly; vol. iii. No. ri, July 1904; article on the pile carpet belonging to the Worshipful Company of Girdlers of the City of London, by A. F. Kendrick, with a colour-plate of this remarkable carpet, made to the order of the master of the company in 1634 at Lahore. (18) Journal of Indian Art and Industry Indian Carpets and Rugs (parts 87 to 94) (London, 1905 and 1906). Upwards of ninety-nine illustrations of many varieties of Indian and Persian carpets are given in this publication, a large number showing debased versions of fine designs, e.g. some from the Punjab, Warangal, Mirzapur and Elura; those from Yarkand exhibit Tatar and Chinese influences. (19) A History of Oriental Carpets before 1800, by F. R. Martin, published by the State Printing Office in Vienna ( Bernard
CARPET-BAGGER, a political slang term for a person who stands as a candidate for election in a locality in which he is a stranger. It is particularly used of such a candidate sent down by the central party organization. The term was first used in the western states of America of speculative bankers who were said to have started business with no other property than what they could carry in a carpet-bag, and absconded when they failed. The term became of general use in American politics in the reconstruction period after the Civil War, as a term of contempt for the northern political adventurers in the South who, by the help of the negro vote, gained control of the ad-ministration. CARPET-KNIGHT, properly one who has been knighted in time of peace on the carpet before the king's throne, and not on the field of battle as an immediate reward for valour. It. is used as a term of reproach for a soldier who stays at home, and avoids active service and its hardships, with a particular reference to the carpet of a lady's chamber, in which such a faineant soldier lingers. End of Article: CARPET If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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