ADVENTURE OF ANATOLIAN RUGS IS AT THE

(VERCIHAN ZIFLIOGLU / ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News Wednesday, April 25, 2007)

Various Anatolian hand-made rugs, made between 16th and 19th centuries is exhibited in Sakıp Sabancı Museum, titled “Rugs devoted to God – Anatolian Rugs in Transylvanian Churches”

“Rugs devoted to God – Anatolian Rugs in Transylvanian Churches” exhibition opened last week at the Sakip Sabanci Museum. Rugs referred to as “Transylvanian Rugs” in rug literature due to their use in many in Transylvanian Churches in Eastern Europe and that have a special place in the history of rug trade are on view. The exhibited rugs were made between the 16th and 19th centuries.

For centuries, rugs woven by various peoples in Anatolia have reflected different shapes, patterns and figures. With the development of commerce, rugs carried to the west by merchants were treated as “works of art” in their new land. Rugs were subjects to many artists' paintings in the 15th century, including the works of Carlo Crivelli's, and became indispensable elements of both living spaces and sacred places of the aristocrats. The name of the exhibit, “Rugs devoted to God,” was inspired by the use of rugs in sacred places, said Nazan Olcer, director of Sabanci Museum. In West Anatolia, where alum, minerals and irrigation beds were many, the rugs made especially in the Usak, Selendi, Milas, Demirci, Kula and Bergama regions were exported since the 13th century. Olcer also said that along with the export Venetian merchants did by sea, the Balkan and East Europe road trade was also important, which were under Ottoman control since the mid-15th century. Nazan Olcer drew attention to the importance of Anatolian rugs in Transylvania, the northwest region of today's Romania, for both being numerous and well-protected.

Hagia Sophia

Rug is an “object” in the East, a “work of art” in the West

“The rugs having been well protected shows them being foreign to the western culture. Rugs are viewed as objects in the East, but as works of art in the West,” said Olcer, drawing attention to almost all the rug collections in Turkey being made of rugs gathered from mosques. “It cannot be expected that the rugs on which hundreds of people prayed and those which were treated as works of art can be maintained through the same measures,” she said.

Mentioning there are more than 400 Turkish rugs in Romanian churches, Olcer said a majority of the exhibited rugs were chosen from churches and museums in Romania. Setting out from the notes put in ink on the backs of the rugs obtained from churches, an average result is gained on the dates the rugs were made.

Olcer said the making process of the exhibition was demanding. Rugs obtained from churches had not been out before. Prepared by Stefano Ionescu and having editions in German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian, the book named “Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania” was used as a guide during the preparation of the exhibition. “If it wasn't for Ionescu's book, we couldn't have seen the rugs and their distribution in Romanian churches in this much detail,” Olcer said.

In the exhibition, in three West Anatolian rugs belonging to the beginning of 15th and 16 centuries, which represent different villages or workshops, the telescopic rose and cross motif stands out. The Cintemani pattern on the rugs is welded from the Far East. In this pattern, three dots and curves in wave type exist. The motifs in Cintemani symbolize courage, honesty and patience. The Cintemani symbol was used in the caftans of both Ottoman Sultans and Chinese Emperors. In the exhibition it's possible to see samples of “Welding Rose and Cross Motif,” “Usak Rugs,” “Arabesque,” “Selendi Rugs with cream color backgrounds,” “Transylvanian Rugs,” “Rugs of West Anatolia under the influence of Iran,” “West Anatolia Patterns, Egyptian Rugs” and Ottoman carpets.

For the exhibition, Sabanci Museum has worked collectively with the Sibiu National Brukenthal Museum, Romanian Evangelist Church, Bucharest National Art Museum, Romania Presidency of Cultural and Religious Affairs, Budapest Hungarian National Museum and Applied Crafts Museum, and Berlin Art of Islam Museum, which contains forty one samples of West Anatolian rugs.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Blue Mosque

Parallel Exhibition “Kaitag Embroideries, Textile Art from Daghestan”

“Kaitag Embroideries, Textile Art from Daghestan,” is running concurrently at the Sabancı Museum, where 47 embroideries belonging to 16th and 19th centuries are on display. Today only 500 samples of Daghestan and Kaitag embroideries survive. They reflect many symbols from various cultures and the pagan world, and sometimes took on the duty to protect from evil, and sometimes covered cradles.

The two simultaneous exhibitions will run through August 19, and can be visited every day except Monday and Friday. Children can attend educational workshops given by art experts and psychologists. The exhibits can be viewed both in English and Turkish, with the accompaniment of expert guides.

The second floor of the exhibition includes a reproduction of the historical “Black Church,” burned to ashes in the 1689 Brashov fire. At the entrance of the characterized church gate, where the sound of the organ meets the audience, rugs are placed on the walls and in the sacred table section, true to the original. The most important feature of the Black Church, which is the most important cultural building of Brashov today, is that it owns some of the most unique rug collections in the world. The Brashov Protestant Community today has a collection of 157 antique Ottoman rugs.