Stories
Persian Flora
PERSIAN FLORA Have you ever been asked if you have a favourite period or epoch you’d like to return to by Time Machine? Well I like Timurid Herat, 15th century for its balanced intellect. Horticulture was just as important as astronomy and mathematics. Try to imagine the English cottage garden without hollyhocks. Viewing the paintings of the Herat School one sees a profusion of these flowers. In fact, early European travellers remarked on the seemingly infinite profusion of wildflowers that had been domesticated. Alexander the Great’s Macedonians introduced the lemon and the peach to Europe from Persia. The Mediterranean knew the seville and the citron but imagine Mediterranean food without the humble lemon. The saffron crocus also came west, and to this day the Persia are proud it is their own, even suggesting like their carpets, that all others are fakes or imitations at best. Other than her carpets nothing is more Persian than the rose. I have seen the original single petal Dog Rose Growing semi-wild around Shiraz in southern Persia. This area, the Persian heartland for 2500 years, is considered the home of the rose, with communities of rose oil distillers boasting a similar lineage. The unusual Frittilaria Lily appeared in Vienna in 1576, causing a similar stir to the Tulip. Although the Tulip was first introduced into Europe from Istanbul by Dutch merchants it is considered to originate in the fertile high valleys of east Persia and came to Istanbul with the Turkic migrations of circa 1300. Persia is gardens with flowers made perennial in rugs and carpets. We humbly introduce you to this exquisite garden at The Bangalow Rug Shop.
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Pure Cognition
We look at an old carpet made under the original conditions and we see a complexity of design. Symbols of flora and fauna and spirits dense with subjectivity. The eye recognises the presence of colour. Perceptions change and the attentive consciousness shifts from the measurable world to the immeasurable as the design is seen to become less and less important, a simple construct, a value judgement, even meaningless xenophobic bigotry, and, finally a vehicle for colour alone. Only colour has a life of it’s own and only colour can speak directly - the designs are merely the script. The arrangement of colour then allows the carpet to release it’s inner self. This is the point at which we can feel what it is to actually be human, elevated to our essential humanity, in contact with the carpet’s makers and the archaic heart at the bottom of us all. This is pure cognition - seeing with the heart!
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