CHAPTER XXI

INDIAN RUGS

IN approaching the study of Indian fabrics we find that all preconceived notions of Hindu ornament must become subservient to the easily proved fact that into the great Indian peninsula at the present time have crept influences of every kind that have so swayed the native workers that everything which is now made there partakes of the varied nature of all that has made the East what it is.

Indian art has always observed structural lines, and in it one feels the strength of an underlying plan, and a confidence in the "detail" of finish that reveals the patience and skill of the craftsman, as well as the power of the artist whose mind has grasped the constructional features of whatever object he is creating. The lines once determined and the place to be filled selected, a broad outline scheme is devised which lifts into their proper places the extreme limits of the design, while the patient attention to minute details fills every inch of the scheme with network and tracery of the most intricate sort.

In no country is there so much difference between the art of the native craftsman born of generations of Hindus, and the art of the conquerors; and while the art of India is largely Mohammedan, the Moslem features

THIBETAN BUDDHIST PRAYING-WHEELS (U. S. National Museum)

DORJE AND BELLS COPIED IN RUG DESIGNS (U. S. National Museum)

are treated very differently in that country to what they are in others. The making of piled fabrics is not native to India, though that country has always been famous for its weaving of warp and woof of the finest as well as of the coarsest and most effective nature.

Fifty years ago the rugs of India were easily distinguished by their fidelity to method and design. This is not true at the present time, however, though the English government has done much toward establishing as truly "East Indian" that which has been fostered by judicious patronage, and the scholars sent into India for special study and to acquire treasures for the home museums have opened up much of infinite interest. It is customary to lament the somewhat destructive nature of European methods in the East, but it is well to acknowledge our indebtedness to all effort to preserve intact that which seems never to be reproduced in absolute purity.

In the study of the industrial arts of all countries we find that the name of some monarch who very particularly favoured their development has come down to us in connection with objects made under his royal patronage, so that finally we learn to know certain methods, patterns, and styles by the name of the great patron back in the years, who served his day by advancing the broadest principles of art. As Shah Abbas was to Persia, so was Akbar to India in the sixteenth century. It was during the reign of Emperor Akbar that Queen Elizabeth sent the first expedition to India and founded the great East India Company. Later, in 1614, when Sir Thomas Roe

was sent as first ambassador from England, Shah Jehan, the builder of the famous Taj at Agra, and also of the peacock throne so often referred to in descriptions of Indian art, was emperor of India.

The dreamy mysticism of East Indian thought and philosophy penetrates the most hidden realms of art life among the Hindus, and even the most casual study of the fabrics of the East is useless without some sort of conception of the thought-life. This we cannot too often admit, and, as our minds broaden out so as to comprehend the different attitudes of the minds of men toward interests and problems with which we are ourselves struggling, we become fitted to receive from others that without which no foreign. art can be interpreted.

While we have all become more or less familiar with the names of cities and provinces in the rugmanufacturing districts of Persia and Asia Minor, it is not customary to mention the rugs of India by other than the one comprehensive term “East Indian." As the art of making "knot carpet" is one brought into the country by the Mohammedans from Persia, the workers at first dubbed all pile carpets "Persian," because made by Persians in the country where either their conquests or their religion had driven them. We find that native Hindu art is very different from that developed during the later Mohammedan ascendency in all things artistic. Where the former was heavy, broad, and horizontal in effect, the latter was light, airy, and graceful. Where the former was covered with images and attributes of native gods, the latter, avoiding the image, indulged in