Carpets at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul

I have been looking at carpets for three years now; but most have been Iranian.  Nothing has prepared me for the utter weirdness — Mars-and-Aztec like — of the Anatolian carpet. I had to get a chair and sit quietly for a quarter of an hour just to allow my mind to settle: like a puppy suddenly thrown among loud strangers, it had panicked and wanted to flee.

The museum’s artificial light fools my camera and there is a net loss of green, of which there is a lot here.  Use your imagination:  the grey areas are dark, dull green.

Nothing remotely as good, or as interesting, in the shops of Istanbul.  The colors, too, are different, more candy-like.

There are good soumaks (a.k.a. rahrahs) — a kind of flat-weave with an invisible structural weft and cicims (embroideries); and all are Iranian; which is great, but not much comfort if you want a carpet to sit on.  (I had determined not to bother with sofas for the living room:  available furniture is ugly and the ridiculous price will buy me a decent rug.  And I am used to, and prefer, sitting on the floor, anyway.  But for this, it has to be a rug, not an flat, bone-crushing flat-weave or embroidery).

My favorite design here is the “DK” — an extraordinary fish-scale pattern (hover your mouse over the photos and their names will appear).