The Last Mohicans

The history of the Kavacik project is engrossing, and the electronic microscope photographsof wool hairs from various (16th-19th century) carpets show us the sub-atomic world of fiber.

Great wavy tendrils loom up out of nowhere, as in a "B" movie. At a lower level, mordant deposit sites are visible.

The Oriental rug in the era of its technical reproduction may indeed have been the starting point for Dr. Manfred Bieber's Kavacik Project, the catalog of which has recently reached me. Tired of his native Wurzburg, Bieber set off for Turkey in 1981 with wife Margit and his two sons to take up a teaching post at Istanbul's Erkek Lisesi. Around this time, debonair dye aficionado Harald Böhmer was putting the finishing touches on his DOBAG project, and various other entrepreneurs in Turkey, Europe, and America were setting up shop in the new rug biz. Creating modern antiques is equivalent to printing your own money, and it is a fine line between making original copies and copies of the original.

The doctor spent much of his free time on field trips to Anatolia. In Igdir he found Mehmet Abushka, whom he subsequently trained as a dyer, and in Istanbul's bazaar Yorgo, the Greek copper dealer, who agreed to bankroll the enterprise. In Susan Altin, a weaver who had previously worked at Hereke, he found a gifted forelady of works, and soon a group of Gechekondu girls were merrily knotting away. Bieber would come home after a day teaching overcrowded classes and sink himself into the dyepots, sometimes literally. His knowledge, that of dye fermentation, had been gathered on the field trips, undertaken with his associate Bernhard Fröhlig, who also taught at the Erkek Lisesi. In Manastir they dug up an old dye professor who laid the technique of fermentation on them. The recipes were tested thoroughly, if unscientifically, to the following Turkish standards: "three days sheep pen, three days Yayla, three days sheep pen..." for the duration of three months. The colors improved.

This unconventional after-finish eventually paved the way for the dyeworks in Istanbul and Melas, where the Fröhlig project runs amongst a small group of villagers. They have produced some promising weavings, plus a number of traditional felts. In Istanbul the carpets proliferated and were sold mostly to members of the European enclave. They have always been relatively expensive. Long fermentation techniques (20 days, on average) and hand-carded, handspun wool, dictated a higher price level. The hand-carding of wool and the preparation of wool sliver can be rationalized down to: one spinner, one kilo, one week. The hand preparation of rug pile is the essential difference between these rugs and others on the market in Turkey. None of the women -- mostly older women are engaged in this work -- like carding the wool, but the machine-carded variety lacks character. The hand-carded wool immediately creates its own lively signature.

Yorgo paid his weavers, dedicated to a woman, far over the usual wage, for which they were inordinately grateful. Bieber scorned the cowardly productions of the last 50 years - he wanted to raise the dead! The question of whether it is possible or even desirable to copy antique models has been answered in our day with a broadside from Turkey. Granted that with any reproductions we are moving close to kitsch, that confusion of ethical and aesthetic dimensions seen in the effect mongering of many new carpets. It's apposite to view the contemporary Oriental rug as a restoration. Interestingly, Dr. Bieber had first thought of learning repair work before he became an "armchair weaver." Perhaps the Achilles heel of all such projects is that the theory inevitably precedes the practice; indeed, the practice has to be adjusted to fit the theory. Nevertheless, we now have a number of working models for the preservation of tradition through commercial enterprise.

The catalog is a worthy affair with, as usual, a few hums and hahs in the text and presentation. The terms "light" and "wash-fast" are thrown around too liberally, and a few plates have been miscredited, etc. But the concise texts (German only) from Heinz Hegenbart on the first German "Carpet Pioneers" and from Herr Bieber himself (wool, dyeing) are a valuable study resource. Hegenbart writes well, away from he confines of Heimtex magazine. Here is the conclusive proof that the Oriental rug is a Western invention! Everything you ever wanted to know about European involvement in the Persian rug business in the last years of the l9th century can be found here. The pages are peopled by the man who introduced the first automobile into Persia; Sultanabads are Sarouks; the Ardebil; and the figure of Theodor Strauss, Rimbaud of rugs, inventor of the Ziegler carpet, one-armed crack shot, botanist, rugmaker, and district chief.

The history of the Kavacik project is engrossing, and the electronic microscope photographsof wool hairs from various (16th-19th century) carpets show us the sub-atomic world of fiber. Great wavy tendrils loom up out of nowhere, as in a "B" movie. At a lower level, mordant deposit sites are visible. The Bieberish method of dye fermentation has yet to be proven demonstrably. Undoubtedly, fermentation techniques were in use. Indigo is the prime example, though in present-day Turkey indigo is dyed with sodium dithionite.

The ecological aspects of dyework have not been ignored in this excellent introduction either, as also the pros and cons of natural versus synthetic dyes. There is a first rate table of known sheep varieties in Anatolia -- some 22 -- and a town by town analysis of water hardness. Bieber has done his homework well. Since his return to Germany he has undertaken a number of journeys to the Anatolian heartlands. He can be seen here surrounded by sheep and earnest shepherds, Turkish be-capped, on the Cemce-Yayla near Cumacay -- although not standing around having his photo taken! The ability to inspire others through ideas, creativity, and ethically minded behavior has been the redeeming factor of entrepreneurs in all ages.

One interesting new production is a copy of the Cantoni Karapinar,

One interesting new production is a copy of the Cantoni Karapinar, long resident in the Reyksmuseum, Amsterdam. This rug represents something of a hidden tradition in Anatolian weaving. Martin spoke highly of such rugs, but this copy is a carpet, blown up a square meter over the original, which necessitated a change in the knot count. The original probably has more knots in the vertical than the horizontal; here the ratio has been reversed. A good clear yellow has been achieved on an indigo field pulsing with micro-abrash. It's as if the designers had broken all the ground rules and put them back together again. The drawing is without contours, in spirited contradiction to the heavy outlining of most Turkish rugs. After much difficulty, this design has been successfully reproduced for the second time in Istanbul.

For Bieber, the strengths of the Anatolian rug were also its weaknessess. Unable or unwilling to adapt to foreign influences, the tradition nevertheless succumbed to foreign dyes -- the baby went out with the bathwater. It's interesting in this context to recall the novel exhibition created by Dr. Bieber in 1978, which consisted of carpets woven between 1880 and 1920, with virtually 100% synthetic dyes. This show went so far as to provoke a court case, which the plaintiff duly won.

The Oriental carpet is now emerging from one of the darkest epochs in its long history. Anyone interested in its future will want to possess a copy of this effulgent publication. Congratulations to the initiators of this project, and to all those anonymous souls who have had a part in this undertaking. There is a prayer rug in goat's hair, the "Baptism" rug of the Kavacik works, with a woven inscription:

* In Turkish, Ve Bieber, Merakli bir Alman.

Anatolische Dorfteppiche, Das Kavacik-Project, Eine M. Bieber, B. Frohlig Innovation, catalog of an exhibition from 18 September through 6 November 1988 in the Niederrheinisches Museum fur Volkskunde und Kulturgeschichte, Kevelaer, West Germany.