The Persian Rug - Art Or Craft?

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art.”

Tied by hand, one knot at a time, a Persian rug can take months or even years to create. Whether knotted from a precise design plate or 'cartoon' in a city workshop or inspired by the imagination of its tribal weaver, the Persian or Oriental rug is an object of skill and beauty… but is it truly art?

The expertise and elegance involved in the creation of a handmade carpet is a team process, the wool is sheared and spun before the dying process (often using natural plant and vegetable extracts), in a city setting the design is then drawn by hand, a painstaking process where the artist paints one dot at a time. The rug is then knotted, a process which takes many months, a form of paint by numbers on a grand scale. In a tribal dwelling the weaver often uses their own designs and inspiration. Ryan Malone of Little-Persia believes Persian rugs are art, art in its most natural and pure form:  

“Pablo Picasso believed that 'Painting is just another way of keeping a diary'. For many of our tribal rugs this could be taken in a literal sense. Nomadic weavers initially knotted rugs as a means of earning money for food and whatever clothing and shelter they could not produce themselves. Today many tribal rugs act as a diary of the weavers' life, a representation of their possessions, wealth or lifestyle - whatever is most important to them. War rugs act as a historic reference to key moments in history, for better or worse. Abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock stated: 'every good painter paints what he is' in tribal rugs a small piece of the weaver's soul is attached to each rug.  

“With city rugs, intricate designs are often borrowed from nature and architecture or religious and cultural symbols. From simple elephant and camel prints to the extravagant mogul gardens and the detailed carvings on the domes of ancient mosques and palaces, inspiration comes from the life and surroundings of the rug artists. City rugs demonstrate the weavers' aptitude in the use of symmetry, detail and colour.

“Similar to the various ideologies that exist in painting rugs can differ in purpose and appeal. However, no matter if the rug is tribal or city woven, the end goal is the same, to paraphrase Banksy: 'the holy grail is to spend less time making the rug than it takes people to look at it.' A tough ask when a Persian rug can takes months or years to make.”