Is there any difference between a rug and a carpet? In strict British usage, a carpet means a room-size floor covering, while rugs are generally smaller. For the purposes of this exhibition, the two terms are used interchangeably, to describe textiles that incorporate certain features:
Materials
The art of weaving flourishes in parts of the world where there is access to fibers, from plants like cotton or flax, or animals like sheep and silkworms. In rug-weaving societies, the fiber most frequently used is wool from sheep, and to a lesser extent, goats. These animals are adaptable to a variety of human lifestyles, nomadic or settled. Wool is durable, warm, easily dyed, and in a pile rug, the cut fibers reflect light and give the surface a soft sheen.
Shearing and washing the fleece: The fleece, or coat of wool, must be removed from the sheep by cutting or shearing. The fleece is greasy and tangled, grayish-brown with dirt, and full of twigs, leaves, and insects. The raw fleeces are immersed in a spring or running stream, lathered with soap, and beaten against rocks until they are white and free of impurities.
Carding and spinning the wool: The wool may be clean, but it is still a tangle of mats and snarls. The fibers need to be detached from each other and made to lie roughly parallel. They are combed or carded into a loose mass to aid the spinners, who convert these fluffs of wool, handful by handful, into yarn. Each spinner holds a spindle, a wooden implement shaped like a toy top, in one hand. With the other hand, she attaches a mass of carded wool to a leader of yarn on the spindle. Then she gives the spindle a spin, rotating the fibers. With her fingers, she gently pulls the fibers to carry the twist through the wool, shaping it into a long thread. As the yarn is spun, it is wound around the spindle, and another handful of fibers is attached to its end. The process is repeated until all the wool has been spun. Sometimes the yarns are plied, or twisted together, to create thicker yarns. Yarns meant to be used for pile rugs generally are spun loosely. This allows the dye to penetrate each fiber, and also allows the cut pile ends to unravel slightly and expand to fill in the surface of the rug.
Dyeing the wool: After it is spun, yarn is wound into manageable units called hanks or skeins. Then it is ready for the dyers. Before the twentieth century most dyes were obtained from plants: blues from indigo, yellows from saffron, turmeric, or weld, reds from madder, and black from oak gall. Another red, more purplish in hue, can be extracted from cochineal, a tiny insect. Variations in these basic colors can be achieved by dyeing one color over another, blue over yellow for green, for example. (Grays and browns could be obtained from sheep with gray or brown fleece.) The yarns to be dyed are submerged in pots of simmering water, then the plant matter and a mordant (a chemical added to the dyebath to increase dye absorption and fastness) are added in proportion to the weight of the wool. Despite the use of measured amounts, skeins of wool dyed at different times in different locations may not be exactly the same color. In the finished rug, this effect of subtle shade variation is called abrash.
Cashmere and silk
Cashmere, or pashmina, is the undercoat hair of Himalayan mountain goats. Indian weavers were familiar with Pashmina, which was used for weaving fine shawls. Pashmina is processed in the same manner as sheep’s wool. It takes dyes very well, can be spun into fine yarn, and it is very soft and lustrous. Pashmina was the pile fiber of choice for the finest Mughal carpets.
Silk, spun from the unraveled cocoons of silkworms, was expensive, as it had to be imported from China or northern Iran. When used as pile, it creates a surface sheen unmatched in other fibers. However, it is not as durable as wool or pashmina. In the Mughal carpets, silk was often used for warp and weft threads, because it could be spun finer than cotton, thus allowing for more knots per inch and more complex patterns in the finished rug.
Cotton
Cotton, native to India, grows in fluffy “bolls” on the tops of plants. Yarns made of cotton are not as easily dyed as the animal fibers are, and when used for pile, they are not as durable or lustrous. However, cotton is strong and stable. It often was used for the warp and weft foundation, where it would not be seen, but where it would provide stability to the knotted pile and allow the rug to lie flat.
Technique
Assembling the loom: After the yarns are prepared and dyed, a loom is assembled for weaving. Looms used for pile rugs are not complex; they are basically rectangular wooden frames that are laid flat on the ground or propped into a vertical position. Their main function is to hold the lengthwise warp threads, keeping them taut, parallel, and in the proper order. The warp threads, made of cotton, silk, or wool, are stretched over the top of the loom and back again, to the full width of the loom or desired width of the carpet.
Sitting in front of the loom, the weaver inserts a shed stick through the warp yarns. The shed stick is thin, flat, and wide; it is passed over the first warp thread, under the second warp thread, over the third thread, and so on across the width of the warp. By turning this stick on its side, the weaver raises every other warp thread, creating a “shed” through which the crosswise weft yarns are passed, or “shot.” The heddle stick creates an alternate shed. Loops of string attach threads to this stick.
Weaving the foundation: The weft yarn, usually cotton or wool, is wrapped around a shuttle, a wooden implement that can pass easily through the sheds. Still seated in front of the loom, the weavers alternate the shed and heddle sticks to create two sheds through which the weft, the crosswise yarns, are passed. To begin a rug, several rows of weft are woven along its bottom edge.
Knotting the pile: The design of the carpet is carried in the knots, or pile. Following a cartoon or to-size drawing provided by a master designer or manuscript illuminator, several weavers might work on a rug at the same time. Knots are tied individually, by hand, around two warp threads. The most commonly used knot was the Senneh, or Persian knot. Depending on whether this knot opens to the right or to the left, the pile leans slightly in that direction.
After a row of knots is tied, a few rows of weft are added to stablize the row, then another row of knots is tied. The weaver uses a heavy comb or beater to pack the knots and weft tightly into the warp. Finally, the loose ends of the knots are clipped to create the dense pile surface.
Knots per square inch: The fineness or coarseness of the weave is determined by the number of knots tied per square inch, and this is figured from the back of the carpet, where the individual knots are easier to isolate and count. A square inch is measured off, and the number of knots going across the section is multiplied times the number of knots going down the section. Rugs made with thick yarns or with more shots of weft between the knot rows can have as few as 60 knots per square inch, but very fine rugs, woven with thinner yarns, can contain as many as 2,000 knots per square inch. These carpets look like fine velvet, and they can take years to produce.
The number of knots per square inch affects not only the time taken to weave the rug but also the sophistication of the design. Curved elements seem more curved, and subtle highlights and shadings can be woven.
Historical features of construction
The reign of Akbar, 1556-1605:
Akbar is credited with founding court workshops and ateliers for Indian craftsmen to learn to weave carpets. Technical flaws found in some of the carpets of this era are consistent with the establishment of a new workshop. Rugs from Akbar’s reign used cotton warp and wool pile exclusively and have a color scheme featuring multiple shades of blues, greens, and other colors on a red ground.
The reign of Jahangir, 1605-27:
The carpets of Jahangir’s reign show a higher state of finish and refinement. The use of luxury materials like silk and pashmina allowed for a greater density of knots. Jahangir’s emphasis on miniature painting may have influenced the weavers, who achieved painterly effects, subtle gradations, and shadings with yarns in an almost pointillistic manner.
The reign of Shah Jahan, 1628-58:
Carpets of extraordinarily fine weave date from this era. Warps and wefts of fine silk yarns allowed as many as 2,000 knots per square inch, and the use of pashmina for the pile gave the carpets a velvetlike texture. Sophisticated shading techniques, using yarns closely related in color, continued in the rugs of this period.
Provincial carpet-weaving centers produced carpets of different grades, sometimes from the same cartoon. Carpets of “imperial” grade used luxury materials and had a greater density of knots. Standard-grade rugs used cotton and sheep’s wool and had fewer knots per square inch. Carpets in between these two grades were also produced.
The reign of Aurangzeb, 1658-1707:
It is not known if court workshops were still in existence during Aurangzeb’s austere reign. However, provincial workshops continued to produce fine carpets, utilizing pashmina in the north of India and silk in the south. As the eighteenth century progressed, the standards of technique and construction began to decline.
The term “pile carpet” means that the rug was constructed from a technique that involves the knotting of short pieces of yarn into the woven structure. The dangling ends of the knots are then trimmed evenly, much like overgrown grass can be cut by clippers or a mower to provide a uniform surface to a lawn.
Wool