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Colors and Dying of Carpets

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Until the late nineteenth century, the wool in Oriental rugs was colored with dyes made from natural sources; mostly plants and insects. Cochineal is obtained from the Dactylopius coccus insect found in cacti, but the bulk of the reds were derived from the root of wild madder, blue from the indigo plant, yellow from saffron, isperek (milkwort), vine leaves and pomegranate, and also from buckthorn. Green came from turmeric berries, blacks and greys from brazil or logwood, brown from nuts and tree bark. These materials, carefully blended according to closely guarded recipes handed down from generation to generation, produced colors the hues of which cannot to this day be chemically reproduced.

In the late nineteenth century, Western commerce visited one of its occasional unintentional curses on the Third World. The weavers in Turkey and Persia were introduced to aniline dyes which they welcomed because they were cheap and saved all the painstaking hours formerly spent over the boiling vat. The passage of time, however, revealed the mixed nature of this blessing: the dyes were unstable and colors changed hue, almost always for the worse. Certain dyes also physically attacked the wool, corroding the face of the rug and producing an intaglio effect, which in itself affected the hue because the light struck it differently. These events, combined with structural short-cuts taken at the same time to increase output, resulted in a degeneration in quality of output so serious that edicts were issued by the Shah declaring that dye houses could be destroyed and that dyers found using the forbidden chemicals could have their right hand amputated.

By the 1920s of course the West had moved on and synthetic dye stuffs were produced which were, and continue to be, used widely in rug output without catastrophic results either for the rugs or the dyers. Thus the bulk of production in the last fifty or sixty years boasts colors resulting from the use of a mixture of chemically based and natural dyes, and many very beautiful and desirable pieces are so colored. To the discriminating eye, however, some of the hues are visually aggressive, and there are now new initiatives, some government-sponsored, to reintroduce the use of dyes derived from natural sources only. This antipathy to chemical dyes should not be dismissed as precious self-indulgence on the part of the connoisseur because the use of chemicals does have two serious disadvantages:

The first disadvantage is stability. The very fact that the artificial dyes are now so admirably stable takes away an integral part of the traditional charm of an ageing rug. The hues do not mellow to produce the subtle patina of age as did the natural dyes. Secondly, there is universality. The synthetic dye comes out of the can in Kurdistan exactly the same hue as it does in Herat, thus denying an important source of information: in older pieces, the hue of the colors is a tangible aid to identification. In eastern Persia, for instance, the most common base of the red was cochineal and in the West, madder. Thus the blue-red of the former, compared to the rust red of the latter, could be a helpful clue in identification. Thus does 'progress' blur character and individuality.

The Significance of Color
Many colors used in the rugs are understood to have a meaning often intriguingly at variance with their significance (if any) in the West.

White: is the color of mourning.

Red: burns with passion. It is the color of vibrant life, happiness and success, especially in creative activities.

Yellow: the color of the sun, indicates plenty, riches and glorious power.

Green: as elsewhere, signifies renewal and growth, but, more importantly for Muslims, holiness, as it was the color of Mohammed's coat, and therefore not suitable to be walked upon and not used by them in rugs for that reason.

Brown: indicates fruitful fertility.

Orange: sometimes interpreted in the West as the color of hatred, is, in reverse, the color associated with sympathetic feelings like devotion and tenderness in the East.

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