Silk Carpets

Carpets

Pleasing to the eye and soothing for the mind, the floor coverings of India are heart-winners. The main centres are Bhadohi, Agra, Amritsar, Jaipur, Gwalior and Kashmir. Being mostly export- oriented, the weavers can produce almost any design. However they have a few distinctive designs of their own like the Taj Mahal. The carpets are so exquisitely made that they are often used as wall hangings. Improvements in the techniques of washing, have given them a mcre lustrous shine.

The Mughal emperors provided patronage to this art and raised it to lofty heights, with Agra being one of the oldest carpet centres. Today it is a compact industry and does both traditional as well as modem designs. The "calling out" or "pher bolna" system still prevails in Agra . The master weaver alone follows the design and keeps calling out to the weavers about colours to be used for each knot. High quality carpets are produced mostly in three varieties -Persian (Ispahan & Kashan), Turkoman and Aubusson (French).

lndo-lspahan is done with the long leaf & flower and the Indo-Kashan with the small leaf and flower. In the Indo-Turkoman the Mohra Bokhara is made with the typical octagonal patterns. An interesting point in its colouring is the use of the same colour in different shades. For instance, a red background will have a dark blue border with two shades of blue, one light, another medium. Similarly there may be two greens, two shades of browns and gold, etc. In the more sophisticated, even four shades of one tint are mixed. The carpets of India are universally admired not only for their original patterns, fine wool and rich colours, but also for being produced in sizeable quantities of acceptable commercial quality. The carpet industry in Shahjehanpur is barely a century old and here, both cotton and woollen carpets are made. The woollen ones being in three sizes, the ordinary with 16 knots, medium with 25 and the best with 36 knots. The designs are based on the old Persian styles. In one of the more exciting ones, the overall ground colour is a clear soft scarlet, and field covered with flattened, irregularly lineated diamond shapes of warm golden yellow, apparently separated, yet imperceptibly linked.