Symbolic function of the carpet

 

In the countless drawings of Antiquity,  Buddhist Middle-Asian mural paintings, Chinese and Japanese paintings, Tibetan Bhtangkas, Islamic miniatures, all the characters, divine or human, like the saviour, shaman, king, hero, warrior, appear nearly without any variation as seated or standing in a delimited area which helps to separe them from the rest of the image. Wood or stone platforms, painted or carved, animal skins, precious clothes or carpets are generally used to restate and triumph their great rarity and rightness for power and veneration. Therefore this "sacred" space's functions is obviously confered to the carpet and taken on by itself, irrespective of the drawings' symbolic value decorating it.

The carpet immediately differs from the ground where it lies. The difference is then evident and clear and so the association between the carpet and a "special place" is automatic.

A Persian saying tells: "My carpet is my home". More than tent or house, both for nomand and citizen, the carpets stands for the roots, the belongint to a community. It marks spaces and underlines their scope, closes off cold and hot temperatures, it's a reunion place and, most important thing, it keeps the origins, thoughts and traditions of its artistic creator. Therefore the carpet is automatically a symbolic function of a "exceptional" place, restated by drawings and appropriate colours. A magic, sacred space, which must be defended and protected like a piece of Art.