The Impact of Color in Caucasian Rugs (Part 2)

In the first article of this three-part series about antique Caucasian rugs woven during the Second Golden Age of Persian Weaving (ca. 1800 to ca. 1900), I examined the people, environment, and cosmology of the tribal weaving groups that wove these magnificent representations of the people (primarily women) who created them. In this segment, I will discuss a core underpinning of the art of Caucasian rugs: an innate recognition of the impact of color. Their weavers knew which hues worked harmoniously together and how they could be “pushed” to resonate with each other, something the French Impressionist painters discovered later at work on their canvases and 1970’s scientists encountered in their labs. Experience taught the weavers that outlining sections with grey, blue, or red amplified dimensionality and that, given the eye’s propensity to blend colors, the “right” adjacent colors created the illusion of a greater range of hues than were there. All of whi

In the first article of this three-part series about antique Caucasian rugs woven during the Second Golden Age of Persian Weaving (ca. 1800 to ca. 1900), I examined the people, environment, and cosmology of the tribal weaving groups that wove these magnificent representations of the people (primarily women) who created them. In this segment, I will discuss a core underpinning of the art of Caucasian rugs: an innate recognition of the impact of color. Their weavers knew which hues worked harmoniously together and how they could be “pushed” to resonate with each other, something the French Impressionist painters discovered later at work on their canvases and 1970’s scientists encountered in their labs. Experience taught the weavers that outlining sections with grey, blue, or red amplified dimensionality and that, given the eye’s propensity to blend colors, the “right” adjacent colors created the illusion of a greater range of hues than were there. All of whi