DOBAG initiative

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"DOBAG" is the Turkish acronym for " Doğal Boya Araştırma ve Geliştirme Projesi " - the project for the research and development of natural colors . The aim of the project is to revive the traditional Anatolian handicraft of carpet knotting , with the help of which rural regions of Turkey should also be provided with a regular source of income.

Background and story

The DOBAG initiative came from Harald Böhmer (1931–2017), a German teacher who taught science at the German Gymnasium in Istanbul, inspired by the work of the photographer and collector Josephine Powell (1919–2007). As part of his work as a lecturer for textiles and natural colors at the Istanbul Marmara University, Boehmer carried out chemical analyzes of the dyes in wool samples of antique Turkish carpets, which are kept in the museums of Istanbul. From his initiative, together with the German Society for Technical Cooperation and the Marmara University in Istanbul, the DOBAG project to revive traditional knotting in Anatolia was born. The ideas of the project were taken up by other workshops in the region and also spread in other countries, which are now starting again to produce carpets in the traditional way. As a result, a "renaissance" of carpet production with hand-spun wool dyed with natural colors developed. The DOBAG initiative is therefore of art historical importance as it marks the beginning of the revival of a tradition that has been forgotten for almost a century. Knotted carpets play an essential role in everyday Islamic culture and in the history of Islamic art .

Synthetic colors in oriental carpets

Left picture: Southwest Anatolian carpet with bright but harmonious colors. Right picture: Kurdish tent bag (chowal), approx. 1880, with harsh synthetic colors Left picture: Southwest Anatolian carpet with bright but harmonious colors. Right picture: Kurdish tent bag (chowal), approx. 1880, with harsh synthetic colors
Left picture : Southwest Anatolian carpet with bright but harmonious colors.
Right picture : Kurdish tent bag ( chowal ), approx. 1880, with harsh synthetic colors

Traditional natural colors are obtained from plants and insects. The English chemist William Henry Perkin invented mauvein , the first synthetic paint , in 1856 . A large number of synthetic dyes came onto the market in the period that followed. Cheap, easy to attach and use, they have been used in Ușak carpets since the mid-1860s. The first synthetic dyes were found to be extremely unstable to light and moisture. They were so disappointing that the Persian rulers even tried to restrict their spread by law and with tax measures.

No attempts are known from Turkey to counteract the increasing use of synthetic colors, so that within a few decades the old craft tradition of natural coloring in Anatolia was almost completely given up and finally forgotten. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Western art historians noticed a drastic change in the color scheme of oriental carpets. In 1952, AC Edwards describes the aesthetic effect of synthetic colors as follows:

“In a new carpet, the [synthetic] colors have a hard, metallic look; in an old one, they are dull and dead. "

“In a new carpet, the colors look hard and metallic; in an old one they are cloudy and dead. "

In order to be successful in the Western European and American markets, synthetic-colored carpets mostly had to be chemically treated (often bleached to soften the harsh colors) before they could be put on sale.

Analysis of natural colors and reconstruction of traditional dyeing processes

Madder plant (Rubia tinctorum)
Indigo, Historical Dye Collection, Technical University Dresden

As early as 1952, Edwards suggested using the color analysis of carpet yarns to more precisely determine where contemporary carpets were made. In 1982 Böhmer then published his work on yarn samples from ancient Anatolian carpets with the help of thin-layer chromatography . By comparing chromatograms of wool samples as well as of well-known dyeing plants, the individual components of the colors were analyzed and the dyeing process was experimentally reconstructed.

After these analyzes, the following natural colors were used in Anatolian carpets:

The dyeing process begins with the preparation of the wool in order to make it receptive to the dyes. To do this, the washed wool is dipped in a pickling solution. It then remains in the dye solution for a certain time and is then dried in the air and in the sun. Indigo-dyed wool comes out of the solution with a yellowish dyed color; the blue only develops through oxidation in the air. Some colors, especially dark brown and light green, need ferrous stains for the coloring to succeed. These stains attack the wool fibers, so that the pile in the areas of a carpet treated with these colors wears out faster and more. This can create a relief effect in older Anatolian carpets, the presence of which suggests traditional coloring.

Creation of the DOBAG cooperatives

In 1981, the DOBAG research project was founded at the State School of Applied Arts (later the Faculty of Fine Arts of Marmara University in Istanbul) with the support of the Turkish Ministry of Forestry, with the aim of putting Böhmer's research into practice in selected villages. A cooperative should be founded to market the goods, which should be financially self-supporting. The villagers themselves should become members of the cooperative.

The cooperative in Ayvacik

The first demonstration of the traditional dyeing technique took place in some villages in the Ayvacık area of Çanakkale Province . The region was chosen for this because a long and continuous tradition of knotting had been preserved here. With the help of a loan from the Turkish government of almost $ 100,000, the cooperative was founded. The center and central warehouse is located in Ayvacık, a municipality of (1998) about 5000 inhabitants. There are 79 smaller villages in the vicinity, 25 of which (in 1998) joined the cooperative and which produced around a thousand carpets per year.

The members are responsible for the procurement of tools and materials, although wool can be purchased from the cooperative, which has its own carding machine. The weavers are also free to choose whether they want to sell their carpets to the cooperative or in the open market. According to traditional custom in Ayvacık, originally only the men were members of the cooperative and receive wages for their wives. Later widows could take over the membership of their deceased husband themselves. A membership fee is due annually. A supervisory board is elected at an annual meeting, the chairman of which receives a salary from the cooperative. The official title of the cooperative is "Sınırlı Sorumlu Süleyman Köy Tarımsal Kalkınma Kooperatifi" . It is registered with the Ministry of Small Industry of Turkey; According to Turkish law, only female producers are allowed to become members.

The women's cooperative in Yuntdağ

In 1982 another project was added in the Yuntdağ region, a very remote area between Manisa and Bergama . There the traditional handicraft was still relatively unaffected. In the Yuntdağ, the cooperative provides all the material and tools and pays the weavers for their work. The first funding here came from the German Society for Technical Cooperation. Here the weavers themselves are members of the cooperative, which is the first women's cooperative in Turkey. In 1998 there were 130 active weavers in the cooperative. The name of this cooperative is "Sınırlı Sorumlu Doğal Boyalı Dokumaları Üretim ve Pazarlama Kooperatifi" (The cooperative for the production and marketing of naturally colored hand-knotted carpets).

Carpet production in the DOBAG project

DOBAG carpets are tied with symmetrical (Turkish or "Gördes") knots . Warp and weft threads consist of spun and twisted sheep's wool, the yarn of the pile is hand-spun and is dyed on site with natural dyes according to the experimentally recovered procedures. After completion, the carpets are not chemically treated and therefore have the original, strong colors. In the beginning, the dyeing of green tones in particular proved to be a challenge, as the first attempts with mixed dyeings of indigo and yellow resulted in undesirable olive green tones.

DOBAG carpets are delivered with a leather label and seal, which can be used to identify the carpets, as well as a certificate stating the name of the weaver, the village and the region. The weavers are paid according to the knot in the spirit of fair trade . As soon as a carpet has been sold, the weaver receives an additional payment. The commercial organization of the project delivers the carpets directly to authorized dealers so that intermediate trade is avoided.

From a technical point of view, the DOBAG initiative is thus trying to revive the tradition of Anatolian carpet knotting. On the social level, the effects of urbanization should be counteracted by ensuring that women in small villages can earn a regular income.

Effects

"Renaissance of the carpet"

DOBAG carpet made for the Islamic Gallery of the British Museum

DOBAG carpets were exhibited for the first time from November 27th to December 24th, 1982 in the Galerie Franz Bausback, Mannheim. Made to order, they are in the Islamic Gallery of the British Museum , the Victoria and Albert Museum , All Souls College , Oxford, the Academy of Sciences and De Young Museum of Asian Art, San Francisco, the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan , in the Weltmuseum Wien , and in the Royal Museum Edinburgh.

The ideas of the DOBAG initiative have also been adopted by other carpet-knotting countries, for example Iran. There, traditional dyeing with vegetable dyes was revived in the 1990s. The general interest of customers in traditionally dyed Persian carpets met dye masters like Abbas Sayahi, who had preserved the knowledge of traditional Iranian recipes. After the commercial interest in hand-knotted carpets made from hand-spun wool dyed with natural colors expanded, some carpet manufacturers also adopted the approach of the DOBAG initiative. The return of producers to traditional carpet weaving and the subsequent interest of buyers in purchasing such carpets was described by Eilland as the “renaissance of the carpet”.

Social aspects

The connection of commercial and social goals within the DOBAG project has brought a number of comparable initiatives into being, in which the profits from the weaving are essentially used to improve the social and economic situation of the weavers:

  • The “Cultural Survival Ersari Turkmen Project” supports refugees from Afghanistan .
  • Barakat, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides education and medical care for Afghan refugees. The initiative is funded by the Yayla Tribal Rug Company.
  • The “Survival Tibetan Project” supports Tibetans.

Scientific aspects

In the late 19th century, Western European researchers began to take an interest in the oriental carpet. The textiles were recognized as an essential part of Islamic art . In 1902, however, the art historian Wilhelm von Bode found that the handicraft of carpet-knotting was no longer fully accessible to scientific research even in his time. The introduction of synthetic colors and the commercial mass production with patterns that are successful on the market have led to the fact that knowledge of the traditional colors and patterns of individual ethnic groups or regions has largely been lost. Even antique carpets cannot always be assigned to a regional or ethnic tradition.

Due to the cooperation with the scientific institutes of the Marmara University (Department of Traditional Crafts and Design), the DOBAG project offers an opportunity to prospectively research the art-historical and socio-economic consequences of the revival of traditional carpet weaving in rural areas of Anatolia.

In 2000, the Turkish Cultural Foundation established the Cultural Heritage Preservation and Natural Dyes Laboratory. Its task is "to promote the natural colors of Turkey (...), to revive the art of dyeing with natural colors, and to create job opportunities for the rural population". The publications and conference activities expand knowledge of traditional carpet manufacturing in Turkey.

Status of the initiative 2016

As early as 1995 Eilland complained that despite the commercial success and the importance and scope of the project idea, only sparse information was available about the status and future developments. At the end of 2015, it was announced on the website of one of the German distributors that the sale of DOBAG carpets would be discontinued on July 1, 2016, because the project could no longer get sufficient supplies of goods. As shown in a publication by the İstanbul Textile and Apparel Exporters' Associations (ITKIB) from 2011, the production of hand-knotted carpets compared to machine-made carpets in Turkey has declined in recent years.

literature

  • Harald Böhmer, Josephine Powell, Serif Atlıhan: Nomads in Anatolia. Encounters with a fading culture. Remhöb-Verlag, Ganderkesee 2005.
  • Harald Böhmer, with the collaboration of Nervin Enez, Recep Karadağ, Charlotte Kwon: Kökboya - natural colors and textiles. Remhöb-Verlag, Ganderkesee 2002.
  • Werner Brüggemann and Harald Böhmer: Carpets of the farmers and nomads in Anatolia . 2nd Edition. Verlag Kunst und Antiquitäten, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-921811-20-1 .
  • Helmut Schweppe (1979): How can you tell whether a carpet is colored with natural or synthetic dyes? 2. International Conference for Oriental Carpets, Munich 1978. In: Hali Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 24-27
  • Harald Böhmer (1979): Dye analyzes, dye drugs and dyeings according to analysis results demonstrated on a paperback flat woven fabric from Anatolia. 2. International Conference for Oriental Carpets, Munich 1978. In: Hali Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 30-33
  • Harald Boehmer: The Revival of Natural Dyeing in Two Traditional Weaving Areas of Anatolia . In: Oriental Rug Review . III, No. 9, 1983.
  • Serif Atlihan: Traditional Weaving in One Village of Settled Nomads in Northwest Anatolia . In: Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies . IV, 1993.
  • June Anderson: Return to Tradition. The revitalization of Turkish village carpets. The California Academy of Sciences, in association with the University of Washington Press, San Francisco, Seattle, London 1998, ISBN 0-295-97689-6 .

See also

Web links

Portal: Turkey  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Turkey
Portal: Islam  - Overview of Wikipedia content on Islam

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Şerife Atlıhan: Obituary for Dr. Harald Böhmer . In: Carpet Collector . No. 3, 2017, ISSN  2195-8203 , pp. 22-27.
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 20, 2006, No. 17 / Page 37: Behind the snow-capped peaks of the Taurus Mountains. In: FAZ.net . January 20, 2006, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Istanbul Carpet Museums. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 27, 2014 ; accessed on June 14, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vgm.gov.tr
  4. ^ E. Gans-Ruedin: Splendeur du Tapis Persian . 1st edition. Office du Livre, Editions Vilo, Friborg-Paris 1978, ISBN 978-2-8264-0110-0 , p. 13 .
  5. ↑ Werner Grothe-Hasenbalg: Carpets from the Orient . H. Schmidt & C. Günther, Leipzig 1936.
  6. ^ R. Neugebauer and J. Orendi: Handbook of Oriental Carpet Studies . Reprint-2012-. Karl W. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1920, ISBN 978-3-86444-955-0 , p. 81-82 .
  7. ^ A. Cecil Edwards: The Persian Carpet . 1st edition. Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd, London 1953, p. 31, 364-365 .
  8. ^ A. Cecil Edwards: The Persian Carpet . 1st edition. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, London 1953, p. 164 .
  9. ↑ a b Harald Boehmer: The Revival of Natural Dyeing in Two Traditional Weaving Areas of Anatolia . In: Oriental Rug Review . III, No. 9, 1983.
  10. ↑ a b Serif Atlihan: Traditional Weaving in One Village of Settled Nomads in Northwest Anatolia . In: Oriental Carpet and Textile Studies . IV, 1993.
  11. ↑ a b June Anderson: Return to tradition. The revitalization of Turkish village carpets. The California Academy of Sciences, in association with the University of Washington Press, San Francisco, Seattle, London 1998, ISBN 0-295-97689-6 , pp. 9-10 .
  12. ↑ a b June Anderson: Return to tradition. The revitalization of Turkish village carpets. The California Academy of Sciences, in association with the University of Washington Press, San Francisco, Seattle, London 1998, ISBN 0-295-97689-6 , pp. 12-13 .
  13. ^ A b W. Brüggemann and H. Boehmer: Carpets of the farmers and nomads in Anatolia . 2nd Edition. Verlag Kunst und Antiquitäten, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-921811-20-1 .
  14. ^ A b Peter Bausback: Exhibition catalog: "New Anatolian village carpets with natural colors" . Franz Bausback, Mannheim, Germany 1982.
  15. ↑ Peter Linden: DOBAG carpets on the website of the dealer Peter Linden. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 20, 2015 ; accessed on October 23, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.peterlinden.com
  16. ↑ James Opie: Vegetal Dyes: Iran restores an ancient tradition . In: Oriental Rug Review . III, No. 10, 1992, pp. 26-29.
  17. ^ Woven Legends Company. Retrieved June 13, 2015 .
  18. ^ A b Yayla Tribal Rug Company. Retrieved June 14, 2015 .
  19. ^ Miri Iranian Knots Company. Retrieved June 14, 2015 .
  20. ↑ Emmett Eilland: Oriental Rugs Today . 2nd Edition. Berkeley Hills Books, Albany, CA 2003, ISBN 1-893163-46-6 , pp. 36 .
  21. ^ Cultural Survival Project. Retrieved October 23, 2015 .
  22. ^ Barakat, Inc. Retrieved June 14, 2015 .
  23. ^ Survival Tibetan Project. Retrieved June 14, 2015 .
  24. ↑ Alois Riegl: Old Oriental carpets . Reprint-1979-. A. Th. Engelhardt, 1892, ISBN 3-88219-090-6 .
  25. ^ Wilhelm von Bode: Near Eastern knotted carpets from ancient times . 5th edition. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Munich 1902, ISBN 3-7814-0247-9 , p. 158 ff .
  26. ^ University of Marmara Department of Traditional Handicrafts and Design. Retrieved June 14, 2015 .
  27. ^ Turkish Cultural Foundation. Retrieved June 29, 2015 .
  28. ^ TCF Natural Dyes Lab. Retrieved July 7, 2015 .
  29. ↑ Murray Eilland: A Second Look at the DOBAG Project . Oriental Rug Review 15: 3, 46-52, 1995.
  30. ↑ Alexander von Manteuffel: website dobag-teppiche.de. Accessed on February 19, 2016 : “This homepage will be closed on July 1, 2016. Unfortunately, I am not getting enough supplies from the project. "
  31. ↑ Report of the ITKIB 2011 ( Memento of the original from December 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 19, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.itkib.org.tr