Orientalist

Ancient Fruit, Modern Fabric…Khotan and Pom from ZAK+FOX

THE POMEGRANATE

Once when I was living in the heart of a pomegranate, I heard a seed saying, “Someday I shall become a tree, and the wind will sing in my branches, and the sun will dance on my leaves, and I shall be strong and beautiful through all the seasons.” Then another seed spoke and said, “When I was as young as you, I too held such views; but now that I can weigh and measure things, I see that my hopes were vain.” And a third seed spoke also, “I see in us nothing that promises so great a future.” And a fourth said, “But what a mockery our life would be, without a greater future!” Said a fifth, “Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even what we are.” But a sixth replied, “Whatever we are, that we shall continue to be.” And a seventh said, “I have such a clear idea how everything will be, but I cannot put it into words.” Then an eighth spoke – -and a ninth — and a tenth — and then many — until all were speaking, and I could distinguish nothing for the many voices. And so I moved that very day into the heart of a quince, where the seeds are few and almost silent.
-Khalil Gibran

I’m sad to step away from inlay and the Orientalists, but I am sure I’ll be back. In the meantime, I’ll use this 1875 portrait by William-Adolphe Bouguereau as a gentle segway to today’s post, full of rumination on my passion for pomegranates, both real and decorative.

The pomegranate originally came from Persia and the western Himalayas and has been cultivated for millennia throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean and European regions. Traders carried it along the Silk Road and spread it through China and Southeast Asia. The name itself is a play on Medieval Latin for ‘seeded apple’ and many believe that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was perhaps instead a pomegranate, not an apple. Sacred to all religions and referenced in many ancient texts from the Book of Exodus, the Quran, the Homeric Hymns and the Mesopotamian records, to name a few, it has traditionally been seen as a symbol of abundance and posterity. Supposedly, Muslims believe that every pomegranate contains an aril that came from the garden of paradise, so they must all be eaten to be sure you get that one.

Pomegranates have become a common motif in our lives here in the Middle East. They are featured in the recipes and juices we eat all the time and I buy containers of the little arils (individual seeds) in the supermarket for snacks and to throw in salads. If they are as healthy as everyone says, then we are turning into superhumans. Throughout the region, I also keep noticing them as decorative ornaments, from the gates of the Armenian Church in the Old City of Jerusalem…

…carved in the paneling of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem…

…on an exquisite antique embroidered coverlet in a favorite antique shop here in Doha.

But my favorite place to find the motif is on old Khotan carpets – a passion I have written about before. There is just something about the perfection of balance in their design, the best being in the pieces I call ‘pomegranate vase’ or ‘scrolling pomegranate’.

I don’t need an excuse to effuse over two of the newest fabric designs by ZAK+FOX, both of which were inspired by pomegranates and my beloved East Turkestan carpets. The first is simply called Khotan and it has all the warmth and charm of its namesake. Textile designer Zak Profera finds “a lot of inspiration in rug patterns, perhaps because they often aren’t translated into fabric. [With Khotan] I wanted to create something that had a heritage feel, but wasn’t a true “document” piece. I also envisioned it more as a geometric and less of a floral — though I think the beauty of the design is due to the fact that it’s a balance of the two. The repeat is not complicated, but the embellishments — like the leaves and the young pomegranates — creates a wonderfully organic, rambling vine-like design which continues endlessly.”

Available in two colorways, Rubia and Goldwork, which really have spectacularly different feels, something I find quite unusual in a single fabric. The Rubia literally looks like a worn and faded Khotan carpet and is visually strong and graphic.

Goldwork is soft and incredibly aged and almost burnished looking. The fabric itself, made of thick 100% linen, has a rich tactile quality to it in person. “It was important to get the weight of the linen right for Khotan, otherwise the texture and depth of the design would fall flat,” says Zak.

If Khotan reaches out and grabs you instantaneously, Pom is more subtle as it works its way into your consciousness. Pom is influenced by the less common ‘cluster of three’ style Khotan carpet, with its simple stylized repeating pattern.

A versatile small-scale pomegranate print in Khaki, Rubia or…

…a deep grayed blue called Byzantine, it has such a variety of uses and a chameleon-like ability to work with anything. For Pom, Zak “wanted to create a small-scale pattern that would riff off of Khotan — they aren’t matchy-matchy, which I think is the kiss of death in design — but the border of Pom uses the same vine/leaf elements that Khotan carries.”

For Zak, Pom is “also my first border pattern — which I plan on creating a lot more of — because it allows for so much more when using it in application.” You all know about my long-standing obsession with bordered fabrics and the way I am putting many to good use in the house here. Courtney has the same fixation and she has used Pom perfectly in upholstering this chair cushion and using the border as the edge.

I’ve noticed both fabrics popping up on other Instagram feeds as well. Here Khotan in the Goldwork colorway and Pom in Byzantine plays well with a David Hicks fabric and some solids in a scheme by Emily C. Butler.

And Khotan in Rubia on the armchairs in this Lake Tahoe living room spotted on Taylor Jacobson’s feed, strikes an ideal cosy but exotic note.

And as for me, I am contemplating my own pomegranate schemes while getting ready to eat lunch.

The ZAK+FOX website has more spectacular photos of these fabrics as well as Zak’s other dreamy designs. My Japanophiles should be sure to see the Kiyohime collection and the amazing animated narrative that accompanies it.

Apr 30, 2014 By tokyojinja in Design Motif, Interior Design, Textiles 2 Comments Tags: Courtney Barnes, Emily C. Butler, fabric, fabric borders, Khotan, Orientalist, Pomegranate, Taylor Jacobson, ZAK + FOX, ZAK+FOX

Artist Spotlight…Inlay and the Orientalist Painters

Lawrence Alma-Tadema? The Drawing Room, Holland Park 1887, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum (Bournemouth)

The Alma-Tadema painting from my last post is just one of many late 19th century works that feature an item of inlaid furniture. In that case, an inlaid Syrian chest figures prominently in a British home elaborately decorated in the style of the ‘the East’. Such furniture was also found in 19th century European paintings from a movement called Orientalism, which idealized views and scenes of the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. Wildly popular at the time of their creation, these paintings fell out of favor, much like the Pre-Raphaelites, only to be re-appreciated at the end of the 20th century. Along the way they have stirred up much controversy about the patronizing nature of Orientalist views, but I am going to leave the politics aside and just share the decorative aspect of the paintings.

John Frederick Lewis’ Intercepted Correspondence from 1869 was a painting I looked at and perhaps should have included in my post on Iznik ceramics and the language of flowers. In it, a young woman is caught before her master with a bouquet from her lover. Much can be said about this work, but it is the elaborate mashrabiya, the dowel latticework covering the window openings and the small inlaid table on the bottom right side that catches my eye today. Over and over again, the key props in the work of the Orientalists are these types of screens, Iznik tiles, elaborate carpets and textiles, pipes, musical instruments and of course, inlaid furniture. In all of the paintings below, each one has the ubiquitous inlaid side table somewhere – be sure to spot them.

The 19th century painters aren’t the only ones to have a fascination with the east, for example 18th century Swiss-French painter Jean-Étienne Liotard visited Istanbul and painted numerous scenes like the one below, a formal precursor to these later works.

But the advent of easier travel and discovery created an insatiable desire for the exotic and painters were happy to comply. Lewis spent ten years living in Cairo, which gives his work a very authentic feel.

Arthur Melville, a Scottish painter, also traveled in Persia, Egypt and Turkey from 1880–82.

Austro-French painter Rudolf Ernst traveled to the Middle East in 1885. I am particularly intrigued by the bench in this painting as it is so reminiscent of the ones I recently purchased here. To see Ernst reusing his inlaid props over and over again, click here.

In 1858 English painter Frederick Goodall spent eight months in Egypt, and he returned in 1870. He continued with Orientalist themes throughout his very successful career.

One of the most common scenes painted was the interior of the harem and Lewis wasn’t the only one to paint it. These are clearly a fantasy view of the harem as the male painters would never have actually been able to enter the female spaces.

French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme visited Egypt for the first time in 1856. He too became fascinated with orientalist themes.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pool in a Harem c. 1876

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Orientalists and I only included paintings with inlaid furniture in them for the sake of brevity and cohesion. I’m sure I’ll be returning to the subject sometime in the not so distant future.

If these richly adorned spaces have caught your eye, you must take a look at Bill Willis’s work in the 1960s and 70s for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge amongst others in Marrakech. There is a great piece in the The Wall Street Journal really worth perusing and exploring for anyone interested in design related to the Middle East and North Africa. The late Alberto Pinto has some amazing rooms (including this lavender one I am always going on about) in his portfolio and his hard to find book Orientalism. More recent fantasies include Veronica Webb’s Key West home in Architectural Digest and Howard Slatkin’s extraordinary Orientalist library in New York City.

And as for the actual painter of the Alma-Tadema painting at the very top of the post? I was utterly sure I was on to something and that his daughter Anna had painted it, so I dug deep and came up with this great post. It always feels good to be right! I also think I need to get the book she mentions, Artistic Circles: Design and Decoration in the Aesthetic Movement.

Apr 14, 2014 By tokyojinja in Artist Spotlight, Books, Movies & TV, Furniture, Interior Design 5 Comments Tags: Anna Alma-Tadema, Arthur Melville, Frederick Goodall, inlaid, inlaid furniture, inlay, Jean Etienne Liotard, Jean-Léon Gérôme, John Frederick Lewis, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Orientalism, Orientalist, Rudolf Ernst