Formal Analysis
Formal analysis, which requires completeness of division,—which is not well done until every individual case is accounted for, or, in Partition, every quality or factor or part,—is found in reports to corporations, in estimates of conditions for some society, in government documents, in textbooks, and in other kinds of writing where detailed and complete information is necessary for judgment. A report to the city of Chicago on the subject of the smoke nuisance will be valuable largely as it entirely covers the ground, discovers all the conditions that the city has to face. Such a report will be primarily a partition of the question, though it may employ classification of various like situations or conditions. Likewise an account of the game birds of North America will be a formal analysis only if every kind of game bird is given a place in the account. The object of formal classification and partition is to give information, to array facts completely. The following classification of oriental rugs, which in its course also employs definition, or a close approach to it, will be finally sufficient only if no rug can be found which is not included within the classes named. The partition of the character of Queen Elizabeth will be of lasting value as formal partition only if it really accounts for the total character of the subject. That it makes only two main divisions is in no way indicative of its completeness; the question is merely, are all the qualities included under those two headings?
It is a common impression that oriental rugs are as difficult to know as the 320,000 specimens of plants, and the 20,000,000 forms of animal life that Herbert Spencer advised for the teaching of boys. This impression is wrong. There are only six groups or families of oriental rugs, and less than fifty common kinds. The novice can learn to distinguish the six families in sixty minutes. He would confuse them occasionally on so short acquaintance, but a college examiner would give him a passing grade.
Persian rugs are the rugs that are profusely decorated with a great variety of flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional birds and animals, woven free hand, with purely decorative intent. India rugs are those in which flowers, leaves, vines, and occasional animals are woven as they appear in nature. Early Indian weavers transcribed flowers to rugs as if they were botanists; modern Indian weavers are copyists of Persian patterns and their copies are plainly not originals.
In broad generalization, therefore, the two families of oriental rugs that are decorated almost exclusively with flowers have distinct styles that render their identification comparatively easy.
The Turkoman and Caucasian families of oriental rugs also pair off by themselves. They are the rugs of almost pure geometric linear design. Turkoman rugs, comprising the products of Turkestan, Bokhara, Afghanistan, and Beluchistan, are red rugs with web or open ends, woven in the patterns of the kindergarten—squares, diamonds, octagons, etc. That wild tribes should dye their wools in the shades of blood and weave the designs of childhood is fitting and logical.
Caucasian rugs differ from Turkoman rugs in being dyed in other colors than blood red, in omitting the apron ends, and in being more crowded, elaborate, and pretentious in geometric linear pattern. The Caucasian weaver's distinction as the oriental cartoonist, the expert in wooden men, women, and animals, is well deserved. He holds the oriental rug patent on Noah's ark designs. Incidentally Mount Ararat and Noah's grave, "shown" near Nakhitchevan, are located on the southern border of his country.
Chinese and Turkish rugs pair off almost as logically as the other rug families, although they are totally unlike in appearance. They contain both geometric linear and floral designs; the designs of the very early rugs of both groups generally are geometric, and the later ones floral. But these facts are not identifying.
Chinese rugs can be recognized instantly by their colors, which are determined by their backgrounds, the reverse of the Persian method, which is to make the design the principal color medium. The Chinese colors are probably best described as the lighter and softer colors of silk—dull yellows, rose, salmon red, browns, and tans, the design usually being blue. The Chinese were the original manufacturers and dyers of silk, and they applied their silk dyes to their rugs.