Son ikiyüzyıl içinde Konya`nın Obruk bölgesinde halı sanatı

Abstract

Works of art are a reflection of the culture of the society to which they belong. They are, so to say, a vivid expression of that culture. In works of art, the traditions, customs, world views and emotional experiences, which have been formed within hundreds of years become concretized and endowed with meaning. We, as the Turkish Society, are rather rich in producing works of art which are on important expression of the creative spirit. The existence of the main branches of national Turkish art, namely, halı, kilim, yazma, minyatür, tezhib, çini, etc. is a conspicious evidence for that reality. Carpet-webbing, being our proper subject in this article, is the symbol of a great civilisation and a gift from us, the Turks, to the other countries in the world. Konya, to which the Obruk district is dependet, and its environment is one of the carpet-webbing centers of Middle Anatolia with its deep-rooted and firm tradition of high-quality carpet-webbing. The colour, motive, design and composition schemes of the carpets web bed in such districts and villages of Konya as Karapınar, Karaman, Ladik, Taşpınar, Saray, İncice, Kavak, Kiçimuhsine, and Sille have developed in a framework rather peculiar to themselves. This peculi arity is to the point that one can not notice any impact of any one of carpet-webbing traditions in the regions mentioned above on the other ones. The distance between those regions are in fact not very far. Nonetheless regions are in fact not very far. If the carpet-webbing tradition in each of the said regions displays nonetheless a rather different character than the others, this is due to the rather peculiar life-styles of the Turkoman Oymaks which have created these traditions.-127- A quality carpet is an example to and reflects the ideal, classical and original carpet type of the region where it was webbed. It represents its region successfully by combining in itself all the characteristical elements of its region such as the material used, technic, colour, motives and style. This is also valid for Obruk carpets on which I study as the subject of my post-graduate thesis. The village where Obruk carpets are webbed and its environment was ruined during the first world-war. The inhabitants of the region were forced to abandon their homes as a consequence. Taking this into consideration, we may assume that carpet-webbing in that region is non-existent for approximately hundred years. For that reason, our acquintance with the Obruk carpets stems only from its examples webbed in the neighbouring district, and villages rather than in Obruk itself. Obruk carpets, which are our subject proper had come into being during the period beginning from the XIX. century and extending to our age. As it is generally known yapağı is the main raw material widely used in the manifacture of carpets. Konya, on the other hand, is the most prominent sheep-breeding region in Turkey and one of the most important sheep-breeding regions in the world at the same time. Obruk plateau, in its turn is one of Konya' s most developed sheep-breeding sites. The yapağı of the sheep bred in this region forms the main material out of which Obruk carpets are made. Obruk carpets have a world of coloursrather peculiar to itself. These colours are partially extracted from root dyes in our day. The villa ges of Konya are rather rich from the point of view of dye-producing plants. This means that the region provides raw materials for dyeing from its own soucres.-128- When we examine closely the scheme of motives, design and compo sition of this region we notice that these schemes, which immediately let themselves be recognized as belonging to Obruk, have been webbed continiously and regularly for a long time. The motives peculiar to these carpets have succeeded in surviving until our age with very minor changes by being handed over from generations to generations. The mechanical world outlook of today and the changing social and economical structures have damaged people's tinders tanding of tra dition to a considerable extend. Serious measures must be taken in order to make the Turkish carpet-webbing turn back again to its tra ditional understanding in a time when it has lost much of its artistic values by giving priority to profit-making. What is to be first done is to determine the classical colours peculiar to each region and to search the original, traditional dyeing elements extracted from the plants in each region. Moreover, regional carpet museums should be set up with the purpose of preserving the regional carpets before they are scattered in the neighbouring towns. In this way, the peculia rities of the carpets of the region with respect to material, colour and motives can be protected from being degenerated.