Bode Cloudband Oushak
By Piotr Wesolowski
Part of the permanent collection , ‘Dream and Trauma’, at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, the iconic Bode cloudband, a 17th century Oushak prayer rug is perhaps the most recognizable rug in the world. The carpet belonged once to Wilhelm von Bode, a curator at the Friedrich Museum, now called the Bode Museum in Berlin. It was offered to the museum in 1904, along with several other unique rugs from Bode’s private collection. Bode’s cloudband Oushak prayer rug constitutes a most significant artifact within the museum’s walls. It continues to mesmerize collectors with its mystery and simplicity; it is a Mona Lisa of the textile arts. Chrispher Alexander, a British-American architect and design theorist, used the Bode
‘Bode Oushak replica in our collection’
Oushak to illustrate his highly controversial theory suggesting and defining criteria of objective beauty in an artwork. “…the quality of wholeness is not merely a matter of preference or taste for different observers, but instead a definite, tangible, and objective quality, which really does exist to a greater or lesser degree in any given carpet” In his seminal work, ‘A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art – The Colour and Geometry of Very Early Turkish Carpets’ Alexander proposes that: ‘This notion of beauty, ‘the detailed organisation of matter’ seems intangible but an analysis of structure can approach it in an objective fashion …
14
