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Centers in the Blossom Fragment:
Notice that this figure has a strong center in the very middle. But that s
not the main point. Each of the lighter octagons and diamonds forms
another center, the darker dots at the centers of the smaller blossoms form
others. The asymmetrical black leaves are kinds of centers. The sharp
indentations of the outer press towards the middle, reinforcing the center.
[rpg]
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Niche of the Coupled Column Prayer Rug
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Multiplicity of Centers
The degree of wholeness which a carpet achieves is directly correlated to the
number of centers which it contains. The more centers it has in it, the more
powerful and deep its degree of wholeness.
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Border of the Seljuk Prayer Carpet
Here both the dark design elements and the lighter background form centers
wherever there is a convex spot, wherever linear parts cross, and at bends.
There are perhaps a dozen or more centers here. [rpg]
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Local Symmetries
Centers are made up of local symmetries
1. Most centers are symmetrical. This means they have at least one bilateral
symmetry.
2. Even when centers are asymmetrical, they are always composed of smaller
elements or centers which are symmetrical.
3. All centers are made of many internal local symmetries, which produce
smaller centers within the larger center (most of them not on the main axis
of the larger center), and have a very high internal density of local
symmetries. It is this property which gives them their power.
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Symmetries?
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Centers Recursively Defined
A center will become distinct, and strong, only when it contains, within
itself, another center, also strong, and no less than half its own size.
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Positive Space
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Differentiation of Centers
Central Star of the Star Ushak Rug
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Central Star of the Star Ushak Rug
1. The centers next to the figure those created by the space around it are
also very strong.
2. These strong centers are extremely different in character from the star
itself thus the distinctness is achieved, in part, by the differences between
the centers of the figure, and the centers of the ground.
3. There are very strong color differences between field and ground.
4. The complex character of the boundary line seems, at least in this case, to
contribute to the distinctiveness of the form....
5. The hierarchy of levels of scale in the centers also help create the effect, by
increasing the degree to which the form is perceived as a whole, entity, or
being in its own right.
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Definition of Centers
Every successful center is made of a center surrounded by a boundary which
is itself made of centers.
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Two-Dimensional Strips in Konya Carpets
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Design Process for Carpets
...the greatest structures, the greatest centers, are created not within the
framework of a standard pattern no matter how dense the structures it
contains but in a more spontaneous frame of mind, in which the centers
lead to other centers, and the structure evolves, almost of its own accord,
under completely autonomous or spontaneous circumstances. Under these
circumstances the design is not thought out, conceived it springs into
existence, almost more spontaneously, during the process by which it is
made.
And, of course, this process corresponds more closely to the conditions under
which a carpet is actually woven since working, row by row, knot by knot,
and having to create the design as it goes along, without ever seeing the
whole, until the carpet itself is actually finished this condition, which
would seem to place such constraint and difficulty on the act of creation is
in fact just that circumstance in which the spontaneous, unconscious
knowledge of the maker is most easily released from the domination of
thought and thus allows itself most easily to create the deepest centers of
all.
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The Emergence of Beings
I now present the culmination of the argument. This hinges on an
extraordinary phenomenon closely connected to the nature of wholeness
and fundamental to the character of great Turkish carpet art. It may be
explained in a single sentence: As a carpet begins to be a center (and thus to
contain the densely packed structure of centers...), then, gradually, the
carpet as a whole also begins to take on the nature of being. We may also
say that it begins to be a picture of a human soul.
The subject is delicate, because it is not quite clear how to discuss it not
even how to evaluate it nor even in what field or category to place it. It
opens the door to something we can only call spirit and to the empirical
fact a fact of psychology if of nothing else that after all, when a carpet
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