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Modernist / Bauhaus Tapestry Carpet by Wassily Kandinsky, France, dated 1939 Metaphorically speaking, Modernist carpets are textile paintings. This one, however, truly is. Taken from Wassily Kandinsky's watercolor "Horizontales," it is a masterpiece of Abstract Expressionism. Various cryptic symbols float across a landscape of irregular horizontal bands in a dynamic interplay of form and vibrant color. We can make out the shapes of animals - a dog and snake, and perhaps a ladder. But the effect here is deliberate ambiguity in a striped background suggesting infinite space. The more we try to interpret and measure, the more this modernist art and its meaning eludes us, much like the abstraction of traditional Oriental rugs as well.
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