In the Boucherouite Berber rug, the contrast between the poverty of the material and the richness of the composition adds to the astonishment and wonder of this textile art.
While not long ago, these Berber carpets did not interest anyone and the carpet merchants in the souks did not even offer them, a movement of interest was born which goes from Europe, to the USA and to the Japan.
The sincerity of these popular works of art, their joy of colors, their lyrical abstractions, the modesty of their prices interest young trendy generations in search of aesthetic and authentic values. We can even talk about Eco-design.
The small formats, which are often Berber saddle rugs, are now supervised by gallery owners and thus take on their status of "picture rugs". These works of great artistic richness are then similar to paintings by artists to be installed on the wall.
These Moroccan boucharouette rugs are an invitation to visual reverie, where nothing is definitively delimited in advance, where the suspended shapes seem to suggest a continuity towards infinity beyond the frame of the picture rug .
We like to vibrate in front of this or that Berber boucharouette rug. It's even more moving to think that this one wasn't meant to be art. It has become so without the knowledge of its creator, whose desire to create a domestic object has been sublimated by influences buried in the memory of her ancestors. Each carpet-picture transcends in a surprising way the ethnic determinisms of its origin to achieve a universal aesthetic expression. Aesthetics that work magically and immediately on the eyes.
Unlike most European tapestry techniques which work from a model (or "cardboard"), the Berber woman advances under her fingers without drawing or preparatory sketch, exactly as a painting can be born under the effect of a brush. It is in this that each boucharouette is a unique work, because all the sensitivity of the Berber woman can be expressed without restraint or premeditation.
The cultural influence of these Berber women dates back to the dawn of time. The diamond pattern very present in Moroccan carpets is a decoration that has existed since the Neolithic era. These woven works reveal to us the traces of a millennial civilization by revealing reminiscences of signs and symbols of a distant prehistory. We also find in these Berber carpets the result of the mixing of Moroccan and African cultures through the ancestral circulation of caravans from the Sahara and Sudan.
As Frédéric DAMGAARD does in his excellent book “carpets and weaving, the art of Berber women in Morocco”, it is wise to compare the loom of a Berber woman to that of a musical instrument. “It is easy to imagine a Berber woman in front of her loom like a pianist in front of her piano, both compose beautiful music with rhythms and harmonies, in terms of colors and notes. Their scores are never completely rigid and leave room for personal interpretations or improvisation initiatives. They also both have at their disposal a very vast repertoire, which they can interpret as they please and according to their sensitivity”.
The polychromy that arises from these strips of fabric can be overwhelming in its poetry, in its fluidity, in its imagination, in its fantasy, in its joy. The spontaneity of abstract shapes and colors creates works that are not only decorative but truly artistic. We touch the heart of tribal art, popular art, raw art.
