Eva Nemeth (1930-2019) textile artist is mostly known of her scandinavian-inspired, pan-folkloric woven rugs and tapestries. Few know that she not only designed woven rugs but knotted ones too. Browse her beautiful rug designs here.
Tree of Life – a hand knotted wool rug by textile designer Eva Nemeth. Size 52″ x 57″ (132 x 145 cm)
Hand knotted vs handwoven rugs
Hand-knotted rugs have a different quality than hand-woven, and their production process is almost always longer and more complex. They require more skilled artisans, have finer details, and are made of better wool (it’s length must allow for pile and excess to clip off). While handwoven rugs can usually be reversed as they look the same on both sides, hand knotted pieces are very much like pixelated pictures on the back. Each “pixel” represents a hand tied knot on the right side. The amount of control that this technique gives the rug maker also enables the pattern to be very detailed and sharply drawn.
Difference between hand knotted and handwoven rug
Eva Nemeth’s Tree of Life
This exquisite wool rug appeared in my life recently and it is a true love at first sight. There is not one thing I wouldn’t love about this beauty. The designer herself gifted this rug to a friend of her, with whom she lived in the same apartment building. The usual NÉ sign in the corner is barely visible as the knots are of very light colors – maybe a little more prominent on the wrong side. There is a sewn on label attached to the back, indicating the place of manufacture (Bekescsaba, Hungary), title and color scheme (Tree of life, white) and size in metric measures.
CSABA/50 LEBENSBAUM – WEIS 132 X 149 1.97m2
What immediately comes to ones mind when seeing this rug is that it looks like a child’s drawing. If you have ever heard about the Koch Tree Test you may be tempted to start analyzing the picture, interpreting the strong contour lines of the tree, considering the tree and its part’s proportioned size within the picture, the foundation / “grass” beneath, the details of the foliage, the two women under the tree and also the “accessories” around. Generally, in children’s drawings the tree reflects relationships that the child experiences within his or her environment.
Without trying to act like an expert psychoanalist, what I can see in this “drawing” is an extraordinarily rich world inside and outside, with a sharp line in between the two. Many of the details are present in both realm: the scattered shapes (crosses and diamonds) of the outside world are reflected inside in a neat and organized matter.
Drawing or rug?
Complementary opposites
The weaves and carpets of Eva Nemeth reveal her creative world as pieces of a hermeneutic puzzle, the basic elements of which are the pairs of contrasts appearing at all levels: autonomous-applied, unique – series-produced, decorative – functional, figurative – non-figurative, geometric – amorphous, round – square. Eva Nemeth masterfully blurs the boundaries between the pictorial and the abstract, the traditional and the modern, the rational and the emotional, the individual and the communal, the spontaneous and the planned.
Looking at this wonderful wool tapestry we can witness how naturally the designer walks across different media: she quite naturally transfers a beautifully immature and childish drawing into a rug. Note that the transformation does not stop at the level of material here but continues in (life)time – the time that’s needed for turning such spontaneous drawing of a (her inner?) child into a meticulously planned artwork of a skilled rug maker. Or simply put: a child into a rug maker…
Fine details of a hand knotted wool rug by Eva Nemeth
Yet, the finished product(!), this hand knotted rug is so naturally balanced that discovering the contradictions pervading the whole unit does not involve an uncomfortable viewer experience. Seeing, touching and pondering this rug gives me the feeling of a self-evident sense of security only a child can feel in a safe world.
Baby steps into the beautiful mind of Eva Nemeth rug designer
The more rugs from Nemeth I come across with the less I want to part with them. I already imagined this stunning rug on the wall in my daughter’s room – and only two facts stops me from actually doing it immediately: 1. my little one doesn’t have her own room just yet 2. I would not put a $$$$ collectors piece in a child’s room! 😀
You can browse my Eva Nemeth collection here.
