MESSAGE TO ETERNITY

People have long learnt to decipher attitudes to the surrounding world and to their own "ego" in the works of art, sent like a message by the artists to their descendants in eternity. The works of Aydin Racabov are rather unusual for an artist. Men seldom select this path in their works of art. This kind of attitude, a stereotypic attachment to the craft of carpet-making, is rightly associated with women. As to a symbol of a folk craft, passed down  from generation to generation and conveying information about our ancestors living in different regions of the country, and consequently the various forms that their coded attitudes to life took, conveyed by means of plant and geometrical designs and different colours. The carpet was not simply an everyday object, but reflected an aesthetic harmony, artistic design, fantasy and the flowers and plants of the surrounding natural environment.

The history of the art of carpet-making dates back to the Bronze Age. You will easily find proof of this at Azerbaijan's Museum of History. For example, in the works of the philosopher Xenophon [Anabasis] it says that the Iranians borrowed the customs of making and using carpets from the ancestors of the Azeris. Another historian of Antiquity, Herodotus left evidence of the fact that plant dyes were produced in the Caucasus that were very long-lasting and were of beautiful shades of colour. Each detail in the design on the carpet also reflected the idea of the artist, who was weaving information about himself and the Earth in which he lived and worked into the carpet with a thread of a certain colour. 

 Aydin Racabov has his very own code which future generations will have to decipher. It appears to his contemporaries that the intellectual puzzle concealed within the patterns on his carpets is beyond being deciphered. We live and feel on the hop. We are always in a hurry. So, it is as if His Magnificence Time is pushing us from behind, urging us on to the invisible finishing line of probable happiness. Moreover, it is quite possible that all we are likely to see is what is going on…

A fateful encounter

He graduated from the A. Azimzada Art College in 1966 and then entered the faculty of architecture at the Polytechnic Institute. But in 1967 he had already given up architecture, realising that it was not for him, and entered the fine arts faculty of the M. Aliyev Institute of Art. It was there that he had what it is customary to refer to in novels as a fateful encounter. True, fate smiled on him when his lecturer turned out to be Latif Karimov himself. Latif Karimov is an Azeri carpet weaver, who is well known for his contribution to the carpet weaving craft in Azerbaijan as in other different branches of the arts.

From then onwards the student Aydin Racabov fell in love with the art of carpet design and precisely with designing carpets. This is because the design not only presupposes creativity and development, but also a form of interpretation and mastery of the world viewed with a definite aesthetic ideal, by means of which the artist can make an impact on the hearts and minds of those to whom his works are being addressed. Evidently, it was precisely the carpet that provided a sensation of this artistic freedom of self-expression, in which any artist, but not every artist, can acquire it. Things turned out quite differently for Racabov.

He started off with the traditional style, displaying the traditional art of our country at all-union and then international carpet exhibitions. But, as a rule, the artist kept closely to the customary styles and designs. He is seeking new ways and forms in which to express himself. He is inventing a new language of communication with his contemporaries and with those who come after. After trying everything, ranging from traditional designs, miniatures, compositions containing subjects and conceptual painting, Aydin Racabov is now creating works in which he is making his personal code more intricate. His code involves a message, his code is a programme. This means it uses the special language of metaphors and symbols, which embrace philosophical and historical ideas, the artist's own reinterpretation, his understanding of the links between the different eras.

But, in order to decipher this code, you need knowledge. The signs and symbols that have appeared in the carpets made by the artist Racabov recently are not only the traditional ones already known to us from Sufism and eastern philosophy. These are his very own signs and symbols, the ones that he as an artist is creating in order to send a message into eternity.

"The sacrificial lamb"

The entire composition consists of geometrical elements, with an octagon in the centre. The composition is framed by triangles at the top and the bottom. The ordinary person will simply see this as a beautiful, colourful composition created in pleasing shades of colour. The subject allows the viewer to endlessly imagine all kinds of things when he looks at it. If you wish, you can see the moon, trees, grasses, people and the flames of the sacrificial bonfire. But all this is on the surface. The octagons, squares, triangles, rectangles are formed into a drawing, the sense of which is concealed much more in-depth. You can only decipher it, if you have worked out Racabov's codes.

"A white camel bearing the sun"

The white camel… it is greatly revered in Islam, since it was precisely on this camel that the Prophet Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina. In Christianity the camel is an emblem of Christmas, since the three wise men [the magi] - Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior - followed the star of Christmas on camels and arrived in Bethlehem. The camel symbolises endurance, and this is the reason why they call it the ship of the desert. In a number of eastern countries the camel is regarded as a symbol of power. In Zoroastrian typology everything begins from the colour white, namely creation and creativity. No one takes any notice of black because it is the colour of destruction… Reflecting on this, you try to work out this very code. For the moment, you don't manage it…

The Tale of the Gold Fish

The colours do not merge with one another and do not sparkle. It is a shame that you cannot say of the fish that it becomes a vapour. It just floats in water where it was born. The wonderful fish is always swimming somewhere. We barely see the smooth movement, but we definitely know that it is moving forwards towards a destination that only it knows. There is a dream of wellbeing and material sufficiency. There it is. Just stretch out your hand and the fairy story becomes reality. But if you don't work, you won't ever catch the fish in the pond, will you? The sign of the fish has numerous meanings reflecting the essential aspects of its nature, both from a spiritual and a material point of view. It has also been a symbol of sacrifice. It has been regarded as the bridge between heaven and Earth; in different traditions it has been revered as "a bird of the Earth". Among many Asian peoples it is a symbol of intellectual productiveness, of an in-depth inner life, a sign of a rising life force. It expresses the creative aspect of life. What is the secret of the artist in this?

"An elder resting"

The pleasant warm shades delight the eye and gladden the soul. There is peace, serenity and the merging of the human soul with the surrounding world. There is harmony. Is it the middle or the declining years of life? This is not what it is about. It is about the instant when harmony arises between nature and the human soul, creating a unique atmosphere that spills over onto the witness of that harmony. It is a moment that cannot be held onto in real life and cannot be made longer. It is precisely for this reason that it is splendid. Perhaps this is where the secret lies hidden?

"The shah's matchmaking"

This is a subject taken from [the 12th-century writer] Nizami [Gancavi]. It is a miniature in the best national traditions. Executed in the most skilled and meticulous manner, with a half-millimetre gap in threads, changing the colour and the elements forming the patterned part of the carpet and the characters featured in the miniature. It would appear that everything is so simple and understandable. There's the shah, the chaperon. The subject is widely known. So is the style of the miniature. But you continue to be puzzled by the idea concealed in the artist's secret code. What is he trying to say?

"Signs of the Oguzes"

Three figures are depicted here, two women with a man in the centre. 

Do you see that depiction? This is from rock paintings. The two women are the moon and the sun. Each of them has given life to three sons. Each of the sons created 24 tribes in the world, tribes of Oguzes [Oghuz Turks,Turkic-speaking tribes], who not only settled in the Caucasus, but  in the Altay [in Siberia] and on the banks of the Syr Darya river.

The symbols are those of the moon, the sun, gold and strange birds… There are many of the birds. They undergo transformation with time. Here there is a bird reminiscent of the griffin [a legendary creature], a dragon, a chimera, and an eagle. In the traditions of many peoples the depiction of birds is a symbol of the existence of ties between Earth and heaven. The bird is the creature with the highest level of awareness, a mediator between the spirit and the soul. As the embodiment of divinity, birds play an important part in the myths about the creation of the world. The creator bird is the spirit of the cosmos in the form of a bird.

Birds are frequently identified with the gods of thunder and the wind, as the rulers of the natural elements. In many myths they are regarded as the rational allies and mentors of people. Myths are common about birds as our primeval ancestors; they are depicted on tribal totem poles and totem poles used in fertility rituals. What is the artist Aydin Racabov trying to tell us? This is a brain teaser for the uninitiated who are striving to learn as much as they can about themselves and their genetic roots. It is not easy to discover and understand that lengthy overflowing of inherited mental peculiarities, which make you, if not exceptional, then at least special. Without elevating himself above the world, but baring his ego, he is inseparable from it and an organic part of it. Each person can take from his coded messages what they can decipher. This is a challenge to the mind and to the soul.