Contemporary Tapestry Weaving

These provincial manufacturing centers did not (and could not) compete with the French royal factories founded by Louis XlV at GOBELINS (1662), Beauvais, and AUBUSSON (1665). These factories dominated European production for nearly two centuries with tapestry series designed by France’s greatest painters, including Charles Le Brun, Jean Baptiste Oudry, and Fransois Boucher; the last two worked both for Gobleins and Beauvais.

Among the series Oudry designed for Beauvais were “The New Indian Hunts” (1727), “Country Pleasures” (1730), and “Fine Verdures” (1736). During the 19th century, when tapestries were in less demand for wall hangings, Beauvais specialized in furniture covers, as Aubusson had since the 18th century (such as the covers with Oudry’s scenes from “Fables of La Fontaine”).

When Beauvais was amalgamated with the Gobleins in 1940, Aubusson became the major center for tapestry design and production in the 20th century, thanks to Jean Lurcat, who settled there for the purpose of creatinga new tapestry industry at the request of the French Ministry of National Education in 1939. In 1945, Lurcat, with the artists Marc Saint-Saens and Jean Picart Le Doux, founded the Association of Tapestry Cartoon-Painters, which pioneered the revival of tapestry as modern architectural decoration, according to the principle that tapestries should be original works of art (not copies after paintings), intended for walls and designed for specific architectural space.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Brussels became the capital of European tapestry production with large factories established by Pieter van Aelst and Pieter Pannemaker.

Among the Flemish weaver’s great and noble clients were the Austrian Habsgurgs, Sigismund ll of Poland, and Pope Leo X, for whom van Aelst wove the “Acts of the Apostles (1515-1519; Victoria and Albert Musum), after cartoons by Raphael for the Sistine Chapel. With this series he introduced the Italian Renaissance style and the practice of copying paintings to European tapestry design.

Widely admired, Flemish weavers established workshops throughout Europe during the 16th and 17th . at Ferrara, Italy, Jan and Nicolaus Carcher served Ercole ll d’Este; Jan Rost, Nicolaus Carcher , and Jan van der Straet(Stradanus) supervised the tapestry workshop in Florence of Cosimo l de’Medici. The first series woven on the Florentine looms was the :History of Joseph” (1547-1550; Palazzo Vecchio, Florence), designes by the Mannerist painter Angelo Bronzino. In the late 16th century Josse Jean Lanckeert and Frans Spierincx moved to Delft, the Netherlands, from Antwerp, Belgium; at about the same time Flemish weavers established workshops in germany – at Stuttgart (Jacob Carmes0, Frankenthall (Pierre de Waeyere and Everard Van Orley), and Munich (Jan van der Biest). In 1620 a royal tapestry factory was established at Mortlake, England, with Josse of Bruges, Belgium, in charge of chiefly workers and weavers.

The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines a symbol as “something that stands for, represents, or denotes something else, not by exact resemblance but by vague suggestion; an object representing something sacred”.

The practice of using visual symbols for religious purposes was started in biblical times and further developed by both Christians and Jews over centuries. In religious symbolism color, line, and form are mingled together to make a visual impression.

This impression has the power to communicate ideas and feelings; symbolic art should convey vitality, but most importantly, it should illuminate the faith for succeeding generations. Outgrowths of the complex interaction between life, faith, and belief, religious symbols become a language without words, binding together those of the same religion and culture.

The techniques of the tapestry repertoire have survived into the twenty-first century in spite of their painstaking and slow methods, the meticulous dyeing and mixing of colors, and the cost of the very special materials.

Tapestry, of whatever culture and style, has retained its strong appeal as an enhancer of large architectural spaces and of domestic architecture of all periods.

As a decorative art, it still has the power to astonish, charm and delight.

Every building, whether large or small, has inherited problems for the tapestry artist.

These may be poor or restricting lighting, or wall color that is not sympathetic to a tapestry hung against it, but which the client is reluctant to change. It may be difficult to see a tapestry clearly because the view is impeded by columns or some other architectural feature. Sometimes it can be difficult to make even a very large tapestry to stand out and “read” well on an enormous wall area.

It is one of the tapestry-artist’s responsibilities to take into account these factors and produce a tapestry that will enhance the space for which it is designed and not be diminished by the shortcomings of a setting.

Independent weavers have the freedom to work at any size. Many of them like small works because they are relatively quick and easy to weave, and less expensive than larger pieces. Small tapestries are also simple to incorporate into modern domestic interiors, where they can be fixed as small hangings and hung as pictures.

Independent artist-weavers working on very large scale tapestries, usually for corporate clients or public bodies, may call on established workshops to do the final weaving. This sometimes used to pose a problem for designers. For example, during the 1960s and 1970s, most very large tapestries designed in the USA were sent to Europe to be woven

by expert weavers as at that time there were no weavers of top quality in the USA. Now, however, there are weavers with the skills to reproduce designs as originally intended in most countries that design tapestries.

During the 1970s and 1980s weavers in Japan and other Far-Eastern countries introduced revolutionary changes, using paper and other fibers to construct flat and three-dimensional objects in what is now called “Fiber art”.

These were exhibited in Lausanne, where they inspired other weavers. In the USA in particular, weavers experimented with unorthodox fibers and techniques with great vigour and enthusiasm during this period. Sometimes they used these new methods in conjunction with the traditional tapestry technique, at other times they worked completely independently of anything that had gone before.

Many artist-weavers have remained true to the real tapestry technique, working with meticulous care and painstaking patience; others have returned to it, refreshed after using other methods.

Whatever the approach, the great merit of the artist-weavers is their ability to be both designers and producers of the cloth, creating a satisfying image from designs prepared for use with textured materials.

Machine-made copies of traditional tapestries woven on Jacquard looms are different from true tapestry in that the weft runs from selvedge to selvedge and the pattern is not reversible.

To be compatible with the Jacquard mechanism, the yarns are finer than those used by hand for tapestry weaving. The pattern is set up in advance using a system of perforated cards so there is no opportunity for the weaver to introduce individual subtleties to the work such as changes of expression in a face and so on.

These copies of traditional tapestries are cheaper than hand-woven pieces but, from a distance, can look very much like the real thing. They have the advantage, for the modern small home, of being produced to a reduced scale compare with the historical tapestries.