Tapestry Information
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length (called the warp) and those parallel to the width (called the weft); the warp threads are set up under tension on a loom, and the weft thread is passed back and forth across part or all of the warps. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous; the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area. It is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design.[1][2]
Most weavers use a naturally based warp thread such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton, but may include silk, gold, silver, or other alternatives.
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Etymology
First attested in English in 1467, the word tapestry derives from Old French tapisserie, from tapisser, meaning "to cover with heavy fabric, to carpet", in turn from tapis, "heavy fabric", via Latin tapes,[3] which is the latinisation of the Greek τάπης (tapēs), "carpet, rug".[4] The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek ta-pe-ja, written in Linear B syllabic script.[5]
Function
Henry VIII is seated beneath a tapestry cloth of stateThe success of decorative tapestry can be partially explained by its portability (Le Corbusier once called tapestries "nomadic murals").[6] Kings and noblemen could roll up and transport tapestries from one residence to another. In churches, they could be displayed on special occasions. Tapestries were also draped on the walls of castles for insulation during winter, as well as for decorative display.
In the Middle Ages and renaissance, a rich tapestry panel woven with symbolic emblems, mottoes, or coats of arms called a baldachin, canopy of state or cloth of state was hung behind and over a throne as a symbol of authority.[7] The seat under such a canopy of state would normally be raised on a dais.
The iconography of most Western tapestries goes back to written sources, the Bible and Ovid's Metamorphoses being two popular choices. Apart from the religious and mythological images, hunting scenes are the subject of many tapestries produced for indoor decoration.
Historical development
Tapestries have been used since at least Hellenistic times. Samples of Greek tapestry have been found preserved in the desert of Tarim Basin dating from the 3rd century BC.
Tapestry reached a new stage in Europe in the early 14th century AD. The first wave of production originated in Germany and Switzerland. Over time, the craft expanded to France and the Netherlands. The basic tools have remained much the same since then.
A typical loom for hand weaving of smaller tapestries still in use in ScandinaviaIn the 14th and 15th centuries, Arras, France was a thriving textile town. The industry specialised in fine wool tapestries which were sold to decorate palaces and castles all over Europe. Few of these tapestries survived the French Revolution as hundreds were burnt to recover the gold thread that was often woven into them. Arras is still used to refer to a rich tapestry no matter where it was woven.
By the 16th century, Flanders, the towns of Oudenaarde, Brussels, Geraardsbergen and Enghein had become the centre of European tapestry production. In the 17th century Flemish tapestries were arguably the most important productions, with many specimens of this era still extant, demonstrating the intricate detail of pattern and colour.
The Attainment, one of the Holy Grail tapestries, Morris & Co., 1890s Detail from "Self Portrait/Color," a 2007 Jacquard tapestry by Chuck Close.In the 19th century, William Morris resurrected the art of tapestry-making in the medieval style at Merton Abbey. Morris & Co. made successful series of tapestries for home and ecclesiatical uses, with figures based on cartoons by Edward Burne-Jones.
Kilims and Navajo rugs are also types of tapestry work.
Tapestries are still made at the factory of Gobelins and a few other old European workshops, which also repair and restore old tapestries. The craft is also currently practiced by hobbyist weavers.
Jacquard tapestries, colour and the human eye
The term tapestry is also used to describe weft-faced textiles made on Jacquard looms. Before the 1990s tapestry upholstery fabrics and reproductions of the famous tapestries of the Middle Ages had been produced using Jacquard techniques but then artists such as Chuck Close adapted the computerised Jacquard process to producing fine art. Typically, tapestries are translated from the original design via a process resembling paint-by-numbers: a cartoon is divided into regions, each of which is assigned a solid colour based on a standard palette. However, in Jacquard weaving, the repeating series of multicoloured warp and weft threads can be used to create colours that are optically blended – i.e., the human eye apprehends the threads’ combination of values as a single colour. [6]
This method can be likened to pointillism, which originated from discoveries made in the tapestry medium. The style’s emergence in the 19th century can be traced to the influence of Michel Eugène Chevreul, a French chemist responsible for developing the color wheel of primary and intermediary hues. Chevreul worked as the director of the dye works at Les Gobelins tapestry works in Paris, where he noticed that the perceived colour of a particular thread was influenced by its surrounding threads, a phenomenon he called “simultaneous contrast.” Chevreul’s work was a continuation of theories of color elaborated by Leonardo da Vinci and Goethe; in turn, his work influenced painters including Eugène Delacroix and Georges-Pierre Seurat.
The principles articulated by Chevreul also apply to contemporary television and computer displays, which use tiny dots of red, green and blue (RGB) light to render colour, with each composite being called a pixel.[6]
Famous tapestries
The Apocalypse Tapestry in the Château d'Angers, in Angers. Tapestry with monogram "SA" of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, Brussels, c. 1555. Part of famous Jagiellonian Tapestries, also known as the Wawel Tapestries or Wawel Arrases. Tapestry of Christ in Glory, 1962, Coventry Cathedral, 75.5 feet high, designed by Graham Sutherland and woven by Pinton Frères, Felletin, France.- The Trojan War tapestry referred to by Homer in Book III of the Iliad, where Iris disguises herself as Laodice and finds Helen "working at a great web of purple linen, on which she was embroidering the battles between Trojans and Achaeans, that Ares had made them fight for her sake." If such a tapestry had been made at the time, then it could explain how the battles were remembered in such great detail over the 400 or so years between the siege of Troy and the age of Homer.
- The Cloth of St Gereon - oldest European tapestry still extant.
- The Sampul tapestry, woollen wall hanging, 3rd-2nd century BC, Sampul, Ürümqi Xinjiang Museum.
- The Hestia Tapestry, 6th century, Egypt, Dumbarton Oaks Collection.
- The Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the events surrounding the Battle of Hastings; note that this is not (strictly speaking) a tapestry, but is instead embroidery. In June 2007, the tapestry was listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.
- The Apocalypse Tapestry is the longest tapestry in the world, and depicts scenes from the Book of Revelation. It was woven between 1373 and 1382. Originally 140 m (459 ft), the surviving 100m are displayed in the Château d'Angers, in Angers.
- The six-part piece La Dame à la Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn), stored in l'Hôtel de Cluny, Paris.
- The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, four Flemish tapestries dating from the mid-fifteenth century depict men and women in fashionable dress of the early fifteenth century hunting in a forest. The tapestries formerly belonged to the Duke of Devonshire and are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
- The Hunt of the Unicorn is a seven piece tapestry from 1495 to 1505, currently displayed at The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
- The tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, designed by Raphael in 1515-16, for which the Raphael Cartoons, or painted designs, also survive.
- The Wawel Tapestries, (mid 16th century) a collection of 134 tapestries at the Wawel Castle in Kraków, Poland displaying various religious, natural, and royal themes. These famous tapestries, created in Arras, were collected by Polish Kings Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus.
- The Valois Tapestries are a cycle of 8 hangings depicting royal festivities in France in the 1560s and 1570s
- The New World Tapestry is a 267 feet long tapestry which depicts the colonisation of the Americas between 1583 and 1648, displayed at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum; this is not (strictly speaking) a tapestry, but is instead embroidery.
- The biggest collection of Flanders tapestry is in the Spanish royal collection, there is 8000 metres of historical tapestry from Flanders, as well as Spanish tapestries designed by Goya and others. There is a special museum in the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, and others are displayed in various historic buildings.
- The Pastoral Amusements, also known as "Les Amusements Champêtres", a series of 8 Beauvais Tapestries designed by Jean Baptiste Oudry between 1720 and 1730.
- The Prestonpans Tapestry is a 104 metres long embroidery which tells the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Battle of Prestonpans.
- Christ in Glory, (1962) for Coventry Cathedral designed by Graham Sutherland. Up until the 1990s this was the world's largest vertical tapestry.
- The Quaker Tapestry ( 1981-1989) is a modern set of embroidery panels that tell the story of Quakerism from the 17th century to the present day.
See also
Notes
- ^ Mallet, Marla. "Basic Tribal and Village Weaves."
- ^ Rivers, Shayne and Nick Umney. Conservation of Furniture. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003.
- ^ Tapes, Charlton T. Lewis, An Elementary Latin Dictionary, on Perseus
- ^ Tάπης, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
- ^ Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient Languages
- ^ a b c Stone, Nick. "Jacquard Weaving and the Magnolia Tapestry Project."
- ^ Campbell, Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty, p. 339-341
References
- Campbell, Thomas P. Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court, Yale University Press, 2007, ISBN 9780300122343
- Russell, Carol K. Tapestry Handbook. The Next Generation, Schiffer Publ. Ltd., Atglen, PA. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7643-2756-8
External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tapestry |
- Jagiellonian Tapestries
- Tapestry, "A World History of Art"
- Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving, by Grace Christie, 1912, from Project Gutenberg. Technical handbook.
- Pictures from a contemporary mill, showing tapestries being woven on looms with Jacquard heads
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Tapestry 1999 2000 artist Richard Cowdry for Longaberger
Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:37:08 GMT+00:00
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