Tapestry

Historically, a handwoven textile or cloth weave, typically decorated with figures, and used as a wall hanging, curtain, carpet, or furniture covering. The term tapestry has also been used to identify any pictorial weaving. Since the 18th century, however, the technical definition of tapestry has been narrowed to include only heavy, reversible, patterned or figured handwoven textiles.

Bayeux Tapestry One of the most famous tapestries in the world is the Bayeux Tapestry (1073-83), which depicts the Norman conquest of England and events leading to it. The piece is actually embroidered wool on linen rather than a true tapestry. The inscriptions worked into the design help to describe the action, and the depictions of costume, arms, and other details are faithful to reality.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York


TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS

Tapestry differs from other forms of weaving in having no weft, or horizontal thread, that is carried the full width of the fabric. Discontinuous colored wefts are used in limited areas to produce patterns. The construction of tapestry weave is such that the wefts are much more numerous than the warps, or vertical threads, which are not visible in the finished tapestry.

As in plain cloth weaving, the weft threads pass over and under alternate warp threads with each passage, or pick. After each pick the wefts are beaten tightly together by battens, reeds, combs, or other devices. The thickness of the warp determines the thickness of the fabric. In 14th-century Europe tapestries were woven with about 5 threads per cm (about 12 threads per in). By the 19th century the royal French factory at Beauvais produced works with as many as 10 to 16 threads per cm (25 to 40 per in). Silk tapestries made in China commonly have as many as 24 threads per cm (60 per in). The grain of tapestries is also determined by the materials used—usually silk or wool, but also linen (see Flax), cotton, and metallic threads.

Weaves

Tapestry involves discontinuous wefts that can meet or join in several ways. The simplest treatment is a slit in which two wefts coming from opposite directions wrap and turn around adjacent warps, leaving an open space. This slit may be left open, as in the Chinese k'o-ssu or the kilims of the Middle East, or it may be sewed up after the tapestry is removed from the loom. A second technique is called dovetailing, in which wefts turn over a common warp. Dovetailing is easily recognized by the blurred or saw-toothed outline that makes the fabric heavier at this joining; it is found in 16th-century Persian tapestry rugs, pre-Columbian Peruvian tapestries, and contemporary Navajo blankets and rugs. Interlocking, introduced in the Gobelins factory in the 18th century, involves adjacent wefts looped through each other between two warps, giving a more continuous surface much prized by French weavers. Another tapestry technique is twill, in which the weft is floated over two or more warps, then under one or more warps to form a diagonal ribbing; introduced into Kashmir from Iran in the 16th century, it was used to make the famed Kashmir shawls (see Cashmere). In contemporary tapestries, eccentric wefts are beaten into curved shapes and packed more tightly in some areas.

Looms

Traditional European tapestry is woven either on a vertical loom (high warp, or haute-lisse) or a horizontal loom (low warp, or basse-lisse). A vertical loom has two horizontal rollers, top and bottom, between which the warps are stretched. Each warp is caught in a loop (heddle or lisse), which is fastened to one of two bars. One bar is attached to the even-numbered threads and the other bar is attached to the odd-numbered threads. The weaver pulls the bars forward alternately to pass the wefts between the warps. The more commonly used low-warp loom has rollers that stretch the warp horizontally. Odd- and even-numbered warps are attached to poles connected to treadles that are depressed by foot to open the warp. No matter which loom is used, the weaver always works from the back, or “wrong,” side.

Cartoons

In the Western tapestry tradition a preparatory drawing, or cartoon, usually was traced or colored by a painter on a canvas the size of the tapestry to be woven. The weavers used this as a model, placing it behind the warp; thus, the finished tapestry was a mirror image of the cartoon.

EASTERN, ASIAN, AND PRE-COLUMBIAN TAPESTRIES

From Bulfinch’s Mythology: Minerva (Athena)
Minerva, the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess Athena, was the patron deity of the arts and trades. In later Greek mythology she was also the goddess of wisdom. This deity was one of the most important figures in both Greek and Roman mythology. In this excerpt from Bulfinch’s Mythology, 19th-century American writer and mythologist Thomas Bulfinch retells the story of how Arachne, a girl who possessed great talents in weaving, pridefully challenged Minerva to a weaving competition. Bulfinch also gave examples of references to Minerva in English literature.
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The earliest known tapestry weaving was done by the Egyptians in the 15th century bc. Linen fragments were found in the tombs of Thutmose IV and Tutankhamun, preserved by the dry desert climate. Scholars surmise that the ancient Egyptians learned the art of tapestry from the peoples of Mesopotamia. In the 4th century ad the Christian Copts began weaving wool and linen tapestry embellishments for garments.

Greek and Roman tapestries are known primarily from literary sources such as Homer and Ovid and from such historians as Herodotus.

Oriental Tapestries

Silk tapestries called k'o-ssu have long been produced in China, and the earliest surviving examples come from the Tang (T’ang) dynasty (ad 618-907). The word k'o-ssu means broken or cracked silk and refers to the tiny slits formed along the design edges. In the late 15th or early 16th century the tapestry technique was brought from China to Japan. In Kyoto weavers produced a cotton-warp silk-weft tapestry called tsuzure nishike, or “fingernail tapestry,” so called because the weavers worked the weft with their long, specially grooved fingernails (see Chinese Art and Architecture; Japanese Art and Architecture).

Islamic Tapestries

The majority of Islamic tapestries were produced in Egypt after the Muslim invasion in ad 640 (see Islamic Art and Architecture). As a continuation of the earlier Coptic tradition, bands of tapestry garment trimming of wool and silk, occasionally enriched with metal thread, were produced. Islamic motifs usually consisted of interlacing geometric designs, often enclosing inscriptions or small, highly stylized plant and animal forms.

Peruvian Tapestries

Tapestry first appeared in Peru about 900 bc. It was either all cotton or had cotton warp and a weft of cameloid wool (llama, guanaco, alpaca, or vicuña). Finely woven tapestries (60 to 100 threads per cm/152 to 254 per in) could be made on a loom without heddles, employing interlocking, slit, and eccentric weft techniques. Tapestry weaving was used primarily to make garment decorations.

EUROPEAN TAPESTRIES

Tapestry weaving may have been practiced in Europe as early as the 8th century, although no examples remain. Western European tapestry reached its greatest development between the 14th and 18th centuries. During the 19th and 20th centuries, however, revivals of the tapestry tradition occurred.

Paris Workshops

The Lady with the Unicorn The Lady with the Unicorn is the name of a series of Franco-Flemish tapestries executed in the late 1400s that constitute an allegory of the five senses. Woven of silk and wool with silver threads, they are remarkable for their profusion of realistic detail. This panel, the sixth, is called “À mon seul désir” (“To my only desire”) after the words written at the top of the tent. The tapestries are in the Cluny Museum in Paris.Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

In the 14th century the tapestry industry was centered in Paris and Flanders. The most famous Parisian example of this period is the Angers Apocalypse, now in the Musée des Tapisseries, Angers, France. A religious narrative of the Revelation of St. John the Divine, it was woven by Nicolas Bataille in the 1370s. The original set contained seven pieces, each approximately 5 m (about 16.5 ft) high and 24.3 m (80 ft) long. From the same workshop came the Nine Heroes set (Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters, New York City).

Arras Workshops

Arras, in Flanders, was the other great center of the tapestry industry in the 14th century; the word arras became synonymous with tapestry. Arras regained its supremacy in the 15th century as the Parisian workshops began to fail. Woven on high-warp looms, its luxurious tapestries depicted classical themes, chivalrous romances, and instructive allegories.

Tournai and Brussels Workshops

Other important tapestry centers in the 15th century include the Flemish cities of Tournai and Brussels. Monumental tapestries produced at Tournai are typical of a heavily outlined and solemn Gothic style. By midcentury Brussels led the industry with its reproduction of famous religious paintings by Flemish masters that were commissioned by the papacy and the royal houses of Spain and Austria. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries Brussels also became famous for its tapis d'or, or golden carpets, so called because of their profusion of gold threads. Also about this time the first marks identifying the workshop were woven into the tapestries.

Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson

Tapestry Valence Hunting is the theme of this section of a tapestry valence made in early 17th-century England. Although the tapestry industry was centered in France at this time, good work was being done in other parts of Europe. This piece shows a hunter with his dogs retrieving a rabbit he has shot. The design is simple, but it is visually striking.

The 17th century marked the end of the predominance of the Flemish centers as religious persecution drove Protestant weavers from their homes. The industry shifted to France when Henry IV established workshops in the Louvre in Paris and encouraged the immigration of Flemish weavers. In 1662 the Gobelins workshop was officially established under King Louis XIV's finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Shortly after the Gobelins factory was opened, another major state-subsidized but private factory was established at Beauvais in 1664; this factory made tapestries for the nobility and rich bourgeoisie. Beauvais developed two types of decorative panels: verdures, or landscapes with vegetation, and grotesques, or decorative architectural compositions with small figures. The neighboring town of Aubusson became famous for genre scenes on themes of romantic love derived from India, China, South America, and Africa. In the 18th century, French tapestry became more decorative, adapted for the smaller rococo salon. Classical and contemporary military themes and pastoral scenes were popular. Toward the end of the century the art declined until its revival in the late 19th century.

19th-Century Revival as an Art Form

During the 19th century, for the first time, most tapestries were machine woven and reproduced paintings or previously woven designs for the new middle-class market. Late in the century, however, a genuine revival in tapestry was spearheaded by the English poet and artist William Morris, who, as the leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, reacted to English industrialism. For 15 years Morris operated a factory that produced handwoven tapestries at Merton Abbey near London.

20th-Century Revivals

Followers of Morris were influential in the tapestry revival in 20th-century France. After World War I (1914-1918) the tapestry industry at Aubusson was revitalized. In the 1930s most tapestries were copies of works by contemporary artists, but a few were specially designed as tapestries by such artists as Jean Lurçat. Another, quite different direction for modern tapestry began with the creation of the design school of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, in 1919; Anni Albers combined craft and technology in abstract compositions designed for industrial production.

Contemporary Tapestries

Tapestries considered truly modern emerged beginning in the 1950s. Their monumental size and bulky nontraditional materials clearly relate to the austerity and scale of modern architecture. A contemporary tapestry may be constructed with many different techniques: It may be woven on or off a loom; or it may be knotted, knitted, or crocheted, among other techniques. Twentieth-century textiles are recognized as individual creations along with painting and sculpture.


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