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  • Normands sur la Seine (Norsemen on the Seine)

      Tapestry woven at Aubusson by the Pinton workshop. Signed certificate of origin n° 1. 1961.   Lars Gynning is one of  the numerous artists of  various origins whose work would be woven in Aubusson during the years from the 50’s to  the 70’s, at a period when tapestry imposed itself as an artistic medium. From a thematic point of view, this cartoon can be seen as a referrence, across the centuries,  to Franco-Scandinavian relations seen through the prism of Viking incursions up the Seine estuary : an inevitable throw-back to the Bayeux tapestry.   However, rather than a historic or diplomatic statement by Gynning, the cartoon in fact illustrates a saga by Evart Taube, the 20th century Swedish national poet (an extract from the text is woven at the bottom of the tapestry) ; added to the subject itself, the textile rendition of an epic saga is a gesture in the direction of the great mediaeval tapestry tradition, which was an inevitable model for many painter-cartoonists of the period. The aesthetic, which is resolutely contemporary and influenced by cubism, revitalises an ancient subject.
  • Bel canto

     
    Aubusson tapestry woven by the Tabard workshop. N°4. 1964.
        Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, originally a painter of murals, in 1940. And during the war the latter produced the first of his allegorical masterpieces, tapestries reflecting indignation, combat, resistance : “les Vierges folles (the foolish virgins), “Thésée et le Minotaure” (Theseus and the Minotaur). At the end of the war, as a natural development he joined up with Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (concerning a simplified palette, outlined cartoons with colours indicated by pre-ordained numbers, and the specific nature of tapestry design…) at the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, where the human figure, stretched, elongated, ooccupies an important place (particularly when compared to his companions Lurçat or Picart le Doux), pivots around traditional themes : woman, the Commedia dell’arte, Greek mythology… refined by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. His work would evolve later, in the 1960’s, towards cartoons of a more lyrical design, almost abstract where elemental and cosmic forces would dominate.   If Music as a theme is ever-present in Saint-Saëns’s work, the changes that his style underwent in the 1960’s towards  a vision that is both more informal and biomorphic, influenced his treatment of it ; but is not the lyricism evident in this piece ideally suited to the expression “Bel Canto” ?     Bibliography : Exhibition catalogue La tapisserie française du Moyen-âge à nos jours, Paris, Musée d’art moderne, 1946 Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, Paris, galerie La Demeure, 1970, ill. Exhibition catalogue Saint-Saëns, the tapestries, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 Exhibition catalogue Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine 1997-1998

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