The Legend of Saint Hubert
Aubusson tapestry woven in the Pinton workshop for the Compagnie des Arts Français.
1943.
Adnet, head of the Compagnie des Arts Français since 1928, wanted to restore tapestry to a prominent place in interior design, without imitating painting and limiting himself to a restricted color palette (in a similar approach to that of Lurçat). To this end, he enlisted the help of Despierre, Coutaud, Planson, and Brianchon. Passionate about monumental art (he also designed stained glass windows and mosaics, and was a teacher and then head of the mural art workshop at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs), after these first commissions during the war, Despierre was regularly called upon by the Manufactures Nationales, which wove "fishing," "hunting," "maritime law," "industrial and commercial law," and more throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The bold colors (the clothing of the figure on the left, worthy of Mannerism!) and the dense, monumental figures (typical of the period and the artist) should not obscure the meaning of the tapestry: a religious subject, a vehicle of faith and hope in a troubled period (Saint-Saëns and Lurçat also knew how to conceal the symbol behind the appearance). This is paradoxical, considering Adnet's essentially decorative concerns.
The Cité de la Tapisserie d'Aubusson has a copy of this tapestry, inverted and with a different border from ours; it is the one illustrated in the bibliography.
Bibliography:
Cat. Exp. La tapisserie française du moyen âge à nos jours (French tapestry from the Middle Ages to the present day), Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1946, no. 247
Cat. Exp. Tapisseries contemporaines (Contemporary tapestries), Musée de Lyon, 1956, reproduced in fig. no. 3
Heng Michèle, Aubusson et la renaissance de la tapisserie (Aubusson and the renaissance of tapestry),
History of art No. 11, 1990, Varia, Fig. 5 page 69
Exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat, compagnons de route et passants considérables, Felletin, Eglise du château, 1992, reproduced on pp. 20-21
Cat. Exp. Tapestry and expressions of the sacred, Aubusson, Departmental Tapestry Museum, 1999, reproduced on p.36
Cat. Exp. Fantastic rides, the horse in tapestry, Aubusson, Departmental Tapestry Museum, 2008, reproduced on p.63