Germination
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Henry workshop. With its bolduc signed by the artist, no. 2/6. Circa 1980. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the leading figures in the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field date back to 1943: he then produced cartoons for the ocean liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whose theories he adopted (limited tones, numbered cartoons, etc.), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon became a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous woven cartoons, for the most part in Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were made for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse,…. While the designs of Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, so too were his sources of inspiration and themes—though in a more decorative than symbolic register, where celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), elements, nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds…), humankind, texts, etc. stand side by side. Binary construction was very common in Picart le Doux’s cartoons: it enabled the evocation of the complementary day/night, sky/sea, land/sea…. With our combinatoire, a new association takes shape: Nature is one; the sun makes plants fruitful, and makes possible the « Germination ». Bibliographie : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
