Amazonia
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hamot workshop. With its bolduc signed by the artist. 1962. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the major figures in the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: he then produced cartoons for the ocean liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whose theories (limited tones, numbered cartoons, etc.) he adopted, he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon became a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him with numerous woven cartoons, mostly in Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Préfecture de la Creuse, etc. If the conceptions of Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, so too were his sources of inspiration and his themes—albeit in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars, etc.), the elements and nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds, etc.), humankind, texts, etc. coexist. Since « Orénoque », from 1956 (Bruzeau n°72), South America returned regularly in Picart le Doux’s work. Here, « la huppe », a vertical cartoon (Bruzeau n°97), is extended horizontally by the inhabited river with turtles and fish, etc., in a fine decorative effect. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Jouffray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966, reproduit n°7 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°129 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980, n°14 ill.
