« La terre et la mer II »
Tapestry woven at the Aubusson workshop by Hecquet. With its bolduc Signed by the artist’s widow, no. 1/6. 1960. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the leading driving forces behind the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: at that time, he produced cartoons for the ocean liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whose theories he adopted (limited palettes, numbered cartoons, …), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Painter-cartoonists for Tapestry), and soon became a teacher at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous cartoons woven mostly in Aubusson, and for some, at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were for the Université de Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Préfecture de la Creuse, …. If the designs by Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, so too were his sources of inspiration and his themes, though within a more decorative than symbolic register, where the stars (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, vines, fish, birds…), humankind, texts, … all appear alongside one another. This cartoon reproduces, on a smaller scale, the original cartoon (170 x 272 cm) from 1960. At that time, Picart le Doux began producing cartoons of the “binary” type, with allegories combined from elements. A typology was established (fish + shell = sea or water, butterflies + roots = earth), which Picart le Doux used until the end. Bibliography : 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, n°103 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
