Tapestries
are woven ornamental wall-hangings. An art form of their own,
like paintings or sculpture tapestries can show lifelike images
of people, animals, and plant-life in vivid color and detail.
 Tapestries
are made by weaving threads together on a loom. In simplest
form, a tapestry loom must simply hold parallel "warp"
threads in tension, so "weft" threads can be woven
back and forth between them. More elaborate looms facilitate
making larger tapestries.
Warp
and weft threads have two different purposes. Warp threads
are a thin and strong foundation. They're traditionally un-dyed
wool or linen. In medieval tapestries, weft threads were usually
vat-dyed wool yarn. On the finest tapestries wool was sometimes
supplemented by more expensive silk or fine metallic (gold
and silver) threads. It's important to realize that weft yarn
provides all the color to the tapestry!
 One
of the most specialized skills for making medieval tapestries
was dying wool. Dyes were made as needed from squashed bugs,
berries, fruit, roots, and secret combinations of other ingredients!
The three most important dye plants were "weld"
(yellow), "madder" (red), and "woad" (blue).
The
earliest tapestries were made by the ancient Greeks. Greek
tapestries from the third century BCE have been found in the
desert of Turkistan. However, the art of tapestry weaving
really flowered in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.
Tapestry designs became more elaborate. They were conceived,
planned, and refined before the tapestry loom was strung with
warp threads.
 Why
tapestries? Tapestries have tremendous practical advantages
over paintings for decorating castles, cathedrals, and other
public buildings. They're much more durable and they're portable.
Tapestries can be rolled-up and moved with comparatively little
fuss. They can be made in a workshop, and transported very
long distances to be displayed. Try that with comparably-sized
frescos! They're easier to clean. During the Middle Ages,
taking tapestries along on trips was surprisingly fashionable
among the noble classes. Like ArtHouse, tapestries make great
gifts! On the other hand, tapestries can easily be hung up
and taken down as seasons change. This was a big benefit in
medieval churches, where tapestries were used to illustrate
Biblical stories and moral lessons.
Some people
believe tapestries were made to insulate cold stone buildings.
This explanation defies common sense. Tapestries are thin,
and provide negligible value as wall insulation. Tapestries
were not supplemented with batting or fur on their back sides.
They'd have been less effective for blocking drafts or preventing
convection than much less expensive materials. Their primary
purpose was clearly decorative.
It's interesting
to think about specific tapestries. Who was the artist? Who
commissioned the design? The most popular themes for medieval
tapestries were Biblical stories and classical allegory. (Allegory
is the artistic use of fictional characters and symbols to
tell a story and to present truths or generalizations about
human existence.) Hunt scenes, battle scenes, and landscapes
were also popular medieval tapestry themes, as were verdures.
A verdure is a tapestry that depicts plants and trees. Sometimes
medieval tapestries were commissioned for specific walls.
Often they were commissioned in sets.
The most
famous series of tapestries in an American museum is "The
Hunt of The Unicorn" at The Cloisters (part of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York.) These seven tapestries depict
the sequence of the hunt, ending with the caught unicorn tied
up pathetically in a too-small corral. There's no consensus
on what all the elaborate symbolism in these tapestries means.
The unicorn appears to die in the sixth tapestry, so many
people try to relate the unicorn's plight to the Passion of
Christ, but it would be wrong not to recognize the secular
understanding of unicorns as a symbol for beguiled lovers.
Probably
the most artistically important tapestries in Europe are a
series of six called "The Lady and the Unicorn".
Each tapestry in this series is said to represent a different
sense: taste, hearing, sight, smell, touch, and love. One
very interesting thing about these tapestries is that they
were discovered bundled-up, hidden, and extensively damaged
by rats. They have been carefully restored.
Many of
the greatest tapestries ever made were destroyed during the
French Revolution. People who appreciated the artistic value
of medieval tapestries tried hard to hide and protect them.
Because they were a symbol of undemocratic privilege, angry
revolutionaries were determined to destroy them. Opportunists
realized they could remove the gold metallic thread from tapestries
and convert it to quick cash. Art suffers in wartime too.
Would
you believe the most famous tapestry of all isn't really a
tapestry! The "Bayeux Tapestry" isn't technically
a tapestry because its design was applied by embroidery, not
woven in.
The Bayeux
Tapestry was commissioned around the year 1070 to record the
story of the Battle of Hastings (of 1066). The Norman (French)
army defeated the Saxon (English) army, and subsequently Norman
kings ruled over England for many years. One thing that's
impressive about the Bayeux Tapestry is its length: two hundred
and thirty feet long! Where would you hang it? Curiously,
it's only about twenty inches tall. Because it was hard to
display, the Bayeux Tapestry was kept rolled-up in storage
for hundreds of years, and it's in good condition. Historians
have learned an incredible amount of history by studying the
design. The tapestry includes 626 images of people (only three
female), 190 images of horses, and 35 images of dogs. One
key character, Harold of Wessex, appears eleven places! Fifty
seven different inscriptions were embroidered into the Bayeux
Tapestry. All of them were written in Latin.
What's
the difference between a craftsperson and an artist? During
the Middle Ages, tapestry designs generally weren't conceived,
planned, or refined by the weavers. Large tapestries spent
months, if not years, on the loom. Usually four or more weavers
at a time would work as a team to weave together one tapestry.
How did they know what they were doing? They worked from drawings
or informal paintings called "cartoons". No kidding!
They would start by placing the cartoons behind the warp threads,
right on the tapestry loom. Then, using a quill pen and ink,
they would trace the designs over to the threads.
The most
famous remaining medieval tapestry cartoons were the ones
painted by Raphael for "The Acts of the Apostles",
a series of tapestries commissioned from a Brussels tapestry
shop by Pope Leo X in 1515 for the lower level of Rome's Sistine
Chapel. We remember Raphael's name... he's a very famous artist.
No one remembers the names of those countless Belgian weavers.
(Other particularly famous tapestry cartoonists include Bernaert
van Orley, Peter Paul Rubens, and Francisco Goya.)
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