Part 3

Yet, though tapestry in the Renaissance was no longer illustrative in the old sense, it still was decoratively fine; for the painting of Italy was founded on a mural art, and the decorative traditions still held true. Outlines are still clear and expressive. There was respect for architectural structure, and details, if less complex and sensitive, are still rich and full. Color, too, is still strong and pure, though the key is heightened somewhat and the number of tones increased. Moreover, the Renaissance introduced two important new resources, the wide border and the grotesque. Hitherto the border had been a narrow floral garland, a minor adjunct easily omitted. Now it became of major importance, always essential to the beauty of the piece, often the most beautiful part of it, designed with great resource and frequently interwoven with gold and silver. The grotesque, from being originally a border decoration, soon spread itself over the whole field (cf. No. 36), mingling with amusing incongruity but with decorative consistency goats and fair ladies, trellis, flowers, and heraldic devices. What the Renaissance lacked in subtlety it made up in abundance.

During the Renaissance the tapestry industry was dominated by the Flemish cities, with Brussels at the head. She had the greatest looms, great both for the exceeding skill of the workers and for the enormous quantity of the production. Some workshops, of which the most famous was that of the Pannemaker family, specialized in exquisitely fine work rendered in the richest materials. Of this class, the most typical examples are the miniature religious tapestries in silk and metal thread, in which all the perfection of a painting was united with the sumptuousness of a most extravagant textile (cf. No. 35). But sometimes full-sized wall-hangings too were done with the same perfection and elaboration (cf. Nos. 23-25). Other shops sacrificed the perfection of workmanship to a large output, but even in the most commercially organized houses the weavers of Flanders in the XVIth century were able and conscientious craftsmen.

These same Flemish workmen were called to different countries in Europe to establish local looms. So Italy had several small temporary ateliers at this period, as did England also (cf. No. 32). But though these shops were in Italy and England, they were still predominantly Flemish. The character of local decoration and local demand influenced the design somewhat, but fundamentally the products both in cartoon and in weave were still those of the mother country. In France, however, the Flemish workmen were made the tools of the beginning of a new national revival of the art. A group of weavers was called to Fontainebleau, where, under the extravagant patronage of Francis I, the French Renaissance was taking form. These Flemings, weaving designs made by Italians, nevertheless created decorative textiles that are typically French in spirit (cf. No. 37). France alone had a strong enough artistic character to refashion the conventions of Italy and the technique of Flanders to a national idiom.

In the next century this revival of the art which survived at Fontainebleau barely fifty years was carried on in several ateliers at Paris. The workmen were still predominantly Flemish, but again their work was unmistakably French (cf. No. 38). In Trinity Hospital looms had been maintained since the middle of the XVIth century. In the gallery of the Louvre looms were set up about 1607. And the third and most important shop was established by Marc de Comans and François de la Planche at the invitation of the king. This was most important, because it later was moved to the Bièvre River, where the Gobelins family had its old dye-works, and it eventually became the great state manufactory.

Thereafter for the next two centuries the looms of Flanders and France worked in competition. Now one, now the other took precedence, but France had a slowly increasing superiority that by the middle of the XVIIIth century put her two royal looms, the Gobelin and Beauvais, definitely in the forefront of the industry.

For cartoons the looms of the two countries called on the great painters of the time, often requisitioning the work of the same painters, and sometimes even using the very same designs. Thus Van der Meulen worked both for Brussels manufacturers (cf. Nos. 53-56) and for the French state looms (cf. No. 52), and the Gobelin adapted to its uses the old Lucas _Months_ that had originated in Flanders (cf. Nos. 57, 58.)

But though they did thus parallel each other in cartoons, the finished tapestries nevertheless retained their national differences. As in the Gothic period, the Flemish tapestries in all respects showed a tendency to somewhat overdo. Their figures were larger, their borders crushed fuller of flowers and fruit, their verdures heavier, their grotesques more heterogeneous, their metal threads solider. Their abundance was rich and decorative, but lacking in refinement and grace. The French, on the other hand, kept always a certain detachment and restraint that made for clarity and often delicacy. When the Baroque taste demanded huge active figures, the French still kept theirs well within the frame. Their borders were always spaced and usually more abstract. The verdures of Aubusson can be distinguished from those of Audenarde by the fewer leaves, the lighter massing, the more dispersed lights and shades. The grotesques of France, especially in the XVIIIth century, often controlled the random fancy popularized among the Flemish weavers by introducing a central idea, a goddess above whom they could group the proper attributes (cf. No. 36), or a court fête (cf. No. 59). And when the French used metal thread it was to enrich a limited space rather than to weight a whole tapestry. In a way the opulence of the Flemish was better adapted to the medium. Certainly it produced some very beautiful tapestries. But the refinement of the French is a little more sympathetic to an overcivilized age.

With the accession of Louis XV, tapestry joined the other textile arts and painting in following furniture styles. Thereafter, until the advent of machinery put an end to tapestry as a significant art, the cabinetmaker led all the other decorators. Small pieces with small designs, light colors, delicate floral ornaments, and the reigning temporary fad--now the Chinese taste (cf. No. 71), now the pastoral (cf. No. 68)--occupied the attention of the cartoonmakers, so that the chief occupations of the court beauties of each successive decade can be read in the tapestries.

During this time France was dictating the fashions of all the Western World, so other countries were eager not only to have her tapestries, but to have her workmen weave for them in their own capitals. Accordingly, the royal family of Russia, always foreign in its tastes, sent for a group of weavers to set up a royal Russian tapestry works. Similarly, Spain sent for a Frenchman to direct her principal looms, those at Santa Barbara and Madrid, which for a decade or so had been running under a Fleming.

And meanwhile tapestry was steadily becoming more and more another form of painting. Until the middle of the XVIIIth century it remains primarily illustrative. The Renaissance designers continued to tell historical and biblical stories and to fashion the designs in the service of the tale they had to tell. With the influence of Rubens and his school (cf. No. 44), the story becomes chiefly the excuse for the composition; but the story is nevertheless still there and adequately presented. The artists of Louis XIV, when called upon to celebrate their king in tapestry, respected this quality of the art by depicting his history and his military exploits (cf. No. 52). But illustration already begins to run thin in the series of the royal residences done by the Gobelins during his reign, and with the style of his successor it runs out almost altogether. If Boucher paints the series of the _Loves of the Gods_ it is not for the sake of the mythology, but for the rosy flesh and floating drapes, and Fragonard does not even bother to think of an excuse, but makes his languid nudes simply bathers (cf. No. 69). So when Louis XV is to be celebrated by his weavers the designers make one effort to invent a story by depicting his hunts, and then abandon episode and substitute portraiture (cf. No. 64).

Throughout most of the Renaissance, tapestry remained decorative as a mural painting is decorative, but in the XVIIth century, with the degeneration of all architectual feeling, tapestry lost entirely its architectual character. It was still decorative--it was decorative as the painting of the time was. The tapestries of the XVIIth century are giant easel paintings, and of the XVIIIth century woven panel paintings.

As to the textile quality, during the XVIIth century the very scale of the pieces kept them somewhat true to it. The large figures, heavy foliage, and big floral ornaments can fall successfully into wide, soft folds. But most of the tapestry of the XVIIIth century must be stretched and set in panels or frames. That they are woven is incidental, a fact to call forth wonder for the skill of the workmen, both of the dyers who perfected the numberless slight gradations of delicate tones and kept them constant, and of the almost unbelievably deft weavers who could ply the shuttle so finely and exactly and grade these delicate tones to reproduce soft modeled flesh, fluttering draperies, billowing clouds, spraying fountains, and the sheen and folds of different materials. But that they are woven is scarcely a fact to be considered in the artistic estimate. The only advantage of the woven decorations over the painted panel is that they present a softer surface to relieve the cold glitter of rooms. Otherwise as paintings they stand or fall. Even the border has usually been reduced to a simulated wood or stucco frame.

During this gradual change through five hundred years in the artistic qualities of tapestry the technical tricks of the weavers underwent corresponding modification. In the Gothic period the drawing depended primarily upon a strong dark outline, black or brown, that was unbroken, and that was especially important whether the design was affiliated rather with panel painting (cf. No. 1) or with the more graphic miniature illustration (cf. No. 5). Even the lesser accessories were all drawn in clear outline. Within a given color area, transitions from tone to tone were made by hatchings, little bars of irregular length of one of the shades that fitted into alternate bars of the other shade, like the teeth of two combs interlocked. And for shadows and emphasis of certain outlines, some of the Gothic weavers had a very clever trick of dropping stitches (cf. No. 1), so that a series of small holes in the fabric takes the place of a dark line. During the Renaissance the outline becomes much narrower, and is used only for the major figures, a device that sometimes makes the figures look as if they had been cut out and applied to the design. Hatching, if used at all, is much finer than in the earlier usage, consisting now of only single lines of one color shading into the next. In the work of Fontainbleau (cf. Nos. 36, 37), the dotted series of holes between colors is still used to give a subordinate outline. During the XVIIth century hatching is scarcely used at all, and the outline has practically disappeared. During the XVIIIth century the French weavers perfected a trick which obviated any break in the weave where the color changes, thus enabling tapestry to approximate even closer to painting effects.

To the weavers who adjusted these tricks to the varying demands of the cartoons, and so translated painted patterns in a woven fabric, is due quite as much credit for the finished work of art as to the painters who first made the design. Famous painters did prepare tapestry designs. Aside from the masters of the Middle Ages to whom tapestries are attributed, we have positive evidence that, among others, Jacques Daret, Roger Van der Weyden, Raphael, Giulio Romano (cf. Nos. 23-25), Le Brun, Rubens, Coypel (cf. Nos. 62, 63), Boucher (cf. Nos. 67, 68), Watteau, Fragonard (cf. No. 69), and Vernet (cf. No. 70), all worked on tapestry designs. The master weavers who could transpose their designs deserve to rank with them in honor.

Yet we know relatively little of these master weavers. Many names of tapicers appear in tax-lists and other documents, but not until the XVIIIth century do the names often represent to us definite personalities, and until then we can only occasionally credit a man with his surviving work. From the long lists of names and the great numbers of remaining tapestries a few only can be connected. Among the greatest of these is Nicolas Bataille, of Paris, who wove the famous set of the _Apocalypse_ now in the Cathedral of Angers; Pasquier Grenier, of Tournai, to whom the _Wars of Troy_ and related sets can be accredited (cf. No. 7), but who apparently was an _entrepreneur_ rather than a weaver; Pieter Van Aelst, who was so renowned that the cartoons of Raphael were first entrusted to him; William Pannemaker, another Brussels man, who had supreme taste and skill, and his relative Pierre, almost as skilful; Marc Comans and François de la Planche, the Flemings who set up the looms in Paris that developed into the Gobelins (cf. No. 38); Jean Lefébvre, who worked first in the gallery of the Louvre and then had his studio in the Gobelins (cf. Nos. 39, 40); the Van der Beurchts, of Brussels (cf. Nos. 42, 56), and Leyniers (cf. Nos. 26, 27), and Cozette, most famous weaver of the Gobelins. Such men as these, and many more whose names are lost or are neglected because we do not know their work, were in their medium as important artists as the painters whose designs they followed.

With the passing of such master craftsmen the art of tapestry died. When men must compete with machines their work is no more respected, and so tapestry is no longer the natural medium of expression for the culture of the times. Tapestries are still being made, but there is no genuine vitality in the art and little merit in its product. It exists today only as an exhausted and irrelevant persistence from the past, and, as a fine art, doomed to failure and ultimate extinction.

P.A.

CATALOGUE

_Abbreviations_: H. (_Height_); W. (_Width_); _ft._ (_Feet_); _in._ (_Inches_). _"Right" & "Left," refer to right & left of the spectator_

[Sidenote: 1]

FRANCO-FLEMISH, POSSIBLY ARRAS, BEGINNING OF XV OR END OF XIV CENTURY

[Sidenote:

_Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 11 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 6 _in._ ]

THE ANNUNCIATION: _The Virgin, in a blue robe lined with red, is seated before a reading-desk in a white marble portico with a tile floor. Behind her is a red and metal gold brocade. The lily is in a majolica jar. The angel, in a green robe with yellow high lights lined with red, has alighted in a garden without. In the sky, God the Father holding the globe and two angels bearing a shield._

The treatment of the sky in two-toned blue and white striations, as well as the conventional landscape without perspective, with small oak and laurel trees, is characteristic of a number of tapestries of the opening years of the XVth century. Most of them depicted hunting scenes. But there was one famous religious piece, the _Passion_ of the Cathedral of Saragossa. In the drawing of the figures and some of the details the piece is closely related to the paintings of that Paris school of which Jean Malouel is the most famous member. The work is by no means by Malouel, but it is similar to that of one of his lesser contemporaries, whose only known surviving work is a set of six panels painted on both sides, two of which are in the Cuvellier Collection at Niort and the others in the Mayer Van der Bergh Collection at Antwerp. The very primitively rendered Eternal Father is almost identical with the one that appears in several of the panels; the roughly indicated shaggy grass is the same, the rather unusual angle of the angel's wings recurs in the Cuvellier _Annunciation_, as does the suspended poise of the Virgin's attitude. The Virgin's reading-desk, too, is almost identical, though shown in the panel at the other side of the scene. The long, slim-fingered hands and the pointed nose and chin of the Virgin are characteristic of the school.

The tiles in the portico, so carefully rendered, are of interest because they are very similar to the earliest-known tile floor still in position--that of the Caracciolo Chapel in Naples. Some of the same patterns are repeated, notably that of the Virgin's initial and the star, which is more crudely rendered. The colors, too, are approximately the same, the brown being a fair rendering of the manganese purple of the chapel tiles. The majolica vase is also interesting as illustrating a type of which few intact examples are left.

[Sidenote: Exhibited:

_Chicago Art Institute, Gothic Exhibition_, 1921.]

[Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.]

The piece maintains a high level of æsthetic expression. The religious emotion is intensely felt and is adequately conveyed in the wistful sadness of the Virgin's face and the expectant suspense of her poised body. The portico seems removed from reality and flooded by a direct heavenly light, in its shining whiteness contrasting with the deep blue-green background. This tapestry by virtue of its intense and elevated feeling, purified by æsthetic calm and by its exceptional decorative vividness, ranks with the very great masterpieces of the graphic arts.

[Sidenote: 2]

FRANCO-FLEMISH, EARLY XV CENTURY

[Sidenote:

_Wool and Gold._ H. 5 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 5 _ft._ 11 _in._ ]

THE CHASE: _A man in a long dark-blue coat and high red hat and a lady in a brown brocade dress and ermine turban watch a dog in leather armor attack a bear. A landscape with trees and flowers is indicated without perspective and a castle in simple outline is projected against a blue and white striated sky._

[Sidenote: Exhibited:

_South Kensington Museum, French-English Retrospective Exhibition of Textiles_, 1921.]

This tapestry is an important example of a small group of hunting scenes of the early XVth century. It is closely related in style to the famous pair of large hunting tapestries in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. It is not definitely known where any of these pieces were woven, but Arras is taken as a safe assumption, as that was the center of weaving at the time, and these tapestries are the finest production known of the period.

The very simple figures sharply silhouetted against the contrasting ground have a decidedly architectural quality, perfectly adapted to mural decoration. Yet the scene seems very natural and the persons have marked and attractive personalities.

[Sidenote: Illustrated:

_La Renaissance de l'Art français_, 1921, p. 104; _Burlington_, vol. 38, opp. p. 171. _DeMotte, Les Tapisseries gothiques_, Deuxième Série.]

These exceedingly rare pieces mark the great wave of naturalism that began sweeping over Europe about 1350 and they exemplify strikingly one of the finest qualities of the primitive--the impressive universality and objectivity that come from the freshness of the artist's vision. Looking straight at the thing itself, free from all the presuppositions that come from an inherited convention, the draftsman saw the essentials and recorded them directly without any confusing elaboration of technique. He was completely absorbed by the unsolved problems of the task, too occupied with the difficulty of rendering the central outstanding features of the scene to be diverted by personal affectations. His realization thus became vivid and intimate, his rendition achieved a singularity and epic force never again to be found in tapestry.

[Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.]

This is one of the few tapestries that have been improved by age. Time has spread over it a slight gray bloom that seems to remove it from the actual world, giving it the isolation that is so important a factor in æsthetic effect; yet the depth and strength of the colors have not been weakened, for we interpret the grayness as a fine veil through which the colors shine with their original purity.

[Sidenote: 3]

FLANDERS, MIDDLE XV CENTURY

[Sidenote:

_Wool._ H. 15 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 14 _ft._ 7 _in._ ]

THE ANNUNCIATION, THE NATIVITY, AND THE ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE SHEPHERDS: _At the left in a Gothic chapel the Annunciation. The Virgin, in a richly jeweled and brocaded robe, reads the Holy Book. The angel in rich robes kneels before her. The lilies are in a dinanderie vase. Through the open door a bit of landscape is seen, and in a room beyond the chapel two women sit reading. The Nativity, at the right, is under a pent roof. The Virgin, Joseph, and Saint Elizabeth kneel in adoration about the Holy Babe, who lies on the flower-strewn grass. John kneels in front of his mother, and in the foreground an angel also worships. Above and beyond the stable the three shepherds sit tending their flocks, and an angel bearing the announcement inscribed on a scroll flutters down to them from Heaven. Oak-trees, rose-vines, and blossoming orange-trees in the grass._

This tapestry belongs to a small and very interesting group, all evidently the work of one designer. The three famous _Conversations Galantes_ (long erroneously called the _Baillée des Roses_) in the Metropolitan Museum are by the same man, as are the four panels of the _History of Lohengrin_ in Saint Catherine's Church, Cracow, the fifth fragmentary panel of the series being in the Musée Industrielle, Cracow. A fragment from the same designer showing a party of hunters is in the Church of Notre Dame de Saumur de Nantilly, and another fragment depicting a combat is in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs. Three small fragments--one with a single figure of a young man with a swan, like the Metropolitan pieces, on a striped ground, another showing a king reading in a portico very similar to the portico of the _Annunciation_, and the third showing a group of people centered about a king--were in the Heilbronner Collection.

Schmitz points out[1] a connection between the three Metropolitan pieces and the series of seven pieces depicting the life of Saint Peter in the Beauvais Cathedral, with an eighth piece in the Cluny Musée, and it is quite evident that the cartoons are the work of the same man. But whereas the other pieces all have the same characteristics in the weaving, this series shows a somewhat different technique in such details as the outline and the hatchings, so that one must assume they were woven on another loom.

Fortunately, there is documentary information on one set of the type that enables us to say definitely where and when the whole group was made. The _Lohengrin_ set was ordered by Philip the Good from the first Grenier of Tournai in 1462. There can be no reasonable doubt that the set in Saint Catherine's Church is the same, for in this set the knight is quite apparently modeled after Duke Philip himself, judging from the portraits of him in both the _Romance of Gerard de Rousillon_ (Vienna Hof-bibliothèque) and in the _History of Haynaut_ (Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels).