Society’s demands mandate art. A society’s lust for the ‘new’ and ‘innovative’ often tramples the old. Such was the case with tapestry in the 16th century as the Renaissance swept over Europe. Tapestry-makers bent to the demands of society to include Renaissance ideas into tapestry, ultimately leading to their own demise. By examining the aesthetic differences between Gothic and Renaissance Tapestry, one can examine the damage that occurred as cartoonists and weavers began applying Renaissance techniques and discarded the focus on decoration and texture that dominated the Gothic Era, eventually leading to the downfall of tapestry as an art form.
The art of tapestry was born in Egypt almost two thousand years before the Christian Era where
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During the Middle Ages, the art of tapestry proved to be useful as the hangings not only decorated the walls of wealthy residences and churches but also provided effective insulation against droughts. Tapestries were valued because they were like mobile frescos. In fact, their wealthy owners did not intend for them to “remain in specific habitations but had them transported from place to place not only to their chateaux but also to various camps during their military campaigns.” The process of crafting a tapestry was an extensive one. Creating a tapestry can be “compared to the performance of a symphony, the composer being the cartoon painter and the weavers the musicians.” First, a cartoonist would create a full size drawing of the design that would adorn the tapestry. Then dozens of weavers would labor for years stitching that design and all of it’s elaborate details onto the expensive fabric. Tapestries rarely stood as single works of art but were part of a series and so it could take a decade to complete a set. Due to the amount of labor and materials used to make a set of tapestries was so large, these artistic products were “naturally reserved for the richest, and consequentially in the Ancien Regime the highest levels of society; rulers and nobility, the higher clergy and ecclesiastical foundations and later the rich burghers.” Tapestries soon became the ultimate symbols of power and …show more content…
The classical element of nudity introduced into tapestry in the Renaissance robbed tapestry of it’s rich details of attire. Unlike the elaborate and detailed clothing of the hunters in the Unicorn at the Fountain, Adam and Eve in God Accuses Adam and Eve after the Fall do not wear clothing and God’s clothing is simplified in order to make the cloth appear to drape realistically. The Renaissance tapestries such as God Accuses Adam and Eve after the Fall “introduce heavily shaded leaves and, in achieving the realistic, lose much of the decorative.” The plants are less identifiable and diverse in Pieter Coecke Van Aelst’s work. Renaissance Tapestry lost the symbolic power that vegetation carried in the Gothic Era Tapestries such as The Unicorn in Captivity with the introduction of realistic shading involved in creating chiaroscuro. While the Renaissance techniques were seen as revolutionary and groundbreaking, they did more harm to tapestry than good. Historical critic Vasari wrote of Raphael’s iconic renaissance tapestry set, Acts of the Apostles: One can hardly imagine how it was possible, with simple threads to produce such delicacy in the hair and beards and to express
During the Middle Ages, the art of tapestry proved to be useful as the hangings not only decorated the walls of wealthy residences and churches but also provided effective insulation against droughts. Tapestries were valued because they were like mobile frescos. In fact, their wealthy owners did not intend for them to “remain in specific habitations but had them transported from place to place not only to their chateaux but also to various camps during their military campaigns.” The process of crafting a tapestry was an extensive one. Creating a tapestry can be “compared to the performance of a symphony, the composer being the cartoon painter and the weavers the musicians.” First, a cartoonist would create a full size drawing of the design that would adorn the tapestry. Then dozens of weavers would labor for years stitching that design and all of it’s elaborate details onto the expensive fabric. Tapestries rarely stood as single works of art but were part of a series and so it could take a decade to complete a set. Due to the amount of labor and materials used to make a set of tapestries was so large, these artistic products were “naturally reserved for the richest, and consequentially in the Ancien Regime the highest levels of society; rulers and nobility, the higher clergy and ecclesiastical foundations and later the rich burghers.” Tapestries soon became the ultimate symbols of power and …show more content…
The classical element of nudity introduced into tapestry in the Renaissance robbed tapestry of it’s rich details of attire. Unlike the elaborate and detailed clothing of the hunters in the Unicorn at the Fountain, Adam and Eve in God Accuses Adam and Eve after the Fall do not wear clothing and God’s clothing is simplified in order to make the cloth appear to drape realistically. The Renaissance tapestries such as God Accuses Adam and Eve after the Fall “introduce heavily shaded leaves and, in achieving the realistic, lose much of the decorative.” The plants are less identifiable and diverse in Pieter Coecke Van Aelst’s work. Renaissance Tapestry lost the symbolic power that vegetation carried in the Gothic Era Tapestries such as The Unicorn in Captivity with the introduction of realistic shading involved in creating chiaroscuro. While the Renaissance techniques were seen as revolutionary and groundbreaking, they did more harm to tapestry than good. Historical critic Vasari wrote of Raphael’s iconic renaissance tapestry set, Acts of the Apostles: One can hardly imagine how it was possible, with simple threads to produce such delicacy in the hair and beards and to express