Saint Francis speaking to animals
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Perathon workshop.
1938.
Jean Bazaine, like many of his contemporaries, always pursued an intense activity related to mural art, creating works intended for monumental scale. While he is best known as a designer of stained glass and mosaics, he also produced tapestry cartoons, beginning in the late 1930s. These works were part of a revival of sacred art in which Bazaine, especially after the war, was one of the leading figures.
From 1936 to 1937, Jean Bazaine, along with Abbé Morel (who would become a key figure in the introduction of abstraction into churches), ran a painting workshop, which undoubtedly explains his already advanced interest in sacred art. Our cartoon, figurative (Bazaine abandoned figurative painting during the war), with its traditional iconography, is therefore a modest testament to the artist's first steps in both mural and sacred art.
