The Lyre
Aubusson tapestry woven by Pinton workshop.
Circa 1960.
Jean Picart le Doux is one of the major figures in the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field date back to 1943: he created cartoons for the liner 'la Marseillaise'. Close to Lurçat, whose theories he adopted (limited tones, numbered cartoons,…), he is a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Cartoonists-Tapestry Artists) and soon became a professor at the National Higher School of Decorative Arts. The State commissioned numerous cartoons from him, most of which were woven in Aubusson, and some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular ones were for the University of Caen, the Mans Theatre, the France liner, or the Creuse Prefecture,…. If Picart le Doux's conceptions are close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes are also similar, but in a more decorative than symbolic register, where stars (the sun, the moon, the stars…), elements, nature (wheat, vine, fish, birds…), man, and texts coexist,….
The lyre motif, like that of the harp, is one of the artist's leitmotifs. Apollonian motif, the lyre appears regularly with the sun (cf. for example "Sun-lyre", Bruzeau no. 82), but also as a symbol of time (in the image of the 18th century pendulum balancers, one of the artist's cartoons with a lyre motif is called "the balancer": sale Lille, 17.6.01 no. 464): "the Phases of time" (cf. Armelle Bouchet Mazas, the ship France, Editions Norma, 2006, p. 72) that adorn the first-class smoking room of the France.
Strangely, our cartoon does not appear in Bruzeau's book: perhaps it is a special order related to a scientific or industrial organization, given the shape that appears across the lyre.
Bibliography :
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Walls of Sun, Cercle d'art Editions, 1972
Armelle Bouchet Mazas, the France ocean liner, Norma Editions, 2006
