Sun-Lyre
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hamot workshop.
With its signed label.
1957.
Jean Picart le Doux is one of the great animators of the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field date back to 1943: he then created cartoons for the liner 'La Marseillaise'. Close to Lurçat, whose theories he espouses (limited tones, numbered cartoons, ...), he is a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Tapestry Cartoonists and Painters), and soon became a professor at the National Higher School of Decorative Arts. The State commissions numerous cartoons, most of which are woven in Aubusson, and some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular ones will be for the University of Caen, the Mans Theatre, the France liner or the Prefecture of Creuse, .... If Picart le Doux's conceptions are close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes are also, 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....
Cartoon of a fine effect: the symmetry of the lyre (one of the preferred instruments of Picart le Doux), is adorned with a Sun-face (very Louis XIV) a cliché of all solar myths. This cartoon announces 'the Sun of Orpheus', which will adorn the bar of the 'France' liner.
Bibliography:
Marthe Belle-Jouffray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966, ill. no. 9
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Cercle d'Art Editions, 1972, ill. n°82
Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Saint-Denis, Museum, 1976
Exhibition catalogue Jean Picart le Doux, Paris, musée de la Poste, 1980, ill.
