The harp of the forests
Aubusson tapestry woven by Berthaut workshop.
With its ribbon.
1953.
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 Painters-Cartoonists of Tapestry), and soon 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 Theatre of Le Mans, the liner France 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 the stars (the sun, the moon, the stars ...), the elements, nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds ...), man, and texts coexist.
The harp-tree is a common theme in Picart le Doux (sometimes also found as » the lyre-tree », Bruzeau n°44), sensitive to the syncretism Nature-Music, as well as to the decorative value of multicolored stripes-cords, on a green background that smells of humus.
Bibliography :
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Walls of Sun, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, ill. n°45
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapestries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
