The Musicians 2 (detail)
Tapestry woven by the Fino workshop in Portalegre.
With its ribbon.
1953-1964.
While he is best known as one of the leading figures, with radical theoretical concepts, of the modern movement in architecture, Le Corbusier also practiced (like Picasso, for example) almost all the visual and decorative arts. He was particularly interested in tapestry, especially in relation to his architectural theories. He envisioned tapestry as "the Mural of modern times," hence his neologism "Muralnomad": tapestry became the woolen wall that his contemporaries carried with them wherever they went, constituting not a simple decorative element, but participating in the spatial arrangement of interiors, while also contributing to their visual (and acoustic) harmony. These theoretical reflections materialized in the design, notably with the help of Pierre Baudouin (who, in a role as technical director, served as an interface with the tapestry weavers), of about thirty cartoons, from 1948 until his death (after a first cartoon as early as 1936, for Marie Cuttoli): if they take up certain motifs from his paintings (female figures, objects from Purism, mythological themes, etc.), these cartoons are intended to be distinct from them, and specifically designed for tapestry: clarity of line, black, flat areas of pure colors, etc.
"The Musicians" is a large-scale cartoon from 1953, woven in two distinct versions. Our tapestry reproduces a detail from the second version of "The Musicians," and testifies to the architect's desire, in 1964, to collaborate with the Fino workshop in Portalegre, Portugal (where Lurçat, Matégot, Julio Pomar, and others were also woven); this was ultimately their only collaboration, as Le Corbusier died in 1965. The chosen detail emphasizes faces and hands (a recurring motif, which also gives its title to a cartoon from 1951), in a kind of imaginary dialogue between two facing figures.
Bibliography:
Exhibition catalog, Le Corbusier's Tapestries, Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 1975;
Exhibition catalog, Le Corbusier: Woven Works, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987
; Exhibition catalog, Tapestries of Portugal, Bordeaux, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 1994, reproduced p. 39
