Maurice SAVIN

A versatile artist (engraver, medalist, ceramist, fresco painter, etc.), Savin was approached during the war by Guillaume Janneau, who admired the timeless and realistic monumentality of his aesthetic (and suspected it would need no transposition to suit tapestry), to design cartoons for the National Manufactories: "Pleasures and Rural Work" (4 cartoons), then "The Twelve Months of the Year" were created simultaneously with his work with the Compagnie des Arts Français. The influence of the technical aspects of medieval tapestry is very pronounced in the artist's work, attentive to natural dyes in a limited range, to the simple forms made possible by the gros point technique, etc. He was one of the most represented artists at the seminal 1946 exhibition, with 7 pieces (only Lurçat, Saint-Saëns, and Gromaire had more).

"The Harvest" is contemporary with the cartoon designed for the Gobelins: "The Apple Harvest," from the tapestry series on "rural pleasures and labors." It shares the same characteristics typical of the artist: a limited but vibrant color palette, simplified and monumental forms, a dense composition, and a rustic flavor straight from medieval tapestry.

Bibliography:
Exhibition catalog, French Tapestry from the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne, 1946
; Exhibition catalog, The Mobilier National and the National Manufactories under the Fourth Republic, Beauvais, Galerie Nationale de la Tapisserie, 1997
; Exhibition catalog, The Gobelins Manufactory in the First ^Half of the 20th Century, Beauvais, Galerie Nationale de la Tapisserie, 1999