Music and Shell
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Atelier Tabard.
With its bolduc.
c. 1950.
The work of Lurçat was immense: however, it was his role in the renovation of the art of tapestry that earned him lasting fame. As early as 1917, he began with works on canvas; then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, when he discovered at the same time the Apocalypse tapestry series of Angers—an encounter that definitely prompted him to devote himself to tapestry. He addressed technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, during his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: bold point, counted tones, and drawn Cartoons, Numbered. A vast production then began (more than 1,000 Cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as an tireless promoter of the medium throughout the world.
A vast production then began (more than 1,000 Cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie) and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as an tireless promoter of the medium throughout the world.
His woven work bears witness to a specifically decorative artist-imaginer’s art, with a highly personal, symbolic and cosmogonic iconography (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal forms, and animals (goats, roosters, butterflies, chimeras…) set against a background with no perspective (deliberately distanced from painting). In his most ambitious Cartoons, it was intended to share both a poetic vision (he sometimes even intersperses these tapestries with quotations) and a philosophical one (the major themes were addressed from the war on: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…), culminating in the “Chant du Monde” (Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), unfinished at his death.
And its culminating point would be the "Chant du Monde" ( Musée Jean Lurçat, former Saint-Jean hospital, Angers), left unfinished at his death. This model (of which one example is preserved in the Cité de la Tapisserie, in Aubusson) is exemplary of the theme of the laid table, a commonplace motif in Lurçat. The association of musical instrument-shell also refers to Picart the gentle's work.
Bibliography:
Tapestries by Jean Lurçat 1939–1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957
Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 years later, Musée d’Art moderne of the city of Paris, 1976Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat and contemporary tapestry, 1986
Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992
Exhibition cat. Dialogues with Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004
R. Guinot, the Aubusson and Felletin tapestry, Lucien Souny, 2009, ill. p.96
Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013
Exhibition cat. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016
