Man and the Earth
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Hamot workshop.
1962.
Jean Picart le Doux is one of the major figures in the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field date back to 1943: he created cartoons for the liner 'la Marseillaise'. Close to Lurçat, whose theories he adopted (limited tones, numbered cartoons,…), he is a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association of Cartoonists-Tapestry Artists) and soon became a professor at the National Higher School of Decorative Arts. The State commissioned numerous cartoons from him, most of which were woven in Aubusson, and some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular ones were for the University of Caen, the Mans Theatre, the France liner, or the Creuse Prefecture,…. If Picart le Doux's conceptions are close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes are also similar, 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,….
In the early 1960s, Picart le Doux designed a series of large cartoons ("Time", "Galaxy", "Man and the Sea",...), spectacular allegories centered around Man, at the heart of Creation. In our synthetic "Man and the Earth", the vocabulary of vine shoots, wheat ears, human body irrigated by veins,... takes up other earlier cartoons by the artist.
Bibliography :
Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Walls of sun, Editions Cercle d'art, 1972, ill. n°132
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapestries, Museum of Saint-Denis, 1976
Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Museum of the Post, 1980
