Procession of Orpheus
Tapestry from Aubusson, woven by the Berthaut workshop. 1961. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the leading driving forces behind the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: he then produced cartoons for the ocean liner “la Marseillaise”. Closely associated with Lurçat, whose theories he adopted (limited tones, numbered cartoons,…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon became a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned numerous woven cartoons from him, most of them in Aubusson and some at the Gobelins; the most spectacular were made for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Préfecture de la Creuse,… If Picart le Doux’s designs were close to those of Lurçat, so too were his sources of inspiration and his themes, but in a more decorative than symbolic register, where celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements and nature (grain, vines, fish, birds…), humankind, texts,… coexisted. “Le bestiaire ou le cortège d’Orphée” is a collection of poems by Apollinaire that Picart le Doux would illustrate with lithographs in 1962 (after Raoul Dufy, in the original edition). He conceived at the same time a tapestry cartoon in the form of the checkerboard dear to Lurçat, where, in the squares, appear crayfish, goat, or lion,… in different, varied aspects of the animal kingdom. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966, n°13 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, n°108 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Boulogne sur Mer, Bibliothèque municipale, 1978 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Paris,Musée de la Poste, 1980 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Abbaye Saint Jean d’Orbestier, 1992
