The Garden of Love
Tapestry, probably from Aubusson.
1947.
Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, initially a fresco painter, from 1940 onwards. And, during the war, he produced his first allegorical masterpieces, tapestries of indignation, combat, and resistance: "the Foolish Virgins", "Theseus and the Minotaur". After the war, naturally, he joined Lurçat, with whom he shared convictions (on numbered cartoons and counted tones, on the specific writing required for tapestry, ...) within the A.P.C.T. (Association of Cartoonists-Tapestry Makers). His universe, where the human figure, stretched and elongated, holds a considerable place (compared in particular to the place it occupies among his colleagues Lurçat, or Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: woman, Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths, ... sublimated by the brilliance of the colours and the simplification of the layout. He then evolved, in the 1960s, towards more lyrical, almost abstract cartoons, where cosmic elements and forces dominate.
“The Garden of Love”, an allegory evoking the Earthly Paradise sometimes illustrated in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, testifies to Saint-Saëns' classical references, who, in the same year, conceived “Orpheus” or “the Italian Comedy”: theater, ancient myths or biblical references (one also thinks of “the Foolish Virgins”) are then omnipresent sources of inspiration.
Bibliography:
Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, woven work, Aubusson, Departmental Tapestry Museum, 1987
Cat. Expo. Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Jean Lurçat Museum and Contemporary Tapestry, 1997-1998
