Blue foliage
Woven tapestry by the Baudonnet workshop. With its bolduc Signed. 1965. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the great driving forces behind the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: he then produced cartoons for the passenger liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to 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 teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous cartoons Tissé, for the most part in Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were made for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the passenger liner France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse, … If the designs of Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes were as well—though in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the stars (the sun, the moon, the stars, …), the elements, nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds, …), humankind, texts, … are set side by side. His 1962 “Rideau de feuilles” (Curtain of Leaves) was larger and inspired our Cartoon; Bruzeau, on the subject, spoke of a “rigid, austere, symmetrical style”, with an “Cistercian accent”. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Maurice Bruzeau, Jean Picart le Doux, Murs de soleil, Editions Cercle d’art, 1972, n°148 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
