The lyre bird
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Atelier Pinton. With its bolduc Signed by the artist, no.3/6. Circa 1960. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the leading figures in the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated back to 1943: he then made cartoons for the ocean liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whom he married to his theories (limited tones, numbered cartoons,…), he was a founding member of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie), and soon became professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous cartoons woven mostly in Aubusson, some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were made for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse,…. If the conceptions of Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, so were his sources of inspiration and themes, too—though in a more decorative than symbolic register, where celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds…), humankind, texts,…. Motif taken up from « l’oiseau-lyre » of 1954, with a more elaborate and larger cartoon, including the motif of the French formal garden. Picart le Doux was accustomed to recycling elements taken from earlier cartoons. 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 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, tapisseries, Musée de Saint-Denis, 1976 Cat. Exp. Jean Picart le Doux, Musée de la Poste, 1980
