Orange sun
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Berthaut workshop. N°3/8. 1964. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the great driving forces behind the renewal of tapestry. His beginnings in this field dated back to 1943: at that time, he made cartoons for the passenger ship « La Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whom he followed in 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 a professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce many woven cartoons, for the most part at Aubusson and, for some, at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the passenger ship France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse, … While the conceptions of Picart le Doux were close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes were likewise—though in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements and nature (wheat, the vine, fish, birds…), humankind, and texts coexisted, … Our cartoon takes up, in an asymmetrical manner, « Solstice d’hiver » : the evocation of the Seasons, a major theme in the artist’s work, endured throughout his oeuvre. Bibliography : Marthe Belle-Joufray, Jean Picart le Doux, Publications filmées d’art et d’histoire, 1966 Valentine Fougère, Tapisseries de notre temps, les éditions du temps, 1969, ill.p.84 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
