The Lyre with Butterflies
Tapestry from Aubusson, woven by the Berthaut workshop. With its bolduc signed. Circa 1963. Jean Picart le Doux was one of the great driving forces behind the revival of tapestry. His beginnings in the field dated from 1943: at that time, he produced cartoons for the passenger ship “la Marseillaise”. Close to Lurçat, whose theories (limited tones, numbered cartoons, …) he adopted, 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 woven cartoons, mostly at Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were destined for the Université de Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the passenger ship France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse,…. If Picart le Doux’s designs were close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and his 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, … coexisted. “Natural” musical instruments (made from flourishing tree branches) were recurring in Picart le Doux’s work from 1953 (cf. “la harpe des forêts”); “la harpe aux papillons”, vertical and with a red ground, took up this theme again in 1963. Bibliographie : 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
