The Goat
Aubusson tapestry woven by the Picaud workshop. With his bolduc signed, no. 1/6. Circa 1980. 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 produced cartoons for the ocean liner « la Marseillaise ». Close to Lurçat, whose theories (limited tones, numbered cartoons, etc.) 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 École Nationale Supérieure des Arts décoratifs. The State commissioned him to produce numerous cartoons woven mostly in Aubusson, and for some at the Gobelins: the most spectacular were for the University of Caen, the Théâtre du Mans, the ocean liner France, or the Prefecture of the Creuse,…. If Picart le Doux’s designs were close to those of Lurçat, his sources of inspiration and themes were too, but in a more decorative than symbolic register, where the celestial bodies (the sun, the moon, the stars…), the elements, and nature (grain, the vine, fish, birds…), man, texts… all came together. « La chèvre » (which has everything of a lama) was characteristic of the artist’s last small cartons, with a single motif, close to an evocation of the signs of the Zodiac. 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
