Appassionata
Tapestry woven by the Braquenié workshop.
With label, n°4.
1971.
J. Van Vlasselaer (1907-1982) is known for having created numerous monumental wall paintings as well as stain glass windows. From 1950 onwards he created tapestry cartoons inspired by scenes of everyday life, traditional Flemish folklore and natural subjects in keeping with the aesthetic of the group “Forces Murales”. He evolved from the figurative of his early work towards dense designs incorporating sharp-edged foliage laid out against geometrically inspired backgrounds influenced by Cubism.
Whilst he never fully moved towards abstraction, some of van Vlasselaere’s cartoons are difficult to interpret from a strictly figurative perspective (a few flowers, hands…): but perhaps here he merely sought to evoke a feeling – the Passion – or to transpose Beethoven’s famous sonata into tapestry?
Bibliography :
R. Avermaete, van Vlasselaer Tapisseries, Editions Arcade, 1973, ill. p.92
