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Tapestry is a form of Textile arts which was traditionally Weaving by hand on a loom. Normally it is used to create images rather than patterns. Tapestry is relatively fragile, and difficult to make, so most historical pieces are intended to hang vertically on a wall (or sometimes in tents), or sometimes horizontally over a piece of furniture such as a table or bed. Some periods made smaller pieces, often long and narrow and used as borders for other . Most weavers use a natural warp thread, such as wool, linen, or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton but may include silk, gold, silver, or other alternatives.
In late medieval Europe, tapestry was the grandest and most expensive medium for figurative images in two dimensions, and despite the rapid rise in importance of painting it retained this position in the eyes of many Renaissance patrons until at least the end of the 16th century, if not beyond.Tapestries in the Royal Collection; Campbell (2007), xv The European tradition continued to develop and reflect wider changes in artistic styles until the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, before being revived on a smaller scale in the 19th century.
Technically, tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous (unlike brocade); the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area. It is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design.V&A; Mallet, Marla. "Basic Tribal and Village Weaves" . European tapestries are normally made to be seen only from one side, and often have a plain lining added on the back. However, other traditions, such as Chinese kesi and that of pre-Columbian Peru, make tapestry to be seen from both sides.Osborne, 755–756
Tapestry should be distinguished from the different technique of embroidery,Osborne, 755 although large pieces of embroidery with images are sometimes loosely called "tapestry",Campbell and Ainsworth, 5 – "The word tapestry is now widely used to describe a range of textiles, ... but historically and technically it designates a figurative weft-faced textile woven by hand on a loom" as with the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is in fact embroidered.Osborne, 71 From the Middle Ages on European tapestries could be very large, with images containing dozens of figures. They were often made in sets, so that a whole room could be hung with them.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use in English was in a will of 1434, mentioning a "Lectum meum de tapstriwerke cum leonibus cum pelicano".OED, "Tapestry: Tapestry-work" They give a wide definition, covering: "A textile fabric decorated with designs of ornament or pictorial subjects, painted, embroidered, or woven in colours, used for wall hangings, curtains, covers for seats, ..." before mentioning "especially" those woven in a tapestry weave.OED, "Tapestry"
The word tapestry derives from Old French tapisserie, from tapisser, meaning "to cover with heavy fabric, to carpet", in turn from tapis, "heavy fabric", via Latin tapes (genitive]]: tapetis), which is the Latinisation of the Greek language τάπης (tapēs; gen: τάπητος, tapētos), "carpet, rug".. The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀲𐀟𐀊, ta-pe-ja, written in the Linear B syllabary.
"Tapestry" was not the common English term until near the end of the classic period for them. If not just called "hangings" or "cloths", they were known as "arras", from the period when Arras was the leading production centre. Arazzo is still the term for tapestry in Italian, while a number of European languages use variants based on Gobelins, after the French factory; for example both Danish and Hungarian use gobelin (and in Danish tapet means wallpaper). Thomas Campbell argues that in documents relating to the Tudor dynasty royal collection from 1510 onwards "arras" specifically meant tapestries using gold thread.Campbell (2007), xiv
In European "industrial" tapestries the warp threads were normally wool, but in more artisanal settings, and older ones, linen was often used. The weft threads were wool, with silk, silver or gold thread used in the most expensive tapestries. Some famous designs, such as the Sistine Chapel tapestries and the Story of Abraham set probably first made for King Henry VIII, survive in versions with precious metals and other versions without. "The Story of Abraham Series 1540–43", Royal Collection website Using silk might increase the cost by four times, and adding gold thread increased the cost enormously, to perhaps fifty times that of wool alone.Campbell (2007), xviii
The weavers were usually male, as the work was physically demanding; spinning the threads was usually a female preserve. Apart from the design and materials, the quality of tapestries varies with the tightness of the weaving. One modern measure of this is the number of warp threads per centimetre. It is estimated that a single weaver could produce a square yard of medium quality tapestry in a month, but only half that of the finest quality.Campbell (2007), xviii; Campbell (2008); V&A
Many smaller pieces were made as covers for furniture or cushions, or curtains and bed hangings. Others, especially in the case of those made for patrons outside the top of the elite, were cut up and reused for such functions when they, or tapestries in general, came to seem old-fashioned. Bags, and sometimes clothing were other re-uses.Campbell and Ainsworth, 13–14 The Beauvais Manufactory became rather a specialist in furniture upholstery, which enabled it to survive after the French Revolution when this became the main remaining market. In the case of tapestries with precious metal thread, they might be burned to recover the metal, as Charles V's soldiers did to some of the Sistine Chapel tapestries, and the French Directory government did in the 1790s to most of the royal collection from the Renaissance.Campbell and Ainsworth, 6
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a rich tapestry panel woven with , , or coats of arms called a baldachin, canopy of state or cloth of state was hung behind and over a throne as a symbol of authority.Campbell (2007), 339–341 The seat under such a canopy of state would normally be raised on a dais.
As paintings came to be regarded as more important works of art, typically by the 17th century, tapestries in palaces were moved less, and came to be regarded as more or less permanent fittings for a particular room. It was at this point that many old tapestries were cut to allow fitting around doors and windows. They also often suffered the indignity of having paintings hung on top of them.Campbell and Ainsworth, 6; Tapestries in the Royal Collection; Campbell (2007), xi Some new tapestries were made to fit around a specific room; the design of the Gobelins set from Croome Court, now in New York, has a large field with an ornamental design that could easily be adjusted in size to fit the measurements of the customer's room.
Pieces in wool, given a wide range of dates around two millennia ago, have been found in a cemetery at Sanpul (Shampula) and other sites near Khotan in the Tarim Basin. They appear to have been made in a variety of places, including the Hellenistic world.Sheng, Angela, in A Companion to Textile Culture, ed. Jennifer Harris, 2020, John Wiley & Sons, , 9781118768907118, google books The largest fragments, known as the Sampul tapestry and probably Hellenistic in origin, apparently came from a large wall-hanging, but had been reused to make a pair of trousers.
A number of survivals from around the year 1000 show the development of a frieze shape, of a large long tapestry that is relatively short in height. These were apparently designed to hang around a hall or church, probably rather high; surviving examples have nearly all been preserved in churches, but may originally have been secular. The Cloth of Saint Gereon, from around 1000, has a repeat pattern centred on medallions with a motif of a bull being attacked by a griffin, taken from Byzantine silk (or its Persian equivalent) but probably woven locally in the Rhineland.Osborne, 756 It survived in St. Gereon's Basilica, Cologne, Germany, but is fragmentarily distributed across several museum collections today (see: Cloth of Saint Gereon). Tapestry Border, collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The five strips of Överhogdal tapestries, from Sweden and dated to within 70 years of 1100, have designs in which animals greatly outnumber human figures, and have been given various interpretations. One strip has geometrical motifs. The Skog tapestry, also from Sweden but probably early 14th-century, is comparable in style.
The most famous frieze hanging is the Bayeux Tapestry, actually an embroidery, which is 68.38 metres long and 0.5 metres wide () and would have been even longer originally. This was made in England, probably in the 1070s, and the narrative of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is very clear, explained by tituli in Latin. This may have been an Anglo-Saxon genre, as the Liber Eliensis records that the widow of the Anglo-Saxon commander Byrhtnoth gave Ely Cathedral a tapestry or hanging celebrating his deeds, presumably in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry, the only surviving example of such a work. This was given immediately after his death in 991 at the Battle of Maldon, so had probably been hanging in his home previously.Dodwell, C. R.; Anglo-Saxon Art, A New Perspective, pp. 134–136, 1982, Manchester UP,
A group with narrative religious scenes in a clearly Romanesque art that relates to Rhineland illuminated manuscripts of the same period was made for Halberstadt Cathedral in Germany around 1200, and shaped differently to fit specific spaces. These may well have been made by nuns, or the secular canonesses of nearby Quedlinburg Abbey.Britannica; Osborne, 756
In this period repeated decorative motifs, increasingly often heraldic, and comparable to the styles of imported luxury fabrics such as Byzantine silk, seem to have been the common designs. Of the tapestries mentioned above, the Cloth of St Gereon best represents this style.Campbell and Ainsworth, 14
Before reaching the weaving workshop, the commissioning process typically involved a patron, an artist, and a merchant or dealer who sorted out the arrangements and contracts. Some tapestries seem to have been made for stock, before a customer had emerged. The financing of the considerable costs of setting up a workshop is often obscure, especially in the early period, but rulers supported some workshops, or other wealthy people. The merchants or dealers were very likely also involved.
There was always some tapestry weaving, mostly in rather smaller workshops making smaller pieces, in other towns in northern France and the Low Countries. This was also the case in other parts of Europe, especially Italy and Germany. From the mid-16th century many rulers encouraged or directly established workshops capable of high-quality work in their domains. This was most successful in France, but Tuscany, Spain, England and eventually Russia had high-quality workshops, normally beginning with the importation of a group of skilled workers from the "Flemish" centres.
Another of the brothers, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1404) was probably an even more extravagant spender, and presented many tapestries to other rulers around Europe. Several of the tapestry-weaving centres were in his territories, and his gifts can be seen as a rather successful attempt to spread the taste for large Flemish tapestries to other courts, as well as being part of his attempt to promote the status of his duchy. Apart from Burgundy and France, tapestries were given to several of the English Plantagenets, and the rulers of Austria, Prussia, Aragon, Milan, and at his specific request, to the Ottoman Sultan Bazajet I (as part of a ransom deal for the duke's son). None of the tapestries Philip commissioned appear to survive.Campbell and Ainsworth, 15–17 Philip's taste for tapestries was to continue very strongly in his descendants, including the Spanish Habsburgs.
It is a feature of tapestry weaving, in contrast to painting, that weaving an area of the work containing only relatively plain areas of the composition, such as sky, grass or water, still involves a relatively large amount of slow and skilled work. This, together with the client's expectation of an effect of overpowering magnificence, and the remoteness of the main centres from Italian influence, led to northern compositions remaining crammed with figures and other details long after classicizing trends in Italian Renaissance painting had reduced the crowding in paintings.
An important challenge to the northern style was the arrival in Brussels, probably in 1516, of the Raphael Cartoons for the pope's Sistine Chapel commission of a grand set depicting the Acts of the Apostles. These were sent from Rome and used the latest monumental classicizing High Renaissance style, which was also reaching the north through prints.
But the twelve pieces in Les Chasses de Maximilien (1530s, Louvre), made in Brussels for a Habsburg patron, show an advanced Renaissance compositional style adapted to tapestries. These have a hunting scene for each month in the year, and also show specific locations around the city. Goya was still designing hunting scenes in the 1770s.
Many sets were produced of the lives of classical heroes that included many battle scenes. Not only the Trojan War, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Constantine I were commemorated, but also less likely figures such as Cyrus the Great of ancient Persia.
There were many 15th-century sets of contemporary wars, especially celebrating Habsburg victories. Charles V commissioned a large set after his decisive victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525; a set is now in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. When he led an expedition to North Africa, culminating in the Conquest of Tunis in 1535 (no more lasting than that of Tangier depicted in the Pastrana tapestries), he took the Flemish artist Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen with him, mainly to produce drawings for the set of tapestries ordered on his return.
Contemporary military subjects became rather less popular as many 16th-century wars became religious, sometimes allegorical subjects were chosen to cover these. But the Battle of Lepanto was commemorated with a Brussels set, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada with the Armada Tapestries (1591); these were made in Delft, by a team who also made many tapestries of Dutch naval victories. The Armada set were destroyed in the Burning of Parliament in 1834, but are known from prints. Both sets adopted a high and distant aerial view, which continued in many later sets of land battles, often combined with a few large figures in the foreground. The French tapestries commissioned by Louis XIV of the victories early in his reign were of this type. Right at the end of the 16th century, a set (now in Madrid) was commissioned of the Triumphs and battles of Archduke Albert, who had just been made sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands (his military career had in fact been rather unsuccessful). The city council of Antwerp ordered it from the workshop of Maarten Reymbouts the Younger in Brussels, to be first seen on the occasion of his Royal entry to Antwerp in late 1599.
A set produced for John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough showing his victories was varied for different clients, and even sold to one of his opponents, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, after reworking the generals' faces and other details.* Pepper; 1704 Battle of Blenheim depicted in tapestry at Blenheim Palace
The millefleur style was used for a range of different subjects from about 1400 to 1550, but mainly between about 1480 and 1520. In many subjects the millefleur background stretches to the top of the tapestry, eliminating any sky; the minimization of sky was already a feature of tapestry style; the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries show an early stage of the style. Prominent millefleur backgrounds, as opposed to those mostly covered with figures, are especially a feature of allegorical and courtly subjects. The Lady and the Unicorn set in Paris are famous examples, from around 1500.Osborne, 757
Millefleur backgrounds became very common for heraldic tapestries, which were one of the most popular relatively small types, usually more tall than wide. These usually featured the coat of arms of the patron in the centre, with a wide floral field. They would often be hung behind the patron when he sat in state or dined, and were made for many nobles who could not afford the huge narrative sets bought by royalty. Enghien was a smaller weaving centre that seems to have specialized in these. Earlier types of heraldic tapestries had often repeated elements of the heraldry in patterns.
A distinctive Italian subject was the triumph, derived from his poem-cycle I trionfi (before 1374). The first recorded tapestries were a three-piece set ordered by Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy from Paris in 1399. A set made in the 1450s for Giovanni de' Medici, a leading patron of the latest Florentine style, used cartoons sent from Italy to the Netherlandish weavers. But the subjects suited the tapestry weavers style, as most designs included packed crowds of elaborately dressed figures, and there were moral messages to be drawn.Campbell and Ainsworth, 151
Tapestries were commissioned in the Netherlands by rulers across Europe, from King Henry VIII in England, to Pope Leo X and Sigismund II Augustus of Poland and Lithuania. Ownership of smaller tapestries was also spreading more widely through the nobility and bourgeoisie. From 1528 tapestries of larger sizes made in Brussels had to be so marked, and with the maker's or dealer's mark, making the task of the historian much easier.Campbell and Ainsworth, 131; Osborne, 757–759 After an agreement between the relevant guilds in 1476, the cartoons for the main designs had to be supplied by a member of the painters' guild, while the weavers could elaborate these with detail, especially in millefeur designs. This ensured a high quality of design for Brussels pieces.Campbell and Ainsworth, 133–134
At the beginning of the century Late Gothic styles held sway, and both the most famous sets of millefleur "unicorn" tapestries were made around 1500, perhaps to designs from Paris: The Lady and the Unicorn (now Paris), and The Hunt of the Unicorn (now New York). Pope Leo's Raphael Cartoons, designed by Raphael in 1515–16, marked the introduction of the full Italian High Renaissance style to tapestry, and the top northern designers now attempted to adopt it, which was rather a struggle for them, although the wide distribution of prints across Europe gave them one easy route, which many took. Les Chasses de Maximilien (The Hunts of Maximilian) was a series of twelve huge Brussels tapestries designed by Bernard van Orley in the 1530s for the Habsburgs, one of the most successful efforts to achieve an up-to-date Renaissance style.Osborne, 757–759; Campbell and Ainsworth, 141–144 Technically, Brussels tapestries in the last quarter of the 15th century had already become sophisticated enough to begin to incorporate more illusionistic elements, distinguishing between different textures in their subject-matter, and including portraits of individuals (now mostly unknown) rather than generic figures.Campbell and Ainsworth, 134–136
Over the century oil paintings mostly moved from a panel painting to canvas, allowing a far greater size, and began to compete seriously with tapestries. The authenticity of the master's touch that paintings allowed, but tapestry did not, became appreciated by the most sophisticated patrons, including the Habsburgs. However, Charles V and Philip II of Spain continued to spend huge sums on tapestries, apparently believing them the most magnificent form of decoration, and one that maintained continuity with their Burgundian ancestors.
Production in Paris revived from 1608, flagging in the civil wars of the 1640s, but starting again in 1658 when Nicolas Fouquet founded a workshop. After his fall Colbert mostly merged this to the new Gobelins Manufactory he founded for the king in 1663, which continues to this day. The Beauvais Manufactory, always a private enterprise, was founded by Colbert in 1664, but only became significant from twenty years later. Aubusson tapestry, probably a continuation of earlier small workshops, continued but was to become more significant in the next century. The Gobelins works, fed designs in the latest Style Louis XIV by the court artists, became increasingly dominant over the rest of the century, and by 1700 was the most admired and imitated workshop in Europe.Osborne, 760–761
The Mortlake Tapestry Works outside London were founded in 1619, with encouragement from King Charles I of England, using Flemish weavers at the start, and in the 1620s and 1630s were producing some of the best quality tapestry in Europe. The Medici workshop in Florence continued, and from 1630 was joined by one in Rome, started by Cardinal Francesco Barberini with the inevitable imported Flemish director. Both the Mortlake and Rome workshops petered out around the end of the century. In Germany, workshops were established in Munich in 1604, and some nine further cities by the end of the century, many sponsored by the local ruler.Osborne, 762–764
Few new workshops were begun in the century, the main exception being the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid. This was started in 1720, soon after Spain lost its territories in Flanders under the Treaty of Utrecht. Philip V of Spain brought Jacob van der Goten and six of his sons to Madrid. Much the best known tapestries are those designed by Francisco Goya from 1775. These mostly show genre scenes of lovers or country people recreating. Both his cartoons and the tapestries made from them mostly survive, with many of the cartoons in the Prado, and the tapestries still in the royal palaces. As with Raphael's cartoons for the Sistine Chapel tapestries, modern critics tend to prefer the cartoons. The works were privately owned by the van der Gotens and descendants until 1997, and the last member of the family resigned as chair in 2002. Apart from pauses during wars, the works has continued to produce tapestries.Osborne, 766; "Goya's tapestry workshop in knotty eviction row", James Badcock, BBC website, Madrid, 30 April 2017
Around the mid-century, the new Rococo style proved very effective in tapestries, now a good deal smaller than before. François Boucher produced 45 cartoons for Beauvais, and then by 1753 followed the animal painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry as artistic director at Gobelins.Osborne, 762 Oudry's best known set was the eight-strong The Pastoral Amusements made from the 1720s onwards in many repetitions.
During the second half of the century, the main Brussels workshops gradually closed, the last in 1794. Tapestry suited neither Neoclassicism nor Romanticism very well, and this together with the disruptions of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars brought the production of large figurative tapestries almost to a halt across Europe.
Traditional tapestries are still made at the Gobelins factory in Paris, and the royal factory in Madrid. They and a few other old European workshops also repair and restore old tapestries; the main British workshop is at Hampton Court Palace, a department of the Royal Collection Trust.
The Story of Troy is an unusual set of seven large tapestry hangings made in China for the Portuguese governor of Macao in the 1620s, blending Western and Chinese styles. Most of the hangings are embroidery, but the faces and flesh parts of the figures are appliqué painted silk satin pieces, reflecting a Chinese technique often used for Buddhist banners, Museum page, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (in French) and the larger forms of thangka.
and are also types of tapestry work, the designs of both mostly restricted to geometrical patterns similar to those of other rug weaving techniques.
There were many weavers in pre-war United States, but there had never been a prolonged system of workshops for producing tapestries. Therefore, weavers in America were primarily self-taught and chose to design as well as weave their art. Through these Lausanne exhibitions, US artists/weavers, and others in countries all over the world, were excited about the Polish trend towards experimental forms. Throughout the 1970s almost all weavers had explored some manner of techniques and materials in vogue at the time. What this movement contributed to the newly realized field of art weaving, termed "contemporary tapestry", was the option for working with texture, with a variety of materials and with the freedom for individuality in design
In the 1980s it became clear that the process of weaving weft-faced tapestry had another benefit, that of stability. The artists who chose tapestry as their medium developed a broad range of personal expression, styles and subject matter, stimulated and nourished by an international movement to revive and renew tapestry traditions from all over the world. Competing for commissions and expanding exhibition venues were essential factors in how artists defined and accomplished their goals.
Much of the impetus in the 1980s for working in this more traditional process came from the Bay Area in Northern California where, twenty years earlier, Mark Adams, an eclectic artist, had two exhibitions of his tapestry designs. He went on to design many large tapestries for local buildings. Hal Painter, another well-respected artist in the area became a prolific tapestry artist during the decade weaving his own designs. He was one of the main artists to "...create the atmosphere which helped give birth to the second phase of the contemporary textile movement – textiles as art – that recognition that textiles no longer had to be utilitarian, functional, to serve as interior decoration."Jan Janeiro, "Northern California Textile Artists: 1939 – 1965" "The Fabric of Life: 150 years of Northern California Fiber Art History" San Francisco State University 1997 p.23
Early in the 1980s many artists committed to getting more professional and often that meant travelling to attend the rare educational programmes offered by newly formed ateliers, such as the San Francisco Tapestry Workshop, or to far-away institutions they identified as fitting their needs. This phenomenon was happening in Europe and Australia as well as in North America.
Opportunities for entering juried tapestry exhibitions were beginning to happen by 1986, primarily because the American Tapestry Alliance (ATA), founded in 1982, organised biennial juried exhibitions starting in 1986. The biennials were planned to coincide with the Handweavers Guild or America's "Convergence" conferences. The new potential for seeing the work of other tapestry artists and the ability to observe how one's own work might fare in such venues profoundly increased the awareness of a community of like-minded artists. Regional groups were formed for producing exhibits and sharing information.
The desire of many artists for greater interaction escalated as an international tapestry symposium in Melbourne, Australia in 1988 lead to a second organization committed to tapestry, the International Tapestry Network (ITNET). Its goal was to connect American tapestry artists with the burgeoning international community. The magazines were discontinued in 1997 as communicating digitally became a more useful tool for interactions. As the world has moved into the digital age, tapestry artists around the world continue to share and inspire each other's work.
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At the same time, "fiber art" had become one of the most popular mediums in their art programmes. Young artists were interested in exploring a wider scope of processes for creating art through the materials classified as fibre. This shift to more multimedia and sculptural forms and the desire to produce work more quickly had the effect of pushing contemporary tapestry artists inside and outside the academic institutions to ponder how they might keep pace in order to sustain visibility in their art form.4 Linda Rees, "Towards a Proactive Outreach Political Strings: Tapestry Seen and Unseen", Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium, Washington DC 2012
Susan Iverson, a professor in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, explains her reasons:
I came to tapestry after several years of exploring complex weaves. I became enamored with tapestry because of its simplicity — its straightforward qualities. It allowed me to investigate form or image or texture, and it had the structural integrity to hold its own form. I loved the substantial quality of a tapestry woven with heavy threads—its object quality.Susan Iverson "A Brief History of Teaching Tapestry" American Tapestry Alliance Tapestry Topics, Summer 2007 Vol 33 No 2. p.17
Another prominent artist, Joan Baxter, states:
My passion for tapestry arrived suddenly on the first day of my introduction to it in my first year at ECA Edinburgh I don't remember ever having consciously thought about tapestry before that day but I somehow knew that eventually I'd be really good at this. From that day I have been able to plough a straight path deeper and deeper into tapestry, through my studies in Scotland and Poland, my 8 years as a studio weaver in England and Australia and since 1987 as an independent tapestry artist. The demanding creative ethos of the tapestry department gave me the confidence, motivation and self-discipline I needed to move out into the world as a professional tapestry weaver and artist. What was most inspiring for me as a young student was that my tutors in the department were all practising, exhibiting artists engaging positively with what was then a cutting edge international Fibre Art movement.
Archie Brennan, now in his sixth decade of weaving, says of tapestry:
500 years ago it was already extremely sophisticated in its development-- aesthetically, technically and in diversity of purpose. Today, its lack of a defined purpose, its rarity, gives me an opportunity to seek new roles, to extend its historic language and, above all, to dominate my compulsive, creative drive. In 1967, I made a formal decision to step away from the burgeoning and exciting fiber arts movement and to refocus on woven tapestry's long-established graphic pictorial role.
This method can be likened to pointillism, which originated from discoveries made in the tapestry medium. The style's emergence in the 19th century can be traced to the influence of Michel Eugène Chevreul, a French chemist responsible for developing the colour wheel of primary and intermediary hues. Chevreul worked as the director of the dye works at Les Gobelins tapestry works in Paris, where he noticed that the perceived colour of a particular thread was influenced by its surrounding threads, a phenomenon he called "simultaneous contrast". Chevreul's work was a continuation of theories of colour elaborated by Leonardo da Vinci and Goethe; in turn, his work influenced painters including Eugène Delacroix and Georges-Pierre Seurat.
The principles articulated by Chevreul also apply to contemporary television and computer displays, which use tiny dots of red, green and blue (RGB) light to render colour, with each composite being called a pixel.Stone, Nick. "Jacquard Weaving and the Magnolia Tapestry Project" .
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