The tapestry of Lists

Welcome	Biography of the XVIIIe century	The tapestry of Lists	The wall fresco	The eraser bichromatée	Classified ads

APOLOGY OF AN ART "THE TAPESTRY OF “LICE”
APOLOGY OF AN ART "THE TAPESTRY OF “LICE” "The art supposes a know-how, that is a knowledge to work. Anyone admires a work of art admires a work, a clever and successful work. It is therefore indispensable to know something of this work, if one wants to admire and to enjoy its product, that is a work of art. Because the art asks for the knowledge. The observation of the art cannot give a real pleasure therefore that if an art of the observation exists. " Bertolt BRECHT Written on the literature and the art PREFACE With the progression of the reading of these pages, my objective is to show that a tapestry is one of the most beautiful decors existing murals. The tapestry must not be necessarily old, but also present, colorful, representational or abstract, as being executed with the same technique and its evolution: as the one that made the world renown of the National Factories of the Gobelins and Beauvais or the workshop of Aubusson. DEFINITIONS Under the name of tapestry, one designates a lot of works that don't have anything to see with the tapestry of lists. The tapestry of lists is mainly a work makes to the profession with cotton, wool, silk, the sons of gold or serving money to cover and to decorate the walls. On this wall decoration curtain, the faces, various shapes and ornaments are part of the plot. The tapestry is a work of art. To the term of the Law. decree of June 10, 1967, article 1st. are reputed original works of art the tapestries made of all textiles woven to the hand, on profession of low or high lists, according to cardboards or models conceived by an artist. This decree to be clarified. I reserve the appellation of compliant original tapestries, that agrees with the thought of the creative artist of the cardboard and in accordance with hits wishes, to the tapestries of low or high lists according to models conceived by the artist and executed to the hand : - either by the same artist, if he is at a time painter “cartonnier” and “licier”, - either by another “licier”, during the lifetime of the creative artist of the cardboard and under his/her/its surveillance. Finally, I call original tapestries of adaptation, the tapestries of low or high lists, according to models achieved by an artist and executed by a “licier”, subject to the authorizations of use: out of the surveillance of the creative artist if he died or with his consent if he is living. The “licier”, delivered to himself, interpreter in his l way work to weave. He leaves his claw that will mark the tapestry, interpretation that is not necessarily the one wished by the author of the cardboard. In that case, it cannot be about compliant original tapestry, that is to say achieved in conformity with the author of the cardboard. The artist or painter “cartonnier” is the author of the model. The “licier” reproduces to the l profession work of art to weave. The “licier” doesn't copy: he transposes with more or less of liberty, while taking account of the interpretation wanted by the creator, his sensitivity and the rules of his profession. It is necessary to take sometimes like model a tapestry for a reproduction. For a creation, a specific cardboard, sometimes a drawing, a painted canvas or a photograph is always to the basis of a texture. The pull is controlled and is limited to eight copies maximum: 2 copies artists and six of set. To deserve the denomination of low or high list tapestry, the texture is executed according to the techniques used in the National Factories of the Gobelins and Beauvais, the workshops of Aubusson or those asking for himself of the same techniques, to the exclusion of all photomechanical or mechanical processes. The thus achieved tapestries are of real creations, the “licier” interpreting a work of the painter “cartonnier”. The photomechanical reproductions are the facsimiles that must not be confounded with the tapestry that acted as model. The tapestry on canvas is a work to the needle that doesn't have anything to see with the low or high lists. The cardboard of tapestry is the model especially conceived for the texture. It is the shape most auspicious to the transposition in tapestry. It is the colorful drawing or encoded that account of the requirements and possibilities of this art hold. So the pictorial work has not been thought tapestry, she doesn't win anything to be woven and is sufficient himself to herself. The cardboard is taken in charge by the “licier” to be enlarged to the wished format and is reversed in low lists. He/it becomes then the cardboard-tracing that will be under the chain in low lists or displayed behind the “licier” in high lists. The enlarging of the cardboard-tracing is made to the drawing and the hand or by the photograph. Sometimes, the cardboard is achieved directly to the format of a work to weave. LEGISLATION Today, the tapestry carries to the recto the signature of the creative artist of the cardboard and the mark of the shop of realization or the “licier”: a skewer blocking a G for the National Factory of the Gobelins, the MBN letters for the National Factory of Beauvais and M.G. for my workshop. Marks of shop and signature are woven in the tapestry. To the back of the tapestry is sewn the "bolduc", piece on which is registered the title of a work, its measurements, the names of the “cartonnier”, with so possible his signature, and of the workshop or the “licier”. The “bolduc” guarantees the authenticity of the tapestry in relation to a primitive work: it is a "original tapestry conforms", in relation to a "original tapestry of adaptation" that is a more free work. The tapestry must included also in its texture a fraction, whose numerator is the number of the piece and the denominator numbers it of executed retorts: the exemplary artist is sometimes marked E/A and 1/1 mean that the tapestry is unique, as it is all my creations. Indeed, the free artist must, in principle, to produce unique pieces. The law allows it however to create three copies at more. The limited pull gives its value to a work of art, without forgetting that reproduction to eight copies to the maximum is a vehicle cultural and artistic of an original and rare work. ARISTIDE MAILLOL, AN OPINION Aristide MAILLOL tempted to renew the artistic discipline of the tapestry while achieving the harmonious works, in which the woman is the topic of predilection. "I forgot, he/it writes to a friend, to show you to Banyuls, the piece that remains again on the profession. I should have quit because of a pain to the eyes. I regretted it a lot because I executed it with wools dyed by me. " "The tapestry, will say MAILLOL again, considered maybe as the big painting. It is an art more beautiful, more meaningful than the one of the pictures and I believe that I would have made beautiful things, of real creations, but I didn't have any money. " GEORGES BRAQUE, AN OPINION As all shapes of contemporary art, the tapestry made its revolution or, more precisely, his/her/its self-destruction from the moment where the artist forgot the essential bases of the profession. The abusive introduction of materials "all azimuths" decreased the value of the tapestry that doesn't have anything to win in this domain. The audacities are necessary, but there are some rules to respect. The provocation is not sign of creative quality. I am in rupture with the crankiness that has to see with the art. I am also opposed that the tapestry is more or less reproduction faithful or free of a painting. Georges BRAQUE said with exactness: "A tapestry must not resemble on no account to a cloth that would have been painted". Between the copy of a painting, practiced regularly to the 19th century, and the arrival from Jean LURÇAT of talent painters “cartonniers”, and of fanciful creators in the beginning of the years 1970, that tarnished the picture of the tapestry, there is again today a place for an artistic inspiration worthy of this name. A certain fidelity to the tradition excluded not of the interpretations capable to evolve with time and to adapt to its time. In high “lice”, the cardboard is placed behind the “licier” that is guided by a drawing drawn on the chain according to a tracing. He/it takes mainly a garnished skewer of wool son, pass the hand in the interval formed between the even and odd sons by the stick of “croisure” and slip the skewer. After the passage of wool, the “licier” uses the skewer like a scraper. He pulls some “lices” then to bring back the sons of rear forward and makes come back the skewer with the passing of chain of departure, while doing the same works. After, as in low lists, he tightens the texture with a comb. The quality of the texture is the same in low or high lists. In low lists, the texture is tightened more, in high “lice” the “licier” has more easiness to control the advancement of his work. A tapestry to must-be the result of the interpretation the most faithful and most sensitive of the shapes and color of the cardboard proposed by the painter. In every nuance one recovers a main color that impresses: as the fact the note fundamental of a sound that acts on our ear. It is her that prints its special seal. The complex colors come closer of the stamp of the different sounds. The stamp is the color of the sounds. APOLOGY OF AN ART The tapestries represented in our manuals or expositions in our museums are, the most often, those of the past centuries. While looking at them, people big majority thinks than them to can-be only representational and drab. One forgets that the time tarnishes the colors and that at the age of gold of the tapestry, the fashion and the circumstances drove to the big themes illustrated with these astonishing crowding of animals, characters and architectural and plant elements. Previously sumptuous hangings that one spread to dazzle, the tapestry appears today, in hits traditional shape, like an art frozen in way of disappearance and incapable to evolve. The difficulties of the texture are certainly appreciated, but the drawing “passéiste” often leaves indifferent. It is necessary to accept that the concrete shapes become more decorative, while maintaining the quality of execution. Of object of curiosity or history and with its evolution, the tapestry will be able to take its place among us, on our walls. A home without tapestry is like a church without stained glass window, a place without soul. Decor of life, the tapestry carries the human print. She is a window opened on happiness, for our houses and ourselves. Art of colors, shapes and lights, the tapestry rejoices our senses. The tapestry is in crisis, in search of new shapes of expression. The early innovation among the creators and all seems authorized. The new imposed critical put in discomfiture the artistic sense of this technique. The even tapestry often his natural support, the wall, and part in all senses, under all shapes: she becomes kinetic, textile structure, folds, folds, fold back. It is the reign of the zipper, the hinges, the fringes, the “washings”. the neophytes or snobs are in ecstasy in front of these frayed dish-cloths, while the real amateur makes higher the shoulders and part while achieving that one ridicules him and the public. There is deception on the appellation of these creations that only has little report with the real tapestry. Between these two extremes, the tradition and a present in search of his path of Damascus, that it to the tapestry is necessary so that she recovers quality and vitality? A real cardboard either abstracts representational that will be interpreted with fidelity and sensitivity by the “licier”. Liberty for the creator and the “licier” to enrich the cardboard of all resources of the art of the texture. A knowledge perfected of the technique of the profession and materials, cotton, wool, silk or synthetic, will permit an optimal realization. But, a public is also necessary capable to appreciate this beautiful profession and that grants to make the necessary effort to acquire, and hence to assure the continuity of this art. Inherited of the past, the tapestry of low or high lists doesn't have anything to see with the texture that a practicum of some days or weeks pretend to learn you. That texture is a fun, a pleasure in comparison of a real formation. Releases or hobby, fashion that benefits the wheeler-dealers and tarnish the true tapestry. These second-hand masters are “dupers” while making believe that to make cloth, it is the tapestry. The weaver is not a “licie” and the handlooms are different. The weaver is more a craftsman that the “licier”: the first often achieves one more utilitarian work (various cloths, services of table, curtains, clothes.) and the second aims to adapt a cardboard to make a work of art of it. Here is why the “licier” is an artist. The tapestry of low or high lists is an esoteric art practiced on specific professions. He is taught inevitably by the insiders of the shops of the National Factories of the Gobelins or Beauvais, and the school of Aubusson. Years are necessary to make a good “licier”, what requires important efforts, and a whole life to exercise with happiness and mastery. A tapestry is an artistic and technical prowess. In tapestry, the ideal artist is painter “cartonnier” and “licier”. He possesses the knowledge conjugated of an art and a profession, whose result is a work perfects with an optimum interpretation. It is preferable to have an unique piece, the rarity gives a supplementary value to a work of art. The artist “licier” is not a copyist, he doesn't repeat himself. His critical sense, his imagination and his interpretation always drive it to personal initiatives in relation with the cardboard. In the texture, the hues take another dimension, even though in the time the intensity changes or decrease. It is the destiny of the tapestry. The merchandising by the shop, the creator or a broker settles according to the intrinsic value of a work. The objective is to make the purchaser share hypes it of the creator for this art that fascinates it. The sale makes higher itself to the level of a symposium between two animate people of a same passion. Conceived to embellish all homes, of the most luxurious to the most modest, his destiny is always the same, to carry testimony of the one time style and to satisfy our feeling of a beautiful work: here is why the tapestry is a work of art. Michel GENTY Cartonnier of tapestries and licier Fresquiste Painter Rentoileur and restorer of pictures Excerpt of the work under realization is about “BILL OF THE ARTISTIC TECHNIQUES OF THE PAINTING, OF THE TAPESTRY OF LICE AND THE SYMBOLISM OF THE COLORS” , © 2008-2010 for all the work. To the top

APOLOGY OF AN ART

"THE TAPESTRY OF “LICE”

APOLOGY OF AN ART

"THE TAPESTRY OF “LICE”

"The art supposes a know-how, that is a knowledge to work. Anyone admires a work of art admires a work, a clever and successful work.
It is therefore indispensable to know something of this work, if one wants to admire and to enjoy its product, that is a work of art.
Because the art asks for the knowledge. The observation of the art cannot give a real pleasure therefore that if an art of the observation exists. "
Bertolt BRECHT
Written on the literature and the art

PREFACE

With the progression of the reading of these pages, my objective is to show that a tapestry is one of the most beautiful decors existing murals. The tapestry must not be necessarily old, but also present, colorful, representational or abstract, as being executed with the same technique and its evolution: as the one that made the world renown of the National Factories of the Gobelins and Beauvais or the workshop of Aubusson.

DEFINITIONS

Under the name of tapestry, one designates a lot of works that don't have anything to see with the tapestry of lists.
The tapestry of lists is mainly a work makes to the profession with cotton, wool, silk, the sons of gold or serving money to cover and to decorate the walls. On this wall decoration curtain, the faces, various shapes and ornaments are part of the plot.

The tapestry is a work of art.
To the term of the Law. decree of June 10, 1967, article 1st. are reputed original works of art the tapestries made of all textiles woven to the hand, on profession of low or high lists, according to cardboards or models conceived by an artist.

This decree to be clarified. I reserve the appellation of compliant original tapestries, that agrees with the thought of the creative artist of the cardboard and in accordance with hits wishes, to the tapestries of low or high lists according to models conceived by the artist and executed to the hand :
- either by the same artist, if he is at a time painter “cartonnier” and “licier”,
- either by another “licier”, during the lifetime of the creative artist of the cardboard and under his/her/its surveillance.
Finally, I call original tapestries of adaptation, the tapestries of low or high lists, according to models achieved by an artist and executed by a “licier”, subject to the authorizations of use: out of the surveillance of the creative artist if he died or with his consent if he is living.
The “licier”, delivered to himself, interpreter in his l way work to weave. He leaves his claw that will mark the tapestry, interpretation that is not necessarily the one wished by the author of the cardboard. In that case, it cannot be about compliant original tapestry, that is to say achieved in conformity with the author of the cardboard.

The artist or painter “cartonnier” is the author of the model.

The “licier” reproduces to the l profession work of art to weave. The “licier” doesn't copy: he transposes with more or less of liberty, while taking account of the interpretation wanted by the creator, his sensitivity and the rules of his profession.

It is necessary to take sometimes like model a tapestry for a reproduction. For a creation, a specific cardboard, sometimes a drawing, a painted canvas or a photograph is always to the basis of a texture. The pull is controlled and is limited to eight copies maximum: 2 copies artists and six of set.

To deserve the denomination of low or high list tapestry, the texture is executed according to the techniques used in the National Factories of the Gobelins and Beauvais, the workshops of Aubusson or those asking for himself of the same techniques, to the exclusion of all photomechanical or mechanical processes. The thus achieved tapestries are of real creations, the “licier” interpreting a work of the painter “cartonnier”.

The photomechanical reproductions are the facsimiles that must not be confounded with the tapestry that acted as model. The tapestry on canvas is a work to the needle that doesn't have anything to see with the low or high lists.
The cardboard of tapestry is the model especially conceived for the texture. It is the shape most auspicious to the transposition in tapestry. It is the colorful drawing or encoded that account of the requirements and possibilities of this art hold. So the pictorial work has not been thought tapestry, she doesn't win anything to be woven and is sufficient himself to herself.
The cardboard is taken in charge by the “licier” to be enlarged to the wished format and is reversed in low lists. He/it becomes then the cardboard-tracing that will be under the chain in low lists or displayed behind the “licier” in high lists. The enlarging of the cardboard-tracing is made to the drawing and the hand or by the photograph. Sometimes, the cardboard is achieved directly to the format of a work to weave.

LEGISLATION

Today, the tapestry carries to the recto the signature of the creative artist of the cardboard and the mark of the shop of realization or the “licier”: a skewer blocking a G for the National Factory of the Gobelins, the MBN letters for the National Factory of Beauvais and M.G. for my workshop. Marks of shop and signature are woven in the tapestry.
To the back of the tapestry is sewn the "bolduc", piece on which is registered the title of a work, its measurements, the names of the “cartonnier”, with so possible his signature, and of the workshop or the “licier”. The “bolduc” guarantees the authenticity of the tapestry in relation to a primitive work: it is a "original tapestry conforms", in relation to a "original tapestry of adaptation" that is a more free work.
The tapestry must included also in its texture a fraction, whose numerator is the number of the piece and the denominator numbers it of executed retorts: the exemplary artist is sometimes marked E/A and 1/1 mean that the tapestry is unique, as it is all my creations. Indeed, the free artist must, in principle, to produce unique pieces. The law allows it however to create three copies at more.
The limited pull gives its value to a work of art, without forgetting that reproduction to eight copies to the maximum is a vehicle cultural and artistic of an original and rare work.

ARISTIDE MAILLOL, AN OPINION

Aristide MAILLOL tempted to renew the artistic discipline of the tapestry while achieving the harmonious works, in which the woman is the topic of predilection.
"I forgot, he/it writes to a friend, to show you to Banyuls, the piece that remains again on the profession. I should have quit because of a pain to the eyes. I regretted it a lot because I executed it with wools dyed by me. "
"The tapestry, will say MAILLOL again, considered maybe as the big painting. It is an art more beautiful, more meaningful than the one of the pictures and I believe that I would have made beautiful things, of real creations, but I didn't have any money. "

GEORGES BRAQUE, AN OPINION

As all shapes of contemporary art, the tapestry made its revolution or, more precisely, his/her/its self-destruction from the moment where the artist forgot the essential bases of the profession. The abusive introduction of materials "all azimuths" decreased the value of the tapestry that doesn't have anything to win in this domain. The audacities are necessary, but there are some rules to respect. The provocation is not sign of creative quality.
I am in rupture with the crankiness that has to see with the art. I am also opposed that the tapestry is more or less reproduction faithful or free of a painting. Georges BRAQUE said with exactness: "A tapestry must not resemble on no account to a cloth that would have been painted".
Between the copy of a painting, practiced regularly to the 19th century, and the arrival from Jean LURÇAT of talent painters “cartonniers”, and of fanciful creators in the beginning of the years 1970, that tarnished the picture of the tapestry, there is again today a place for an artistic inspiration worthy of this name.
A certain fidelity to the tradition excluded not of the interpretations capable to evolve with time and to adapt to its time.

In high “lice”, the cardboard is placed behind the “licier” that is guided by a drawing drawn on the chain according to a tracing. He/it takes mainly a garnished skewer of wool son, pass the hand in the interval formed between the even and odd sons by the stick of “croisure” and slip the skewer. After the passage of wool, the “licier” uses the skewer like a scraper. He pulls some “lices” then to bring back the sons of rear forward and makes come back the skewer with the passing of chain of departure, while doing the same works. After, as in low lists, he tightens the texture with a comb.
The quality of the texture is the same in low or high lists. In low lists, the texture is tightened more, in high “lice” the “licier” has more easiness to control the advancement of his work. A tapestry to must-be the result of the interpretation the most faithful and most sensitive of the shapes and color of the cardboard proposed by the painter.
In every nuance one recovers a main color that impresses: as the fact the note fundamental of a sound that acts on our ear. It is her that prints its special seal. The complex colors come closer of the stamp of the different sounds. The stamp is the color of the sounds.

APOLOGY OF AN ART

The tapestries represented in our manuals or expositions in our museums are, the most often, those of the past centuries. While looking at them, people big majority thinks than them to can-be only representational and drab. One forgets that the time tarnishes the colors and that at the age of gold of the tapestry, the fashion and the circumstances drove to the big themes illustrated with these astonishing crowding of animals, characters and architectural and plant elements.

Previously sumptuous hangings that one spread to dazzle, the tapestry appears today, in hits traditional shape, like an art frozen in way of disappearance and incapable to evolve. The difficulties of the texture are certainly appreciated, but the drawing “passéiste” often leaves indifferent. It is necessary to accept that the concrete shapes become more decorative, while maintaining the quality of execution. Of object of curiosity or history and with its evolution, the tapestry will be able to take its place among us, on our walls.

A home without tapestry is like a church without stained glass window, a place without soul.
Decor of life, the tapestry carries the human print. She is a window opened on happiness, for our houses and ourselves. Art of colors, shapes and lights, the tapestry rejoices our senses.

The tapestry is in crisis, in search of new shapes of expression. The early innovation among the creators and all seems authorized. The new imposed critical put in discomfiture the artistic sense of this technique. The even tapestry often his natural support, the wall, and part in all senses, under all shapes: she becomes kinetic, textile structure, folds, folds, fold back. It is the reign of the zipper, the hinges, the fringes, the “washings”. the neophytes or snobs are in ecstasy in front of these frayed dish-cloths, while the real amateur makes higher the shoulders and part while achieving that one ridicules him and the public. There is deception on the appellation of these creations that only has little report with the real tapestry.

Between these two extremes, the tradition and a present in search of his path of Damascus, that it to the tapestry is necessary so that she recovers quality and vitality? A real cardboard either abstracts representational that will be interpreted with fidelity and sensitivity by the “licier”. Liberty for the creator and the “licier” to enrich the cardboard of all resources of the art of the texture. A knowledge perfected of the technique of the profession and materials, cotton, wool, silk or synthetic, will permit an optimal realization.
But, a public is also necessary capable to appreciate this beautiful profession and that grants to make the necessary effort to acquire, and hence to assure the continuity of this art.

Inherited of the past, the tapestry of low or high lists doesn't have anything to see with the texture that a practicum of some days or weeks pretend to learn you. That texture is a fun, a pleasure in comparison of a real formation. Releases or hobby, fashion that benefits the wheeler-dealers and tarnish the true tapestry.

These second-hand masters are “dupers” while making believe that to make cloth, it is the tapestry. The weaver is not a “licie” and the handlooms are different. The weaver is more a craftsman that the “licier”: the first often achieves one
more utilitarian work (various cloths, services of table, curtains, clothes.) and the second aims to adapt a cardboard to make a work of art of it. Here is why the “licier” is an artist.

The tapestry of low or high lists is an esoteric art practiced on specific professions. He is taught inevitably by the insiders of the shops of the National Factories of the Gobelins or Beauvais, and the school of Aubusson. Years are necessary to make a good “licier”, what requires important efforts, and a whole life to exercise with happiness and mastery. A tapestry is an artistic and technical prowess.
In tapestry, the ideal artist is painter “cartonnier” and “licier”. He possesses the knowledge conjugated of an art and a profession, whose result is a work perfects with an optimum interpretation. It is preferable to have an unique piece, the rarity gives a supplementary value to a work of art.

The artist “licier” is not a copyist, he doesn't repeat himself. His critical sense, his imagination and his interpretation always drive it to personal initiatives in relation with the cardboard. In the texture, the hues take another dimension, even though in the time the intensity changes or decrease. It is the destiny of the tapestry.

The merchandising by the shop, the creator or a broker settles according to the intrinsic value of a work. The objective is to make the purchaser share hypes it of the creator for this art that fascinates it. The sale makes higher itself to the level of a symposium between two animate people of a same passion.

Conceived to embellish all homes, of the most luxurious to the most modest, his destiny is always the same, to carry testimony of the one time style and to satisfy our feeling of a beautiful work: here is why the tapestry is a work of art.

Michel GENTY
Cartonnier of tapestries and licier
Fresquiste
Painter
Rentoileur and restorer of pictures
Excerpt of the work under realization is about “BILL OF THE ARTISTIC TECHNIQUES OF THE PAINTING, OF THE TAPESTRY OF LICE AND THE SYMBOLISM OF THE COLORS” , © 2008-2010 for all the work.

To the top

Welcome	Biography of the XVIIIe century	The tapestry of Lists	The wall fresco	The eraser bichromatée	Classified ads