Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. 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; 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.

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 textiles. 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. 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.

Tapestry should be distinguished from the different technique of embroidery, although large pieces of embroidery with images are sometimes loosely called "tapestry", as with the famous Bayeux Tapestry, which is in fact embroidered. 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.

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. 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.

Terms and etymology

In English, "tapestry" has two senses, both of which apply to most of the works discussed here. Firstly it means work using the tapestry weaving technique described above and below, and secondly it means a rather large textile wall hanging with a figurative design. Some embroidered works, like the Bayeux Tapestry, meet the second definition but not the first. The situation is complicated by the French equivalent ''tapisserie'' also covering needlepoint work, which can lead to confusion, especially with pieces such as furniture covers, where both techniques are used.

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". 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.

The word ''tapestry'' derives from Old French , from , meaning "to cover with heavy fabric, to carpet", in turn from , "heavy fabric", via Latin ( ), which is the Latinisation of the Greek (; , ), "carpet, rug". The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek , , 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 royal collection from 1510 onwards "arras" specifically meant tapestries using gold thread.

Production

Tapestry is a type of weaving. Various designs of looms can be used, including upright or "high-warp" looms, where the tapestry is stretched vertically in front of the weaver, or horizontal "low-warp" looms, which were usual in large medieval and Renaissance workshops, but later mostly used for smaller pieces. The weaver always works on the back of the piece, and is normally following a full-size drawn or painted cartoon, or possibly another tapestry; depending on the set up, this reverses (is a mirror image of) the tapestry image. The cartoon was generally created from a smaller modello, which in "industrial" workshops from at least the late Middle Ages on was produced by a professional artist, who often had little or no further involvement in the process. The cartoon was traced onto the warp lines by the weaver, and then placed where it could still be seen, sometimes through a mirror, when it hung behind the weaver. With low-warp looms the cartoon was usually cut into strips and placed beneath the weaving, where the weaver could see it through the "web" of threads. The Raphael Cartoons, which are very rare examples of surviving cartoons, were cut in this way.

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. 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.

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.

Function

The success of decorative tapestry can be partially explained by its portability (Le Corbusier once called tapestries "nomadic murals"). The fully hand-woven tapestry form is more suitable for creating new figurative designs than other types of woven textile, and the looms could be much larger. Kings and noblemen could fold up and transport tapestries from one residence to another. Many kings had "wardrobe" departments with their own buildings devoted to the care, repair, and movement of tapestries, which were folded into large canvas bags and carried on carts. In churches, they were displayed on special occasions. Tapestries were also draped on the walls of palaces and castles for insulation during winter, as well as for decorative display. For special ceremonial processions such as coronations, royal entries and weddings, they would sometimes be displayed outside. The largest and best tapestries, designed for more public spaces in palaces, were only displayed on special occasions, reducing wear and fading. Presumably the smaller personal rooms were hung permanently.

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</