Tapestries from the Renaissance to the 19th Century - Cassell's Stles in Art

Translated by Hamish St.Clair-Erskine and Anthony Rhodes from the Italian original. The art of tapestry has perhaps never reached greater heights than it did in the Middle Ages, when a unique combination of aesthetic sensibility and technical skill was achieved by hundreds of weavers working in france, Flanders, Switzerland and Germany. No era has been more delightfully portrayed than was the Medieval period by these elegant scenes of chivalrous knights either on the battlefield or pledging eternal love in flowery glades. During the Renaissance, painters like Raphael and Bronzing invaded the world of tapestry design bringing with them concepts of space and perspective which were unfortunately not always suited to the tecyhique of weaving. Rubens, Jordaens and Boucher were also among the many illustrious painters who have designed tapestries. Raphael's famous cartoons for The Act of the Apostles were acquired by Charles I and woven at the short-lived Mortlake workshop. In Paris the same series was woven at the strictly controlled Gobelins workshop, which together with the establishments at Beauvais and Aubusson, flourished until the French Revolution. Illustrated....