Man’s essential need for warmth and subsequent, very basic desire to express one’s individual presence in the world through creating art, were both well-served by ancient loom weaving and tapestry production. The form evolved originally from early methods of basket weaving, using as materials, linen, flax, wool and silk thread and yarn, instead of grasses and woods. The resulting fabrics’ function as roughly-hewn clothing, portable bedding, rugs and layers for makeshift home insulation (in everything from tents to castles), was soon equaled, and then overtaken, by its role as a medium for what some cultures, in certain eras, regarded as among the highest of art forms. artes fine arts magazine

Left: Tapestry, The Unicorn in Captivity, “Against a millefleur background, the unicorn lies in an enclosure, fastened by a chain to a pomegranate tree.” (early 16th century, Mllefleur Series Two) Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters. The pomegranate is the Christian symbol of hope for eternal life, renewed by its many seeds and blood-red fruit. 

 arts magazine

That remnants of tapestries dating to ancient Greece, Egypt and the Americas, have been recovered, (most from arid regions, understandably, faring better than in the cold and damp), suggests a pan-cultural aspect to this venerable technology, much as found in ceramics, cave art, petrolithic sculpture and pyramidal architectural structures. Indeed, tomb paintings, urns and other artifacts recovered from ancient ruins, depict figures busily weaving at looms in scenes of everyday life.

Though highly-stylized mosaic tile was preferred flooring in ancient Greece, it was eventually replaced by elaborately-woven rugs. Loomed murals were likely an important medium for Greek art, ubiquitous to prominent homes and public buildings. It is thought that the Parthenon’s walls were generously adorned with ornate tapestries, some depicting the gods’ mythical exploits—and thereby, man’s seemingly endless successes and failures in life. Interestingly, Ovid’s Sixth Book in Metamorphoses highlights the intense rivalry between Arachne (named for her web-like creations at the loom) and Minerva, based on their pathologically competitive weaving abilities. Its inclusion in classic narrative lends an import to the skill itself and to its life-altering potential. (Arachne was rewarded for her deeds by being transformed into a spider)!

In addition to providing warmth and pleasing aesthetics, tapestries had become a means of reflecting the lives and times of their weavers, literally chronicling major political, religious and mythical subjects, as well as everyday on temporary social mores and morals. Symbolism and allegory in tapestry, through ornate, meticulously detailed and positioned flora and fauna, became a popular means of communicating these themes from the loom. They were considered “mirrors of civilization” and by the Middle Ages (1200 to 1500), royals and nobles on-the-move retained tapestry weavers as servants to produce woven depictions of current, sometimes-becoming-historic, events (as the Bayeux Tapestries documented the 1066, Battle of Hastings), imaginative scenes, and clothing befitting the stature of those in the entourages. Other weavers remaining at the homefront busied themselves creating richly-hued lengths of fabric, descriptive of soldiers in action, field workers toiling and ladies and lovers in gardens, bursting with detailed, accurately-wrought flowers and verdure.

The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries are some of textile art history’s most prized treasures, gifted by J.D. Rockefeller to New York’s Metropolitan Museum, in 1937 and 1938. Each of the fifteenth-century pieces—now housed at the Cloisters—chronicles a chapter of The Hunt, in which the fate of the mythical creature is construed to be that of Christ.

A proclivity of Middle Age scholars ascribed characters or objects—drawn from encyclopedic bestiaries and compendia of flora and the senses—with traits natural and supernatural. This practice popularized the allegory in a pre-literate age, when visual properties dovetailed with the informational, instructional–and deeply devotional– purpose of much ‘narrative’ tapestry.

Recovered ancient Indian, Greek and Middle Eastern writings, all referred to the unicorn as a fantastically swift, powerful, single-horned beast, much sought-after for the allure of his mystical nature and supernatural powers. As the Unicorn’s early allegorical assignment was religious, it was near-and-dear to the hearts of contemporary textile loomers.

The Hunt series affords a view into the weavers’, and their society’s, thoughts and concerns. Symbolizing a wild innocent, whose only captor must necessarily be a virgin, once fatally attracted, captured, corralled and thus, tamed, the creature is vulnerable prey for the hunters.

The story was a natural choice to be woven into a series by individuals whose literally-based religious perspectives, could well be described as naive. Visually stunning in their colorful realism, masterful execution and intense elements of action and suspense, the Hunt scenes are also replete with symbolic reference to Christian gospel: the Unicorn as Christ, the alluring virgin, Mary, and other, less prominent, though supportive, creatures, as well. A lion symbolizes Jesus’ strength; a stag, His triumphant power over evil. The hunters and dogs, of course, are Christ’s detractors and ultimate captors and executioners. All safely and scenically woven, of course, under the allegorical guise of a courtly hunt.

Left: The Unicorn at the Fountain (late 15th c.). Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters. 

Beyond meeting man’s most basic needs of shelter and warmth, then, tapestries have proven themselves as artfully pleasing, historically illuminating works of import. Woven Word.

By Katherine Arcano, Contributing Writer

Visit the Met’s Cloisters, high above the bank of the Hudson River at: http://www.metmuseum.org/visit/visit-the-cloisters