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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1961)
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD. ORE. SUNDAY, MARCH S, 19ei B 5 THE SHAPE OF THINGS New Tapestries Wools Used Are By RICHARD HIRSCH Director Allentown Art Museum Hamlet's Elsinore castle had rot been built for comfort. Its walls were stone, naked inside and out, pierced with open apertures through which raged the blasts of a North Sea winter. No glass made these opening what we call windows-and this was a king ly palace. The queen, seeking some small comfort, seeks to cut down on the gale-like drafts. Hence, in her castle chamber, which Shakespeare calls her "closet," those hangings named "Arras." As eavesdrop ping Polonius betrays his presence behind the queen's tapestries, young Hamlet lunges blindly at the hang ings. Polonius, pierced by Hamlet's sword, dies between the "Arras" and the wall. This is a familiar, a famous scene. It Is Misunderstood Frequently, it is misunder stood. We think of a tapestry, an Arras, as a wall hanging, quite obviously against the wall. But this will only hap pen in the palaces of later centuries succeeding those earlier stone castles. In the seventeenth century, for example, tapestries will, in actual fact, become wall hang ings, hung directly against the wall, as the curtains hung against the new wide win dows, rich with new-fangled glass cut into window panes. But not in Elsinore castle, nor in hundreds of other cas tles less famous but equally in need of the barest creature comforts. Here the tapestry was hung well away, 18 inches or more, from the clammy wall, down to the drafty, icy, floor, providing some slight cushion of air for the unhappy nobles shivering behind their drawbridges, in crenellated grandeur. Polonius Was No Fool It was in this air space that Polonius went to his reward. He had not, as many readers think, attempted to get behind an Arras closely hugging the wall of the Queen's closet. After all, he was no fool even If his political maxims suffer from the folly of the poli tician. The medieval tapestry was, thus, an expensive practical-1 jty, the product of a great ; craft reproducing the designs , not of painters, as will happen 1 only later, but of the design-; ers of stained glass. In times when painting was found only in the miniatures of precious! manuscripts on parchment or on small wood panels, monu-, menial design could be hoped for only from those accus tomed to the towering dimen sions of the windows in great cathedrals. It is from these hands mat came the designs, the "car-i toons," which the tapestry! weavers of Arras or Tournai . or Brussels interpreted freely . in wool, silk and sometimes in gold and silver yarn. Infrequent Fading Because of this freedom, the medieval tapestry has come down to us with only in frequent fading or, where fad ing has taken place, a uniform degree of it from corner to coiner, leaving the general decorative harmonies intact. This happy stability could only last as long as the dyer and the weaver controlled their craft. But, shortly, the painter and the decorator will take over. Raphael was pre narinff a catastrophe. A poorly inspired Pope' asked Raphael, around 1515, to design a series of cartoons for a set of tapestries to be called "The Acts of the Apos tles." These designs, painted as if they were great frescoes or unusually large easel paint ings, were sent off to the tap estry weavers of Brussels on squares of paper which could be assembled according to their numbered keys. The weavers were instruct ed to have their dyers match the shades and hues of each brushstroke. Nothing of the sort had ever been asked of these Flemish weavers who had been successful for cen turies in the use of yarns dyed in only those several dozen colors, hues and shades which a patient craft had found to be light-fast and fade proof. .Nevertheless, Raphael's tap estries were executed in the short space of four years. ' Hundreds of workers were set to this single task. The master weavers and dyers of Brussels devised for this purpose new and untested techniques. When the great hangings ar rived in Rome a new triumph added itself to Raphael's re nown just before his untimely death. Response was raptur ous on all sides. For tapestry weaving a revolution had oc curred. In terms of craft, tt w as a disaster. From here on in tapestries will be thought of as paintings translated into wool and liLk. Not Painterly; Carefully Dyed sfcL. f r 1 fKiw ills WOVEN TAPESTRY "The Welcome of Paris. An example of perfect collabora- Guests," a tapestry woven at Tournai in tion between craftsmen, designer, dyer and Flanders in the late 15th century from a de- weaver, this great hanging, 11 by 13 feet sign by the unknown designer of stained in size, expresses a great and successful tra- glass windows In one of the great churches . dition. (Courtesy of Duveen Brothers, Inc.) Under this perspective, rob bing the craftsman of his free dom, his judgment, his com mand over quality and con tent, the dyer produced yarns which he knew could not re main color-fast while the weaver abdicated much of his creative role. Rubens, living close to the weavers of Flanders, will con tinue the tradition started by Raphael, imposing on them the exacting demand that they reproduce every blending of color from his brush. As a re sult, few are the Rubens tap estries today which have not faded and, worse luck, faded unevenly. Here and there an ancient blue, dyed according to the medieval tradition, stands up against the centuries and sings out boldly. Surrounding it, however, are vast areas of greying wool. These were once flesh tones, blended yel lows, spring greens and hun dreds of gradations which could not survive, tones which the medieval dyer and the weaver for whom he worked would have turned down as shoddy. But not Rubens, nor yet the court painters of France who, later, were to be given con trol over the manufactories set up by royal decree. For them the purpose of the tow ering tapestry looms could only be to produce decorative hangings from painterly de signs. This will be done solely in painterly terms. As might be expected, these once-luscious tapestries of the eighteenth century are, with few exceptions, but ghosts of their first state, while the me dieval "Arras" of several cen turies earlier are still alive with bold color, undimmed by age. It was poetic justice that, in our century, it should be a group of painters who set themselves the task of reviv ing the lost traditions of me dieval tapestry weaving as a craft. People such as Jean Lurrat, Jean Picart Le Doux and a number of others have, in loss than 20 years, taught the weavers of Aubusson the old principles of their craft which I had been forgotten by genera tions of their forbears work ing in this old French town. The result can now be seen in museums and galleries around this country. The new tapestries, which the design ers call "murals in wool," are not painterly. This is due to the insistence of the painter designer involved. Rather, woven with wools carefully dyed in a bold, bril liant and carefully limited spectrum, they join up, by their craft, with the great tra ditions of the medieval cen turies while, by their design, often whimsical and always decorative, they belong to today. And tomorrow they will re main alive. (Copyright 1961, General Features Corp.) Boulder Lake Snow Less Than Normal nip gam II Jij liimiWrfrimflHa Yreka - Wilbur V. Howard, district ranger of the Callahan district Klamath National for est, has reported considerably less than normal snow in the Boulder Lake area. Measurements taken March 1 by Howard am1 Glenn Fowl er show that at Middle Boul der lake, with an elevation of 6,600 feet, the snow depth was 55.1 inches, compared to a normal of 66.1 inches. Water content was 24.1 inches, com pared to a normal of 28 inches, Howard said. At Lower Middle Boulder, 6.200 feet elevation, there wore 44 inches of snow, com pared to a normal of 68.7 inches. Water content was 17.!) inches, compared to a normal of 27.8 inches. There were 21.6 inches of snow at Dynamite Meadows: snow course, with an eleva-: tion of 5,700 feet, with a wa- j ter content of 6.3 inches. Nor mal snow at the course is 64 8 inches with a water content of 23 3 inches, Howard said. Swampy John snow course, elevation 5,500 feet, has a snow depth of 60.6 inches with a water content of 21.fi inches. 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