The Tapestry Book Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI

Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York]

It is only as the history of a factory touches us that we are interested in its changes. The result of Oudry's direction is one that we see so frequently in a small way that it is agreeable to recognise its cause. Oudry was pre-eminently a painter of animals. Add to this the tendency to draw cartoons in suites and the demand for furniture coverings, and at once we have the _raison d'etre_ of the design seen over and over again nowadays on old tapestried chairs, the designs picturing the _Fables of La Fontaine_. These were the especial work of Oudry who composed them, who put into them his best work as animal painter, and who set them on the looms of Beauvais many times.

They had a success immediate. They became the fas.h.i.+on of the day, and the pride of the factory. If the artist had drawn with inspiration, the weavers copied with a fidelity little short of talent. So it is not surprising that a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries are displayed brings now an average of a thousand dollars a piece, even though the furniture frames are not excessively rich.

Beauvais set the fas.h.i.+on for this suite, but as success has imitators who hope for success, many factories both in and out of France copied this series. How shall we know the true from the false? By that sixth sense that has its origin in a taste at once instinctive and cultivated.

Oudry drew hangings for the small panelled s.p.a.ces of the walls, to accompany this set of _Fables_. He also painted scenes from Moliere's comedies, which at least show him master of the human figure as well as of the lines of animals.

We are now, it must be remembered, in the time of Louis XV, the time of beautiful gaiety and light sarcasm, of epigramme, and miniature, and of all that declared itself _multum in parvo_. Therefore it was that even wall-hangings were reduced in size and polished, so to speak, to a perfection most admirable. Paintings were copied, actually copied, on the looms, but however much the fact may be deplored that tapestry had wandered far from its original days of grand simplicity, it were unjust not to recognise the exquisite perfection of the manner in vogue in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and of the perfection of the craftsman.

The pieces of Beauvais that are accessible to us are indeed charming to live with, especially the verdures of Oudry on which he left the trace of his talent, never omitting the characteristic fox or dog, or ducks, or pheasants that give vital interest to a peep into the enchanted woodland. At the same time the factory of Aubusson, and looms in Flanders, were throwing upon the market a quant.i.ty of verdures, of which the amateur must beware. Oudry verdures or outdoor scenes are but few in model, and beautifully woven.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV]

In the prosperity of Beauvais, ambition carried Oudry into a gay rivalry with the Gobelins. Charles Coypel had gained fame by a set of hangings in which scenes were taken from Don Quixote. Oudry asked himself why he should not rival them at Beauvais. The result was a similar series, but composed by Charles Natoire, the artist who had drawn a set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ for the Gobelins. The same idea extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well as to the _Fables_. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the n.i.g.g.ard hand of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient.

Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter of the spirit of his time, Francois Boucher. His designs broke from the limit of the Gobelins, and were woven at Beauvais with the care and skill required for proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against them and such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, have seldom been reproduced in tapestry, and almost make one wonder if, after all, the weavers of the Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. But such thoughts border on heresy and schism; away with them.

Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto the list of artists who painted models. We can no longer call them cartoons, so changed is the mode for Beauvais. But Oudry and Boucher are pre-eminent.

To the former, who was director as well as artist, is attributed the fame of the factory and the resulting commercial success. The factory had a house for selling its wares under the very nose of the Gobelins; had another in the enemy's country, Leipzig. And kings were the patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections in Italy, and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was an important collector.

It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the support of its leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in business matters, Besnier, had died. And we are well on toward the time when kingly support was a feeble and uncertain quant.i.ty. The factory lacked the inspiration and patronage to continue its importance.

In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. The factory was closed.

It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant period was past. Will the conditions recur that can again elevate to its former state of perfection this factory that has given such keen delight, whose ancient works are so prized by the amateur? It has given us thrilling examples of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs in miniature. We repulse the thought that these things are all of the past. The factory still lives. Will not the Twentieth Century see a restoration of its former prestige?

If it were only for the reproduction of the sets of furniture of the style known as Louis XVI, the Beauvais loom would have sufficient reason for existing at the present day. Scenes from Don Quixote, however, and the pictured fables of La Fontaine which we see on old chairs, seem to need age to ripen them. These sets, when made new, shown in all the freshness and unsoiled colour, and unworn wool, and unfaded silk do not give pleasure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAIR COVERING

Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire]

But the familiar garlands and scrolls adapted from the Greek, that were woven for the court of Marie Antoinette, these are ever old and ever new, like all things vital. On a background of solid colour, pale and tawny, is curved the foliated scroll to reach the length of a sofa, and with this is a.s.sociated garlands or sprays of flowers that any flower-lover would wors.h.i.+p. Nothing more graceful nor more tasteful could be conceived, and by such work is the Beauvais factory best known, and on such lines might it well continue.

CHAPTER XV

AUBUSSON

Perhaps because of certain old and elegant carpets lying under-foot in the glow and shadows of old drawing-rooms that we love, the name of Aubusson is one of interesting meaning. And yet history of tapestry weaving at Aubusson lacks the importance that gilds the Gobelins and Beauvais.

It just escaped that _sine qua non_, the dower of a king's favour. But let us be chronological, and not antic.i.p.ate.

If antiquity is the thing, Aubusson claims it. There is in the town this interesting tradition that when the invincible Charles Martel beat the enemies of Christianity and hammered out the word peace with his sword-blade, a lot of the subdued Saracens from Spain remained in the neighbourhood. It was at Poitiers in 732 that the final blow was given to show the hordes of North Africa that while a part of Spain might be theirs, they must stop below the Pyrenees.

When swords are put by, the empty hand turns to its accustomed crafts of peace. Poitiers is a weary journey from Africa if the land ways are hostile, and all to be traversed afoot. Rather than return, the conquered Saracens stayed, so runs the legend of Aubusson, and quite naturally fell into their home-craft of weaving. They had a pretty gift indeed to bestow, for at that time, as in ages before, the world's best fabrics came from the luxurious East. And so the Saracens, defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel, wandered to nearby Aubusson, wove their cloths and gave the town the chance to set its earliest looms at a date far back in the past.

The centuries went on, however, without much left in the way of history-fabric or woven fabric until we approach the time when tapestry-history begins all over France, like spa.r.s.e flowers glowing here and there in the early spring wood.

When the Great Louis, with Colbert at his sumptuous side, was by way of patronising magnificently those arts which contributed to his own splendour, he set his all-seeing eye upon Aubusson, and thought to make it a royal factory.

He was far from establis.h.i.+ng it--that was more than accomplished already, not so much by the legendary Saracens as by the busy populace who had as early as 1637 as many as two thousand workers. Going back a little farther we find a record of four tapestries woven there for Rheims.

It was, perhaps, this very prosperity, this ability to stand alone that made Louis and Colbert think it worth while to patronise the works at Aubusson. But it must be said that at this time (1664) the factory was deteriorating. Tapestry works are as sensitive as the veriest exotic, and without the proper conditions fail and fade. The wrong matter here was primarily the cartoons, which were of the poorest. No artist controlled them, and the workers strayed far from the copy set long before. Added to that, the wool was of coa.r.s.e, harsh quality and the dyeing was badly done. All three faults remediable, thought the two chief forces in the kingdom.

So Louis XIV announced to the sixteen hundred weavers of Aubusson that he would give their works the conspicuous privilege of taking on the name of the Royal Manufactory at Aubusson. And, moreover, he declared his wish to send them an artist to draw worthily, and a master of the important craft of dyeing fast and lovely colours.

Colbert drew up a series of articles and stipulations, long papers of rules and restrictions which were considered a necessary part of fine tapestry weaving. These papers are tiresome to read--the const.i.tution of many a nation or a state is far less verbose. They give the impression that the craft of tapestry weaving is beset with every sort of small deceit, so protection must be the arrangement between master and worker, and between the factory and the great outside world, lying in wait to tear with avaricious claws any fabric, woven or written, that this doc.u.ment leaves unprotected. You get, too, the impression that weavers took themselves a little too seriously. There must have been other arts and crafts in the world than theirs, but if so these men of long doc.u.ments ignored it.

Aubusson, then, took heart at the encouragement of the king and his prime minister, enjoyed their fine new t.i.tle to flaunt before the world which lacked it, pored over their new Articles of Faith, and awaited the new artist and the new alchemist of colours.

But Louis XIV was a busy man, and Paris presented enough activity to consume all his hours but the scant group he allowed himself for sleep. So Aubusson was forgot. Wars and pleasures both ravaged the royal purse, and no money was left for indulgences to a tapestry factory lying leagues distant from Paris and the satisfying Gobelins.

Then came the agitation of religious conflict during which Louis XIV was persuaded, coerced, nagged into the condition of mind which made him put pen to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the doc.u.ment that is ever playing about the fortunes of tapestry weaving. This was in 1685. Aubusson had struggled along on hope for twenty years, under its epithet Royal, but now it had to lose its best workers to the number of two hundred. The Protestants had ever been among the best workers in Louis' kingdom, and by his prejudice he lost them. Germany received some of the fugitives, notably, Pierre Mercier.

Near Aubusson were Felletin and Bellegarde, the three towns forming the little group of factories of La Marche. When the king's act brought disaster to Aubusson, her two neighbours suffered equally.

There was also another reason for a sagging of prosperity. Beauvais was rapidly gaining in size and importance under the patronage of the king and the wise rule of its administrators. Beauvais with her high- and low-warp looms, her artists from Paris and her privilege to sell in the open market, lured from Aubusson the patronage that might have kept her strong.

Thus things went on to the end of the Seventeenth Century and the first quarter of the Eighteenth. Then in 1731 came deliverers in the persons of the painters, Jean Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert, and an able dyer who aided them. Prosperity began anew. Not the prosperity of the first half of the Seventeenth Century, which was its best period, but a strong, healthy productiveness which has lasted ever since. Two articles of faith it adheres to--that the looms shall be invariably low, and that the threads of the warp shall be of wool and wool only.

Large quant.i.ties of strong-colour verdures from La Marche and notably from Aubusson are offered to the buyer throughout France. They are as easily adapted to the wood panels of a modern dining-room as is stuff by the yard, the pattern being merely a ma.s.s of trees divisible almost anywhere. The colour scheme is often worked out in blues instead of greens; a narrow border is on undisturbed pieces, and the reverse of the tapestry is as full of loose threads as the back of a cashmere rug. For the most part these fragments are the work of the Eighteenth Century. Older ones, with warmer colours introduced bring much higher prices.

CHAPTER XVI

SAVONNERIE

Those who hold by the letter, leave out the velvety product of La Savonnerie from the aristocratic society of hangings woven in the cla.s.sic st.i.tch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because the weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture both old and new, it is as well not to ignore its productions in lofty silence.

Besides, it is rather interesting, this little branch of an exotic industry that tried to run along beside the greater and more artistic.

It never has tried to be much higher than a man's feet, has been content for the most part to soften and brighten floors that before its coming were left in the cold bareness of tile or parquet. It crept up to the backs and seats of chairs, and into panelled screens a little later on, but never has it had much vogue on the walls.

When we go back to its beginnings we come flat against the Far East, as is usual. The history of the fabric which is woven with a pile like that of heavy wool velvet, and which is called Savonnerie, runs parallel to the long story of tapestry proper, but to make its scant details one short concrete chronicle it is best to put them all together.