I did not begin with unicorns. My fascination with the tapestries began when a friend gave me a souvenir bookmark from her trip to Paris. This lady is at the center of one of the six panels of the “Lady and the Unicorn” series.
What entranced me was her fly-away hair. Why would a weaver of tight threads fuss with such a detail? Why would a lady be portrayed this way?
Each of the six ladies in these panels is flanked by a lion and a unicorn. These unicorns are not hunted. They are tame as can be.
This set of tapestries had no original connection with the Hunt of the Unicorn Series in the Met. Yet writers who discuss one set usually also refer to the other. Their connection is that they are close in age and have survived.
There is much to discuss: style, technique, symbolism, significance. My reading went in many directions.
I learned that guilds are basically conservative. Innovation was frowned upon because it may give one artisan an advantage over the others. Designs and methods did not change quickly.
I also learned about the dyes:
From “Colors”:
Red made from roots of madder,
yellow from everything but the roots
of weld, the challenge is blue:
woad leaves dried, fermented, spread
on stone for nine stinky weeks.
From India Vasco da Gama
brings indigo, a better blue.
Before science can prove
the chemical’s the same, central heat
warms walls; tapestries are not needed.
Other colors were made from these three, as we learned from the color wheel in grade school. The lion is some shade of yellow. The unicorn stands out because he is white.
freethoughtandmetaphor 