Tapestries by the masters

Tapestry-weaving is a very old art form, perfected in the depth of the Middle Ages as a way to provide warmth and beauty in stark stone castles and mansions. It went out of favor when less labor-intensive forms of heating came in.

In the 1930s, as modern art was grabbing the attention of the art world, a Frenchman named Jean Lurcat developed a simplified system of weaving that allowed him to create modern tapestries. It was a process he enjoyed, he told fellow artist Pablo Picasso, because "one fiber of my wool is a thousand times more precious than a piece of your paper."

That playful taunt led Picasso to try it with some of his own art works, and other 20th-century modernists soon followed.

That mini-Renaissance of tapestry work, stretching from the 1950s to the 1990s, has resulted in an eye-dazzling exhibit now on display at Brigham Young University's Museum of Art.

It's an exhibit that you can enjoy on many different levels, says its curator, Paul Anderson. First, it is an exhibition of modern art. "This is a rare opportunity in Utah to see works of major modern masters," he says, adding, how many times do we get to see original Picassos or Chagalls?

By the time these tapestries were done, artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Vasarely, Kandinsky, Calder and Chagall were "already old masters of Modernism. They'd had a period on the leading edge, but, other than the Picasso, which is based on a design from when he was young, these are kind of late works." So, he says, you can see an excellent representation of the genre.

You can also enjoy the exhibit as fiber art — learn about the techniques and process of tapestry-weaving, both ancient and modern. You can learn, for example, that it differs from weaving cloth, in that with cloth, warp threads extend the full length of the piece, but with tapestry, warp threads do not go all the way across; each color area is woven separately.

Looking through the eyes and words of Lurcat, you can also appreciate wool. "Well, it is a fabric," he wrote, "no more nor less than a fabric. But it is a coarse, rigorous, organic fabric . . . it is heavy with matter and heavy with meaning. But it is more; it is heavy with intentions."

What Anderson enjoys most about the exhibit are the contrasts and contradictions it provides. "This exhibition is a fusion of new and old — the bold abstract designs of modernism and the ancient techniques of hand-woven tapestry."

It shouldn't work, he says. "Modern art is about extemporaneousness — the gesture of the artist conceived and executed quickly. Then you take that instant idea and give it to tapestry workers to reproduce in painstaking methods. It shouldn't work, but it does."