The City of Aubusson Tapestry sets its sights on Tolkien’s wonderful universe

One year after its inauguration, the Cité Internationale de la Tapestry d’Aubusson is full of new projects. Not satisfied with having relaunched the ancestral Art of the Aubusson Tapestry thanks to the success of its first year of existence and its 55,000 visitors, the Cité Internationale de la Tapestry d’Aubusson has many projects in its cards to boost the sector. This, after decades of significant decline in the presence of artisan weavers, increased from 16 to 2 between 2000 and 2012.

An ever-improving tapestry nave with additions to works that rotate in the public exhibition space, allowing rotation in the reserves and strengthening the link with the visitor through these many interactive terminals. A wealth of colors for some tapestries including this work of the eighteenth century, inspired by the work of Oudry, with nearly 2000 different colors and a hundred shades per face.

The event of this year 2017 is the partnership of the City of Tapestry with the heirs of the artist JRR Tolkien, represented by the entity Tolkien Estate, whose purpose is to celebrate the fantastic universe of the artist through the graphic interpretation on 13 tapestries (between 5 and 8m2 of surface) and a carpet (from 12 to 15m2), covering the stories sent, in the early 1930s, to his children from the “Letters of Santa Claus” and illustrations of his works such as “The Hobbit”, which is celebrated 80 years, “Lord of the Rings” or “History of Middle-earth”, including from facsimiles of originals based in Oxford.
This collaboration continues a tradition of the tapestry of interpretation, including literary news, characterizing the Aubusson tapestry, in contrast to the tapestry of the weaver-creator.
Each tapestry will be subject to a local tender, the first of which will be completed in early 2018, for a global project, with a budget of more than 1 million euros (divided between sponsorship and public funding). spreading until 2020, in accordance with the directives of the artist’s family but also the different cardboard makers who will adapt these miniatures to the scale of these large formats. The following works will then be started as the previous ones are completed since the rights are transferred free of charge.
The project was presented to the public in Aubusson from June 30 to September 19, 2017.
The realization will be made possible thanks to a so-called chinée method, born from an alloy of different colored threads instead of a method of the 1920s more focused on renovation techniques and based on hatching, technique used here. for the Tolkien project.

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Around the City, many sites to visit and to weave

The Museum of Cartons, initiated by Chantal Chirac thanks to its collection and renovation activities of these preparatory events for the elaboration of tapestries, so called cartons since they allow to apprehend the model of a tapestry of a colorist aspect.
In this workshop-museum, it is found in all forms and also for sale since it is a must for all lovers of this product that finds a renewed interest.

It started with the oldest, called the “grisailles” because they are not colored (as above, photo credits: Alexandre Plateaux). Subsequently, everything must be painted before being woven. Textile techniques threshing, appeared in the Middle Ages, allowing to enter a frank color into one another while it was known that tinted only 15 colors at the time.
In contrast to the cardboard painted in oil or numbered, initiated by Jean Lurçat, which require more subtleties in the choice of colors.
According to the times, one finds sometimes themes which are repeated like scenes of marquis with Versailles. Today, digitized paperboard is more adapted to current needs.

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In the center of Aubusson, the Atelier A2 creates tapestries sometimes monumental and very modern, thanks to the expertise of its 3 artisans and the place also offers training courses on looms for young and old throughout of the year.