Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early RenaissanceAddison, Julia de Wolf
History
Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early Renaissance
Addison, Julia de Wolf
Arts and crafts movement; Decoration and ornament, Medieval; Decorative arts -- History; Illumination of books and manuscripts
The worker on a low loom does not see the right side of the work
at all, unless he lifts the loom, which is a difficult undertaking.
On a high loom, it is only necessary for the worker to go around
to the front in order to see exactly what he is doing. The design
is put below the work, however, in a low loom, and the work is
thus practically traced as the tapestry proceeds.
On account of the limitations of the human arm in reaching, the
low warp tapestry requires more seams than does that made on the
"haute lisse" loom, the pieces being individually smaller. One
whole division of the workmen in tapestry establishments used to be
known as the "fine drawers," whose whole duty was to join the
different pieces together, and also to repair worn tapestries,
inserting new stitches for restorations. Tapestry repairing was
a necessary craft; at Rheims some tapestries were restored by
Jacquemire de Bergeres; these hangings had been "much damaged by
dogs, rats, mice, and other beasts." It is not stated where they
had been hung!
High warp looms have been known in Europe certainly since the ninth
century. There is an order extant, from the Bishop of Auxerre,
who died in 840, for some "carpets for his church." In 890 the
monks of Saumur were manufacturing tapestries. Beautiful textiles
had been used to ornament the Church of St. Denis as early as 630,
but there is no proof that these were actually tapestries. There
is a legend that in 732 a tapestry establishment existed in the
district between Tours and Poitiers. At Beauvais, too, the weavers
of arras were settled at the time of the Norman ravages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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