Artist: Reg Mombassa Title: Disturbed Wolfman Weavers: Chris Cochius, Hilary Green and Laura Mar
A history of tapestry
Tapestry weaving has a long history, with some of the earliest tapestry fragments surviving from ancient civilisations over 1,000 years ago. However, the great flowering of tapestry, occured in France and Flanders during the Middle Ages and the number and variety of tapestries woven during this period has never been surpassed.
The history of Western tapestry, and of the famous workshops associated with it, is integral to the history of painting and architecture. Falling between the fine arts and the decorative arts, tapestry has played a time-honoured role in architecture, humanising the spaces in buildings both public and private. This has been achieved through the medium's natural charm and its softening effect on surroundings, both texturally and acoustically. More than ornamental, its aesthetic quality depends on the merit of its pictorial conception as well as on the excellence of its craft.
Tapestries have always been considered a luxury item and in earlier times were commissioned by the Church, royalty and the very wealthy. They were particularly popular with the nomadic princes of the Middle Ages due to their durability and relative ease of transport. The subjects of medieval tapestries were broad, ranging from the deeds of the commissioning princes to popular tales from literature.
At the beginning of the 16th century the quality of tapestry making declined. Tapestry became imitative, moving away from being a free and creative art as it was in the Gothic period with workshops competing with each other for fidelity of reproduction. Patrons began to favour the work of individual painters, and weavers were expected to copy paintings as exactly as possible.
While William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were responsible for the revival of the art of tapestry in England in the 19th century, it has only been in recent times that weavers have found themselves in the midst of a rediscovered enthusiasm for the medium.
In the 20th century, the revival of tapestry claims descent from medieval times when workshops returned to the principles of weaving based on traditional methods, and artists began entrusting their designs to the skill and judgement of workshop weavers*. Today, tapestry enjoys a renewed vigour as part of the modern art world, be it in a textile context or sitting alongside other traditional or contemporary disciplines.
*Opened in 1912, Dovecot Tapestry Studio in Scotland, United Kingdom was used as a model for the Australian Tapestry Workshop when the idea for an Australian tapestry studio were first developed in the mid 1970s. Creating contemporary tapestries, Dovecot Tapestry Studio works in a similar way to the Australian Tapestry Workshop, while on a smaller scale, creating contemporary tapestries in collaboration with United Kingdom and international artists.
