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We
recently took a trip uptown to the Cloisters -- the branch of the
Metropolitan Museum devoted to the art and architecture of
medieval Europe -- to view the seven tapestries known as The
Hunt of the Unicorn, quite possibly the most beautiful
tapestries in the world. (The Cloisters, of course, were
recreated, amalgamated, in the New World -- one walks amidst old
stone and green of trees and all the colors of flowers and looks
down from the Heights on the wildness of the Hudson far below as
if one were George Washington himself….) Of silk and dyed
wool threads, about twelve feet wide and of varying widths, the
marvelously detailed, lush, and luxurious (some of the threads are
wrapped in gold and silver) tapestries were created some time
between 1495 and 1505.
In
an age when relatively few people were literate, tapestries
illustrated tales of love, religious allegories, stories of
fantasy and adventure. As in a roman à clef, symbols and
metaphors were cleverly hidden in plain sight -- there for all to
see -- a challenge to one's interpretative acuity. A
medieval mystery that has never quite been solved, The Unicorn
Tapestries may have come from two separate sets of hangings,
but have been displayed as a series as early as the 17th century -
together they illustrate the hunt for the mysterious unicorn and
are replete with an elaborate symbolism that can be seen as
secular (the pursuit of a lover) or sacred (the unicorn was also a
symbol for Christ). The tapestries conceal several secrets,
including the meaning of a recurring monogram made from the
letters 'A' and 'E'. Some have theorized that the tapestries
were woven to celebrate a marriage, perhaps that of Anne of
Brittany and King Louis XII of France. In one of the
tapestries, three fleurs-de-lis, the lilies in the royal
arms of France, appear on two of the hunting dogs' collars. Another collar displays the letters OFANCRE, a possible
abbreviation of OF[R]ANC[ORUM]RE[X], a salute to the king of
France.
In
the last tapestry, The Unicorn in Captivity, the bloodied
animal is shown captured, tethered to a tree and encircled by a
fence. But look closely: there are no wounds on the placid
unicorn, the blood is really pomegranate juice dripping from the
pomegranate tree (pomegranates were long a symbol of marriage and
fertility), the chain is easily broken, the fence is easily leapt
over, the encirclement, that of marriage, is a blissful one here
-- the lover is docile, happy to be tamed! It is, after all,
a field of flowers! The monogram nestles in the foliage
above the unicorn, the 'A' and 'E' (which is backwards) are
entwined with a silken rope with tasseled ends.
The
unicorn has variously been seen as a symbol of Christ, wisdom,
marriage and immortality: the first Western account of the unicorn
was by the Greek physician and historian Ctesias in his book, Indica,
written in the 4th century BC, where he sets down accounts he
heard on his travels of this mysterious one-horned creature seen
in India.
See:
The
Unicorn Tapestries,
The Cloisters
Tags:
india
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