#Lady with the Unicorn tapestries

[visualpoett]

Le Gout - The Lady with the Unicorn tapestries

[theartofmadeline]

do you hear me? YOU LOST HER. you’ve trapped her in a human body. SHE’LL GO MAD.

[jolaunay]

A Farewell to Unicorns...

If you have been following me long enough, you probably know that about a year ago I have started a crazy cross-stitch project, see post here . I have posted updates here n there throughout 2023 with the tag #ladyandtheunicornproject . As every crafter & artist would know, when you embark on such a journey, it keeps lingering in the back of your mind every damn day that you don't work on it. I didn't touch it in months, then I finally found the energy to get back to it. This is the progress I made in a year, a little shy of 1.5 pages out of a 60-page pattern:

It just felt hopeless, the amount of confetti in this pattern is insane. And most of the time, it didn't even look like it made much difference. Then it kinda dawned on me; is this pattern the product of a pattern mill?

What it is a "pattern mill" you might ask... Some cross-stitch pattern shops on etsy simply use photos of artwork and convert them to cross-stitch patterns using free websites. They don't credit the artist, they don't pay a dime for the software, yet they profit from their work. The end result usually does not translate well to cross-stitch; lots of confetti, the project is unmanageable, kills the joy of crafting and when you're finished, it looks like a pixelated photo taken with an early 2000s phone camera.

After further research, I was convinced that my pattern is also from a pattern mill - considering the amount of money I spent on this project, it felt like a punch in the gut. My family will never have generational wealth & afford a vacation home on Rhode Island coast because of this fucking project! But hey, c'est la vie! You live and you learn... See related posts here & here

Sometimes, you just gotta know when to say "enough of this bullshit", cut your losses and walk away from a situation. For that reason, there's no point in working on this project anymore and making it my "Sagrada de Familia". So, I came up with an idea to finish it in an alternative way:

"Unfinished paintings are more admired than the finished because the artist's actual thoughts are left visible." This is a quote from Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, some important guy who lived during the Ancient Roman times. I think it is a fitting quote because it represents my vision of saying "fuck this" and not having the fallacy of the sunk costs. Finished it, framed it and now displaying it in my library room in front of another tapestry from the Unicorn series.

It gives me closure rather than disappointment for a project that I started with such high hopes & excitement. If I just put it in a bag and threw it to the bottom of a closet, it'd make me feel guilty. But this still makes me feel accomplished, because it honors the hours of effort I put into it. It turned into a nice little conversation piece with a story. I still love cross-stitching and will work on better patterns in the future. There's already enough to dread about in life. Unfortunate experiences shouldn't take the joy out of pleasant activities!

[dozydawn]

La Dame à la Licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn) performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, 1959. Photographed by Jack Garofalo.

Starring Liane Dayde and Claude Bessy. Choreographed by Heinz Rosen. Conceived and designed by Jean Cocteau.

"Cocteau ... has created an enigmatic libretto in which a noble maiden has a lovely white unicorn which eats only from her hand. But after the Knight comes, and an amorous pas de deux ensues between the two aristocrats, the Unicorn will no longer eat and dies. The Knight, who has left, now returns, but the Lady is no longer interested in him. As the curtain falls, she is on stage alone, with neither Knight nor Unicorn, pointing to a banner on which is inscribed 'Mon seul desir' (My only desire)."

[evaisinsidehercat]

‘Touch’ c1500, from The lady and the unicorn series. Wool and silk, 373 x 358 cm Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris Photo © RMN-GP / M Urtado

[felixringtailtravels]

[shevr]

[cabbage-soup-with-mayo]

I'm actually into textiles so last year I made a copy of a fragment of The Lady and the Unicorn

[gretchen-k-deahl]

The Lady and the Unicorn A modern artwork, inspired by a French tapestry from the middle ages. Now available on Redbubble. Please visit my shop and Follow me!! Many thanks. :-) gretchenkdeahl.redbubble.com

[pangur-and-grim]

[oncanvas]

The Lady and the Unicorn, Flanders, circa 1500

Tapestry 142 x 248 cm (55.91 x 97.64 in.)

[felixringtailtravels]

[knighthelm]

Lady Olwen and the Unicorn

Some Deep thoughts I was having while painting this piece below:

Unicorns in medieval art sometimes represented the chastity and purity women were expected to maintain, but also the game of courty love. In order to slay a unicorn, a maiden was to sit out and wait for the creature to find her, then the hunter nearby would strike. Obviously this is just an allegory for sex and the loss of virginity from a deeply patriarchal society. It also illustrated the expectation of women's roles in courtly love in the period.

It reminds me of the purity culture I grew up in, to be honest. I heard stories like this, cautionary tales that growing up and becoming a woman was like the violent killing of a sacred creature. The point of this piece became very therapeutic for me, and served more to heal something that had been hurt a long time ago.

I've also been in love with the Unicorn Tapestries since I was a teenager I wanted to draw a woman surrounded and protected by these motifs. Obviously she's not a virgin, but she is still deemed worthy of a visit from a unicorn.

[cuties-in-codices]

close-up because this is so cute!!!

Lady and the Unicorn

Created in the late 15th century, is one of the most iconic works of art from the Middle Ages. This masterpiece features a series of six tapestries that depict a noblewoman and a unicorn in various scenes, surrounded by a lush background of plants and animals. The tapestries are believed to have been created for the wealthy Le Viste family in France and are now on display at the Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Marzi's Old House Supply Kit: A Non-Exhaustive List

So you've moved into an old house! Congratulations! No, no, look at me. Look in my eyes. Congratulations. You don't need smart lighting. You don't need paltry things like "showers that don't make ungodly noises if you set the water outside a very specific temperature range" or "logical staircases." Because those people who say They Built Them Sturdier Back Then is survivorship bias are wrong, lead paint is only a problem if you eat it, and your new home is basically a tank

also it might have stained glass. so basically you win

(no but seriously the Survivorship Bias argument is just like. tell me you don't live in a city with large quantities of remaining working-class 110-year-old buildings without telling me. I do. they're sturdier. end of.)

but you might need some things to make it a bit more comfortable. here's what I've found, over eight years of living in houses built 1920 or earlier

Power strips. Depending on the age of your house, it may or may not have had electricity originally. And even if it did, whoever lived there almost certainly had fewer things to plug in than the average denizen of the 2020s. There also may have been gorgeous wall sconces that some asshole heartlessly ripped out at some point, forcing you to use the hideous hateful Overhead LightTM or plug in a bunch of lamps. Either way, you're going to need to turn that single outlet in the room into several more. Hence, power strips.

(hey, I never said this list was free of my design biases. deal)

A Good Fan. You may live in a place where retrofitting with air conditioning was commonplace in the last several decades. I do not. So a good pedestal fan can make the difference between comfort and just not sleeping at all from late June to mid-September. Weirdly, I did once look at a place that was from the 1850s and had been retrofitted with central A/C, which is vanishingly rare in even urban Massachusetts. But I digress.

A stud-finder. "Marzi, you spent years of your life explaining to tourists that picture rails existed because trying to hammer nails directly into horsehair plaster and then putting weight on them did Bad Things." Yes I did. "What did you attempt to do the second week of living in your first house with horsehair plaster?" ...shut up. I used the Poltergeist Method to find solid wood- I don't know if it's actually studs or the lath or what; I'm not a builder -to hang my Lady and the Unicorn tapestry from, namely knocking on the wall until it doesn't sound hollow. You might want to go a bit quieter and more advanced. Or, if you have a picture rail, embrace the "long visible hanging wires" look. It is in fact there for a reason!

Window screens. You are actually required by Massachusetts state law to provide these to your tenants. Doesn't mean my last landlady did. And if you own your place, live in another state, or have a similarly laissez-faire building owner, you might end up needing to Bring Your Own Insect-Blocking Shield. Just make sure you've got them, one way or the other. Because see above re: fan vs. air conditioning in old houses.

WD-40. When's the last time those hinges were oiled? Potentially before television. And they WILL squeak. UPDATE I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT WD-40 IS NOT A GOOD LONGTERM SOLUTION. Find "actual oil." Not sure what the more specific name is. Good to know!

That's just what I've found needful so far, but I'm happy to update the list as required!

And you'd better believe, if I owned my own place, this would include "the name of a preservation contractor to undo all the unnecessary ~*MoDeRnIzInG*~ aesthetic bullshit the past owners did since the End of Mainstream Western House Beauty AKA 1920 (That Brief Rococo Revival In the 1930s Can Maybe Sit With Us)"