When Louis XI of France captured Arras, in 1477, and dispersed the weavers, Tournai, Brussels, Oudenarde and Enghien took up the work. The oldest Brussels tapestries known belong to the latter part of the fifteenth century. Two of these sets were painted by Roger van der Weyden and celebrated the Justice of Trajan and the Communion of Herkenbald. Some have tried to prove that other important tapestries were designed by the great primitives, but Max Rooses assures us the resemblance to their work comes from the fact that their characteristics, “careful execution, extreme delicacy of workmanship, and brilliancy of colour,” pervaded every branch of art at that period.
Brussels and Oudenarde held the lead throughout the sixteenth century. The Bruxellois wove vast historical compositions to decorate the palaces of kings; the weavers of Oudenarde produced landscapes, “verdures” and scenes from peasant life for the homes of burghers.
Tapestries are at their best as line drawings; when more complicated effects are sought “confusion and uncertainty follow.” The finest ever woven were produced during the last half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries, when Gothic tapestries gradually ceased to be made and Renaissance pieces began to take their place. During that hundred years, when the weavers were most skilful and were still satisfied with line drawings, many of the finest tapestries combined the characteristics of both styles.
In the sixteenth century, the weavers had such marvelous skill, however, that they actually reproduced the shadow effects of Italian designs. Even such great artists as Raphael and Michael Angelo drew cartoons, and stories of ten, twenty or even thirty scenes were woven, all showing the distinctive characters of Renaissance art. They combined breadth of composition and lively action with the introduction of nude figures and elaborate landscape and architectural settings. But in trying to copy painting too closely, they departed from the best traditions of tapestry technique, and deterioration was sure to follow in time.
After the desolating wars of the sixteenth century, when arts and industries revived under the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, Brussels weavers set up their looms again, and “Rubens brought new life into tapestry manufacture. He supplied the Brussels workshops with four great series—the History of Decius Mus, destined for some Genoese merchants; the Triumphs and Types of the Eucharist, ordered by the Infanta Isabella for the convent of the Clares at Madrid; the History of the Emperor Constantine, executed for Louis XIII; and the History of Achilles, for Charles I.... The Triumphs and Types of the Eucharist are the most powerful allegories ever created to glorify the mysteries of the Catholic religion.”[4]
Jacob Jordaens also designed tapestry cartoons, but the most popular artist among the weavers at the end of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries was David Teniers. He did not himself make designs, but the manufacturers, especially at Oudenarde, borrowed his subjects, which were drawn largely from peasant and village life.
One reason why we have so few of the really antique tapestries is that in 1797 the market for them was so dead—owing to the increasing use of wall-papers and canvases painted in oils—that the French decided it would be better to burn them for the gold and silver they contained. Accordingly, “One hundred and ninety were burned. During the French Revolution, a number of tapestries that bore feudal emblems were also burned at the foot of the Tree of Liberty.” At this time, when they were not in fashion, many rare old hangings were cut up by the inartistic or the ignorant and used as rugs and curtains.
But in recent years, we are told, the Brothers Braquenié have set up a workshop at Malines, where they have produced a fine series for the Hôtel de Ville in Brussels, called “Les Serments et les Métiers de Bruxelles.” The cartoons for this set were made by Willem Geefs, the painter.
As to the material, there is a great difference. Gothic tapestries are composed of woolen weft on linen, or woolen on hemp warp, and are often enriched with gold and silver thread. These are not used today, as they are considered too expensive. Since the sixteenth century, Brussels, Gobelins, and Mortlake have used a great deal of silk. In the fifteenth century fifteen or twenty colours were employed, in the Renaissance period, twenty or thirty.