Resmin Dokunmas

The tradition of “tapestry”, which originated in Northern Europe between 14th – 19th centuries and spread to the wholeEurope, has a quite important and privileged place in the art of textile. Tapestries, regarded as masterpieces of tapestries, aresymbols of power and wealth, and indicative of status. The privilege of owning tapestries, which are the elements of interiordecoration in European churches and palaces, only belongs to wealthy people and especially to royal families. Tapestries havebeen produced based on orders and architecture, and in huge dimensions, in single pieces or multiple-piece sets. Because of theirportability in rolls, they were also named as “mobile murals”, and decorated the walls of European churches and palaces.Vignettes, which portray strong observations on the daily life and human nature of the Middle Age, frequently reflectedsubjects such as hunting scenes, which activity was a popular aristocratic engagement of the period, scenery and countryrepresentations often intensified with human figure in composition fictions, allegorical portrayals on life and death, religious andmythological subjects and allegorical descriptions of months and years. Vignettes were used as decoration elements in specialoccasions such as christening ceremonies, official dines, wedding ceremonies, diplomatic receptions and funerals. The area frontsof municipal houses were decorated with tapestries during corteges. Tapestries have also been used as wedding gifts anddiplomatic gifts.Tapestries, of which the production started throughout Europe by 1400s, had their golden era between 15th and 18thcenturies, in terms of their qualities and prevalence. Weaving intensified especially in south part of Holland, Flandre, (Northeastof Belgium) and France. Arras and Brussels were the prominent production centers. Tournai joined these in the 15th century.Carrying its quality of being an important weaving center in Flandre in 14th century into the 15th century, Arras developedespecially on the support of Burgonya workshop. It is stated that approximately 60 weaving masters worked at the sources. Thedukes of Burgonya started to support Tournai instead of Arras after 1450s, and later on, the workshops in Brussels developed inthe second half of the 15th century.Tapestry production is seen in Italia in such regions as Ferrara, Mantova and Florence in 1500s. Named “arazzo” in Italy, thisweaving type is described as the inter section of artisanal production and artistic production. Production in workshops supportedby Medici Family continued until the 18th century. Cardboar