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May Issue 2010
Columbia Museum
of Art in Columbia, SC, Offers Exhibit of Royal Tapestries
The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, will present the exhibit, Imperial Splendor: Renaissance Tapestries from Vienna, an exhibit of royal tapestries traveling to the US for the first time, on view from May 21 through Sept. 19, 2010.
Royal Renaissance tapestries
from one of the premier museums of fine and decorative arts in
the world, the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, will be on
view in South Carolina's capital city. Each of these eight exquisite
tapestries, intricately crafted, measures from 11- to 12-feet
high and from 12- to 18-feet long. The tapestries came to the
Kunsthistorisches Museum from the collections of King Matthias
(Holy Roman Emperor 1612-1619) and King Francis I (1708-1765).
The 16th-century Flemish tapestry collection of the Kunsthistorisches
Museum is widely known as one of the greatest in existence. Richly
woven with silk, wool, and gold and silver thread, these eight
newly restored wall hangings were made for the Hapsburg emperors
at the famous Brussels atelier of Frans Geubels. They depict one
of the most beloved secular themes in the 16th-century repertoire
of Flemish tapestry making: the legendary founding of ancient
Rome by Romulus and Remus. The series begins with the birth of
the two brothers, when they were placed in a basket and set afloat
on the Tiber River, and ends with the legendary rape of the Sabine
women. For King Matthias and subsequent Habsburg emperors, the
tapestries, displayed prominently, also served as an important
venue for relating powerful messages about the ancestral roots
of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg family.
In the late Middle ages, Renaissance and Baroque, tapestry was
the art form - far more costly and elite than art in any other
medium (sculpture and painting included). Renaissance tapestries
served a number of different purposes. They were symbols of rank,
wealth and power and effective sources of propaganda, made to
order for the religious and political elite. They could cost as
much as a warship and be more expensive than great paintings by
acknowledged masters. Michelangelo was paid less money for painting
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel than the designers of a series
of tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X (Acts of the Apostles)
were. Tapestries were taken along on campaigns and hung outdoors
during festivals, as a way of uniting townspeople around their
lord. Tapestries were not only beautiful works of art, and sometimes
objects of propaganda (The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was even
accompanied into battle by his court painter who made sketches
at the site for later weaving), but they served a useful purpose
as well, being transported from castle to castle, palace to palace,
and placed on cold masonry walls for warmth as a form of insulation.
They were colorful and lively backdrops in dark, dank, cold and
windowless interiors. The most famous weavers were in France and
Brussels - where these tapestries were woven.
Imperial Splendor shows the role tapestries played as a valuable and important tool of artistic production during the Renaissance. This international touring exhibition is organized by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which opened in 1891 and was built at the behest of Emperor Franz Joseph I as part of his expansion of Vienna. The Museum was established to unite and appropriately represent the artistic treasures collected by the Habsburgs over the centuries. The Kunsthistorisches ranks as one of the great Museums of Europe and among the premier fine arts Museums in the world. It is a rare and special opportunity that the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna is lending these magnificent works for a US tour. This exhibition travels to only three cities, including Columbia.
This exhibition is developed by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and tour organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC.
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at
803/799-2810 or visit (www.columbiamuseum.org).
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