In 2024, I spent a day and a night in Aubusson. It’s a small city in France that you can visit in just a few hours. It’s pretty, but so are many French villages. So, why go there? Because of the famous craftsmanship of tapestry in Aubusson. Let me tell you more about it.
The International City Of Tapestry of Aubusson: Modern Tapestry
If you don’t have much time, the main site to visit if La Cité internationale de la tapisserie. It’s like a museum of tapestry from its beginnings to now.
Amazing Collaborations, Like The One With Ghibli
I’ll admit it: the main reason I wanted to visit Aubusson was to see the Ghibli tapestries. Aubusson’s museum worked hand in hand with Hayao Miyazaki to produce some giant works of art based on the Ghibli successes. If you like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle, you’ll like these detailed tapestries.
You can also read about the process, which I find fascinating. You see, it’s not that easy to go from an animated image with TV colors and to transfer it to another completely different material such as textile. Each tapestry requires about a year of weaving!
I was struck by the colors, the size and the detail of each piece.
Another Tapestry Project About Tolkien
Before Ghibli, there were other projects and one of the most famous is the series of tapestries based one Tolkien’s books.
You may not know that, but Tolkien was not just a great writer, he was also really good at drawing. The Cité internationale de la tapisserie’s creations are based on his original works. Less famous than the hobbits, he signed a few stories and drawings about Christmas. That’s why you’ll find some colorful tapestries depicting Santa Claus and some other “Christmassy” characters.
Travel Through The History Of Tapestries
In the permanent exhibition, you’ll travel through nearly 6 centuries of tapestries in a museum that no longer looks like a museum. You’ll feel as if you were in an ancient house decorated with beautiful tapestries.
In this section of the Cité internationale, you’ll see really old tapestries and will be able to play “Guess the animal?” because, at the time, artists didn’t always know what the requested animals looked like. At the end of the exhibition, you’ll find some more Ghibli tapestries and other very modern works of art. Just like in Ravenna, where I discovered that modern mosaics exist and are truly creative; in Aubusson, I discovered that modern tapestries are indeed a thing.
The Mission To Preserve, Increase And Highlight The Craftsmanship of Tapestry
The museum’s mission is not simply to show you tapestries and help you discover this peculiar art: the Cité internationale de la tapisserie is also an active actor in the world of tapestry!
It preserves an important heritage. Currently, the collections feature more than 300 wall tapestries and about 15,000 graphic works.
The Cité transfers its knowledge: it created a training program for new weavers. And this initiative led to the opening of new workshops and contributed to maintaining employment. How great is that?
In the museum, there’s a section dedicated to craftsmanship. where you can learn about the different jobs existing in this sector. There’s the artist and then, there are the weavers. We talk about a “four-handed work”, some sort of dialog between all the parties that makes it possible to turn a drawing into a tapestry.
In 2009, Aubusson tapestry was officially added to the list of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
To see more photos of France, you can visit the gallery France.
