Renaissance : Romantic Tapestry Is Enjoying a Revival

R omance, history and texture are the words designers associate withtapestry work--an artistic tradition that is quickly becoming the newest trend in interior design.

“It’s an old European feeling coming back in a much different way,” says John Jarr, an interior designer in Corona del Mar. “It’s much lighter, more hip, more ‘90s. It shows how tapestry can be used in contemporary settings.”

And tapestry is being used in modern pillows, chair fabric, valences and bed linens, as well as traditionally as wall hangings.

“We’ve been in the tapestry import business for 20 years,” says Helga Yesenofski, owner of Art Et Decor in Laguna Niguel. “You will generally find an upsurge in interest (in tapestry) usually every six or seven years. But this latest upsurge has definitely been the biggest. Our business is going bananas.”

While some designers see the use of tapestries in fabrics for pillows, sofas, draperies and chairs as a return to a warmth and richness of past times, Yesenofski sees this revival as a return to a sense of history and romance: “Every tapestry has a story, has a history to it, and all of it is very romantic,” she says. “People who don’t take immediately to a particular tapestry often hear the story and then fall in love with it.”

Yesenofski says: “In Europe, few homes are without tapestries. I think it gives a strong sense of stability to Europeans, and I think this is what Americans are responding to as well.”

Tapestries were originally handwoven fabrics in either bold patterns or pictorial subjects. The art of tapestry-weaving in Europe was developed and encouraged after the Crusades in the 13th Century. Returning Christian armies learned the techniques in Constantinople and the Orient.

Tapestries became a popular form of wall decoration not only for aesthetic reasons but also for practical reasons. Fresco work, so prevalent in Italy and other warm climates, could not be practiced in Western Europe because of freezing temperatures that tend to crack wall plaster. Tapestries not only added color to an interior, but their heavy wool helped retain heat in the medieval castles.

Traditionally, Gothic tapestries are of the mille-fleurs variety--the French word for “thousand flowers”--and display a background covered with small bushes, plants, flowers and leaves. Small animals appear in many hidden-away bushes, and the unicorn is prevalent in many of the designs.

Gothic tapestries are the most valuable tapestries on the market today because they are considered the finest examples of the art and also because of their rarity. They sell from $45,000 and up, depending upon size and quality.

“The Gothic look tends to appeal to certain types of people,” says Florence Jansen of the Tapestry Room, a Mission Viejo import business. “People who like more modern and contemporary design seem to be drawn to the Gothic look. I think it’s because this look is so old it’s almost contemporary.”

Jansen says the most telling sign of how tapestry is now being used in interior design can be seen in the following change: “People used to have me find tapestries that matched the color of their sofa pillows. Now they buy the tapestry first and concentrate on pulling colors from the tapestry to accent the room. The tapestry has become the center of the room.”

Jansen, who has a dozen tapestries decorating her own home, says people who live in Orange County buy mostly Renaissance and pastoral tapestries, while people in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Palm Springs buy Gothic tapestries.

Yesenofski agrees. “Places that have a more relaxed and traditional sensibility gravitate toward the pastoral tapestries,” she says, adding that large Renaissance tapestries are assets in the vaulted ceilings and the Mediterranean and Italian architecture popular in the county.

The major distinctions between Gothic and Renaissance tapestry are the subject matter (Renaissance is pastoral and tells a story, rather than using a central figure and singular motif, as in the Gothic) and the artistic perspective (in Gothic tapestries, pictorial depth and distance were not rendered accurately).

“Consequently,” Jansen says, “in Gothic tapestries objects behind other objects do not appear reduced in size, shadows are absent, horizon lines are close to the top--the design resembles a flat-colored line drawing.”

Most tapestry mills are in Europe, particularly France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and England. There are no production mills in the United States.

Reproductions make tapestries affordable, says Jansen of The Tapestry Room. They sell from $500 to $10,000.