Van Orley and de Pannemaker, The Last Supper
About this video
This video explains why tapestries mattered more than paintings in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and how they were woven from single-coloured wool, silk and gold and silver thread. Because colours cannot be blended, medieval designs were flat, but Bernaert van Orley's 'Last Supper' pushes the medium to create a convincing, emotional illusion of the real world.
You'll be able to
- explain why tapestries were highly valued in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- explain why weaving makes it hard to show volume and how this shaped tapestry design.
- describe how van Orley's 'Last Supper' pushed the tapestry medium to its limit.
Key words
- tapestry
- A heavy woven textile with a picture made from coloured threads.
- skein
- A loosely coiled length of thread or yarn.
- volume
- The look of a three-dimensional form with depth and roundness.
- two-dimensional
- Flat, having height and width but no illusion of depth.
Transcript
Tapestries are not an art form that draws a lot of attention nowadays. But during the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, it wasn’t painting that mattered, it was tapestry. They were these rich objects made of expensive materials. We think this was probably owned by Henry VIII. Tapestries were woven sideways on. The raw materials were skeins of gold and silver thread, and wool and silk of single colors.
In contrast to painting, with tapestry, you can’t blend colors. Throughout the Middle Ages, because of the difficulty of suggesting volume, tapestry designers made their designs very flat, two-dimensional, but artists became more and more interested in creating the illusion of the real world. And this is one of those rare pieces where we can actually see one of the great artists of the day, Bernaert van Orley, wrestling, grappling with this challenge.
The design was painstakingly created by a team of highly skilled weavers. Christ is having supper with the disciples, and he tells them he knows that one of them is going to betray him. There’s a claustrophobic, explosive feeling, as the disciples react to Christ’s words.
And then there is the profound emotion on Christ’s face, the recognition that his inevitable death is approaching. Whether it’s the wine pouring from the container, the elaborate marble work, the folds in the costumes, the transparent halos, the complex beards, even the veins standing out on the forehead of the innkeeper -- to render all of these details was pushing the medium to its limit.
When I encountered this tapestry it was one of those oh-my-God, oh-wow, I-can’t-say-anything moments. Faded as it is, damaged as it is, it still almost moves me to tears that it survives. Here is this great tapestry, which has been overlooked by the modern world, but really, it’s a game changer. It is a doorway into the past, into this moment when this great artist changed the way tapestries were designed and thought about.
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