Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn
March 5th, 2011
An appointment Cluny museum was an opportunity to review the Renaissance masterpiece: Lady and the licorne.Donc to read the book by Tracy Chevalier.
The tapestry of the Lady and the Unicorn was rediscovered in 1841 by Prosper Merimee in Boussac Castle Basement. She enters the legend with George Sand. Today at the museum of medieval Cluny in Paris, the hanging is complete and includes six parts. Illustrate the five senses, the sixth is decorated with a motto, “my only desire.” A lady dressed in red brocade and silk seem to get rid of her jewelry, which she deposited in a box kept by the maid unless she takes them. This gesture may evoke cessation luxury to earthly passions, sensuality of love.
But this in-between the gesture leaves it ambiguous, unfinished. Is it denial or, conversely, return to the world? Fabulous animals are represented as the lion and the unicorn are banners on the arms of the sponsor, Jean Le Viste family Lyon and close to King Charles VII. The order was probably made in the Brussels workshops known at the end of the 15th Century medieval heathland pets (rabbits, birds) or exotic (monkey), creating a thousand flowers to fund a magical, out of time, with reference to Eden.
This beautiful tapestry, amazingly alive after centuries, we know little. Tracy Chevalier, an American living in London, has made a specialty of romanticize certain works which are women. The educated readers remember his “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” published in 2000. It tackles in 2003 with this “Lady and the Unicorn” (Folio, 2005) with all the qualities of the first book. Its requirement of “true” typical American, pushed her to carefully document the time and the art of weaving, she delivers the sources at the end of volume. Her feminist bias, again typically American period, led him to favor the views of women, the wife of the sponsor, his daughter and maid, wife and daughter of the weaver, pranks Women’s painter.
As we know nothing, his imagination could run amok. It is not kind to the man she calls “Nicolas”, creator of the cartoons. The son she confesses in the opening words could he inspire? She made a handsome artist but eager to fuck everything that goes into abandoning the suites. She did, however, that pure love for accomplice eagerness of young girls whose first part gives us a story carved and panting. Claude, daughter of Jean Le Viste is making sensual fever to 14 years when she thinks of Nicolas beautiful. See page 52 for more information …
The novel is divided into 5 periods over an epilogue, as the curtains. Is this intentional? Involuntary? The reader may find the view when the protagonists meet in the first part.