Because of the reserves of time and skill invested in them, tapestries are inherently valuable. I’m told that in the Middle Ages they served as an important form of portable wealth. So that if a burgher’s house were on fire, he could take down his tapestries, roll them up, and make a run for it. But why make tapestries now, when we can print large-format images with hallucinogenic clarity?
To honor the Queen Margrethe’s 50th birthday in 1990, some Danes commissioned tapestries to wrap the walls of the Great Hall at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, where she receives heads of state. Based on drawings by artist Bjørn Nørgaard, who’s best-known for conceptual pieces and site sculpture, and executed by centuries-old guilds in France, they were woven by a team of thirty craftspeople over ten years and installed in 2001. In stark graphics reminiscent of woodblock prints, these seventeen panels tell the history of Denmark and the world. This panel depicts Margrethe, her consort, and their dogs. (While the Scandinavian countries are committed to socialist policy, they also care a great deal about their monarchs.) The panels have a fine, dense needlepoint-like finish and are rendered in eye-popping colors. While it’s possible to identify each character and scenario within the tapestries, what overwhelms is their dramatic and spatial intensity. Not one square inch of tapestry is left unoccupied; entire worlds are stuffed inside. It’s astounding that a tapestry project this ambitious was undertaken so recently, and that it achieves this level of virtuosity.