Oct1
Tag Archives: The Cloisters
Jul23
Video of the Week #263: Tour of The Cloisters
One of my favorite places on earth. You may know I’m obsessed with the Unicorn Tapestries. . .
Aug24
Creative Juice #103
Beauty to inspire your own creations:
- Read what Reece Witherspoon is reading.
- Origami like you’ve never seen it before.
- Traveling in Segovia, Spain.
- My favorite spot on earth—The Cloisters.
- What to see at Yosemite.
- Watercolor basics and special effects.
- The power of music.
- Quilt eye candy.
- Pretty soon we’ll be remodeling our kitchen, so I was tickled to see Suhita Shirodkar’s sketches of the demolition of her kitchen.
- What is the essential requirement of creation?
- Who determines the value of art?
- Breathtaking sculpture.
Apr25
Video of the Day: U is for Unicorn in Captivity
Share my obsession.
Apr25
U is for the Unicorn Tapestries
This gallery contains 10 photos.
Originally posted on ARHtistic License:
Last month I promised I would post about the Unicorn Tapestries that hang in The Cloisters (see my post Cloister Me). They have special meaning for me. I first saw them as a freshman in high school on a field trip. And they figure largely in the mystical fantasy I…
Sep17
Video of the Week #12
My favorite museum ever! The incredible Unicorn Tapestries are shown at 18:20. To read my post about The Cloisters, click here.
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A Peek at my Work-in-Progress
Just for fun, I’m going to give you a little glimpse of the YA mystical fantasy novel I’m writing, with the working title: The Unicornologist.
It’s set in 1967. To give you a feel for the time, here is what a McDonald’s hamburger stand (the setting of chapter five) looked like:
found on http://www.roadarch.com
No drive through. You had to park your car and walk up to the sliding glass window to order, and wait for your food to be packed into a bag. No dining room. Some McDonald’s had a bench built into the exterior side wall, but most people just took their food back to their cars and ate while parked in the lot. And, yes, a hamburger cost 15 cents.
My story centers around a New Jersey high school freshman, Hillary Noone, whom I picture as looking something like the girl on the right, except with glasses. She’s a nerd. Her mother died when she was eight, and her father recently remarried. Hillary, an only child, resents her stepmother, who kind of took over when she moved in, not respecting the routines that Hillary and her dad put into place to cope with her mother’s death.
Hillary’s best friend is her neighbor, Allie, who wears her hair like Twiggy (see the image to the left), a popular British model in the late 60’s, nicknamed after her slender figure. Hillary and Allie grew up playing in the forest that surrounds their homes, and even have a tree they like to climb (where they talk about their problems and dreams), looking something like the big cedar tree to the right below.
The story really gets going when the girls go on a school field trip to the Cloisters in New York City, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (See my previous post, Cloister Me.)
While examining the Unicorn Tapestries housed there (see my previous post, Unicornucopia), something happens that imprints the unicorn in her heart. She becomes obsessed by unicorn lore and learns everything about them, especially their use as a symbol in medieval art.
That’s all I’m telling for now, but at a later date I’ll spill more about Allie and Hillary, and about Robin, the boy they both fall for. And about how complicated things get for all three of them when life imitates art.
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Unicornucopia
Last month I promised I would post about the Unicorn Tapestries that hang in The Cloisters (see my post Cloister Me). They have special meaning for me. I first saw them as a freshman in high school on a field trip. And they figure largely in the mystical fantasy I am writing, about a high school freshman who is uniquely impacted by seeing the Unicorn Tapestries while on a field trip to The Cloisters (any similarities between this character and, um, any living person is strictly a coincidence).
Picture found on http://thinkmuseum.wordpress.com/tag/metropolitan-museum-of-art/
1. The Start of the Hunt
Taken together, the tapestries tell an allegory that would have been familiar to medieval audiences. The story is called The Hunt of the Unicorn as an Allegory of the Passion. It begins with a scene of hunters equipped with spears and dogs.
The second tapestry is called The Unicorn is Found. A unicorn dips its horn into a stream flowing out of the fountain. The hunters stand by and watch, as do a group of assorted animals, including lions, pheasants, a hyena, and a deer. According to legend, serpents could release their venom into streams, and any person or animal drinking the water would die. The unicorn purified the water with his horn, making it safe to drink again. Interpreting the allegory, the serpent is Satan, and the venom is sin. Anyone who partakes of it dies. The unicorn is Christ. He purifies the stream, counteracting sin, and restores life. Because of this legend, unicorn horn was a highly sought-after prize in the middle ages, and royal families reportedly owned them. Wealthy nobles might have a piece of one. They were used at the table to purify food and drink, since poison was a fairly common means of murder in those days. (Click on the images below for a larger view.)
2. The Unicorn is Found
3. The Unicorn Leaps Out of the Stream
4. The Unicorn at Bay
The next tapestry is called The Unicorn Leaps out of the Stream. The unicorn is surrounded by hunters with spears drawn, tormenting him, just the Roman soldiers beat and mocked Christ. Then in the next tapestry, The Unicorn at Bay, the attacks escalate, and the fierce unicorn fights back.
5. The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn
The next tapestry, The Mystic Hunt of the Unicorn, is parenthetical to the story, and is partially destroyed. The two fragments that remain show the unicorn being attacked by dogs in a fenced garden. At his side is a woman who appears to be signaling a hunter standing a short distance away. This is addressing another legend about the unicorn, that it is so fierce it can only by tamed by a virgin. In the allegory, the hunter is the angel Gabriel, by whose announcement the unicorn (Christ) succumbs to Mary and becomes incarnate. The woman we see, however, in not Mary. The portion of the tapestry showing Mary is gone. If you look carefully at the unicorn’s neck, you can see Mary’s fingers caressing his mane, and her sleeve below the unicorn’s goatee.
6. The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle
The unicorn is pictured twice on the tapestry called The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle. In the upper left hand corner he’s being stabbed with the hunters’ spears and bitten by their dogs; in the center, he’s dead and hanging over a horse’s back.
Finally my favorite tapestry, The Unicorn in Captivity. The unicorn, alive but wounded, sits corralled within a little fence. This is the quintessential depiction of a unicorn, probably familiar to everyone.
When the Bible was being translated into English from 1604-1611 (known as the King James Version), the scholars didn’t know how to translate the Hebrew word reym. As far as they could tell, it was a swift, fierce, horned animal. That suggested a unicorn to them. The word appears nine times in the KJV. Subsequent translations say “wild ox” in its place.
Did the unicorn ever really exist? Sightings of unicorns have been documented going back to the third century B.C. If you search on YouTube, you can find dozens of cheesy videos of unicorn sightings along with the UFOs, chupacabra, and bigfoot. Unicorns appear in the historic household inventories of royal families all over the world. Who knows? But isn’t it interesting it was such a pervasive theme in old literature and art? And so beautifully crafted in the legendary Unicorn Tapestries.
7. The Unicorn in Captivity
Jul22
Cloister Me
I have loved The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to medieval art and architecture, since I visited it on a field trip when I was a freshman in high school. In fact, it is the setting of the second chapter of the novel I’m writing about a high school freshman who, um, visits The Cloisters on a field trip (any similarities between this story and my life are strictly <ahem> coincidental).
Near the northern tip of Manhattan in Fort Tryon Park, its location atop a wooded hill makes you think you’re far away from New York City. Standing on the terrace overlooking the Hudson River, you almost believe you are somewhere in Europe long, long ago.
The word cloister means “a covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a wall on one side and a colonnade open to a quadrangle on the other.” The museum building is largely assembled from architectural elements from ruins of European monasteries, with authentic columns supporting the arches of the walkways. The structure suggests, rather than duplicates, parts of the originals. There are four open courtyards, planted with herbs and flowers you might have found in a medieval garden. There is even a chapel constructed in gothic style.
Gathered within the walls of The Cloisters are masterpieces of sculptures, tapestries (including the famous Unicorn Tapestries, to which I will devote a future post), stained glass, paintings, old illustrated manuscripts, and metal artifacts. Looking at these treasures awakens a sense of wonder at the vision and craftsmanship of artists long dead. (The photographs in this article are from metmuseum.org and commons.wikimedia.org. Click on the pictures below for a better view.)
But more than anything else, it’s the setting that appeals to me. I’ve been there three times in my life, and each visit touched me deeply. I remember the place so vividly. The hushed peacefulness, despite crowds of museum guests. It is truly a sanctuary, a holy place.
Is there a place that speaks to you, that moves you to your very core? Share below in the comments.
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