Editing Tapestry (section)

==Jacquard tapestries, colour and the human eye==
[[File:A Jacquard loom showing information punchcards, National Museum of Scotland.jpg|thumb|320px|A [[Jacquard loom]] showing information punchcards, [[National Museum of Scotland]]]]

The term ''tapestry'' may also be used to describe large figurative weft-faced textiles made on [[Jacquard loom]]s. Before the 1990s tapestry [[upholstery]] fabrics and reproductions of the famous tapestries of the [[Middle Ages]] had been produced using Jacquard techniques but more recently, artists such as [[Chuck Close]], [[Patrick Lichty]], and the workshop [[Magnolia Editions]] have adapted the
computerised Jacquard process to producing fine art.<ref>Sheets, Hilarie M. [http://www.artnews.com/2012/09/19/looms-with-a-view/ "Looms with a View"]. Retrieved 2013-02-13.</ref>
Typically, tapestries are translated from the original design via a process resembling [[paint-by-number]]s: a [[cartoon]] is divided into regions, each of which is assigned a solid colour based on a standard palette. However, in [[Jacquard weaving]], the repeating series of multicoloured warp and weft threads can be used to create colours that are optically blended – i.e., the human eye apprehends the threads' combination of values as a single colour.<ref name="Stone"/>

This method can be likened to [[pointillism]], which originated from discoveries made in the tapestry medium. The style's emergence in the 19th century can be traced to the influence of [[Michel Eugène Chevreul]], a French chemist responsible for developing the colour wheel of primary and intermediary hues. Chevreul worked as the director of the dye works at Les Gobelins tapestry works in [[Paris]], where he noticed that the perceived colour of a particular thread was influenced by its surrounding threads, a phenomenon he called "simultaneous contrast". Chevreul's work was a continuation of theories of colour elaborated by [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and [[Goethe]]; in turn, his work influenced painters including [[Eugène Delacroix]] and [[Georges-Pierre Seurat]]. {{citation needed|date=November 2011}}

The principles articulated by Chevreul also apply to contemporary television and computer displays, which use tiny dots of red, green and blue ([[RGB]]) light to render colour, with each composite being called a [[pixel]].<ref name="Stone">Stone, Nick. [http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/Content/PressRelease/Magnolia_Tapestry_Proj.pdf "Jacquard Weaving and the Magnolia Tapestry Project"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106002719/http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/Content/PressRelease/Magnolia_Tapestry_Proj.pdf |date=2009-01-06 }}.</ref>

<gallery mode="packed">
File:EB1911 Tapestry - Fig. 3.png|[[Penelope]] at her [[warp-weighted loom|warp-weighted]] tapestry loom, after an [[Ancient Greek vase]]
File:Chantier de fouilles à Morigny-Champigny en juin 2012 24 (cropped to bones).jpg|Tapestry bones actually made from [[cannonbone]]s, replica [[Gallo-Roman]]
File:Principaux outils de la tapisserie de basse lisse sur le métier à tisser (flûtes, grattoir, peigne, poinçon).jpg|Tapestry tools on a loom: mirror, bones (wrapped with yarn), scraper (with short teeth), heavy comb (double-ended, to batten the weft), and [[awl (disambiguation)|awl]] (tip hidden).
File:Wandtapijt Nieuwe Kerk Middelburg.webm|A power loom in the TextielMuseum, Tilburg weaving a tapestry for the [[Niewe Kerk Middelburg]].
</gallery>