Art is the Solution

À mon seul désir Source: Wikimedia Commons When we think of art, the first things that come to mind are often paintings or sculptures. Today, however, I want to talk about a different type of art: tapestries. While tapestries were and are produced by many cultures throughout the world, they were especially common in Medieval Europe. Unfortuantely, not many of those tapestries have survived to the present day. The Lady and the Unicorn is one of the finest examples of these surviving tapestries. The Lady and the Unicorn is a set of six tapestries created in France during the sixteenth century. Each tapestry depicts a woman in the company of a unicorn; the scenes are set on a red background strewn with hundreds of tiny flowers and animals. Five of the tapestries represent the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The sixth tapestry—which bears the words “À Mon Seul Désir”—is harder to interpret. This phrase translates to "to my only/sole desire" or "accor...

The Unicorn in Captivity Source:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art Medieval art has a special kind of charm. In many ways it is stranger and more complex than the vaunted sculptures and paintings of the Renaissance period, offering a nuanced look into the spiritual and psychological life of those who lived through one of the most transformative and turbulent periods of Western history. Typically, medieval art is rich in symbolism, and the Unicorn Tapestries (housed in the MET Museum) are no exception. The MET describes them as “among the most beautiful and complex works of art from the late Middle Ages that survive.” There are seven tapestries in the series, each depicting a scene from the hunt for the unicorn, a mythical beast surrounded by countless layers of allegorical and (somewhat) esoteric meaning. The unicorn is a creature shrouded in mysticism. In Western legend, a unicorn can only be touched by a virgin, making it a symbol of purity and grace. Some medieval texts al...