Even though, quite often, when we think of art, tapestries don’t immediately come to mind, they represent a form which, from an aesthetic point of view, has always existed at the intersection between functionality and contemplative experience. Mistakenly perceived as wall décor, tapestry carries within its weave complex visual narratives, symbols, and meanings deeply rooted in history. Another angle from which we can view tapestries is by comparing them to other artistic media, namely painting or sculpture. While tapestry possesses attributes that bring it closer to the materiality of sculpture, it is, through its manner of display, primarily perceived visually, similar to paintings, opening a path of dialogue that includes, beyond visual elements, an implicit tactile nature. 

In addition to these formal aspects, tapestries also possess, as previously stated, the ability to gather within their threads stories and symbols that cover not only the walls on which they are displayed but also the walls that shape each viewer’s imagination. This narrative function may not be fully understood today, as the act of reading a work of art becomes more difficult in light of the overwhelming amount of visual clutter we process daily. The information we can extract from the weave of tapestries also comes from the materials used, from traditional wool to contemporary synthetic fibers. Thus, through the meticulous work required to create each tapestry and through the materials and skill of the artists who weave, the traditional artistic object remains relevant by bringing ancient creative practices into the present, preserving a memory of time and of the creative gesture. 

Tapestry Between Cultural Memory and Representation 

In the medieval period, tapestries also played the role of documenting historical, mythological, or religious events, being forms of preserving and promoting history. Numerous tapestries have been preserved in good condition to this day, although it is difficult to determine which might be the oldest, as the natural fibers used deteriorate easily, meaning that found remnants may belong to other historical objects. At the same time, one of the common confusions is between tapestry and embroidery, tapestry being a work of art created mainly using a loom and involving the creation of the actual image directly into the structure of the work, while embroidery involves stitching the image onto an already existing fabric. 

There is a rich attestation of tapestries from around the 11th century, one of the most discussed being the Bayeux Tapestry, dated around the year 1070 and having the impressive dimensions of approximately 70 meters in length and half a meter in width. Despite its initial classification as a tapestry, it seems to be more of an embroidery that recounts the Norman conquest of England, which began in 1066. The tapestry illustrates the Battle of Hastings and also includes the scene of the death of King Harold Godwinson, which marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon period and the beginning of the Norman period, with the coronation of King William I on Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey. 

We see how, historically, tapestries retain, at their level, attestations of real events and how, through the technique used, they leave much more room for imagination than, for example, a historical photograph. The elaborate handwork, as well as other examples of tapestries that appeal to a fantastical register, stand as testimony to this mythological dimension that tapestries hold. An example in this sense is the series of tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn, from 16th-century Flanders. The set of six tapestries illustrates, in general understanding, the five senses, with the sixth tapestry remaining mysterious in terms of its meaning. 

Medieval tapestry not only records the past but visually reconfigures it through a symbolic and meticulous language, in which history intertwines with myth. Between document and fantasy, these works become true maps of collective memory. 

The Contemporary Revaluation of Tapestry 

Unjustly seen as an art of the past, most likely due to the age of its practice, in the contemporary period there is a revival of tapestry, as a result of the democratization of art and the popularization of various new artistic media. In this context, a revaluation of tapestry art takes place through its positive appreciation as a medium of introspection, symbolism, and identity reconstruction. In the current exhibition at WIN Gallery, there are tapestries created by Cela Neamțu, Marijana Bițulescu, and Carmen Tepșan. The three artists offer us very different examples of tapestry from a stylistic point of view, their main focal points being anchored either in the medieval aspect, in symbolism organized around a constantly repeated axis mundi, or in the formal and symbolic fragmentation of the tapestry. 

Cela Neamțu encodes within the weave of the tapestry (which also includes embroidery) Umbrae Parvae XIV a non-religious, airy, implicit sacredness, which is immediately perceived by the viewer. Starting from the numerological elements, the windows in the 4-3-4 arrangement, of which the three central windows are decorated with a twisted column, and ending with the church-like aspect of these windows, the feeling that overtakes you in front of this two-meter by one-meter work is that you are standing before a medieval monument, a possible wall materialized before us. This wall opens to us not only through these windows but also through the light suggested by the color of the fabric, which appears to be organized in three registers: blue/white in the upper part, transitioning to yellow in the middle part, and ending with a dark blood-red in the lower part. 

On the other hand, Marijana Bițulescu seems to organize the works in the current WIN Gallery collection around an axis mundi repeated in various forms. Beyond the tapestry titled Axis Mundi, the work Construction – The Price of Progress brings to the viewer’s attention the fact that this "price of progress" may be natural beauty itself. In Marijana’s tapestry, a golden column encircled by red fabrics, similar to construction reinforcements, is split vertically, with an amalgam of flowers and leaves visible inside. The contrast between artificial and natural is thus revisited, the tapestry offering us a meditative exercise on the topic of limitless development and the cost that, sooner or later, we must pay. 

Lastly, Carmen Tepșan offers another example of tapestry through the work Triptych. It stands out through a vertical triptych composition, in which space is fragmented into distinct color bands: blue, yellow, and gray. These suggest a discontinuous narrative rhythm, like a visual reading in sequences. The figure of the giraffe, a recognizable element placed in the center, introduces an organic and archetypal register, in contrast with the abstract arrow form and the deformed anatomical shapes on the right. The tapestry seems to place in tension the animalistic, the symbolic, and the technical, using symbols that invite personal interpretation. The limited but intense color palette offers a balance between the poetics of form and an almost brutalist geometry. This is a work that speaks of internal visual codes, of layered memory, and of how textile matter can become a space of both abstract and figurative thought. 

Tapestry is, in essence, an art form that transcends time, material, and simple decorative functionality. Between historical document, symbolic manifesto, and identity reflection, this visual medium possesses a unique capacity to preserve and transform meaning. Through meticulous technique, memory-laden materiality, and the visual discourse it proposes, tapestry remains a relevant artistic language, one that not only preserves the past but rewrites it. In the hands of contemporary female artists, it once again becomes a space for exploring the self and the world, a place where images can become critical, where myths can be reactivated, and where the creative gesture takes on a meditative dimension. Some threads never truly break, but are patiently reknotted into other forms, other stories, other woven silences. 

Ph.D. Researcher Andrei FĂȘIE