U is for Unicorn

I remember reading a book once, that had to do with the famous Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters in New York. Perhaps it was a mystery, perhaps even a young adult mystery? I’m not sure. When I was a teenager, I loved unicorns, and my mom used to buy me beautiful wall calendars every year that featured pictures of them.

We have been to New York a couple of times, but I have never been to see the tapestries there, nor have I been to see the unicorn tapestries in Paris. Both seem like a beautiful way to spend an afternoon.

A bit of history that I have discovered this lazy Sunday morning, waiting for my family to wake up so we can walk Mulder (he resents when I call him, ‘the dog’, as he has a perfectly good name). I will share it here, in case you are interested. This site gives the below quick summary of the tapestries in New York, and then a more expanded history and interpretation, that I found interesting.

The Unicorn Tapestries, traditionally known as “The Hunt of the Unicorn,” are widely considered to be among the greatest artworks in existence.

Comprised of seven monumental tapestries—each measuring 12 feet tall and up to 14 feet wide—they depict exquisitely dressed noblemen with a team of huntsmen and hounds who pursue a unicorn through a flowering forest. The creature is found, slain, carried to a castle, and, in the series’s famous final panel, resurrected, resting in a garden within a circular fence.

Paris, meanwhile, has a somewhat more cheerful set of 6 unicorn tapestries, The Lady and the Unicorn, representing the 5 senses, and then something more…from the website linked above:

A sixth sense is represented in this sixth tapestry, which presents a further way of knowing the world. This sense seems to have not one, but multiple dimensions. Intellectually, it may be thought of as common sense, or “internal” sense. Morally, it may be understood to encapsulate neo-platonic philosophy’s emphasis on the soul as the source of beauty (read the “good”.) In terms of courtly rhetoric, the sixth sense may be thought of as the heart, the source of courtly love and the home of complex or competing forces – free will, carnal passion, desire.

Perhaps, next time I am in New York or Paris, I will visit these exquisite tapestries for myself. They are certainly stunning works of art.