Tapestries

The Unicorn Tapestries

Tapestries

Tapestries uncovers the unique patterns that you weave throughout life. At a time of immense interest in biography, here is a unique set of keys to understanding the pattern and rhythms of your life. The unfolding phases of life are presented as the 'warp' of personal growth. You are invited to consider the 'shuttle' of the threads you use as the 'weft' of your life story. These threads include your temperament, gender, love, family, ethnicity, birth order, and developing relationships. A vivid picture of adult growth is presented. You can follow twelve very different people and their stories as they go through each life phase and wonder what will happen next. You can consider how you would respond to the choices they face. Life's dilemmas are explored: career versus parenting and choices related to old age. This opens up options: which roads to take in life and encouragement to reflect.

The Unicorn Tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Among the most popular attractions at The Cloisters, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a set of tapestries depicting the hunt of the fabled unicorn. Each of the seven exquisite tapestries is reproduced in large colorplates and with a wealth of color details. Created in the Netherlands in 1495-1505, they contain supremely memorable images - from the vulnerable unicorn and the individualized faces of the hunters to the naturalistically depicted flora and fauna. The author also looks at the construction of the tapestries and the historical and cultural context in which they were woven.