Musee National du Moyen Age (Cluny) - Unicorn Tapestries
One of my favorite experiences while I was in Paris was a visit to the Musee National du Moyen Age (National Museum of the Middle Ages). Anna (sorry there's no link, she's gone private) and I rushed to get here on a rainy day toward the end of our week in Paris. It would be impossible for me to articulate the impact that these tapestries had on me and my views of artistic expression in the Middle Ages (which Anna will definitely appreciate). The Unicorn Tapestries are a six tapestries representing the 5 senses, and a 6th mystery tapestry. The viewing room (show in the bad picture above) makes the whole experience very intimate. There was also a sense of isolation added to the experience as the whole museum had scarcely any visitors that day. If you are in Paris, I would definitely say that this is a museum you should make time to visit. It's hard to see the magnificence of the colors and textures of these tapestries through pictures. Suffice it to say that I was immensely touched and impressed after 2-3 months of viewing countless tapestries across Britain in various museums and on sundry estates. Below is a picture of the 6th tapestry (the meaning of which is still unknown).
Although the Unicorn Tapestries were the most amazing part of that experience for me, and I walked through much of the rest of the museum in a daze, there were still so many other pieces of art that caught my attention. Here are two pictures of some other artifacts from the museum:
You can visit the museum's website here where you can browse through more of the collections or read in more detail about the tapestries themselves. Oh, and if I failed to mention it before, I hope you picked up that they are called the Unicorn Tapestries because there is a unicorn in each of them!
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