The Lady and the Unicorn

Finally, I'm going to actually post something on this blog! First, a little introduction: I am challenging myself to read 52 books from countries around the world in 2012. It's a crazy idea, and I am very far behind, but if/when I finish, I am sure that I will be glad to have done it.

So, the first book I read was The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. The geographical setting of this book was twofold- back and forth between Paris, France and Brussels, Belgium. It is set in the late 1400s, and I found it to be both an entertaining and an enlightening read. The story centered around an artist, Nicolas des Innocents, and a tapestry-weaver, Georges de la Chapelle. The tapestries mentioned in the title are a set of 6 tapestries, and they are currently held in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. I know far more now than I did before I read this about tapestry weaving- and it was very labor-intensive work. Tapestries would take months or years to weave. First, a cartoonist would enlarge the original images so that they would fit well on the tapestry frame and would add millefleurs (tiny flower designs) all over the background so that there was not too much empty space. Then the tapestry loom would be set up and the tapestry woven, carefully, by hand. One of the characters in this book was blind, and the description of the way she sensed things without vision I found most intriguing- though I'm not sure how accurate it could have been. So, on that rather random little note, I'm signing off my first post to go eat pizza!