ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

- CONTENT--
Tapestry (), or trellis, is one of the types of decorative art, a wall one-sided hairless carpet with a plot or ornamental composition, woven by hand with cross-weaving threads. The weaver passes the filament through the base, creating both the image and the fabric itself. In the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, a tapestry is defined as “a handmade woven carpet on which a painting and deliberately prepared cardboard of a more or less famous artist are reproduced with multicolored wool and partly with silk.”

The tapestries were made of wool, silk, sometimes gold or silver threads were introduced into them. Currently, a variety of materials are used for the manufacture of carpets by hand: threads made of synthetic and artificial fibers are preferred, natural materials are used to a lesser extent. The technique of hand weaving is laborious, one master can perform about 1-1.5 m2 per year (depending on the density) of trellises, so these products are available only to wealthy customers. Today, handmade tapestry continues to be an expensive work.

From the Middle Ages until the XIX century, the production of tapestries in series was practiced, in which compositions related to one theme were combined. This set of tapestries was intended to decorate the room in a single style. The number of tapestries in the series depended on the size of the rooms in which they were supposed to be placed. In the same style as trellises for walls, pologs, curtains, pillowcases, also making up the set, were made.

Etymology of terms
Different terms have been used at different times and in different countries to define woven carpet. In Greek and Latin, the words “tapes” () and “tapetum” () respectively meant both carpet and veil, tablecloth. They subsequently became the basis in different languages for the designation of works of tapestry weaving.

According to the name of the city of Arras, where in the XIV century flourished the production of bright tapestries using gold and silver threads, such carpets in Europe were called arazzi () or arras (, ), and in Italy any lilaless carpets are called "arazzo" (many arazzi) and now.

In the XVI century, the word verdure arose (from greens, grass, foliage). Initially, the so-called images of animals and birds against the background of nature, but soon this name was fixed for the very works of tapestry weaving, originating from Audenarde, the center of production of verdures from the XVII century.

The word tapestry originated in France in the XVII century, when the royal tapestry factory opened there. Manufactory products were very popular, and in some countries tapestry was called everything that was performed in the technique of tapestry weaving. According to experts, the term tapestry should refer only to the works of the tapestries manufactory, but others should be called tapestries. The French term tapisserie refers to all artistic textiles. In Russia in scientific lit