the Cluny Museum reopens after 11 years of renovation

He Cluny Museum The National Museum of the Middle Ages, in Paris, is known for conserving one of the most famous works of art in the world: The lady and the unicornThe call "Gioconda medieval". The institution reopens its doors after a comprehensive reform that lasted 11 years and had a budget of 23 million euros.

“The museum enters the 21st century with a total renovation, ranging from the monuments to all interior spaces, as well as the remodeling of the museography”, says Séverine Lepape, director of the center. “The Cluny Museum now has a modern atmosphere, respecting the soul and identity of the medieval museum with new concrete and wood panels; gained in light and serenity, something that contributes to the splendor of the collection.”

“With the new presentation of the works —says the director—, the museum fully fulfills its main mission: to make comprehensible all facets of the Middle Ages, from the most precious arts to the most everyday realities of a period of more than a thousand years supported by a highly complex system of values and cultural references that underlie the construction of today's Europe. The Middle Ages are not the dark ages that the humanists and the enlightened spoke of, nor the golden age that the 19th century romantics imagined”. And he concludes: “Cluny is the only medieval museum whose building is also medieval. In fact, its extremely rare architectural heritage makes it unique.”

Located in the heart of Paris' Latin Quarter, the Cluny Museum is the result of the enigmatic intertwining of three architectural ensembles: important Gallo-Roman baths from the 1st century built at the time of Lutetia —the old Paris— of Julius Caesar; the residence of the abbots of Cluny, the medieval private mansion oldest in Paris, from the 15th century; and the 19th century interventions that led to the creation of the museum in 1843.

To these different strata now brought together, an entrance was added with contemporary architecture. The medieval-inspired garden offers a pleasant extension to the visit and establishes an original connection between the collections, the building and the urban environment.

an extraordinary collection

the collection of 24,000 works from the Cluny Museum provides an exceptional panorama that illustrates the extraordinary diversity of European artistic creation in medieval times: paintings, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass, gold or ivory pieces. “The museum opens with a new tour organized chronologically and displayed in 21 rooms, through a selection of 1,600 works, from the oldest pieces of goldsmithing from the Bronze Age and celtic jewelry to the most modern, a monumental triptych of the Assumption of the Virgin, an altarpiece made in the 16th century by the workshops of Adriaen Isenbrant”, explains Lepape.

Thus, the new route starts from Gallo-Roman Antiquity and culminates at the dawn of the Renaissance, taking visitors on a journey from Lutetia to Constantinople across the Mediterranean and from Brabant to Germany.

Among the most prestigious pieces are sculptures of Notre Dame de Paris cathedrallike that of the beautiful Adam, or the gold rose —a gift that the Pope offered during Lent to a devotee— the oldest survivor, from Basel Cathedral, by master Minucchio da Siena. Also the Virgin and Child from the 15th century, oil painting (an innovative technique at the time) on wood, by Jean Hey.

Among the secular everyday objects on display, a game boxsuch as chess or backgammon, made with precious materials: ivory, ebony and walnut, and belonging to a noble family.

Works related to Spain

Sophie Lagabrielle, curator of the Museum and specialist in the art of stained glass, explains other unique pieces, such as the fragments of stained glass from the Basilica of Saint-Denis, very important “because they represent the origin of the art of stained glass”, or stained glass in Gothic buildings from the 13th century of Sainte Chapelle, gathered in the same room. “He ordered them to be Louis IX, the great king of the Middle Ages, son of Blanca de Castillawho captured with images his Castilian origins together with his mother, as well as the use of color, as he combined the blue and red of France, the gold of Castile and castle motifs”.

Another masterpiece related to Spain are three crowns and several crosses of the Visigothic kingdom of ToledoKnown as guard treasure, place of its discovery in the 19th century. The director explains the acquisition: “The owner of the lands sold them to the Monnaie de Paris (the currency of Paris), and in 1941 Franco agreed with Pétain on an exchange whereby some crowns were returned to Spain, so we only had three crowns left.”

'Lady and the Unicorn', the star of Cluny

The chronological installation ends with the star of the Cluny collection: The lady and the unicornconsidered O Gioconda medieval for how fascinating its refined beauty and the mysteries that surround it are. Materially surprising, it is one of the most beautiful creations of Western art.

It is a set of six tapestries sumptuously intertwined in silk and fine wool, made with the millefleurs technique (“a thousand flowers” ​​due to its abundant flora and paradisiacal nature) and using a wide chromatic range of more than a hundred shades made from rich natural dyes. The model's painter was known as “Master of the Very Little Hours of Anne of Brittany” (so called because he designed the tiny book of hours for this French queen), a prominent French artist, although they were woven in the most skillful workshops in Europe. silk of the time, in the south of Holland.

The set, rediscovered in 1841 by Prosper Mérimée in the castle of Boussac (Creuse) and celebrated privately by George Sand and Rainer Maria Rilke, it was acquired in 1882 by Edmond du Sommerard, first director of the Cluny Museum.

The series was ordered around 1500, when the art of tapestry was at full maturity, probably by Jean IV, lord of Arcy and head of the Le Viste de Lyon family, close to the royal family, whose coats of arms are present on the tapestries. The order was for a series of five tapestries, and each represents one of the five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch, showing the “lady” of the title alongside the mythical creature of the unicorn, a lion and other animals on a red background. In all of them, the lady is performing some action that aims to exemplify the meaning in question.

However, there are six tapestries and the mystery remains to be solved of the interpretation of this last piece, which bears the inscription: “À mon seul désir” (Only by my will). In this sixth tapestry the lady is represented returning jewels (used in other tapestries) to a chest that the maid gives her in front of a marquee where these four words are read, taken from a verse by the famous poet Charles d'Orléans (1394 -1465) , and which has inspired numerous hypotheses.

Its action is not linked to sensorial or empirical experience, as in the other five previous tapestries, but is driven by some alternative force, closer to the soul or the world of spirits, which may be the heart, source of courtly beauty.

Without excluding a meaning in the record of Polite lovecould also designate the free will: the woman, dressed in rich clothes and a beautiful headdress, renounces temporary material pleasures as a sign of her virtue, an expression of the dominance of her reason over the physical sensations she experiences in the other tapestries.

This multiple approach in the case of the queen is repeated in the unicorn dream figure represented in the six tapestries, and which incorporates overlapping symbolic and allegorical qualities. Representations of the unicorn raise numerous questions about how we come to know and how empirical knowledge exists alongside tradition, culture, imagination, and creative expression.

“The unicorn is a figure that has intrigued travelers, seduced artists and made poets dream,” says director Séverine Lepape. "In the Middle Ages, it was thought that the unicorn really existed; in fact, Marco Polo returned from his travels noting that he had seen unicorns, which were probably rhinos.”

Lepape adds: “Medieval thought was characterized by allowing multiple meanings that complemented each other without excluding each other. The masterpiece The lady and the unicorn, with its accumulation of meanings and mysteries, masterfully embodies the complexity that laid the foundations of the Middle Ages. At the same time, it symbolizes what is highest in medieval art, an art of refined forms, of overwhelming simplicity, but made with exquisite materials.”

The six tapestries were completely renovated between 2012 and 2013 with cultural sponsorship from Japan. “The restoration revealed all the details, excellent savoir-faire, artisanal work down to the millimeter and by hand, which now, unfortunately, would be impossible. It is, however, an example that we must follow”, says conservative Sophie Lagabrielle. “When restoring, the colors of the first 19th century reform disappeared and the originals from the Middle Ages were discovered, high quality natural dyes. The sublime survives over time and that is the great lesson.”

The restored tapestries are presented in a new scenario which enhances the colors, very intimate, facilitating the visitor's direct contact with the work and following an order of presentation that ranges from the most material senses (touch) to the most spiritual (vision). “The scenario is more suggestive. We recreated the type of space where tapestries were hung in the Middle Ages”, adds the director, who concludes: “The lady and the unicorn It is a mysterious work, like the Gioconda; a work that invites contemplation and from which something new is always discovered. When, after a busy day at work, I go to the “lady’s” room, contemplating her mysteriously calms and soothes me.”

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