Not every work of art worth a fuss has to be oil on canvas, yet from the start of art history as a discipline, paintings have ruled museum galleries and curatorial mindsets.
It’s called “the hierarchy” and puts painting on top and the art of, say, textiles on the bottom. I’m happy to write about good paintings, but then there’s silver, fashion, furniture, dinosaur bones, presidential libraries, and tapestry — that most elite of Old Master staples rediscovered by French Modernists and sumptuously displayed in the Clark Art Institute’s Wall Power!, a show I’ve seen twice. It’s a gift that keeps on giving, filled as it is with beauty, energy, and surprise. I wrote about a French wallpaper show in Providence a couple of weeks ago. Why not tapestries?
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