Unicorn Tapestries

No one really knows the story behind the Unicorn Tapestries, which hang in the Cloisters. Do the seven tapestries depict a Christian allegory? Were they made to celebrate the wedding of a French queen --- and do they include pagan images of love and sex? Why did the weavers, probably about four to six young Flemish men who took about a year to weave each one, neaten the threads in the back, rather than leaving them in a tangle, as was common? The tapestries, while beautiful, are also heart-wrenchingly violent, showing as they do the hunt, capture, submission, and death of a unicorn. There's tension in this depiction of man's dominion over the animals. As viewers we're asked to revel in the hunters' success, but we're also asked to sympathize with the unicorn, who manages to do some violence of its own. Dominance, the weavers remind us, never comes without a cost.