The tapestry is drawing crowds to the British Museum – and each person who sees it will draw a different meaning from this epic, vivid artwork
I have seen the Bayeux tapestry four times since childhood, and loved it on each viewing, for the sheer miracle of its survival and the glorious vividness of its detail. But the fourth time, earlier this week, was different – how could it not be?
Tapestrymania has taken hold in London. The textile has been proffered as a diplomatic symbol, the occasion for crowned heads and presidents to mingle and speechify. And, assuming you agree that it was embroidered in England by Englishwomen’s hands (since many scholars argue it was likely stitched in Canterbury rather than Bayeux, Normandy – the tapestry’s home), it is charged with the potency of return, rather than simply of arrival.