kora in hell | arts

andy goldsworthy

2007-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature

Andy Goldsworthy was born in Chesire, England and currently resides in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He studied at Bradford School of Art and Preston Polytechnic and has been producing work since the mid 1970s. Goldsworthy works directly with nature, using a variety of materials including leaves, twigs, flower petals, pinecones, sand, snow and stone. Much of his work addresses issues of growth and decay, seasonal cycles; and the idea that an artwork too has a natural life that eventually must end. Goldsworthy finds a richness of understanding in revisiting certain forms such as mounds, holes, arches, spirals, and lines each revealing a different facet of its constructive material. Goldsworthy has produced over 70 commissions for organizations and collections throughout the world, such as the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Abbeystead Estates, Duchess of Westminster, Lancaster; and Stanford University, California Andy Goldswothy was born in Chesire, England and currently resides in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He studied at Bradford School of Art and Preston Polytechnic and has been producing work since the mid 1970s. Goldsworthy works directly with nature, using a variety of materials including leaves, twigs, flower petals, pinecones, sand, snow and stone. Much of his work addresses issues of growth and decay, seasonal cycles; and the idea that an artwork too has a natural life that eventually must end. Goldsworthy finds a richness of understanding in revisiting certain forms such as mounds, holes, arches, spirals, and lines each revealing a different facet of its constructive material. Goldsworthy has produced over 70 commissions for organizations and collections throughout the world, such as the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Abbeystead Estates, Duchess of Westminster, Lancaster; and Stanford University, California. Andy Goldsworthy was born in Chesire, England and currently resides in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He studied at Bradford School of Art and Preston Polytechnic and has been producing work since the mid 1970s. Goldsworthy works directly with nature, using a variety of materials including leaves, twigs, flower petals, pinecones, sand, snow and stone. Much of his work addresses issues of growth and decay, seasonal cycles; and the idea that an artwork too has a natural life that eventually must end. Goldsworthy finds a richness of understanding in revisiting certain forms such as mounds, holes, arches, spirals, and lines each revealing a different facet of its constructive material. Goldsworthy has produced over 70 commissions for organizations and collections throughout the world, such as the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; The Getty Musum, Los Angeles; Abbeystead Estates, Duchss of Westminster, Lancaster; and Stanford University, California. Biography Source: Haines Gallery

resources

andy goldsworthy portfolio
sheepfolds : a major Cumbria-wide sculpture, landscape and environment project with the internationally renowned sculptor
artcyclopaedia
artnet
bibliography : forthcoming (or do a search on Powell's search engine box at right)

isamu noguchi

2007-03-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

ISAMU NOGUCHI
November 17, 1904 - December 30, 1988

Isamu Noguchi was a sculptor, designer, architect, and craftsman. Throughout his life he struggled to see, alter, and recreate his natural surroundings. His gardens and fountains were transformations meant to bring out the beauty their locations had always possessed. His large abstract stone sculptures were both majestic and personal. He believed that through sculpture and architecture, one could better understand the struggle with nature. It is that search for understanding which brings together his many and varied works. Isamu Noguchi was born Isamu Gilmour in Los Angeles in 1904 to Leonie Gilmour, an Irish-American teacher and editor, and Yone Noguchi, a Japanese poet. It is the cultural divide between his parents, between East and West, between two distinct histories of art and thought, that would engage him his entire life. In 1906, Noguchi's mother took him to Japan, where he attended Japanese and Jesuit schools. While in Japan, Noguchi gained an appreciation for its landscape, architecture and craftsmanship. Later his mother sent him to Indiana to attend a progressive boarding school she had read about in a magazine. After high school Noguchi enrolled in Columbia University to study medicine, while at the same time taking sculpture classes on the Lower East Side. It wasn't long before he realized that art, not medicine, was his true calling. He left school and found a studio where he could sculpt full-time. While in Manhattan he became acquainted with the work of the Surrealists and with contemporary abstract sculpture. These interests led him to Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship, where he met and worked with the great modernist sculptor, Constantin Brancusi. Brancusi's engagement with the abstract and his belief in understanding the pre-disposed forms of his materials made a strong impression on Noguchi. While in Paris he also met the sculptors Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti. Source: PBS American Masters

He was also an important landscape architect known for public works as well as his stagee sets for Martha Graham productions.

A number of his mass-produced furniture pieces and lamps are still being manufactured and are considered icons of twentieth century interior design.

[ IN-50 COFFEE TABLE, 1944 ]

[ AKARI LIGHT SCULPTURES, 1960S ]

the noguchi museum

isamu noguchi pbs american masters

artcylopaedia noguchi online

moma noguchi collection

metropolitan museum of art

design museum

walter art center (includes videos)

isamu noguchi at the smithsonian sackler-freer gallery (online exhibit: isamu noguchi and modern japanese ceramics)

misc.

slate.com : a slide show essay by lee siegel : "hybrid model: isamu noguchi went beyond modernism"

noguchi california scenario

portland's wurst gallery

2007-02-21T22:46:00.000-08:00

Portland has great art galleries and the wurst gallery looks like it could also be its most fun:

Check out their current exhibit : the wurstminster

artists were invited to reserve a dog breed on a first come, first served basis. the only requirement was that the artist attempt to capture the look and spirit of their chosen breed in their own unique way. a portion of the proceeds from this show will be donated to DoveLewis animal hospital in portland, oregon.

I just wish I liked the Wire Fox Terrier better. The Norwich and the Scottie are great however.

I like everything about Portland: great art, great music, great lit, and the best bookstore in the world. It just rains too damn much. I couldn't take it. I'm not a jolly enough person to live with such persistent gloom. Under those conditions you have to have a sunny disposition in order to prevent yourself from perishing of grief.

saint-tropez and modern art

2007-02-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

Saint-Tropez (Municipality, Var, France)
In 1892, the painter Paul Signac (1863-1935), one of the leaders of the Pointillist school, sailing on his yacht Olympia, discovered the small fishers' village of Saint-Tropez.

Paul Signac. The Red Buoy, Saint-Tropez, 1895 Musée d'Orsay

He bought a house that he named La Hune (lit., the top [of a ship]) and transformed into his studio, where he invited his friends, such as Cross, Matisse, Derain and Marquet. Saint-Tropez became a main center of painting avant-garde of the early XXth century.

Henri Matisse, Luxe, calme et volupté (1905), Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The Museum of Annonciade
The Museum of Annonciade, housed since 1955 in a former chapel located on the port of Saint-Tropez and abandoned during the French Revolution, shows 56 paintings, dating from 1890-1950, bequeathed by the local collector Georges Grammont. The collection is fairly small but includes only masterpieces by painters from the Pointillist, Fauvist and Nabi schools. Among the painters exhibited there are André Derain, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Rouault, Georges Braque, Georges Seurat, Henri-Edmond Cross, Paul Signac, Raoul Dufy, Félix Vallotton, Albert Marquet, Aristide Maillol and Edouard Vuillard.

Paul Signac: Port St. Tropez, ( 1899)Musée de l'Annonciade, St. Tropez

Albert Marquet, Le port de Saint-Tropez (1905), Musée de l'Annonciade, Saint-Tropez

Pierre Bonnard , Le Port de Saint-Tropez, 1914, Saint-Tropez, musée de l'Annonciade

Paul Signac: French neo-impressionist painter 1863 - 1935

Artist's biography and a collection of his paintings

Recommended reading: Saint-Tropez: The Rise of an Artist Colony (an excellent illustrated online blog/article

Online Resources for Paul Signac:

Paul Signac Web Museum

Paul Signac Artchive

Paul Signac Artcyclopedia

Glossary:
Impressionism (n)/ Impressionist (adj)
A progressive art movement that originated in France in the late 19th century. Impressionist painters wanted to capture the rapidly changing modern world and the fleeting moods of nature. Impressionism relied on optical blending to depict the fluctuations of light and consisted largely of views of everyday middle-class life in the city and countryside of France.

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Garden at Sainte-Adresse, (1867) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. "Monet’s Garden at Sainte-Adresse depicts the artist’s aunt, father, and cousin relaxing on a seaside terrace."

Postimpressionism (n)/ Postimpressionist (adj)
The French artistic style that followed Impressionism. Such artists as Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec pushed beyond the Impressionist emphasis on the appearance of nature, stressing instead qualities such as emotional expression and the formal structure of underlying objects. Postimpressionism led to a variety of bold new styles, including innovative uses of color and brushwork that sometimes bordered on abstraction. (Click here to go read Gauguin's Tahitian Interiors : my post from Monday February 19, 2007)

Pointillism (n)
A theory and technique of applying small strokes or dots of color to a surface so that from a distance, they blend together; also called Neoimpressionism or Divisionism

Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte / Un dimanche après-midi à l'Ile de la Grande Jatte (1884-86) Art Institute of Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago
Art Access Glossary

gauguin's tahitian interiors

2007-02-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

Merahi metua no Tehamana
(Ancestors of Tehamana /Ancêtres de Tehamana)
1893 Art Institute of Chicago

Gauguin's Tahitian interiors are marked by elaborate patterns on walls and fabrics; often every surface is covered a complex mix of pattern and color as with the two paintings above (Ancestors of Tehamana) and below (Nevermore). In these two interiors we see richly symbolic spaces made up of layers of patterns, sculptures, and natural objects such as flowers, fruits and animals.

Nevermore, O Taiti / Plus jamais (1897)
Courtauld Institute Galleries, London

Ordinary objects are shown to have with spiritual significance, such as the fan in Ancestors of Tehamana.

Gauguin's repeated use of certain objects such as mangos, which have such powerful symbolic associations with sex and fecundity makes us attentive to the mangos in the foreground of What's New? and Woman Brooding (below).

Tahitienne (Sur La Plage) / Tahitian Women (On the Beach
1891, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Interior and exterior spaces are not distinguished from each other by the use of naturalistic choices of color or light. It seems that Gauguin took his famous painting of his two women on the beach, Tahitienne and re-created it as an interior painting in What's New? There is very little to mark the change with the exception, perhaps, of some shading for floor boards and a hightened saturation that changes the coloring of the sand.

Parua Api? / What's New? / Quoi de neuf?
(1892) Gemaldegalerie Neue Meister, Dresden

In other interiors surfaces are covered--floor to ceiling with a single bright swath of color, as with the bright mango-colored floor below (Brooding Woman) and, conversely, the world of nature is a riot of colors, sometimes arranged in ritualistic patterns. The intensity of the spiritual world associated with nature often led Gauguin to create otherworldly images of the Tahitian landscape using bold, rich but unnatural colors, as seen in the painting The Day of the God below:

Mahana No Atua (Day of the Gods) 1894, Art Institute of Chicago

While the world of nature can be depicted in bright unnatural patterns and colors, inner spaces are sometimes bathed in more natural hues, as in Not Working (below). An almost identical space in Woman Brooding is bathed in the bright colors of blue and mango -- colors of the dress worn by the woman in Not Working.

Eiaha Ohipa Not Working Pas de travail (1896)
Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow

Te Faaturuma Woman Brooding (1891)
Worcester Art Museum

Note how the canvases mirror each other in the frame of the door, the dog sitting guard, and the figure in the distance. The figures appear to be (perhaps?) the abandoned wife in the white dress catching view of her husband with another women, and the unfaithful husband returning to his unhappy wife.

To varying degrees, like Gauguin's exterior imagery, his interior spaces are fantasies. These interiors are fantasies haunted by two things: the first is Gauguin himself. As brilliant as his work is, and it is brilliant, it is also awful. Some of it is unspeakably painful. He behaved in ways that were monstrous. That his work can give testimony to this behavior is not a redemption of him as a human being but it is of him as an artist. And everyone knows those are not always the same.

Manaò tupapau /L’esprit des morts veille (1892) Albright—Knox Art Gallery.
Contes barbares, (1902) Marquises Essen, Museum Folkwang.

From his earliest arrive in Tahiti to his final death in the Marquises his artistic motivations were always twisted into his personal demons and desires and as a result he left behind him a swath of destruction in the communities where he lived. While it may be true that our current ideas about decency (whatever they may be) may not be applicable to middled-aged French men and Polynesian girls a century ago, there is no greater testament to their misery than Gauguin's own paintings. Historical materials also provide evidence that there are certain ideas about human dignity and rights that are universal.

Finally, Gauguin's Tahitian paintings are in a sense all interior spaces haunted by the reality of Tahiti itself. Tahiti was not Gauguin's tropical escape from the world -- an unspoiled paradise -- but was becoming an increasingly modernized colonial state. Tahiti was the center of French Polynesia, an important trade center. In addition, most of the native peoples had been converted to Christianity by missionaries.

Ta Matete (We Shall Not Go to Market Today)
Jour de Marché (1892) Kunstmuseum Basel

The world that Gauguin paints is no less powerful for being imagined. Indeed it is all the more significant for its being the dream vision of a created by mad Robinson Crusoe driven to find the last island with a Garden of Eden until only finding populations whose decline he can only hasten with his own debauchery ultimately ending in alcholism and syphilis. This is the European avant-garde artistic statement of the primitive par excellance. Not even Picasso could surpass Gauguin when it came to that.

the basics:

paul gauguin b. 1848, Paris; d. 1903, Marquesas Islands

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Terminology :

Primitivism : definition from the Tate Collection online glossary
Expressionism : definition from the Tate Collection online glossary

Additional museum collections :

Paul Gauguin at the Hermitage : the best collection of Gauguin's Tahitian paintings available online
Paul Gauguin at the Art Institute of Chicago

Gauguin in New York Collections: The Lure of the Exotic : web site for the June 18, 2002–October 20, 2002 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additional online resources :

if not a room then a shrine

2007-02-10T04:03:00.000-08:00

. . . and an entire city

or some history on the devotion of space to domesticated cats .

Bastet

Note: portions of this text have been excerpted from: http://www.moggies.co.uk/bastet/bastet.html

Bast is an ancient Egyptian goddess, the Sacred Cat and her name means devouring lady. She is depicted as having the body of a woman and the head of a domestic cat. Her worship began around the year 3200 BCE during the second dynasty in northern Egypt and her city is Bubastis. There, and in many other ancient cities, Egyptians celebrated Bast's feast day, October 31st.

Though the cat-headed goddess Bast was revered and loved throughout Egypt from the earliest of times there were several cities sacred to her cult and which hosted several large, important and influential temples.

Among the dozen or so cities important to the Bast Cult, none was more important or holy than Bubastis. During the Bubastite period (22nd dynasty), cat cemeteries became popular, and a huge profusion of cat amulets were being made. Cats were mummified and ritually buried.

FUN FACT: You can still purchase Bastet amulets including one with the image of a mummified cat:

Click on image above to order one from the Freer Sackler shop. It is the perfect pendant to wear when you want to tell people: "I like cats and I'm kind of sick in the head."

In 640 AD Bubastis was still alive and people were still worshipping cats there.

Cats were very sacred animals to the ancient Egyptians. They held a high, honoured position in many households and were more important even than humans. Cats were demigods in ancient Egypt. Anyone caught harming or killing a cat, even by accident, was punished by death, for cats guarded the royal granaries keeping them relatively free from vermin which threatened the food supplies.

She is also the goddess of shoppers:
the handbag is an important object in Bastet rituals.

The cult of Bastet was centered in Bubastis (located in the delta region, near modern- day Zagazig) from at least the 4th Dynasty. The famous Temple Ruins of Bast at Bubastis (Per-Bast in Tameran, today Tell-Basta). The sacred enclosure consisted of a grove of tall trees (the only one to be found in an Egyptian temple) holding the shrine of the goddess within.

The temple was full of cats who were carried around in baskets and ritually fed.

Once a year, a great festival was held in Bubastis to honour Bast, attracting devotees from all over the country. According to Herodotus, the original accidental tourist, upwards of 700,000 people attended.

(Heroditus. ii. 59, 60.):

"Temples there are more spacious and costlier than that of Bubastis, but none so pleasant to behold. It is after the following fashion. Except at the entrance, it is surrounded by water: for two canals branch off from the river, and run as far as the entrance to the temple: yet neither canal mingles with the other, but one runs on this side, and the other on that. Each canal is a hundred feet wide, and its banks are lined with trees. The propylaea are sixty feet in height, and are adorned with sculptures (probably intaglios in relief) nine feet high, and of excellent workmanship. The Temple being in the middle of the city is looked down upon from all sides as you walk around; and this comes from the city having been raised, whereas the temple itself has not been moved, but remains in its original place. Quite round the temple there goes a wall, adorned with sculptures. Within the inclosure is a grove of fair tall trees, planted around a large building in which is the effigy (of Bast). The form of that temple is square, each side being a stadium in length. In a line with the entrance is a road built of stone about three stadia long, leading eastwards through the public market. The road is about 400 feet broad, and is flanked by exceeding tall trees. It leads to the temple of Hermes."

Further information on Bastet:

Bastet was strictly a solar deity until the arrival of Greek influence on Egyptian society, when she became a lunar goddess due to the Greeks associating her with their Artemis. Dating from the 2nd Dynasty (roughly 2890-2686 BCE), Bastet was originally portrayed as either a wild desert cat or as a lioness, and only became associated with the domesticated feline around 1000 BCE. http://www.egyptianmyths.net/bastet.htm

Because the Greeks equated Bastet with Diana and Artemis and Horus with Apollo, Bastet became adopted into the Osiris-Isis myth as their daughter (this association, however, was never made previous to the arrival of Hellenistic influence on Egypt). She is stated to be the mother of the lion-headed god Mihos (who was also worshipped in Bubastis, along with Thoth). She is depicted most commonly as a woman with the head of a domesticated or wild cat or lion, or as a cat itself. Article "Bastet" created on 03 March 1997; last modified on 26 May 1999 (Revision 2). 318 words. http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/bastet.html © MCMXCV - MMVI Encyclopedia Mythica™. All rights reserved.

the fifth fable : flyovers

2007-02-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

note: fables 1-4 are from my commentary on episode one of bravo tv's top design show (da bear and other fables) but this is a more generic statement so I moved here to the arts | design section

the fifth fable : flyovers

For the stylemakers on the coasts Chicago is just part of the big "flyover" world of non-culture between New York and Los Angeles. Or, with O'Hare aiport it is more of a "stopover": a place you don't want to bother with; you are just waiting to get out it of as soon as possible.

(What's missed is the other, older, vertical axis -- running down the center -- Chicago/New Orleans, the Mississippi River. It is a deeper, darker line but that is another story.)

Of course anyone who knows anything about architecture knows that Chicago is the most important architectural city in America.

If you don't know this, here's a place to start: 1871 Great Chicago Fire. After that try:

Birth of Skyscraper.
Columbian Exposition/Neo-Classical revival.
Prairie School.
Modern/International Style.

Chicago is also the center for furniture design. (The Merchandise Mart is a thing to behold.) It used to manufacture the most furniture but with union busting the industry went south. Now it is probably all done in Asia. However Chicago is still known for its custom furniture design.

And all that modernist design that people in LA and NY worship? Where do you think much of that came from?

(Also, while Chicago may not be at the center for fashion design, many consider it the best restaurant city in the country.)

People will go there for business conferences and tell me, with surprise, that they discovered it was a really amazing city. Like it didn't occur to them that this a place of international significance not just in manufacturing but in arts and design and culture. After New York and Washington DC it has musuems with the most established and largest collections.

I can play city booster but part of me also wants to keep things a secret, like the jazz clubs that are such gems that they would be overrun with tourists if they were in New York or LA. A lot of what I like isn't glitzy stuff. It is the city of neighborhoods. The entire lakefront is public property. And Wrigley Field is one of the last great parks but you have to be a native to really understand the Cubs. (They are different from the Red Sox.)

Although midwesterners are seen as a bit dopey compared to the smarter east coast and hipper west coast, in fact, Chicago is the home to the university that fosters the most intellecually intense and challenging environment of any place in the world. The University of Chicago is truly devoted to fostering the life of the mind. Even the Ivy League thinks those people are total dorks.

calendar design

2007-01-06T18:04:00.000-08:00

I've decided that if I don't have something substantial to write about I'll just use this space to showcase the designs I'm working on.

This is my calendar image for the year [click here or on the image to view item]. It shows all four of the seasonal fruit designs for this year. The arts and crafts designs were a hit so I'm planning to develop this line. [Go to the shop to see the selection.] I just wish they had a tea towel. I'll keep the pomegranates through February then switch to oranges in the spring. Berries for summer. Persimmons for fall. I will also provide a recipe for each new fruit. Click here for the mulled pomegranate cider recipe.

It's a mix of arts and crafts from both the 19th and 20th centuries: rough=hewn hand-made and and retro home-ec.

happy new year

2007-01-03T13:56:00.001-08:00

happy holidays

2006-12-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

the arts and crafts movement

2006-12-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

" The Arts & Crafts Movement was a rebellion of substance as well as style. Its power came from the conviction that art and craft could change people's lives. Its strong social and moral purpose has ensured its continuing relevance. Many guilds and workshops were set up which had a long lasting impact on communities. The work could be highly decorated but was often extremely plain. The roughness and simplicity of some work was shocking, one reviewer in 1899 referred to an Arts & Crafts piece as looking 'like the work of a savage'. However most pieces show a concern for and understanding of craftsmanship. The bright colours, rich patterns and textures of many pieces are visually stunning. " place holder -- more to come

arts and crafts style items

2006-12-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

More shameless commerce from the kora in hell shop:

The items below are part of a series for the year illustrating four fruits of the seasons that will change quarterly over the year. The four different designs are shown in the calendar.

modernist fashion history

2006-09-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

topics :

(Pictured: Louise Brooks, Florence Mills, Josephine Baker)
These new posts are all up but there are still some problems with links. I'm working on them now.

orientalism in brief

2006-09-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

Orientalism

Orientalism specifically describe a fashion trend in the first decades of the twentieth century but the word generally refers to all different kinds of phenomenon that involve Western (American and European, especially) interpretations of Eastern cultures that are often very imaginary, stereotypical, and based on ideas of western superiority.

Orientalism, as a concept of "what is the East" is as old as "what is the West." To put another way, the barbarian is invented by the civilized as a way of distinguishing themselves.

At any rate, the import of textiles and other commodities from the East dates back to the silk road and the very formation of Europe itself. Over the centuries its vogue had surged and ebbed with the fashions of the times and the exploits of explorers and empire builders.

The West's conceptions of “the orient” are not exclusive limited to Asia but extend to many other areas of the globe including the middle east, the south Pacific, parts of Africa, classical Greece and ancient Egypt, and even parts of Eastern Europe. The larger fascination with “ethnic” styles included orientalist styles, all “folk” cultures, and what was considered “primitive”cultures (i.e., anything not European).

Resources

Orientalism is not something that only happened in the past. It is as alive and well today as it ever was. For more information, especially as it relates to the important book by Edward Said (Orientalism, New York: Vintage, 1979) you can start with these resources:

1. start here for a general overview

2. then go here for a discussion of the term as used in Said’s book

paul poiret

2006-09-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Paul Poiret is one of the earliest designers of the dress style for the modern "new woman": a slender style that loosely fit the body (the "Nouvelle Vague") which liberated women from the corset and allowed for greater freedom of movement. He was inspried by the stylings of ancient Greece as well as the Empire gown which elongated the torso and he was particularly fond of headscarves and turbans.

Poiret is also noted for a number of style innovations. His orientalist fashions can be seen in the kimono gowns (see above, the blue gown in the middle) and turkish robes and other styles that wrapped the body and hung losely in soft folds. He introduced harem pants which became all the rage when the Ballet Russe came to Paris.

His least appealing design is the hobble skirt, which was tight around the ankles. Why someone who promoted the idea of creating fashion that gave women more freedom created something as silly as the hobble skirt is something of a mystery.

(On left: in case she also wants her knees tied together a belt is helpfully provided.)

However, he later modified the design so that the skirt was split in the middle, with a gathered folds cascading down the middle.

His lampshade dress was another radical transformation in the architecture of women's fashion. It was also an item that worked well with his harem pants and modified (i.e. no longer hobbling) hobble skirt.
During this period fashion illustration became an art form in its own right and Poiret's work was enhanced by the work of Paul Iribe and Georges Lepape and others who produced beautiful images that captured not just the clothing but a particular way of life -- full of romance, leisure, langor, and style.

Resources
Orientalism and Fashion
Art Deco fashion illustration
Fox Rare Books : fashion illustration
Gazette du Bon Ton fashions at victoriana.com

the ballet russe

2006-09-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Ballet Russe's arrival in France profoundly influenced all art forms but it had an especially dramatic and visible impact on fashion. Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) formed the Ballet Russe in 1909, and they performed in Paris nearly every year until 1929 when the company was disbanded. Parisians were enthralled by performances by dancers such as Anna Pavlova and Vladimir Nijinsky in compositions by composers such as Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakov, Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy.

The company's first choreographer, Michel Fokine, brought an expressive and more natural style to the staid technique-obsessed world of ballet, which was loosing audiences who were more excited by the "free dance" movement that broke free of the rigid formalism of ballet.

Click here for a brief explanation of "free dance," "modern dance" and its connection to dancers at the Folies Bergere.

In its first season it performed Cleopatra -- one of the "oriental operas" but it was its second season’s performance of Scherzerezhade that particularly captured the imagination of the public. As important as the dance and music was the impact of the set and costume designs done by the Russian Artist Leon Bakst.
The exotic themed ballets of the Ballet Russe and Leon Bakst's vivid and innovative costumes sparked a fascination with fashion inspired by the Middle East--or, their fantasies of the East.

Click here for a brief introduction to the concept of "orientalism."

It is significant that this fashion inspiration came from the ballet because, as I discussed earlier, the designers were creating clothing for a "new woman" who was energetic, active and--often dancing herself. These costumes were designed to allow the body to move and to emphasize its movements.

Europeans were captivated by art and design that evoked notions of the "folk" or "primitive" or "exotic." During the 1880s and 1890s with the Art Nouveau style explored these themes and continued into the 1920s with Art Deco, which incorporated ideas from the early avant-garde movements such as Cubism. The Ballet Russe was an essential part of this phenomenon and was a significant link between these two aesthetics movements, which can all be seen as facets of La Belle Époque!

Perhaps nowhere were these connections more evident than in the world of fashion and, especially in the designs by Paul Poiret. Poiret opened his salon in 1903 and was experimenting with Eastern-influences fabrics and styles before the arrival of the Ballet Russe in 1909. Yet the combination of the two produced a fashion phenomenon.

Click here for a brief introduction to some of the fashion designs of Paul Poiret.

Resources

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes -- biographies, ballet descriptions and a chronology of all of their performances in Paris
Ballet Russe and the Dance Revolution
An online exhibit on Ballet Russe costumes
More Leon Bakst costume designs
Russian Orientalism and the Ballet Russe by Laurel Victoria Gray (article)

josephine baker and modern dance history

2006-09-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

A brief foray into dance history order to point out why the popular version of the history of modern dance is wrong because it leaves josephine baker out of the story . . .

Three American women dancers--Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, and Ruth St. Denis--radically transformed dance as a creative form, breaking the ground that led to the development of American modern dance.

(Above: Loie Fuller, Ruth St. Denis, Isadora Duncan)

Loie Fuller and Ruth St. Denis emerged from vaudeville traditions, and Fuller, like Josephine Baker later, starred in the Folies Bergere where she was famous for her "serpentine dance" and "fire dance".

In the conventional story of the development of modern dance Baker is often not mention in the conventional story about the development of modern dance.

One reason for this is that dance history is often overly categorized and thus different strands that are important to each other are separated from each other: classical, concert, popular, ballroom, swing, jazz, folk, burlesque. Modern dance, like the other arts in the early twentieth century, drew from all of these sources and more, such as attempts to reimagine the dances of ancient Greece, folk dances of Eastern Europe, and dance from cultures around the world including Persia, Egypt, not to mention African and the Caribbean dances which were already at the core of popular American dance.
Baker -- like Fuller -- was most famous for her roles in burlesque forms of dancing. Baker was particularly constrained by the roles and even choreography that was created for her. She routinely "forgot" the steps and substituted her own choreography--which was a more accurate representation of African American dance styles as opposed to the French fantasies developed for audiences possessed by fantasy stereotypes of the erotic African woman: the primitive. She may not have been able to escape the stereotypes she was required to perform, but within those constraints she is considered an artist who was extraordinarily innovative -- and unquestionably skilled.

(artwork by paul collins)

Twentieth century concert dance is concerned with reworking of dance traditions and Baker was a key figure in the process that led to the understanding of African diaspora dance as an art form to be taken as seriously as ballet. Josephine Baker is important to the development modern concert dance not in spite of her being a popular entertainer but because of her extraordinary innovations as a popular dancer.

Note: I know that Baker is not the first, the last, or the only person who has been left out of the mainstream story of dance. Dance emerges from so many different places and, along with music, it spreads so quickly through the wider culture. I encourage you to suggest more.

flappers, follies and feathers

2006-09-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

(Pictured: Louise Brooks, Florence Mills, Josephine Baker)

disclaimers

2006-09-22T14:50:00.001-07:00

1. I apologize for the number of errors. My excuse for posting something so rough is that I wanted to get the basic information up before the new PR episode and before Fashion Week is too long gone. I'll be polishing it over the next few days. 2. This material is not a general work of fashion history and it is not intended to be a reference for scholars. I recommend looking at fashion-era.com as an online resource for finding materials on fashion history. If you are doing work for a school project you should also go to the library to do proper research on your subject. 3. That said, you are welcome to quote any of this text provided you use a citation. As a courtesy it would be nice to email me first. 4. I appreciate your comments and corrections. thanks. trixie / kora in hell

the new woman

2006-09-22T11:53:00.000-07:00

Along with the skyscraper and jazz, the New Woman, especially the flapper, was the emblem of modernism.

(illustrations by John Held Jr.)

The flapper was the peak of the various images of the "new woman" that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries : she was youthful, single, and in constant movement. She danced to the sounds of the new jazz, she wore short dresses and high heels and rolled stockings, she smoked cigarettes, she put on makeup, bobbed her hair, and she stayed out late without a chaperone.

She also travelled--and even if she didn't travel she had a much wider view of the world and a far greater interest in exotic cultures than the women of previous generations. And the New Woman shopped. Department stores had emerged in the late decades of the 19th century but by the 1920s consumer culture was in full swing, so to speak.

social context

There was a loosening of attitudes and mores following the war. It was also a time of major transformations in science and technology that was rapidly changing the way that people lived and their awareness and understanding of the larger world. These innovations even altered the way that people perceived reality. Young men and women looking for excitement flooded into the cities. Artistic circles emerged in the cities of the US and Europe and the artists circulated between the cities. The artistic avant-garde advocated throwing away the traditions of the past and embracing everything that was new.

This was also the time when women advocated for the right to vote, the right to birth control, for entry into exclusively male bastions of education, for their rights in marriage and divorce, and for financial rights, such as inheritance laws.

The suffragette represented the political changes for women. The flapper was the image of the social changes. Both images scared the lights out of traditionalists who saw in them everything that was wrong with the modern era.

harlem

A key aspect of this cultural transformation was its roots in African American culture. The increasing size of the urban African American population had created large communities that were far from utopian. Indeed they were a segregated, impoverished and exploited group. Yet the community also fostered new developments in African American art and culture that quickly spread into the culture at large.

The most significant of these is the Harlem Renaissance: a place and time that fostered all types of art including music, dance, literature, painting, sculpture, photography and theater. The early blues singers who performed in the clubs in Harlem were flappers (below: Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith):

Mainstream America became increasing interested in and influenced by African American music and dance. Indeed, the "Charleston" -- the dance that flappers were most associated with -- is thought to have originated in New Orleans and came to Harlem along with the blues and swing music.

hollywood

From there it travelled across the continent to Los Angeles where the film industry's of was moving from silent to talking films and where flappers were the queens of the silent film were (below, from left to right: Colleen Moore, Clara Bow and Louise Brooks).

paris

This phenomenon was not limited to the United States. Indeed it reached around the globe and it drew its influences from around the globe -- especially from Africa where western imperial expansion had made Europeans and Americans more familiar with its different artistic traditions.

One of the most important figures in the European (and especially French) enthrallment with African and African American culture was Josephine Baker. (Click here for more information on Josephine Baker.)

josephine baker

Baker is, among many other things, one of the great fashion icons of the early twentieth century.

This image (at right) shows Baker in a flapper dress (from a poster for the Revue Negre, a racist depiction that was part of the graphic style of the time).

Her style shifted between the racy Folies Bergere costumes or couture gowns of structured taffeta couture creations of structured taffita or languid beaded silk.

Her image encompassed more than the flapper and the new woman. Josephine Baker brought together the elaborate stage show of revues, the African American dance club, and the European fantasy of the "sauvage".

links:
Baker fashion designs
Photo Gallery
National Portrait Gallery Le Tumult Noir: Paul Colin's Jazz Age Portfolio

the new shape

2006-09-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Note: I've not finished creating the reference and image links. sorry for the delay.

The early twentieth century was an astounding period of change in fashion. The most dramatic change was the revisioning of the shape of a woman's body: from an extreme S-curve hightened by bustles and corsets to the languid cursive "I" that draped loosely but close to the body.

Portrait of Mrs. George Gribble [Norah], 1888, painting by John Singer Sargent
Peggy Guggenheim [in a gown by Paul Poiret] 1924 photograph by Man Ray

Within just a few years the body lengthened, the curves were softened, if not completely flattened, the draping loosened, the heaviness of the fabric lightened and layers of fabric were reduced to a minumum.

Liberty London PreRaphaelite-style dress (1905) www.fashion-era.com

Paul Iribe Les Robes de Paul Poiret (1909)

two paintings

Changes in fashion accompanied changes in the aesthetics of fine artists such as painters. The two portraits below are of very similiar subject matter: the meditative girl or young woman just on the brink of adulthood, are dressed in simple white dresses, representing their innocence and virginity.

Young Woman in White, 1904 , Robert Henri , Currier Museum of Art

Jeanne Hbuterne, Left Arm Behind her Head , 1919 , A. Modigliani, Barnes Foundation,

However the dress on the left clearly has many layers of ruffles and petticoats and is designed to emphasize the fullness of the body and to call attention to the bust and waist. The dress on the right also has a waist but it is barely noticeable. The dress falls straight in order to call attention to the length of the line. The rich luminous color of the Henri painting also contrasts with Modigliani's spare, stark coloring. The softness in color accentuates the softness of the figure and her relaxed body with only the hint of movement in her hands. Modigliani mannerist figure is in the midst of an active movement, stretching and twisting her body in a way that is sharp and awkward.

ancient greece

First time (in the western world) since ancient Greece fabric was draped on a woman's body in a way that did not hide or alter her shape. It is not surprising therefore that many of the designers were inspired by the styles in ancient Greek art.

Left: Running Girl, Peloponnesian. British Museum.
Right: 1921 cover of Vanity Fair.

While none of these images (above) are exclusively trying to depict an accurate physical recreation of a women's body (which is neither the extreme curves of the S or the straight line of the I). Art works convey more than factual information: their complexity of meanings can also put the fashions into wider social and aesthetic contexts.

Fashion is, after all, about the adornment of the body not its stripping. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that there was a significant change in the style of dress for women during the early decades of the twentieth century and the new styles generally made the body more visible and less constrained. The reasons for this change were varied -- all fashion changes have a certain element of whimsy -- but the radical alteration in line and architecture signals that designers were making clothes for a very different type of woman.

folie folly fo fana . . .

2006-09-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

Note: reference links for text and images will be up as soon as possible. Sorry for the delay.

I'll start with a stab at a definition

folie, folly : the primary meaning comes from the French and is the word for madness
derangement, mania,

folie à deux : communicated insanity
la folie des grandeurs : megalomania

While the French word folie has a number of different uses, it is, unsurprisingly, more narrowly defined than the English word folly. The English "folly" is not used to describe the mental state of madness or mania but it is used to describe something that is, among other things:

foolish, buffoonish; whimsical, fantastical, absurd, discordant, wicked, evil, tawdry, wanton, lewd, burlesque; a sexual affair, a lark, a misadventure, and a massive undertaking ending in failure . . .

theatrical follies

Folies and follys are also a theatrical genre, also called revues: they were elaborate variety shows consisting of numerous scenes, comic, musical, dance and skits, and usually some – if not all -- was burlesque in nature; the dancers performed solo (often erotic dances that were primarily nude) as well as in chorus lines with dances such as the "Can-Can".

The famous revues such as the Folies Berge[`]re and Ziegfield Follies were notable for the glamour of its female performers and the outlandishness of their costumes.

These shows were at their heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“In novelty of ideas, variety, talent of performers and general smartness of production, [the Ziegfeld] ‘Follies of 1908’ is fully up to the standard of the best this enterprising young manager [Ziegfeld] has yet attempted.” (1908 Theatre Mag. (U.S.) Aug. 201/1 ) From the Oxford English Dictionary.

American follies had stronger ties to minstrel shows and vaudeville. Both American and French genres had roots in the circus and traditions of traveling acting troupes.

Commedia dell'Arte

The French folies combined modern elements such as flapper dancers with older elements from the Italian Commedia dell'Arte:

and its later French theatrical versions known as pantomimes.

Harlequinade

Harlequin : from Arlecchino in the Italian renaissance theater of the Commedia dell'Arte. The harlequin is a trickster character who wears a parti-colored costume and carries a magic wand.

The harlequin derives from medieval Italian legends of the devil or a group of devils horsemen that ride in the night.

Harlequinade : a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts. For more information on this and the costume of the harlequin click here.

During the first decades of the 20th century artists, writers, choreographers and composers all took up the theme of the harlequinade. They were questioning the hierarchies and divisions in art (and the broader social world) and for their inspiration they drew upon art that was created for popular entertainment such as the Commedia dell'Arte and the Circus. There are too many examples and the topic is too rich to investigate in this context but one well-known example of this was Picasso. He considered the harlequin his alter ego and he collaborated with Stravinsky on the designs for his ballet Pulcinella.

(Above: Leon (Lev) Bakst costume designs for the Harlequin and Columbine)

Pierrot :

The French theater’s development of the Italian Commedia dell'Arte character Pedrolino.

He wears a loose white costume with a neck ruff, and a high hat with a wide floppy brim.

The most famous image of Perriot is the 1718 painting, Pierrot also known as Gilles, by Jean-Antoine Watteau 1684-1721:

fashion terminology :

harlequin : an adjective to describe any sort of particoloured item:

(Above: from Jay McCarroll's Spring 2007 collection.)

pierrot collar : layers of large folded ruffles at the neck.

(Above: left--from Malan Breton's Spring 2007 collection;
right--photograph of Coco Chanel.)

Note: Chanel's collar is smaller and not as loose as the one on the left but it has the construction of a pierrot as opposed to the folded Elizabethen ruff:

finally

Las Vegas show girls and the Rockettes are the vestiges of the chorus line; sitcoms and stand-up comedy have replaced vaudeville; in some respects fashion shows are a type of modern-day follies. These spectacles offer us a parade of women (and men but to a much lesser extent). The fashion shows cut to the chase of the follies: the various entertainments are jettisoned in order to focus on the main attraction: beautiful women in elaborate costumes.

Like the famous "Ziegfeld Girls" it consists of only a very particular type of ideal woman. Furthermore, unlike the performers in theatrical chorus lines, top models become idolized around the country, and around the globe -- and therefore have the level of wide appeal that is similar to the follies in their day.

josephine baker

2006-09-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Josephine Baker (1906-1975)

early life

was born Freda McDonald and raised in poverty in an East St. Louis slum. She began working as a maid at age 8, left school at age 12, was married at 14, and began her performing career as an entertainer at 16.

As a teenager she performed in the touring troupe for Shuffle Along and in the Chocolate Dandies at the Cotton Club in Harlem. At this time she specialized in clowning's physical comedy.

paris

In 1925 she moved to Paris -- where she found the attitude toward African Americans to be more tolerant. In Paris she matured as a dancer -- performing at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées and in La Revue Nègre. She joined the Folies-Bergère in 1926. She was an immediate sensation. She was in the Ziegfeld Follies during the 1930s.

She is best known for two of her exotic dances: her "jungle" dance where she wore nothing but a string of bananas around her waist and another where she wore only a skirt of feathers entitled 'La Danse de Sauvage' but was actually the Charleston.

She performed in floor shows, revues, operettas, and films as a singer as a comedienne, actress, and, especially, as a dancer. It is in her dancing where her skill and talent and artistic innovation came to the fore.

The French were enthralled with American jazz, Africa and exoticism. Baker captured their imagination like no other performer and she became an international sensation. She was called the "Black Venus" and to the audiences of the time she represented the exotic sexuality of the black woman. Today we understand her performances as more nuanced and examine the ways that Baker did not just inhabit certain stereotypes but manipulated and mocked them as well.

later life

Although she performed in the US she could not tolerate its persistant racism and always returned to Paris. She was active in the French Resistance during the war. She was also active in the American Civil Rights movement. After a number of marriages (5 total in her life) and miscarriages, she bought a chateau in France where she lived with her 12 adopted children of various nationalities and races (and a menagerie of animals) that she called her "rainbow tribe."

She worked throughout her life -- in part because she was plagued by financial problems -- inevitably stealing the show at every performance.

One reason for the interest in Josephine Baker this year is that it is the centenary of her birth. On the other hand people have always been fascinated by her.

For more general information on Joseophine Baker check these sites:
Africana Encyclopaedia
Gale Encyclopaedia
Women in History
CMG Worldwide Official Site of Josephine Baker

To Vanity Fair:

2006-09-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

If you are still in need of an editor/writer familiar with the world of twentieth century art and design, I would like to offer my services.

the nightmare (1781)

2006-09-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Under revision. Check back later.

The Nightmare 1781, by Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli) 1771-1825

This piece began when I was writing about a person on television who stated, without a trace of irony, that an annoying but trivial experience was the biggest nightmare of his life. To read that, and see the reconfigured version of the painting, click here.

check back later

2006-09-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

my mind's a blank