|
Uploaded 30/9/02
Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting
National Gallery,
London, 19 June—8 September 2002
Over the summer (19 June—8 September 2002) the National Gallery,
London showed Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting,
an exhibition that looked at the way artists from the Renaissance
to the early 20th century artists depicted dress and drapery.
The exhibition was curated by art historian, critic and historian
of dress, Anne Hollander. It was divided into nine sections. The
first Nude and Mode, shows the way in which the female nude
in art has been linked to fashion. 'The nude woman in art has looked
her best to the contemporary eye when she seemed to be wearing the
ghost of an absent dress.'
Cloth of Honour: Throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th
centuries, artists represented drapery with lifelike realism, as
never before. Capturing action and movement, paintings of this period
became more sculptural and dynamic.
Liberated draperies: In 16th century Italy, artists used
clothing and drapery as an expressive means. 'Artists stopped being
faithful to the way actual cloth behaved, and began to use painted
folds for expressive or allusive drama.' Draped fabrics defied the
laws of physics and the constraints of tailoring. Metres of fabric
were used in excess of normal garments to create images that were
natural in painterly terms if impossible in real ones.
Sensuality: Baroque painters used fabric against bare flesh
to expose and caress the subject. They showed 'turbulent draperies
creating an atmosphere of violence around a half-exposed figure,
to infuse tragic or dramatic circumstances with sensual power'.
High artifice: Drapery was firmly established as a standard
pictorial device: theatrical use in history paintings established
staged scenes. Portraits too, were often staged in fancy dress.
Difficult fabrics, lace, and satin, for example, were taken on to
prove the artist's ability.
Romantic simplicity: Neoclassicm favoured a return to nature,
outdoor surroundings. Female portraits (c.1800) were often painted
wearing white dresses (Pride and Prejudice style), not multicoloured,
as was in fact the fashion. Their appearance and general demeanour
imitated Greek sculpture.
Restraint and display: The very different schemes of dress
for men and women became more pronounced in the 19th century. Men
were shown in dark colours, as mere shadows, where women were portrayed
as more flamboyant and expansive. Where a man might be portrayed
as an architectural form or simple shape, a woman was portrayed
closer to nature, perhaps resembling a flower or a bird.
Woman as dress: The exhibition shows women in the late 19th
century portrayed by certain painters in a world of their own. Clothing
is used to create an image of a woman as separate and able to exist
independently. 'In all such images, there is no suggestion that
the public finery is oppressive. We are meant to understand that
this dress is her true body, the expression of true self. The pictures
offer the idea that fashionable clothing, far from being uncomfortable,
is what makes women feel most natural.'
The final section, the early 20th century, Form and Feeling,
shows that painters used painted form 'as a means of expression
in figurative pictures. The outline, surface and action of clothes
appear as vivid arrangements of shape, line and colour that generate
their own emotive power outside the frame'.
The selection of works was superbly made; the exhibition a cameo
of the National Gallery's vast collection.
Janet McKenzie
|
