ART + FASHION

If you don’t know already, I have huge predilection for art history. I am extremely fond of the visual arts. Ever since I was child, I always loved to draw. My mother had a lot of influence over my artistic passions and interests. When I was little, she would buy me sketchbooks and paint sets, and then have me paint a portrait of our dog or even the backyard. I am glad art has stuck with me over the years.

In a way, the visual arts helped me express how I am feeling. Like many artists, I wanted to tell a story through my artwork. While in high school, I took college courses in Printmaking, Graphic Design and Art History. I also had the opportunity in designing and coordinating a fashion show charity benefit raising $28,000 as I lived in Israel. These experiences helped me personally and academically. I learned how to use art and business strategies in the real world. I also learned how to never give up a talent especially when it has been with me ever since I can remember.

The visual arts have grown as even more of an interest for me especially when it correlates with fashion. We undermine the idea of how art is a way of communication; a source of information providing us a story of our own history. Both fashion and art play as evolutions and reflections of current events. So, when I hear or read about a book that talks about the two being intertwined, it draws my attention and curiosity immensely. A great book that explored this beautiful relationship is Art and Fashion by Dr. Alice Mackrell. It goes over “the impact of art on fashion and fashion on art.” My expectations for the book were the following: it had to show genuine partnership between art and fashion, present examples of said partnership throughout history, and state the importance in such. Based on the criteria, it is easy to say that this Dr. Alice Mackrell did in fact meet my expectations with her book. If an author does abide by the following criteria, much like what Mackrell (2005) did, they can achieve a thriving representation of the current times in a collaborative way.

As its primary purpose, Art and Fashion had both art and fashion playing as a partnership. Throughout the book, Mackrell discusses all art movements from Rococo to Art Deco specifically and fashion’s influence on such. In regards to the Rococo Art Movement, it was actually very prominent for French royalty from the late 18th century to use art for political and social gain. The art movement was also subject to converging art with femininity and artifice, and can be still prevalent today in terms of using a picture to say a million words. Royalty and other socialites used Rococo for their own gain. Rococo became a used phrase near the end of the 18th century going on the 19th, which meant people living the end of the 18th century going the 19th were primarily interested by that particular art movement. “It is a reflection on what I take to be some of the emblematic attributes of French Rococo art and the elite public that sponsored it: namely, a passion for the cosmetic arts, indeed, for the arts of appearing in general,” said Melissa Hyde, author of The Art Bulletin.

Though originally from Austria, The Queen of France and Navarre “dutifully adopted the French fashion,” (Hyde, p. 458, 2000) as soon as she married King Louis XVI of France. Mackrell goes over the fact of how Marie Antoinette wasn’t a very beloved Queen amongst her people, but the queen did everything to prove otherwise commissioning paintings the Rococo way. A lot of elite, especially during the time of French Rebellion and the rise of the French Revolution, began converging propaganda and the Rococo Art movement help portray them as more attractive to the eyes and heart people. Marie Antoinette happened to commission a painting of her by Elisabeth Vague Le Burn which showed the Queen sitting happily with her children resting innocently on her lap. Ultimately, Marie Antoinette was trying to get the people of France to think that she, herself, is such a caring and kind mother. Some believed she was trying to pull off the Holy Mother Mary look by looking saintly in the portrait (Mackrell, p.39, 2005).

This sort of strategy ran through the extended family especially for Marie Antoinette’s father-in-law, King Louis XV, and his head mistress, Madame de Pompadour. It wasn’t every day, a King’s mistress had enough authority to commission numerous paintings. There are so many commissioned paintings of the dear mistress that the Sainsbury Wing of National Gallery, London housed an exhibition for it called Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress (Oct. 2002-Jan. 2003). Though Pompadour was only a mistress, she also had the power to schedule all the King's meetings. Because this was so untraditional in the French courts for a mistress--let

alone a woman--to have so much power, could you imagine how displeased nobles nevertheless the country were of how the progression of France depended on who King Louis fancied? Madame de Pompadour had to win the people somehow. Besides having the people think she was only a mistress of the King, she wanted to them to think that she was intellectual and talented. To do that she commissioned paintings of herself reading books, painting, sewing, doing her makeup, anything that proved to the French people, the western world that she was an abled and cultured individual for both her political and social gain (Mackrell, p.23-26, 2005). Not only did this augment social popularity amongst royalty, the Rococo Art Movement established a sturdier ground to link artistry with fashion. Because most of Rococo paintings were portraits, clothing was granted more importance than ever before. Dr. Alice Mackrell summarizes that “In both art and fashion, [Francois Boucher] is the artist forever associated with the Rococo style,” (p.23). Madame de Pompadour in desperate need in establishing her own title, commissioned Boucher to do many of her paintings as well as to design tapestry for her private theatrical productions. This plays as a good example that artists back then, like painters and sculptors, were versatile enough to design tapestry and clothing. Analyzing the fact also that because Rococo has a known style of “asymmetry, naturalism, graceful play on three-dimensional surface decoration and light colours,” detail was of the essence. In her most ravishing painting to date by François-Hubert Drouais, mainly because the Marquise Pompadour wore robe à la française of painted silk on the ruffles of her gown with a pattern of light-green leaves and salmon colored flowered embroidered on it. With such great taste now observed by the public, Madame de Pompadour “promoted a taste in dress that reflected the visual arts of the period” according the Madeleine Delpierre, author of Dress in France in the Eighteenth Century.

This successfully presents an example of both art and fashion working hand and hand in representing the 17th and 18th centuries.

Dr. Alice Mackrell (2005) finds the importance in intertwining art and fashion because it achieves a thriving representation of the current times in a collaborative way. The main message the author was trying to get across was the fact that both art and fashion have a huge impact on one another. Throughout the book, Mackrell finds various examples of both communities thriving off and gaininginspiration from one another. Examples include of how "we saw how the spirit of Neo-classicism affected fashionable French masculine attire during the Directoire period," (Mackrell, p.46, 2005). She also gave the example of how the Aestheticism art movement began setting a standard of how "art can be judged solely by its own standards," (p.83) which later affected fashion and how it was then possible to wear a style of dress based on your personality.

I believe this book had no contradiction towards the Fashion Fundamentals class. We go over almost every class of what could possibly cause certain fashion trends and what fashion trends could potentially cause. The answers are endless, but what of them definitely is art. This has been an idea I had for a while; so, yes, this has affected me on a personal level. Ultimately, I want to follow the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas and use my talents to pursue virtue. I believe one can be truly talented in what they do if they use their talents to help others. So, as I excel at LIM College and improve my talents in the arts, fashion, and business, I also want to give back to the community. This book has definitely shaped me on a personal level because it shows infinite ways of impacting not only the art and fashion communities, but also the world. Painters, designers, and leaders have used the ways of art and fashion as marketing to the public, and they have been able to do wonders because of it. Imagine what I can do with such impact spread the word of virtue.

I've conspired with my previous art history and philosophy teachers about these key points Mackrell (2005) offers in her book, and they're excited to see me use it as a tool to give back to the community. With that in mind, I want to talk to people at LIM College about the strong connection we fashion students and faculty have with the art community and vice versa; thus, Mackrell’s Art and Fashion would make a magnificent book recommendation.

--MASR

References

Hyde, M. (2000). The "Makeup" of the Marquise: Boucher's Portrait of Pompadour at Her

Toilette. In The Art Bulletin (Vol. 82, pp. 453-475). College Art Association.

Mackrell, A. (2005). Rococo and Neoclassicism. In Art and fashion. London: Batsford.

#ART #Fashion #marieantoinette #arthistory