Fabric of Vision : Dress and Drapery in Painting - Softcover

Anne Hollander

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857099079 ISBN 13: 9781857099072

Publisher: National Gallery Co Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

This beautifully illustrated and innovative book examines how artists have used clothing and drapery-real and imagined, sacred and secular-as elements in their paintings to give emphasis and emotional force to their figures. All kinds of draped cloth, from austere dress to billowing draperies, become in the hands of a gifted artist a dramatic and exciting means to ennoble and sanctify painted figures, to create sensual or erotic effects, and to add drama to narrative. Such was the impact of the artists' particular vision, that life often followed art, and the fashions of a particular era often reflect the pictorial creations of its greatest painters. In his portraits, Van Dyck, for example, created the elegant and aristocratic style which we associate with the court of King Charles I. Depictions of clothed and nude women from different periods show how the aesthetic distortions which governed the representation of women's fashions extended to the unclothed figure, which is similarly distorted according to current notions of beauty. To illustrate her theme, the author draws on works by artists over a span of six centuries -van der Weyden, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Delacroix, Friedrich, Tissot, Vuillard, and Picasso. Fashion plates, photographs, and even film stills are used to show how the issues raised by the depiction of drapery in paintings extend to other media in the modern period.

About this title

From the Publisher

This book accompanies an exhibition at the National Gallery, London from June 19 to September 8, 2002. Published by National Gallery Company. Distributed by Yale University Press.

About the Author

Anne Hollander was an independent art historian, critic and historian of dress who was renowned for her bold studies of the evolution of costume. A fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and former president of PEN American Center, she was the author of influential books on the subject of costume and fabric in art, Seeing through Clothes and Sex and Suits, as well as Moving Pictures, on the influence of painting on cinema.

Edition details

• Publisher: National Gallery Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857099079
• ISBN 13: 9781857099072
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176