Cover of A portrait of fashion
Read Time: ~4.8 hr

A portrait of fashion

by Aileen Ribeiro (2015)

About this book

Costume, portraiture and the presentation of the individual have been intimately linked throughout the history of art. While the face of the person portrayed is often still directly accessible to us, the details and significance of their dress can be less easy to comprehend. Lavishly illustrated throughout with paintings, drawings, photographs and other works of art, this beautiful publication is centred around 190 examples from the National Portrait Gallerys Collection. Through these, the authors explore the purpose and original context of the dress in which the sitter was recorded the damasks, satins, velvets and furs of Tudor and Stuart magnificence worn by Queen Elizabeth I and Charles I, but also the revolutionary simplicity of the cottons, linens and woollen cloth adopted by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Constable and John Clare. Packed with photographs that provide additional insights into the clothes worn by sitters in their portraits, and complemented by related material including fabric designs and jewellery, this authoritative guide looks in detail at one of the most fascinating aspects of many well-known images of the last 600 years.

Setting / LocationLondon & UK
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CoreA portrait of fashion Lead Character

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Cover of Saint-Mémin and the neoclassical profile portrait in America

Saint-Mémin and the neoclassical profile portrait in America

Ellen G. Miles

During the years from 1796 to 1810, Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin (1770-1852) made some of the most memorable images in the history of American portraiture. Because of his unusually precise style and the multitude of sitters he portrayed, his distinctive profile portraits have come to epitomize Federal America. Among his subjects were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, Mother Seton, John Adams, and Paul Revere. Eventually Saint-Memin returned to France, leaving behind no successful imitators of his art. Among the most individualistic images from the Federal period, his profile portraits are a unique legacy to this nation. This book documents all of the artist's portraits, as well as his landscapes, plans, and other engravings; and the portrait entries include short biographies of the subjects. The catalogue is preceded by an illustrated history of the neoclassical profile portrait in America, and a biography of the artist.

Cover of Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth

herausgegeben von Achim Sommer

Lovis Corinth was one of the most exciting artists to emerge from turn-of-the-century Germany. Together with Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka, he became one of the greatest figurative painters of the early twentieth century. An outsider of astonishing individuality, he has resisted categorization by art historians in terms of Impressionism, Expressionism, and other movements. Corinth began his career in the realist tradition in the 1880's, but he was soon at the vanguard of change. Following a period in Munich when his religious and mythological paintings brought him his first taste of fame, Corinth moved to Berlin in 1901, where he spearheaded the protest against Kaiser Wilhelm II's official policy on art. Towards the latter part of his career, Corinth's work clearly reflects his reactions to his own illness and to World War I. Objects are caught up in a play of broad, energetic brush strokes, the paste-like layers of paint applied in sweeping, parallel movements to produce the characteristic hatching that became his hallmark. These later works - mainly landscapes, portraits and self-portraits - continued to be an inspiration to representatives of later movements. Lovis Corinth provides a comprehensive analysis of the artist still little known outside Europe. The Munich and Berlin years, his sources and inspiration, his subject matter, his painting and drawing are examined by authors from America, Britain, and Germany. The book is beautifully illustrated with numerous colour reproductions of his oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, and graphic works, providing the definitive illustrated reference on the artist.

Cover of The New England handcraft catalog

The New England handcraft catalog

Kenneth A. Simon

This comprehensive volume documents the richness and diversity of New England's contemporary craft community in the early 1980s. More than 200 leading artisans are profiled with hundreds of photos of their work made from clay, fiber, glass, metal and wood. The book also is a definitive guide to 125 New England galleries and craft shops, identifies major craft fairs in the region and reports on institutions offering professional-level instruction.

Cover of Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Charlotta Kotik, Terrie Sultan, Christian Leigh

Though known primarily for her sculpture, Louise Bourgeois has displayed a lifelong passion for drawing and considers it to be essential to her oeuvre. This exceptional book is the first to combine over fifty years of the artist's drawings with her own observations. Not merely preparatory studies for her sculptures, Bourgeois's drawings are fully realized, independent works of art that rank as some of her most powerful and emotive creations. In the text accompanying the illustrations, Bourgeois, a highly autobiographical artist, describes and explains the sources for each work - and in the process provides fascinating insights into her life and art.

A portrait of fashion by Aileen Ribeiro | Literally Just Books