[Bryn-gwlad] documentation question

Mon Feb 5 07:29:27 PST 2007

Hi,

First, let me say that this is just my own opinion and others may
emphatically disagree.

Absolutely, use art as documentation for clothing.  However, be _very_
careful of your source material.  I will use Western Europe for my examples
(because this is what I know).

Religious and allegorical art is an extremely questionable source because
saints and gods are often shown wearing clothes that are completely
anachronistic to the period.  It's pretty, but we are pretty sure that togas
were out of style in Elizabethan England.

Also, be wary of portraits.  Imagine you are very wealthy, and to show off
your wealth, you commission a portrait.  But you want the artist to paint
you in blue, and not just any old blue, but the really expensive kind with
lots of Lapis Lazuli in it.  This may mean that how you are painted is not
truly representative of what you are wearing.

Okay, so we can't trust religious stuff, and we can't trust non-religious
stuff, but you just said I could use paintings for documentation.  What
gives?

Look at a lot of images from a lot of different artists.  Artists develop a
style, and with this include some artistic license with their work.  They
leave out seams and other useful details, add stuff that wasn't there
originally, stuff that was worked from memory, etc.  The more images you
see, the more common denominators you will find.  For any given detail, it
is best to find three sources from different artists that show that detail.

Also, I find it helpful to look at what was going on in nearby places (where
that culture had contact), and what was going on before and after the period
you are studying.  Clothing evolves, studying that evolution can give more
insight.

Try to get the best resolution of the image you can, if you can't get to the
original image itself.  For example, the Madonna image of the Melun Diptych
by Etienne Chevalier shows a Madonna image with a Christ child sitting on
her lap, all surrounded by red and blue angels (yes, I know, it's religious,
but please bear with me).  Her dress is unlaced, and you can see some
details of the inside.

This painting is in many art history books, and if you look at her, she is
somewhat green and ill looking, and her dress is a blue gray color.  Also,
there are some definite seams painted in the dress, and in some copies, it
looks like 2 sets of princess seam lines (to give shaping to the dress).  I
had the opportunity to see this painting in real life (it is in the art
museum in Antwerp, Belgium) and was shocked by what a difference it
was.  Clearly,
the painting had been cleaned since the pictures in the books had been
taken.  She has bright, glowing alabaster skin, and her dress is a brilliant
grass green.  I can still see the seam lines, and they are just as odd as in
the books, but there is only one set of them, and not two as I had thought.
It invalidates documentation I had used for a dress I had made before.

Try to find as many costume books as you can about the period you are
studying, and read them.  There will be some very good ones (anything by
Janet Arnold), and some very bad ones (anything by Dover Publishers).  Look
for a bibliography and check their sources if possible.  Pay attention to
anything that seems weird – you will start to figure out what that is as you
become more familiar.

Find some modern sewing books that focus on hand sewing.  I like Couture
Sewing by Claire Schaffer, and Manipulating Fabrics (I forget the
author).  They
will help you understand how clothing goes together and how fabric behaves.
I also like one by Dress in Italian Painting, Elizabeth Birbari.  She
teaches you how to look at paintings to figure out what is going on.  I
don't always agree with what she says, but I wouldn't have though to look in
the first place if it weren't for her.

That's a lot of stuff, I hope it helps, and if you have any other questions,
please ask, and I will try to help find the answers.

Elisabetta

On 2/2/07, stiobhard <stiobhard at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> hello
>
> for a paper i am going to be writing i was talking
> rather abstractly about some sca projects where i had
> looked at art to try to discover details of mediaeval
> dress. (some of you may have been pestered by me this
> summer in this regard)
>
> anyway it was suggested rather than write about a
> specific peice of art i should write about historical
> method and using art as a historical source. maybe
> this is more than most people actually get into, but i
> was just wondering if anyone you had seen anything
> that touched on this directly rather than just doing
> it.
> i know it is done all the time but was looking for a
> way to get started.
>
> I was talking to mott and she mentioned her own
> reasearch in this regard using the bayeux tapestry and
> italian renaissance art and the controversies
> surrounding using art as sources for documentation. if
> anyone has some thoughts, i would be interested.
>
> stiobhard
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> The fish are biting.
> Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.
> http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php
> _______________________________________________
> Bryn-gwlad mailing list
> Bryn-gwlad at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/bryn-gwlad-ansteorra.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/bryn-gwlad-ansteorra.org/attachments/20070205/a01308de/attachment-0001.html 