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James Tissot, the son of a tailor and a seamstress, had an intimate knowledge of fashion and a flair for painting all varieties of fabrics, furs, and laces, among other signs of material wealth. Which certainly comes across in his painting above, The Ball on Shipboard. Here we find ourselves in London for a daytime yacht party. The scene primarily includes young women and older men and speaks to a certain level of social striving. But it also includes a major fashion faux pas. . . several of the women have arrived wearing the exact same dress.

Now, it could just be a coincidence. The mass production of fashion is one of the hallmarks of this period. With the rise of the department store, multiple versions of the same dress would have been available to patrons at the time. But that’s pretty unlikely. What’s more probable is that Tissot himself owned or had access to just a few dresses and had models pose for several characters, a theory strengthened by the fact that some of the women look remarkably similar.

The most obvious instance of matching outfits is the two ladies in white dresses with black and blue detailing towards the front right. But as you look closer, there are several other examples. Note the group of women by the railing wearing light blue and green dresses. Even their hats are identical. And there are also three women wearing light pink dresses with burgundy accents: coming up the stairs, walking with a man in the background, and sitting down towards the middle with her back to us.

Tissot might be commenting on the superficiality of fashion with these choices, but regardless. . . quel scandale!

Image credit: James Tissot. The Ball on Shipboard, c. 1874. Tate, presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1937, NO4892.

Black wasn’t always cool. For centuries, the color was associated with mourning, worn by widows, and wouldn’t have been found in the closets of the young and trendy. Nobody was walking around saying “Gray is the new black” because black wasn’t a stock color in the palette of a stylish wardrobe—until the 1860s in Paris. Manet’s luscious painting The Parisienne is a testament to the moment when black became en vogue. His Parisienne is a new kind of woman, fashionable, assertive, up-t0-the-minute—all signaled by her black day dress.

Because black is a deep color requiring highly saturated (and thus expensive) fabric, it was originally worn primarily by wealthier women. But advances in textile production began making the material more available and thus de rigueur for chic Parisian women. This first heyday of black as a fashion statement lasted from about the 1860s through the early 1870s, when women who were actually in mourning for loved ones lost in the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune of 1870–71 reclaimed the color.

It was difficult to dye fabric black, and it was difficult for painters to represent it because they had to find a way to record gradations of color in what is technically the absence of color. Manet rose to the challenge by composing the Parisienne’s dress with colors other than black. Violet, purple, blue, and white are all laid in slashing strokes, giving texture and energy to his portrait.  With her direct and almost confrontational gaze, hands at the ready, and pulsating background, Manet’s Parisienne means business.

Image Credit: Édouard Manet. The Parisienne, 1875. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, bequest 1917 of bank director S. Hult, managing director Kristoffer Hult, director Ernest Thiel, director Arthur Thiel, director Casper Tamm, NM 2068.

Were he still alive, Andy Warhol would be 85 years old today. And though it’s been over 25 years since his death, his view of the world seems all the more relevant today. Warhol’s devotion to celebrity, his appropriation of iconic imagery, and his famous prediction that “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” seem perfectly suited to our current age of memes and selfies. The Washington Post explored this same notion a few years ago in their article “What Would Warhol Blog.” After talking with friends and artists who knew him they surmised, “He’d love it. He wouldn’t get it. He predicted it all.”

Photography was always important to Warhol’s artistic process. He photocopied iconic images of figures like Marilyn Monroe and Mao Tse Tung to create his monumental silkscreen portraits but would go on to create screenprints based on his own photographs. He used a Big Shot Polaroid instant camera—a model Polaroid reportedly kept in production just for him—to photograph a wide range of people, from world-famous figures like Jimmy Carter and Arnold Schwarzenegger to lesser known tycoons, heiresses, and “beauties.” Though the photos were mainly used to create his final portraits, Warhol’s series of Polaroids are captivating in and of themselves. Stringing them together gives a certain insight into his process. There’s something very arch in the way his models pose again and again with only slight variations in their expression and posture. And there’s something more elusive, voyeuristic, eerie even, in looking at these unguarded moments on constant loop. It’s almost as if Warhol was talking about the GIF when he said, “Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”

Andy Warhol. Unidentified Woman (Short Curly Hair), February 1980 (Polaroid series). Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol. Gardner Cowles, November 1976 (Polaroid series). Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol. Regina Schrecker, June 1983 (Polaroid series). Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol. Unidentified Woman (High Forehead, Thin Eyebrows), March 1980 (Polaroid series). Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. © 2013 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Coco Chanel is said to have famously advised, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.” Of course, this counsel came decades after Jeanne, the young woman who posed for this painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, donned her bevy of bows, and it’s unlikely that she would have parted with one of them. For though Jeanne was only a working-class girl from Renoir’s neighborhood of Montmartre, her dress—bows and all—was of the highest fashion at the time. With no waist seam, the white muslin princess-cut gown skims along the elongated contours of her body, contours made possible by the cuirass corset, the Spanx of the day, which not only cinched the waist and slimmed the hips but also made everything in between nice and smooth. The endless stream of bows (much to Coco’s dismay) further accentuate this long vertical silhouette, and their color beautifully complements the blue of her petticoat visible under the raised hem.

Similar dress styles can be found on high-society ladies in the portraits of the more traditional painter James Tissot, but Renoir took his à la mode fashion in a decidedly different direction, putting it on lower-class folks—Jeanne, his bother Edmond, and friend and fellow painter Robert Goeneutte—and setting them an informal sun-dappled garden. The scene, a girl on a swing amid lush greenery with attendant males, certainly recalls those deliciously frothy and frivolous Rococo confections known as fêtes galantes, but by using friends and neighbors as his models, Renoir seems to have breathed a new casual authenticity and charming intimacy into the garden gathering.

However, it was not the bows nor the dress nor the updated fête galante that caught the eyes of contemporary critics when Renoir first displayed the painting at the third Impressionist group exhibition in 1877. Rather they focused on the kaleidoscope of colored dots the artist used to try to capture the spectacular effect of sunlight filtering through the trees, deriding it as “impressionistic hail” or splattered grease. While these naysayers might not have appreciated Renoir’s avant-garde efforts to convey the ephemeral quality of light, they were right to see this ever-changing effect as being as much the subject of the painting as the sweetly swinging Jeanne and her bounteous bows. Both—the transient nature of light and the short-lived fashion of the time—were means by which Renoir and the rest of the Impressionists aimed to express a moment, their fleeting contemporary moment. Here in fact, Renoir even collapses the two, his loose brushwork dissolving Jeanne’s up-to-the minute fashion into the only-for-a-moment garden light.

With so many Impressionist approaches in play, it seems only fitting that it was another Impressionist, Gustave Caillebotte, who purchased the work. Bows, “impressionistic hail,” and all, the very modern fête galante remained in Caillebotte’s collection until his death in 1894.

—Lauren S., Associate Director of Communications

Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The Swing, 1876. Musée d’Orsay, bequest of Gustave Caillebotte, 1894, RF 2738.

Walking outside the museum today, I noticed an abundance of fringe and neon, which can only mean one thing. . . Lollapalooza is here! This year we’re doing a super-sized edition of our favorite annual game matching artworks in our collection to bands playing in this year’s fest.

Check out this year’s line-up and leave your best guesses in the comments. First person to get them all correct (according to my specifications) wins an Art Institute prize package.

HINT: No need to do them in order, but we do recommend figuring out #4 before you do #5.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

Good luck!

At its most straightforward, La Loge is a portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s favorite model, Nini, and a sumptuous celebration of the culture, style, and up-to-the-moment fashion for which Paris was famous. Ah, but things are never so simple!

To the contemporary viewer, Nini looks every bit the grande dame, elegantly adorned in pearls and an ermine cloak. She holds little golden opera glasses in one appropriately gloved hand and a fan and lace-edged handkerchief in the other. The dress itself would have been exactly à la mode, a striped over-dress made for the opening night of a performance. A lovely pink flower accents her hairstyle, and another peeks out at the center of her bodice, drawing the eye to her fashionable décolletage, newly possible after advances in corset manufacturing.

But in fact, Nini was a girl from Montmartre, a model with the nickname of “gueule de raie,” which roughly translates to fish-face. And critics and onlookers saw right through her elegant façade when this painting was first exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874. They noticed her disheveled hair and bangs, and that while her dress was in fashion, it was a “demi-toilette” and did not match the formality of her male companion’s dress or tailcoat. Her face was also heavily powdered, even over done, some said. And while her ostentatious ensemble may have been appropriate for a married woman, for a young woman, it was unseemly.

To 19th-century audiences, Nini’s comportment indicated her status as a “cocotte,” or kept woman. But even her escort (who was modeled by Renoir’s brother Edmund) doesn’t seem particularly interested in her. Gazing through his over-sized opera glasses, he appears to be otherwise engaged, looking anywhere but where he is supposed to look. Perhaps someone new has caught his roving eye?

—Tricia Patterson, Marketing Coordinator

Image Credit. Pierre-Auguste Renoir. La Loge, 1874. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London, P.1948.SC.338.

My annual trip through the galleries with Sophie—my favorite 8-year-old museum companion—is always a summer highlight. But I was especially excited this year to take her through Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity. In the past, we’ve meandered through the Modern Wing and last year’s Lichtenstein exhibition and while Sophie is always game for exploring contemporary art, I knew all of the beautiful dresses and accessories—not to mention the paintings— in this exhibition would be right up her alley. I was not disappointed.

She proclaimed that she found “the prettiest dress ever” (see above) and “the coolest shoes” as we walked throughout. She’s a ballerina herself, so she loved the use of tulle and all of the volume in the garments. I didn’t take offense when she noticed that all of the dresses in the exhibition wouldn’t fit me (they wouldn’t), but did feel a little better when she added that they looked like they would be better suited for a big kid. In fact, all of the garments in the exhibition are for adults, but adults during this time were significantly shorter than adults today.

She was also quick to notice the different styles of the Impressionist artists. Tissot’s exacting style “looked more like a photo,” while Monet’s paintings were “a little brushier.” And she was right. Although Tissot’s paintings were exhibited at the Parisian Salons, his work is less identified with the Impressionist movement because his aesthetic differed so much from the sketchier brushwork of Renoir, Degas, and, of course, Monet.

She also appreciated the general theatricality of the exhibition. Her favorite gallery featuring paintings set out of doors. She was happy she wore sandals so she could feel the grass and was a big fan of both the green park benches and the “comfy” circular sofas in later galleries in lieu of the standard wooden museum benches.

And while I think she did really love the glamour, she came to the (smart, I think) realization that she wouldn’t be interested in living in that time. She noted that a lot of the garments didn’t look particularly easy to wear (especially when you factor in corsets) and that even the dresses women wore just around the house seemed like a lot of work.

As always, it was illuminating to look at a familiar subject through a different lens. Thanks, Sophie!

If you’re a fan of watching the red carpet portion of award shows, you’ll frequently hear the question “Who are you wearing?” Which is the exact question that art historians are still trying to answer for this 1866 painting by Claude Monet. How did the artist access these super fashionable—and quite expensive—garments?

Here’s what we do know. . . Women in the Garden was painted en plein air at a house Monet rented in Ville d’Avray, southwest of Paris. His mistress Camille posed consecutively for each of the figures, but Monet varied both her posture and her outward appearance (note the red hair on the figure to the right) according to the composition.

The dresses pictured are also at the height of fashion. These summery, bright gowns are characterized by tight-fitting, high-waisted bodices and half length paletots (fitted outer jackets). Stylish ladies like the ones depicted would have valued white dresses both because they were thought to have an advantageous effect on the complexion and they signified a life of leisure. The striped dress to the left and the dotted ensemble to the right also feature the triangular silhouette, which would have been au courant in 1866 fashion magazines.

But where did Monet get these dresses? It’s unlikely that he owned or borrowed them because his own financial situation at this point in time was quite precarious. One hypothesis is that they may have belonged to Camille herself. She was quite fashionable and grew up in well-established bourgeois circumstances, but was essentially cut off from her family when she took up with Monet in 1865. However, the fact that at least one of the dresses (the dotted garment) appears in Monet’s earlier Luncheon on the Grass bolsters this idea. Also, at the time, dresses were preserved as long as possible and even updated by adding or subtracting trims and accessories, so she and Monet may have reimagined some of her older dresses.

If only Ryan Seacrest lived in the 1860s. . . then we would have all the answers.

Image Credit: Claude Monet. Women in the Garden, 1866. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 2773.

It’s no wonder Vogue chose this painting to headline their February 2013 article on Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity—this 1878 work by Jean Béraud is a fashion lover’s dream. And although the men far outnumber the women, it’s the ladies who steal this show. They preen throughout the well-appointed ballroom in magnificent dresses that evoke the designs of the most important couturier of their time, Charles Frederick Worth.

Worth is widely known as the “father of haute couture” and his atelier, the House of Worth, dressed royals, actresses, singers, and other fashionable ladies, some of whom would travel to Paris from all over the world to purchase their entire wardrobes from him. His work was known for its decadence and attention to detail. In fact, he had a special room in his atelier, the “salon de lumière,” that was lit first by candlelight, later by gas lamps, and eventually by electric fixtures, so clients could preview how the fabrics and colors they selected would look under artificial light.

Such thoroughness would definitely have been important to the grandes dames featured in this painting. Because everyone depicted represented actual, recognizable people—aristocrats, politicians, and others from high society. Béraud’s semi-fictional portrayal of this ball was based on an observed experience, and when this painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1878, part of its popular appeal was that these women were recognizable to visitors and reviewers of the Salon. See and be seen is taken to another level.

Image Credit: Jean Béraud. A Ball, 1878. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 1994 15.

Morisot did it for Manet. Monet did it for Renoir. Bazille did it for Monet. Renoir did it for Bazille. In fact, most of the Impressionists did it for one another, seemingly all the time.

Just what were they doing? Posing. Perhaps more than any other group of artists, the Impressionists painted one another. It could be argued that they needed each other; many of them were close to broke, especially at the start of their careers, and they couldn’t afford models. But it also might be the case that one of the revolutions of the Impressionist period was the elevation of the “Everyman.” No longer was portraiture restricted to depictions of the aristocracy or famous figures throughout history. A painting of Monet’s mistress, for example, could be as grandly scaled as the finest society portrait.

In Frédéric Bazille’s 1867 portrait of a mid-20s Renoir, the young artist sits in a rather rakish pose on a chair, his knees casually pulled up to his chest, his hands loosely folded together. His pose suggests the stereotypically relaxed and freewheeling artist, but his clothes could measure up to those of any man of society. At this time, Paris was the style capital for women’s fashion, but men’s wear was dictated by London. Colors were muted, clothes were sober, and what determined “fashionability” was not elaborate trimming but instead a fine cut and perfect fit. Renoir is even wearing boots with elastic inserts—a 19th-century innovation that enabled men and women to put their boots on without hassling with closures—much as we wear today. Because men’s clothing was fairly conventional and existed on a small spectrum, the way that a man could express himself (especially in a static portrait) was in his attitude and how he carried himself.

Now we don’t know if Bazille posed Renoir or if Renoir situated himself, but what we have to infer is that it would have been exceptionally uncomfortable to sit like this for an extended period of time. And that’s friendship, folks.

Image Credit: Frédéric Bazille. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1867. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on deposit to the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, DL 1970 3.

Congratulations are in order for Mount Fuji, which was adopted on June 24 of this year as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Japan, thousands of people celebrated by trying to be among those witnessing the first raiko, or sunrise, since the announcement. At the Art Institute, we are celebrating by putting on view Katsushika Hokusai’s dazzling Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, including the great Great Wave, which hasn’t been on view at the museum for many years. (Okay, we’re kidding about that—we decided to put Hokusai’s series on view long before the UNESCO designation was a done deal—but we are very serious that this would be a great time to visit the museum and see Hokusai’s prints.)

Somewhat surprisingly, Mount Fuji was named as a cultural, rather than natural, heritage site, recognizing the extent to which the mountain has permeated Japanese cultural and spiritual life for centuries. It has been venerated as a sacred mountain since ancient times, but it was in the Edo period, roughly from 1600 to 1850 when the Japanese capital moved from Kyoto to Edo (modern-day Tokyo), that the popularity of Mount Fuji soared like the mountain’s snow-capped peak. Even though it is about 60 miles from Tokyo, Mount Fuji is visible from many points within the city, and a cult developed around the mountain. Called Fujiko, members of the cult gathered offerings and selected representatives who would climb the mountain. It was believed that the spirit of those who successfully ascended the mountain would be purified and they would be able to find happiness. Climbing the mountain was, in a sense, a rebirth: pilgrims who entered Mount Fuji, which was viewed as a female deity, would come out reborn and rejuvenated.

Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei) was a product of the popularity of this cult. While the protagonist of the series is of course Mount Fuji, many prints also feature the pilgrims on their way to the mountain or to a famous view of Mount Fuji. In the print Soshu Nakahara [1925.3230], for example, two pilgrims wearing large round hats are depicted on the bridge, and the taller pilgrim wears the traditional white garb. The traveler at the far right, a peddler, takes a step toward the mountain as if to begin his climb, despite the distance between them.

The popularity of the Fuji cult waned after the Meiji period when people began to consider mountain climbing as a pastime rather than a ritual. Yet even today, about ten groups make the pilgrimage up to a shrine near the summit of the mountain, and they wear white and carry a long walking stick as they did more than two centuries ago. When asked if people around the world understand the significance of Mount Fuji, the chief priest of the Fuji Hongu Sengen Shrine located in the southern foothills of Mount Fuji and guarding the “front entrance” to the mountain, recently said, “The word for tourism [in Japanese] is kanko, which is written ‘to see the light’ [in Chinese characters]. If visitors who visit this land feel something through viewing Mount Fuji, that is good enough for me.”

—Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art

Image Credit: Katsushika Hokusai. The Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei), c. 1830–32. Clarence Buckingham Collection.

Contrary to what the composition of James Tissot’s The Circus Lover might suggest, the real subjects of this painting are the female spectators in the foreground, not the trapeze dandy—a member of the Parisian aristocracy taking part in an amateur circus—in the upper center of the picture. The work is one of 18 large paintings made by Tissot in a series called Women of Paris, which depicts women of various social classes as they might have been encountered around town: taking in the circus, at lunch, on the streets of the city. Tissot is recognized today for his meticulous documentation of Parisian fashion; as you can see in the Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity exhibition, Tissot would often paint different models in the same dress, so enamored was he with contemporary fashion. In the same vein, The Circus Lover is not so much about the circus as it is about the women watching it and what they’re wearing.

Two women are seated in the foreground of this amateur circus, forming a gorgeous counterpoint to each other. One faces us with a slightly haughty expression; the other has her back to us. One woman wears a light pink dress, the other a bright red. One fan, cream-colored, is closed and cocked over a shoulder; the other is black and spread across the woman’s chest. It is almost as if Tissot had to represent two women who would serve as the second half of the other; in this way the artist could represent the back and the front of dresses, hats, and fans, always with lavish details.

What Tissot has mainly captured in The Circus Lover, though, is the newfound and hard-won liberty of women in Paris in the late 19th century. While the audience is a mix of men and women—segregated though they may be—these two women, and many others, appear to be unaccompanied. Their clothing suggests utter respectability, but the fact that they are out for an evening unescorted—and even pointedly ignoring the ardent gentleman leaning into their box—showcases the extent to which la Parisienne was becoming a force in French culture. Fashionable, bold, maybe even slightly superior, this new category of women was a critical step in redefining femininity for the modern age. Send in the clowns!

James Tissot. The Circus Lover from the series Women of Paris, 1885. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, 58.45.

Go get your vintage sewing machine tattoo touched up, because this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival starts tomorrow! The annual festival is an institution at this point, bringing dozens of bands and thousands of canvas shoe enthusiasts to Chicago’s Union Park. It has become a tradition here at ARTicle to dig through the Art Institute’s collection for pieces that evoke the names of a few of the fest’s featured artists. Below is this year’s selection. The current popularity of band names that are just a noun or adjective+noun should hopefully make most of the answers pretty straightforward. Leave your answers in the comments. First person to get them all correct wins 2 free tickets to the Art Institute. GO!

White dresses were de rigueur for fashionable Parisian women during the summer, and they were a favorite of Impressionist painters as well, many of whom depicted not only the popular white muslin dresses but flowering lace curtains or diaphanous drapery in the same painting, reveling in the play of light on white. White fabrics challenged painters and their palettes with their transparency and undertones of different colors, and they occur frequently in Impressionist painting.

But the real star in this painting—Édouard Manet’s sketch of Jeanne Duval, who was his friend Charles Baudelaire’s former mistress—is the absurdly billowing skirt Duval wears. The skirt, which takes up nearly half of this painting, is really a caricature of a woman under the influence of a crinoline, a cage worn under a skirt to help keep its form. Some of the earliest forms of the crinoline in France were stiffened petticoats meant to keep the skirt in shape, but by the 1860s the crinoline had “evolved” into a steel cage that was fastened around a woman’s waist, giving a skirt the appearance of a bell. Crinolines were widely ridiculed—as Manet is doing here—and grew, in cartoons and prints, to hideous proportions (Check out our related installation Fashionable French Farce in Galleries 223A and 225A, featuring Honoré Daumier’s and Felicien Rops’s take on couture, including women parachuting through the skies with crinolines and parasols.)

The reign of the steel-cage crinoline was quite brief, and by the time Manet made this painting, crinolines had started to change from the dome shape he represented here to a version that was gathered in the front and sides, leaving the roundedness of a skirt to the area of the derriere. This, of course, was the beginning of the bustle, famously celebrated in the rhythmic lines and swoops of George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte–1884.

Historians agree that Jeanne Duval—or any fashionable woman in Paris—would not have actually worn a skirt or crinoline so large. Rather, Manet took liberties in his representation of Jeanne, emphasizing and exaggerating the marks of modern femininity. While not quite a parody, Lady with Fan brings to the fore the artifice of being a woman in this era—corseted, caged, powdered, gloved, and, most of all, dressed.

Credit: Édouard Manet. Lady with Fan, 1862. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 368.B.

There are 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute’s collection (including the French Dining Room pictured above), but we presently have 69 on view with the addition of our German Rococo loan room. It is my pleasure to take care of these rooms, as well as research their history and construction. This has led me to take up making miniatures of my own as a means of practice and to further my knowledge and appreciation of the art of fine miniatures. One of my great opportunities to practice comes once a year in a tiny coastal town in Maine called Castine. A group of miniature artists descends upon this town for Guild School, which is part of the International Guild of Miniature Artisans.  I just got back from this weeklong study trip and thought it might be interesting to share some of the things I learned.

But first a view of the town. It’s beautiful here but the trip is all about miniatures…

All kinds of skills are taught, from creating miniature furniture to silver- and other metal-smithing to making plants and even miniature gold fish.

We have the opportunity to work with many amazing miniatures teachers and students from around the world. While I was there, I ran into fellow Chicagoan and artist Mary Grady O’Brian.

Some of you might remember her work as a part of our annual holiday decorations for the Thorne Rooms. She created the little Victorian doll and a bulto (or saint figure) for our New Mexico room.

Here I am studying how to make a miniature basket in a class led by Francine Coyon.

Weaving…..

and at the end of the week a hinged lidded basket!

And now learning miniature painting techniques with South African artist Beth Freeman-Kane.

Here is my finished painted bird and landscape from her workshop.

My new skills will be put to the test later this year as we bedeck a new Thorne Miniature Room this year for the holidays. Which will we pick? You’ll have to wait and see, but feel free to leave your guesses in the comments!

—Lindsay Mican Morgan, Department Technician, Thorne Rooms

Image Credit: Mrs. James Ward Thorne. French Dining Room of the Periods of Louis XV and Louis XIV, c. 1937. Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne.

“Immoral”—that is the judgment the Salon jury handed down to this painting by 26-year-old Henri Gervex, firmly rejecting the work from the 1878 show. Surprisingly the offending element was not the slumbering nude blissfully draped across the bed, or rather it was not her alone. Nudes, especially classically beautiful ones like this, had long been an admired tradition in academic French painting. What really shocked the Salon jury—and the hoards of people who flocked to see the scandalous painting in the gallery where it hung after its exclusion from the Salon—was the pile of clothing on the floor next the bed.  The pink dress, stiff white petticoat, rose-colored garter, and red (red!) corset—there they were, undeniable evidence of the libidinous speed with which they had been removed, undeniable evidence that the woman stretched across the bed was no classical idealized form, no abstract idea of Woman, no mere artist’s model, but a lusty prostitute in the flesh.

Well, “in the flesh” might be a little much; she and the rest of Gervex’s racy scene were inspired by fiction, an 1833 poem by Alfred de Musset. The poem, perhaps sparked by Musset’s despair over his and novelist George Sand’s fitful love affair, recounts the downward spiral of a bourgeois gentleman, Jacques Rolla, who amid his debaucheries, falls for a teenage prostitute, Marie, and lavishes his every last cent upon her. Gervex’s painting depicts the antihero’s final moments; looking upon his young lover and realizing his utter ruin, he is about to commit suicide by drinking poison. In case viewers were not familiar with the story of Musset’s poem, Edgar Degas reportedly advised Gervex to include “the dress she’s taken off” and “a corset on the floor.” When the Salon jury and everyone else were so outraged by Rolla, Degas was apparently thrilled, proclaiming, “You see… they understood she’s a woman who takes her clothes off.”

Those clothes, in addition to being so hastily thrown to the floor, contain another clue to Marie’s line of work. The corset—splayed open to show its white underside, her lover’s cane suggestively poking out from underneath—is red! Corsets were, of course, a staple of all women’s fashions in the late 19th century, but respectable women wore plain white cotton or linen undergarments. Only the more fashionably adventurous, i.e. courtesans and actresses, ventured into the just blossoming world of erotic undergarments—sensuous fabrics like satin and silk, eye-catching colors like pink, blue, and red, and embellishments of lace and ribbons. Such seductive underattire eventually became more widely popular between the 1890s and the 1910s, but in 1878 when Gervex painted Rolla, these titillating wears were still the reserve of a certain kind of lady, a clear signal that they were meant to be seen—and as Degas suggested, quickly and passionately removed.

—Lauren S., Associate Director of Communications

Image Credit: Henri Gervex. Rolla, 1878. Musée d’Orsay, bequest of M. Béradi, 1926, LUX 1545.

For Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, that would hardly be an exaggeration. Burnaby, the subject of this painting by portraitist James Tissot, was the real-life version of the great swashbuckling adventurer. He made a pioneering journey on horseback across Central Asia—in winter and essentially alone—meeting up with the murderous Khan of Kiva and finding him a “cheery sort of fellow.” He took a similarly wild trip across Asia Minor and raced off to join deadly British military campaigns in Sudan—without obtaining leave from his then-current military post. He was a hot-blooded hot-air balloon enthusiast, becoming the first man to make the journey across the English Channel. And he was a heroic (though somewhat independent-minded) soldier, regarded as the strongest man in the British Army. Needless to say, he was quite the celebrity of the late 19th century. His tales of his exotic expeditions enthralled audiences whether recounted in person in a salon or wittily written in books. In fact, his best-selling A Ride to Kiva won him both kudos from Henry James and a dinner invitation from Queen Victoria. Oh, and did we mention he spoke seven languages?

Tissot captures the legendary daredevil in a casual yet slightly swaggering pose. Burnaby wears the debonair “at-ease” version of his Royal Horse Guards captain’s uniform, the red stripe down his pant leg calling attention to the impressive length of his 6 foot, 4 inch frame. The more formal military accoutrements—the parade helmet, full-dress tunic, and cuirass—rest nearby, while a map of Asia and Africa behind him and stacks of books at his side allude to his famous exploits. Together the pose, the uniform, the symbolic props all infuse the somewhat feminine salon setting with a good whiff of manly bravado, creating a portrait that seems to ooze the captain’s virile charm.

After all, who doesn’t love a man in uniform? Well, it turns out the Impressionists, that’s who. Depictions of military men are rare among the works of the Impressionists. Military service didn’t become universal until 1872, so uniformed soldiers weren’t part of the urban landscape, and they just didn’t fit into the Impressionists’ goal of capturing modern everyday life. Tissot, on the other hand, painted many gallant officers parading in their uniforms and holding court in salons. And really we can’t blame him. Burnaby might not be so of the moment fashion-wise, but he was certainly of the moment in terms of celebrity—and well, he does cut a fine figure.

—Lauren S., Associate Director of Communications

James Tissot. Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, 1870. National Portrait Gallery, London.

On first glance, this painting by Gustave Caillebotte may seem fairly clear cut. After all, each of the subjects’ place in Parisian society is readily discernible by his or her clothes alone. The man at the right leaning on the bridge railing is a worker, identifiable by his cap and smock. Another worker, also in a cap and a loose fitting jacket, walks away from the viewer, just to the right of the lone woman. She, undeniably stylish, wears all the trappings of the sophisticated and fashionable Parisienne. Black had just become the new black; and her chic ruffled black walking ensemble is complemented with a dainty embellished parasol and coordinating red bows on her veiled bonnet and shoes. Finally, the man to her right (likely a self-portrait of the artist) strides confidently in his tall top hat and well-cut overcoat, emblems of his status as a bourgeois gentleman.

But just how these members of distinct social classes relate to each other is much more fuzzy. The top-hatted flaneur and stylish woman are well suited to each other in terms of dress, but they do not walk side by side or arm in arm as a couple. He is several steps ahead, and while she certainly seems to be eying him, it is not clear whether his sideways glance is an untoward over-the-shoulder proposition to her or a gaze in the direction of the worker at the railing. Before arriving at this final enigmatic composition, Caillebotte played around with the fashions and placement of the figures—and thus their relationships—in several preparatory sketches and on this canvas itself. At one point the possible propositioner sported a bowler hat and walked side by side with his female companion in more polite fashion. As they each became more independent strollers, her ensemble and parasol became more ruffled and flamboyant—perhaps more eye-catching and enticing to the gentlemen of the city.

As suggestive as this would all seem, the painting was received much more favorably when it debuted at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877 than the other work Caillebotte showed, Paris Street; Rainy Day. That one was criticized as “big and boring,” while Pont de l’Europe was viewed as “more truthful and at the same time more graceful.” What perhaps made it more truthful was the ambiguity of the scene; that was certainly what made it modern. The mixing of worker and gentleman, the murkiness of relationships—these were all very recent developments of the new widened boulevards and intersections of Paris. By portraying the new mingling and haziness of the urban streetscape, Caillebotte truly captured the contemporary moment and left us wondering still over a century later—are they or aren’t they?

Image Credit: Gustave Caillebotte. Pont de l’Europe, 1876. Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva.

—Lauren S., Associate Director of Communications

The work of James Tissot is well represented in the exhibition Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, proving to be the most singular and telling counterpoint to the painting produced by the Impressionist artists during this period. Tissot’s documentary-style paintings are some of the best records we have of the attire of high society Parisians from the 1860s through the 1880s—not only of women but also, critically, men. His Circle of the Rue Royale, from the Musée d’Orsay, is the 19th-century equivalent of a spread in today’s GQ. And we would expect no less from an artist of Tissot’s background; he was the son of a fashion seller and a milliner.

The Circle of the Rue Royale was an actual club for men founded in 1852, the members variously composed of aristocrats, railway barons, and military officers. To be part of this commissioned group portrait, each of the twelve men pictured in the painting paid 1000 francs to be included. The final owner of the painting was determined by lottery. (If you’re wondering, the winner was Baron Hottinguer, seated on the right of the sofa, casually leaning on it.)

All of the men in the painting—marquises, princes, barons—are identifiable, as one would expect for a commissioned group portrait. Less obvious, though, is the way that Tissot has depicted the shifting political affiliations of the members of the Circle of the Rue Royale as the Second French Empire began to give way to the Third Republic. In this paean to male elegance, Tissot has included symbols of this burgeoning political tempest: discarded on the ground at left is the newspaper Le Constitutionnel, representing the rejection of the monarchy; the seated figure at right, Prince Edmond-Melchior de Polignac, holds a copy of the Vie de Louis XVII, a  nod to those with continuing monarchic loyalties. And, political affiliations aside, the man standing in the doorway at the far right is Charles Haas, who was apparently one of the sources of inspiration for Proust’s Charles Swann.

Representing the cream of Parisian society, The Circle of the Rue Royale lavishly pictures the height of masculine elegance in 1868. And it would appear that few choices were available to the well-dressed man. All of the men wear muted colors and ties, accessorized by walking sticks and top hats. The cut and lines of men’s clothing were far more important than color, emphasizing a wide torso, narrow waist, and flat stomach—particularly important as the male corset was no longer considered part of the wardrobe as it had been in previous eras. And clearly much more research needs to be done on facial hair of the era; not one of our 12 gentlemen is clean-shaven.

Image Credit: James Tissot. The Circle of the Rue Royale, 1868. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF 2001 53.

Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day is one of the landmark paintings of this era, and there are many things we know about it. We know why everyone is dressed so somberly—outdoor clothing at this time was predominantly dark. We know where our pedestrians are—the carrefour created by the intersection of the rues de Moscou, Turin, Saint-Pétersbourg, and Clapeyron. We know that this was a neighborhood extremely familiar to Caillebotte—he lived not too far away on the rue de Miromesnil. And we know why it would appear that everyone has the same umbrella.

As you look across this monumental painting, you’ll notice at least 13 (my unofficial count) virtually identical umbrellas, all seemingly made of gray silk over a steel frame. The journal Le Radical at the time suggested that the umbrellas could have been purchased from a department store like Le Bon Marché or Les Grands Magasins du Louvre. Thus the umbrellas of Paris Street; Rainy Day are just as real as the intersection Caillebotte depicts.

Umbrellas—newly widely available during this era—conveyed some existential beliefs about city life. Writers of the day saw umbrellas not just as protective covers, but also a mark of anonymity in the hustle and bustle of city life. Compared to Paris’s former tight streets and densely packed blocks, the “new Paris” designed by Georges-Eugène Haussmann regularized the city into grand boulevards and turned entire blocks into standardized apartment buildings. Amidst this changing Paris, some feared that uniformity was replacing individual character and a sense of humanity was being lost. In this sense, Caillebotte’s plethora of umbrellas that create literal space around their carriers suggest the creation of figurative space as well. And, in fact, all of the people in this painting—together or not—look alone. Interactions, even between the featured couple, seem nonexistent, with everyone in the painting occupying the respective bubbles created by their umbrellas. Some figures appear so deeply absorbed in their own worlds that they are about to crash into fellow pedestrians. Caillebotte might appear to be using umbrellas to picture a philosophical state as much as an urban scene.

One thing we don’t know about the painting is whether it’s actually raining. Critics harped on this ambiguity at the time and argued with one another about whether the painting depicted a fine drizzle, the aftermath of a rainstorm, or even snow.

Image Credit: Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877. Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection.