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We know that the Impressionists themselves were inspired by 19th-century fashion designers like Charles Frederick Worth and Madame Roger, but how could these paintings then inspire the fashion designers of today? That’s exactly the challenge that exhibition curator Gloria Groom posed to six designers-in-residence (and two alumni) of the Chicago Fashion Incubator at Macy’s on State Street. They each chose a painting from the exhibition as a starting point and then created a contemporary ensemble influenced by it.

Check out the video above to learn more about what sparked the designers’ interest—for example, it wasn’t the spectacular dresses in A Ball that inspired Katelyn Pankoke, but the vibrant red curtains in the background of the painting—and get an insider look at their process.

You’ll also get to see the winning ensemble by designer Shelby Steiner. She chose Bartholomé’s In the Conservatory, the only painting in the exhibition for which we have the actual garment that was featured in it. She created a three-piece look in which she combined textiles and patterns—hand painting every single stripe and dot—and created an original mirrored plaid digital design that not only evokes the garment, but also the windowpanes of the conservatory and the flowers inside.

If you’d like to see the garments in person (which we highly recommend), visit the 7th floor of Macy’s on State Street before September 29. We guarantee that you’ll see the corresponding paintings in a totally new light.

For all of the talk about fashion on this blog over the last few months, there’s been surprisingly little said about shoes. And that’s primarily because until the 1880s, shoes were rarely exposed due to the volume of the dresses. The advent of dresses with flatter fronts (and a bustle in the back) were among the first to make ladies’ footwear visible.

Although the image above by artist Eva Gonzalès prominently features a pair of delicate white satin slippers trimmed with swansdown, she infrequently showed them in her work. Of her thirty-five paintings that include full-length figures, only seven reveal shoes. But with mystery came fascination. Shoes were fetishized because they covered a part of the body not intended to be on view. In many of the Impressionists’ intimate portraits, a mule or slipper dangles from the subject’s foot, heightening the informal dishabille of the sitter.

In the exhibition, this painting is placed directly over a case that features shoes very similar to those you see here. And although it’s hard to get a sense of scale as you’re looking at the image above, you’ll be shocked when you see the actual slippers. They’re incredibly tiny and narrow, further illustrating a point we’ve made in several other posts: women in the mid-1800s were, on average, significantly smaller than we are. The shoe, in this case, definitely will not fit.

Image Credit: Eva Gonzalès. The White Slippers, 1879/80. Vera Wang.

Video Postcard: Women at Her Toilette (1875/80)
Gloria Groom, curator of the exhibition Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, takes you on a tour of one of the Berthe Morisot's masterpieces. Learn more: h... From: ArtInstituteChicago Views: 5469 16 ratings Time: 01:59 More in Education

Sorry to say, summer is fleeting. Summer fashion? It changes so fast it’ll make your top hat–covered head spin.

In 1863 Edouard Manet painted a scandalous work titled Luncheon on the Grass which showed voluptuous nudes striking classical poses in the company of men dressed in the fashions of 1860s Paris. In the minds of the public, making the outdoor scene contemporary corrupted the work in a shocking way.

Perhaps in a nod to Manet’s Luncheon, several years later Claude Monet began work on a group of figure drawings also named Luncheon on the Grass. Monet, like Manet, sought to use imagery of the Parisian middle class at leisure in the forests of Fontainebleau to push the envelope. While the ambitious goal of presenting this large project at the Salon of 1866 didn’t pan out, two large, life-sized panels (the central panel above and the left panel below), as well as a number of sketches and studies, show the scope of what Monet aimed to accomplish.

Standing atop the artificial grass among fashionable visitors from around the country and world, Monet’s groundbreaking explorations come into full focus.

The middle-class crowd sprawled out in the woods is not organized according to some classical calculus. The faces of the figures are not the focus (you can’t even see the faces of three of the women!), nor are the food, drink, or trees. What does pop, however, is the fashion that most certainly was the very epitome of style at the very moment depicted. The brightly-colored accents on the dress on the left panel, the brilliant white of the dress at center, the complicated motion of the beige dress, and the cut and fit of the men’s suits are, in my mind, Monet’s tour de force. The ephemerality of these garments—very much alive in the panels—are sure to fall from favor at the end of the season just as the leaves will fall from the forest trees. What strikes me about this painting is that it’s timeless by not showing the timeless, classic by rejecting the classical. It, through fashion, shows how life really is: momentary, colorful, and always in flux.

Monet’s beautiful snapshot of modern life is still contemporary today even after 150 cycles of summer fashion have passed. And, just like hot summer fashions of 2013, Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity will go off view at the end of September.

Image Credit: Claude Manet. Luncheon on the Grass, 1865–66. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, acquired as a payment in kind, 1987, RF 1987-12.

For my money, the best way to experience Edgar Degas’s The Millinery Shop in Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity is with your back to it. Now don’t get me wrong, looking at it straight on is lovely. You can peer—as if through a shop window—at the macaroon-like chapeaus and the woman admiring (or perhaps working on?) them. But when you turn around, you see a real life display case full of 19th-century hats. The jaunty headpieces— made of velvet, silk and lace—mimic the placement of those in the painting, propped on stands at varying heights. There is also a mirror behind them that gives 360-degree view of the objects. But perhaps more importantly, the mirror allows you to see the painting itself, igniting comparisons and creating an experience that just isn’t possible if you were, say, looking at this image on a computer.

In fact, throughout the entire exhibition, objects are mounted in cases and flanked with mirrors. This choice—a conscious one made early in the exhibition planning—allows viewers to see garments and accessories in the round. It also creates an immersive and interactive experience you might not expect.

Plus, the mirrors do one more thing. They add you. Suddenly, that shirt you saw on a blog, bought on a website, and picked out to wear today is in conversation with Degas and his milliner and the hats of real 19th-century ladies. In my case, that conversation creates the feeling of being wildly underdressed.

—Tricia Patterson, Marketing Coordinator

Image Credit: Edgar Degas. Millinery Shop, 1879/86. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection.

Welcome to the Art Institute of Chicago
This introduction to the Art Institute previews its world-renowned collection, inspiring gallery spaces, and dynamic educational programs. To see and learn m... From: ArtInstituteChicago Views: 1 0 ratings Time: 06:09 More in Education

A Tour with Abelardo Morell
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Video Postcard: Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877)
Gloria Groom, curator of the exhibition Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, takes you on a tour of one of the Caillebotte's masterpieces. Learn more: http... From: ArtInstituteChicago Views: 5 0 ratings Time: 01:48 More in Education

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.

Video Postcard: Madame Georges Charpentier and Her Children (1878)
Gloria Groom, curator of the exhibition Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, takes you on a tour of one of Renoir's masterpieces. Learn more: http://www.ar... From: ArtInstituteChicago Views: 10 0 ratings Time: 01:26 More in Education

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.

 

Video Postcard: Frederick Gustavus Burnaby (1870)
Gloria Groom, curator of the exhibition Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, takes you on a tour of one of Jame's Tissot's masterpieces. Learn more: http:/... From: ArtInstituteChicago Views: 368 1 ratings Time: 01:42 More in Education