Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting - Softcover

Hollander, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300094191 ISBN 13: 9780300094190

Publisher: Natl Gallery Pubns Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

This 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.
Drawing on works by artists over a span of six centuries as well as fashion plates, photographs and film stills, the author shows how drapery in painting evolved in the period following the Renaissance, becoming ever more flamboyant and theatrical, before the revolution of taste at the end of the eighteenth century saw a return to Neoclassical ideals of simplicity in art and dress.

About this title

Review

With Fabric of Vision, Hollander [explores] the ways in which artists have used dress and drapery to give emphasis and emotional force to the figures portrayed ... [and] brilliantly combines [her] skills as both an art historian and a dress historian. ... Reading this book is like having Hollander walk with us through our favorite art museum, helping us really see and understand the works of art through close attention to dress, drapery, and the depiction of the body,whether clothed or nude.
- From the Foreword by Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator, The Museum at FIT, New York

A beautifully written, beautifully illustrated introduction to the whole of western European painting from the 14th century through the 20th from a specific, yet basic and widely interesting point of view. This is not just a book for people fascinated by clothes, but for anyone who likes to think about paintings. ... The writing is exceptionally deft; the ideas will interest novices and experts alike.
- Choice

Fabric of Vision is a unique and welcome contribution to art history and criticism that will doubtless serve as a valuable scholarly resource.
- Reid Ahlbeck, Dialogue

[Fabric of Vision] demonstrates how artists used garments and draperies as an expressive means in their paintings. Covering Western European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century, Hollander shows how fabric in art reflected each era's social preoccupations, fashions, and tastes ... The text is illustrated by more than 140 beautiful full-color illustrations of works by such artists as Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Delacroix, and Picasso. Throughout, Hollander brings new insight into the fields of both art and costume history.
- Sandra Rothenberg, Library Journal

Anne Hollander s Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting ... is rich with color reproductions showing this and other splendid yardage from the classical period through the mid-20th century ... A dynamic and provocative study.
- Suzanne Cleary, Bloomsbury Review

Illuminating. --- Kim Waller, Victoria magazine

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Natl Gallery Pubns Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0300094191
• ISBN 13: 9780300094190
• Binding: Paperback