London
CNN
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In the spring of 1888, New York socialite Eleanora Iselin, preoccupied with the question of what to wear, welcomed portrait artist John Singer Sargent into her home. Eager to immortalize her expensive and sophisticated taste on canvas, Iseline asked her to follow her to her drawing room, arms full of her finest Parisian dresses. I instructed the maid. To Iselin’s horror, the famous painter insisted that she take a photo of what she was wearing on the spot. Rose-colored clothing and haute couture ball gowns are prohibited.
The result is a rather harsh, stripped-down portrait of Iselin in a black satin daydress against a muddy brown background. It is one of the main exhibits in the new exhibition Sargent and Fashion, which runs at Tate Britain until July 7. .
But while she did not recreate the French ornamentation she had expected, the satin finish of Iselin’s dress, the glittering embellishments of her corset, and the protruding ruffles of her white lace sleeves had an enchanting beauty. there is.
Provided by: National Gallery of Art, Washington/Tate Britain
Eleanor Iselin was photographed in a casual dress, at Sargent’s insistence, despite having carefully chosen the best dress.
“He’s not just flattering you. It’s not a servile relationship,” curator James Finch told CNN Style at the London gallery. “It is a creative work in which each portrait emerges in its own unique and unpredictable way.”
There have been countless retrospective exhibitions of the 19th century painter examining his characteristic portraits of high society and watercolor landscapes, but “Sargent in Fashion,” co-produced with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will feature So, we positioned the 140-year-old painter as part of the brand. New context.
Working during the rise of haute couture, Sargent and his subjects were living in a new dawn of fashion. “Couturier was more visible,” Finch said. “And many of the things we see today as hallmarks of the fashion industry, such as seasonal collections, runways, and clothes actually worn on models rather than on mannequins, were all introduced for the first time.”
This new, shocking sartorial landscape led to widespread interest in clothing, influencing not only Sargents’ artistic eye but also the desires of his customers. Scottish critic Margaret Oliphant wrote in 1878: “There is now a class of people who dress by looking at photographs, and when they buy a gown they ask, ‘Can you draw?'” wrote in 1878. Suddenly, fashion wasn’t just about wealth and status, it was about self-expression, creativity, and art. The designers were highly praised for their perspective and skill, and went beyond their title of “dressmaker” to amass a loyal following. Fashion, as Edith Wharton wrote in her 1920s, was a powerful form of “armor.”
Drawing clothing is a skill that all portraitists must master, but Sargent’s relationship with his sitter’s costumes is unique. He was in control, with an insatiable desire to control the entire image, including what his subjects were wearing. In Sargent’s mind, color, texture, fabric finish, and silhouette were central to the portrait’s harmony and could not be left to chance.
As in the case of poor Iselin, he often ignored the sartorial preferences of his sitters and carefully shaped what they wore (or at least what they saw). In 1903, Sargent painted his mother and daughter, Gretchen and Rachel Warren, at Boston’s Fenway Court (now known as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum). They sit close together, almost intertwined, with Rachel’s head resting on her mother’s shoulder. Their flushed cheeks are further accentuated by the pink hue of Rachel’s dress. However, it wasn’t a dress at all. According to the exhibition, the girl arrived to sit in an ill-fitting dress in an ill-fitting shade, but instead of holding her there, Sargent draped a yard of rose-colored cloth around her. . By the time the portrait was completed, the scraps of fabric had been transformed into a sheer dress on the canvas.
Provided by: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tate Britain
From left to right, Gretchen and her daughter Rachel Warren pose for Sargent in 1903. Rachel was styled with scraps of pink fabric, which Sargent worked onto canvas into a dress.
“He’s not just recording what’s in front of him,” Finch told CNN. “He inserts himself (into the picture) in a way similar to a stylist or a fashion director.”
Sargent sometimes commissioned the most prominent haute couture houses of the time to make dresses for his sitters. To create a portrait of his close friend Sybil Sassoon in 1922, he hired British couturier Charles Fredrick Worth (his label, House of Worth, was his first haute couture atelier founded in Paris in 1858). ) asked for cooperation. Worth created a custom black velvet gown and matching cape trimmed with metallic thread lace for Sassoon, complete with a tall, vampire-like mauve collar. Sargent allows the purple accents of the dress to reflect Sassoon’s delicate skin, as well as the small mauve flowers in her right hand.
Reconstructing a centuries-old master into something newly discovered is also no small feat. Famous paintings such as “Carnations, Lily and Lily-Rose” (1885-86) are usually displayed in the dark red corners of the gallery, but the painting was designed to amplify the fading night light of the painting. Recontextualized against the backdrop of a soft periwinkle exhibition wall.
Similarly, in collaboration with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Textiles Department, many of the works in the exhibition are paired with original gowns. And although Sybil Sassoon’s brooding black taffeta opera cloak looks somewhat flat compared to the five-foot illustration, the clothed mannequin serves as a three-dimensional portal into Sargent’s world.
“This provides a new entry point into portraiture,” Finch said. “When you look at these garments, you realize who wore them, how the dresses have survived, how they’ve been passed down through the generations from mother to daughter, and how the dresses fit.” You’ll think of stories about how often the body is adjusted to change size. I think all of those things are really relatable. ”
Jay Monaghan/Tate Britain
The show combines portraits with the original costumes worn by the sitter, as shown in Sargent’s 1889 production of Lady Macbeth by actor Ellen Terry.
However, not everyone was happy about the reappraisal of Sargent’s work. During its opening week, one British art critic called it a “terrible exhibition” with “cramps of old clothes”. Finch disagrees. “Showing Sargent’s work related to clothing does not undermine any of the previous research that has been done on him,” he told CNN.
Indeed, this exhibition suggests that Sargent’s famous ability to capture the entire inner world through the shadows of facial expressions was enhanced rather than suppressed by his apparent interest in clothing. For example, we learn much more about Iselin’s character than if Sargent let her wear whatever she wanted, considering that she probably internally thought it was a fashion emergency. Collect.
“Many of Sargent’s contemporaries retreated into formalism,” Finch says. “While their work was ready-to-wear using portraiture (off-the-shelf) elements, Sargent’s work was always made to order. Each portrait was different.”
