klimt & fashion

after the last post, belvedere beads wrote this comment:

lily, i have a question for you: have you ever done an entry on the schwestern floge -- emile floge and her sister? i am very interested in the clothes they made for their shop but have had very little success trying to find images of their couture. you seem to have the most amazing library maybe you have pictures of their creations?

well, you were right, and thank you for a very interesting day of research! here's what i've pieced together today, and i'll quote some websites too. first, i went through all of my books -- something like seven -- books on that one period, and found something like three photos in a book about koloman moser, and fewer, if any, in the rest.

but reading the books, then spending a lot of happy if occasionally frustrating hours on the internet, i learned a lot of interesting things. regarding her designs, i found only one reference to her designing (the dress in her painted portrait), and having read all the rest, i wasn't sure i believed that.

i think the situation was this: he designed the fabric, and suggested structure in the paintings, and perhaps she turned them into actual clothes. the dress in the above photo is definitely credited to him. the artists in japan designed clothing in much the same way, and i think this is yet another example of the influence of the east.

Emilie Flöge, Gustav Klimt's friend and model, was 28 when she posed for this painting. She was soon to create the very successful Viennese fashion house, Schwestern Flöge, that she directed from 1904 to 1938. With her thin face, azure blue eyes, steadfast gaze and body draped in a typically extravagant "Klimtesque" dress, Emilie Flöge in this portrait is the perfect embodiment of the new turn-of-the-century Viennese beauty. The painting is one of several portraits of women (Damenbildnis) that were shown in 1903 at the Klimt Kollektive exhibition, an event that marked the beginning of a new stylistic era in Vienna for this art form.









The pattern on the dress is inspired by Japanese stencil techniques and Byzantine mosaics. Emerging casually and gracefully from a mysterious blue-tinged background, Emilie Flöge is silhouetted by the unusual ornamental fan. Klimt's first introduction of the ornamented backgrounds that would become so familiar in his later portraits. In addition, Emilie's beltless dress heralds the appearance of more liberal clothing fashions that will encourage greater freedom for both body and art - very much in the spirit of the call by the Viennese Secession for more creativity in all aspects of the decorative arts. Klimt cared deeply for his sister-in-law Emilie Flöge, a feeling that combined affection with mutual respect for their respective artistic talents. This personal connection was responsible for the portrait's becoming part of the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien's collection in 1908. 1

Although Klimt never married, he had affairs with many women in both high and low classes of society. The name that is most often discussed is Emilie Floge, the fashion designer and Klimt’s sister-in-law. Art historians have often interpreted their lifelong companionship as Klimt’s ardent, albeit spiritual, need for Floge and her loyal and Platonic love for Klimt. The postcards from Klimt to Floge, however, show a remarkably taciturn and inaffection- ate correspondence. Likewise, Klimt painted only two portraits of Floge during their friendship of almost thirty years. Klimt liked to paint the women with whom he was attached, and the lack of such works inspired by Floge is worth noting. These might be evidence to the na- ture of their intimate friendship—that it was just that, and no more. 2

While we may be familiar with the fabulous imagi- nation of Gustav Klimt and his portraits of femmes fatales or mythical women, we are less aware of the fact that the artist also made a name for himself in fashion. With his mistress Emilie Floge, who managed one of the most prominent couture houses in Vienna, he designed "reform" dresses, thus taking part in the revolutionary movement that was rocking artistic and middle class Vienna at the time. By photographing these designs for a magazine, Gustav Klimt became the first photographer of the history of fashion. 3

an interesting website that looks at some of this is here. as you can see, there are contradictions everywhere. the link for #2 above is a really rich, comprehensive website. and for me, i think i'll see if the library has that book!

mackintosh & vienna

i began to notice the similarities between the scottish designs, metalwork, glass, and of course embroidery, and that of the wiener werkstatte. this is not coincidental, as it turns out.

In 1900 Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his group "The Glasgow Four" were invited to show their work at the VIIIth exhibition of the Viennese Secession. Their designs, especially those of Charles Rennie Macintosh, exerted a profound influence on German and Austrian exponents of Jugendstil. Contact with Charles Rennie Mackintosh was crucial for Josef Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, and Koloman Moser in particular. 1

mackintosh's design, with its nature-based simplicity and breakdown of the separation between art and craft (both things clearly influenced by the influx of japanese arts and crafts), was more appealing to the viennese than was the art nouveau they saw in france and belgium, which they saw as excessive. they, unlike mackintosh's fellow glaswegians, saw him as a genius.

Influenced and encouraged by ... Mackintosh, Hoffmann and Moser realized their dream of founding a workshop for the applied arts to promote the best in design matched by the finest in craftsmanship. In June 1903 the Wiener Werkstätte was established; it "represented a not-previously achieved international high point in the applied arts, and, with its unmatched fine workmanship and exquisite taste, became the educator of the whole civilized world." 2

The Wiener Werkstätte believed that artistic endeavour should permeate all aspects of everyday life; no object was so menial that it could not be enhanced by beauty of form and execution ... [When] Mackintosh and [his wife] Margaret Macdonald had exhibited their work to the Viennese public, Hoffmann and Moser were intrigued with the elegance and sensibility of their creations, which is evident in the puristic simplicity and geometric austerity of their early objects.

The Japanese-inspired components of the workshops’ products were also important. The Secession had dedicated their sixth exhibition (1900) to Japanese art, and in Vienna in 1901 the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie (now Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst) exhibited the woodcuts of Katsushika Hokusai. The textile patterns and inlay designs of Hoffmann and Moser share strong similarities with Japanese stencils and prints.

The distinctive trademark of the Wiener Werkstätte included the initials of both the designer and the executing craftsworker. The fine arts and the applied arts were awarded the same level of importance. The primary concern of the group was to respect the inherent decorative and functional qualities of the material used and to work within its natural properties. © Oxford University Press 2007

The story began with a competition launched in December 1900 by Zeitschrift FürInnen- dekoration, an innovative design magazine published in the German city of Darmstadt. European architects were invited to design an Art Lover's House. Mackintosh sent in his entry in March 1901, his one chance to design a house unfettered by financial constraints or a conservative client. But he was disqualified for failing to include the required number of drawings of the interior. He hastily completed the portfolio, which he then resubmitted. Delighted with the designs, the judges awarded Mackintosh a special prize (there was no outright winner).

Publication of these drawings did much to establish Mackintosh's reputation abroad as an original and distinctive architect, particularly in Austria and Germany. The Art Lover's House is an important twentieth-century building because it anticipates the abstract forms of Modernism. At first glance it could be an illustration from the thirties. Artists of the avant-garde Vienna Secession described Mackintosh as “our leader who showed us the way” – an acclaim that he was never able to gain at home. Rich Glasgow businessmen never quite took him seriously. 3

in france, poiret (dufy) and lalique were later to feel the influence of this style, but were, of course, french.

where are the dresses?

(i find it consistently frustrating trying to find images of gowns from a certain era. more and more are available from the twenties and the thirties, and i do love them, but there is something about this earlier era, call it aesthetic, call it glasgow-style, call it 'arts and crafts'.... whatever one calls it, i am awed by them.


yes, i've found a few to bring to this blog, but there are but a tiny few to find. where are the dresses? i've seen them in museums, occasionally, but in general they're not part of what gets put online. nor are they often illustrated in the really fairly large reference library i have here. metal, glass, ceramic, wood. but little if any textile -- mostly women's -- arts.

there are more illustrations of dresses than there are dresses.


could the difference in age alone be the reason for their invisibility? what is it about this one particular kind of embroidery that drives me wild? is it celtic in its roots? chinese/ japanese? guimard and macdonald look like they work from the same muse. some stories about glasgow here, and what a wealth was born there.)

...[A]ll costumes are caricatures. The basis of Art is not the Fancy Ball. Where there is loveliness of dress, there is no dressing up. And so, were our national attire delightful in colour, and in construction simple and sincere; were dress the expression of the loveliness that it shields and of the swiftness and motion that it does not impede; did its lines break from the shoulder instead of bulging from the waist; did the inverted wineglass cease to be the ideal of form; were these things brought about, as brought about they will be, then would painting be no longer an artificial reaction against the ugliness of life, but become, as it should be, the natural expression of life's beauty.

Nor would painting merely, but all the other arts also, be the gainers by a change such as that which I propose; the gainers, I mean, through the increased atmosphere of Beauty by which the artists would be surrounded and in which they would grow up. For Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.


There is not, for instance, a single delicate line, or delightful proportion, in the dress of the Greeks, which is not echoed exquisitely in their archi- tecture. A nation arrayed in stove-pipe hats and dress- improvers might have built the Pantechnichon possibly, but the Parthenon never.

And finally, there is this to be said: Art, it is true, can never have any other claim but her own perfection, and it may be that the artist, desiring merely to contemplate and to create, is wise in not busying himself about change in others: yet wisdom is not always the best; there are times when she sinks to the level of common-sense; and from the passionate folly of those -- and there are many -- who desire that Beauty shall be confined no longer to the bric-a-brac of the collector and the dust of the museum, but shall be, as it should be, the natural and national inheritance of all,-- from this noble unwisdom, I say, who knows what new loveliness shall be given to life, and, under these more exquisite conditions, what perfect artist born? Le milieu se renouvelant, l'art se renouvelle.

Oscar Wilde

liberty, in more ways than one

(did arthur lazenby liberty start the arts and crafts movement, or just give it a home, as did bing in paris to art nouveau. again we see the newly-arisen middle class supporting an entrepreneurial class who was able to create, support, make a living from, and otherwise bring or exploit new tastes and standards to the buying publics. both men did importing as well as encouraging new, local, design. we look at dresses.)

General dress reform movement was sup- ported by a conglom- eration of many different ideological groups, including

health advocates and feminists. In the early nineteenth century, concern arose about the distortion of internal organs and the circulatory problems caused by the tight lacing of corsets. Also of concern was the general inability of women and girls to get decent exercise because of petticoats, long trains, and the heavy structural paraphernalia worn under clothing. The excessive weight of the fabric carried by fashionably dressed women was a problem as well. In response to these concerns, the Rational Dress Society was founded in 1881. Its vision was encapsulated in an article in the Society’s Gazette:

The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly-fitting corsets; of high-heeled shoes; of heavily-weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming….



[It] requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to health, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.

Ultimately, women’s issues of comfort, health, and freedom of movement were more forceful and lasting influences on dress reform than were aesthetic issues, although dress reform, as a wider cultural phenomenon, did reject Victorian frippery, harsh aniline dye colors and stiff fabrics. Artistic dress in particular adopted soft, flowing fabrics in muted colors, called “Art Colors” by Liberty of London, called “strange, old-fashioned, and indescribable” by critics. Unlike styles derived from French fashions, artistic dress had very little embellishment, limited mostly to smocking and simple, free-style embroidery. Liberty of London provided beautiful silks and woolens for artistic clothing, and eventually carried artistic gowns in their in-store boutique, The Liberty & Co. Artistic and Historic Costume Studio, opened in 1884. Several years later Liberty & Co. challenged the supremacy of French fashion by presenting aesthetic gowns at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universalle. 1

wonders in small pieces

(somehow i find myself strongly drawn to mosaics just now. i think this post will be part of a series.)



The Palau de la Música Catalana (”Palace of Catalan Music”) in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, is a concert hall built between 1905 and 1908, designed by the Catalan architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. It was inaugurated in 1908, and its style is known as modernisme, the local term to design the Art Nouveau, whose most noteworthy practitioner was Antoni Gaudí.


The Palau de la Música Catalana was built to be the concert hall of the Orfeó Català (”Catalan Choir”), the most important choir in Catalonia in the beginning of the XXth century. The project was financed by this institution, principally, but also by the donations of the well-living bourgeoisie in the city.

Due to the wealthy circumstances and the increasing sympathy of industrialists and bourgeoisie to Catalan nationalism, Montaner was asked for a national, symbolist architecture and building. So he added the traditional ceramics and “maons”, and asked other well-known Catalan artists to work with him. As a consequence, the Palau shows a wide variety of techniques and materials, both inside and outside.

In 1997, it was added as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 1

Palau de la Música Catalana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mosaic Art Source - Spain Mosaic Image Archive

(the peacock is from india!)

and yes, still

BOTH SIDES, NOW

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way



But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way



I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing
when you go
And if you care,
don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feel- ing proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads,
they say I've changed
Well something's lost,
but something's gained
In living every day





I've looked at life
from both sides now
From win and lose and
still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Joni Mitchell

Copyright © 1969; Siquomb Publishing Company

sunday funnies

some thought this might be sufficient.

when it clearly was not, an entire patrol was gathered, just for this piano!

speaking of pianos, why are these women so bored??!



fortunately, not everyone feels that way!: