Fashion in History: A Global Look

Tutor: Giorgio Riello

Week 7

Tuesday 11 November 2008

‘Fashion in the Renaissance: Power and Competition’

1. The Definition of Fashion

2. The European Centres of Fashion

3. Fashion and the Renaissance Court

4. Men in Black

5. Manners and the Renaissance Court

6. Fashion and Sex

Lecture Week 7. Fashion in the Renaissance: Power and Competition

1. The Definition of Fashion

The difference between ‘fashion’ and ancient costumes:

‘A new fashion of apparel creepeth no sooner into use but presently he blameth and dispraiseth the old, and that with so earnest a resolution and universall a consent, that you would say, it is some kind of madnesse or selfe-fond humor that giddieth his understanding. And forasmuch as our changing or altering of fashion is so sudden and new-fangled, that the inventions and new devices of all the tailors in the world cannot so fast invent novelties, it must necessarily follow that neglected and stale rejected fashions doe often come into credit and use again: And the latest and newest within a while after come to be outcast and despised, and that one selfe-same judgment within the space of fifteene or twentie yeares admitteth not only two or three different, but also cleane contrarie opinions, with so light and incredible inconstancie, that any man would wonder at it.’

Montaigne, First Book of Essays (1580)

http://www.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/montaigne/1xlix.htm

ITALY

First use of the word ‘fashion’ (moda) in ItalianAgostino Lampugnani La carrozza a nolo (1646).

FRANCE

In France at the times of Louis XIV the word ‘mode’ is used to identify lifestyles and consolidated forms of

behaviour (mode, modo, means behaviour, manner – something done in that manner of)

La Mode (1642) by François de Grenaille.

Georges Vigarello, Histoire de la beauté : le corps et l'art d'embellir de la Renaissance à nos jours (Paris, 2004).

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus , c. 1485-86. Tempera on canvas, 172.5x278.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence

2. The European Centres of Fashion

Piero della Francesca (c.1420-1492), Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his spouse Battista Sforza, c. 1465. Tempera on wood.Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Raphael, Elisabetta Gonzaga, 1504. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

Francis I by Jean CouletLouvre Museum, Paris, c. 1530

Caterina de Medici (1519-89) was born in Italy in the de' Medici family. She was queen of France as the wife of King Henry II

Titian, Portrait of Emperor Charles V Seated. 1548. Oil on canvas. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

The Hapsburg Empire during the reign of Charles V, 1530-56.

Louis XIV and the Court at the Grotto in Versailles, c. 1675.

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon by Michel Sittow. 1508  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Mary I and Philip II of Spain, from The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, c. 1572, attributed to Lucas de Heere. Sudeley Castle.

Queen Elizabeth I, by Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, c.1592. Known as the "Ditchley" portrait.

Inigo d’Avalos was a nobleman from Naples living in the second half of the sixteenth century. The inventory (list of things) of his wardrobe shows his cosmopolitanism:

- 25% of his clothing are ‘Venetian’ in style- 18% French- 15% Castilian- 9% Lombard and Milanese- 6% Florentine- 6% Turkish - 3% Catalan

3. Fashion and the Renaissance Court

Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, c. 1514-15. Oil on canvas. 82 x 66 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Raffaello Sanzio, Self Portrait. Oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.

Titian, Portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. c.1536-38. Oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.

Raffaello Sanzio, Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1492-1519), Duke of Urbino

Virtue ought to be dressed in those seemly ornaments that it is hard to acquire without affluence and without an abundance of the things that some men call transient and illusory and other call practical and useful.

Leon Battista Alberti, De Familia (1441).

4. Men in Black

Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of a Man, 1506-10Oil on wood, 42,3 x 35,8 cmKunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglionec. 1514-15Oil on canvas82 x 66 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556),Portrait of a Gentleman.Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy

Titian, A Gentleman (Ludovico Ariosto?). 1510. Oil on canvas. National Gallery London.

The Renaissance Courtier: Principles of Fashion

1. The wearing of black is not a ‘mundane fashion’ but an ‘ethical fashion’. Black is a ‘moral habit’.

2. Dress is dominated by the Classical idea of ‘mediocritas’ (‘correct or suitable middle’): a man of virtue must avoid the extremes

Titian, Portrait of Emperor Charles V Seated. 1548. Oil on canvas. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

Eyck, Jan van Eyck, “The Arnolfini Wedding”. Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami, Bruges, 1434. Oak, 82 x 60 cm. NG 186.National Gallery, London

Anonymous.  John Calvin. 1550s

Philip III of SpainPhilip II of Spain Velázquez,Portrait of Phillip IV. c. 1628. Prado

Cesare Vecellio writes in Habiti Antichi et Moderni (1592) that

black is now worn by citizens such as doctors, lawyers and merchants,

as ‘it brings respect’

Portrait of Johan Camerlin, oil on panel by Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt, 1626.

Johannes Verspronk, Portrait of a Lady, 1641

Attributed to Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, Portrait of Abel Tasman, His Wife and Daughter, c.1637. oil on canvas; 106.7 x 321.1cm. National Library of Australia

Orazio Gentileschi, The Finding of Moses, Museo del Prado, Madrid

5. Manners and the Renaissance Court

-Erasmus De Civilitate Morum Puerilium (The Good Behaviour of Young People) (1532)

- Giovanni della Casa, Galateo (1558)

“You can tell the attitudes and inclinations of people from their comportment… because when a rustic or cowardly person wants to say something seriously, what do you see? He squirms, picks his fingers, strokes his beard, pulls faces, makes eyes and spits every word in three. A noble man, on the contrary, has a clear mind and a gentle posture; he has nothing to be ashamed of. Therefore, in appearance, in his words, and in comportment he is like and eagle which without any fear looks straight at the sun”.

Mikolaj Rej, The Mirror, cit. in Maria Bogucka, ‘Gesture, Ritual, and Social Order’, p. 191.

Sprezzatura (Grace)

6. Fashion and Sex

Will Fisher and Jenny Jordan argues that in the Renaissance the differentiation between genders did not derive from the overall shapes of bodies

Gender differentiation derived instead from the ‘prosthetic parts’ of the body.

Handkerchief, c. 1600-20. Linen, with cutwork decoration, produced in the Flanders, 55 cmx 53.5 cm.

Victoria and Albert Museum, 484-1903

Christoph Amberger (c.1500-61)Portrait of Christoph Fugger. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Weapons

George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. Vellum on panel by Nicholas Hilliard c. 1590. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Beards

Moretto da Brescia (Alessandro Bonvicino) (c. 1498-1554), Portrait of a Gentleman with a Letter, c. 1538. Oil on canvas. 45.08 x 39.37cm. Pinacoteca Civica Tosio-Martinengo, Brescia,

Italy.

Glove, c. 1590-1610. White leather, with gauntlet tapestry woven in silk and gold; Warwickshire, England (probably), 35 cmX 20 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, T.145&A-1931

Theory of the mutable erogenous areas

Hollywood’s Shakespeare Hilliard’s 17th-Century Shakespeare

-Beards-Weapons-Handkerchiefs-Gloves-Jewelry (earrings, necklaces, earrings, etc,)-Fans-Hats-Codpieces-Hair