Botanical Art by Female Artists

I very much hope that you're not tired of my flower themed posts just yet because here comes another one. It's dedicated to some beautiful botanical art by some very talented women.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a German artist, naturalist, and publisher. Her vivid, detailed and dramatic watercolors turned into engravings were highly prized both as exquisite pieces of art as well as works of great scientific merit. They were also used for pattern books on painting and embroidery, and Merian herself taught embroidery, which endears her to me even more.

You can see more of her work here. 

Another prominent 17th century botanical artist is Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). With a botanist for a father, it is not at all strange that this Dutch artist turned her mind to painting sumptuous bouquets of flowers. Ruysch's work is very detailed, with strong vivid colors against a dark background.  

Flowers in a Glass Vase,1705-1715, Rachel Ruysch 

Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, 1723, Rachel Ruysch 

A Spray of Flowers, unknown date, Rachel Ruysch

You can see more of Ruysch's painting here. 

Marianne North (1830-1890) was a Victorian biologist and artist who led a pretty unconventional life for a woman of her time. She traveled extensively, often alone and spent her time hunting for flowers and plants all over the world which she then turned into painting of unprecedented beauty. 

Amatungula in Flower and Fruit and Blue Ipomoea, South Africa, Marianne North 

Various Species of Hibiscus, with Tecoma and Barleria, Marianne North 

A South African Sundew and Associate, Marianne North

You can see a lot more of North's art here, and if you're interested to know about her, check out this article. And you want to enjoy her art live, you have every opportunity as she has a permanent exhibition in the Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens, London. 

Keep it Cool: Historical Fans

As we've been hit by quite a heatwave, what's a girl to do but to break out her secret stash of fans. The advantages of fans are numerous: you can keep yourself cool, add another accessory to your outfit, or let someone special know what you think about them.

Take this Horrible Histories' lady for instance. She knows how useful a fan could be:

The wonderful thing about fans is that they come in all shapes, sizes and color schemes. You can always find the perfect one to compliment your outfit.

So I leave you today with a collection of my favorite fans. I defer a post about the language of the fan to a later date.

Fixed fan, straw embroidery on green silk with wooden handle, 1740, England via LACMA

Folding fan, ivory and paper, 18th century, Spain via the Met Museum

Calendar fan, silk leaf printed and painted, wood and ivory handle, 1774, France via Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Brisé fan, ivory, paper and tortoiseshell, 1790–1820, France via the Met Museum

Folding fan, pierced and painted ivory, 1710-20, China for Dutch market via Cooper-Hewitt

Brisé fan, ivory, 1800s, China via the Kyoto Costume Institute

Folding pleated fan, only 17.8 cm tall and 33.6 cm wide, 1805-1810, France via Cooper-Hewitt

Brisé fan, ivory, metal and oil paint, 1800-1810, France via the Met Museum

Edouard Moreau fan, paper, parchment, paint, mother-of-pearl, metal, 1860–75, France via the Met Museum  

Fan, 1830-60, silk and tortoiseshell, France via the Met Museum  

Fan, graving colored with gouache on paper, with painted wooden sticks, 1830-1840, France via Victoria and Albert Museum

Fan, silk and ivory fan painted with roses, 1845 via Museum of the City of New York

Fan, paper, ivory, metal and glass, 1860s, America or Europe via the Met Museum  

Folding cockade (circular) fan, vulcanized rubber and silk ribbon. 1860s, United States via Cooper-Hewitt

Fan, mother-of-pearl, silk, gouache and metal, 1880-1900, America or Europe via the Met Museum  

Fan, wood, paper, wool and silk, late 19th century, French via the Met Museum 

Fan, painted silk gauze and bobbin lace leaf, with mother-of-pearl sticks and guards, 1890-1900, France via Victoria and Albert Museum

L.(?) Boillaty fan, paper, silk, lace, mother-of-pearl and gilt, late 19th century France via the Met Museum 

Fan, paper and wood, 1903, France via the Met Museum 

Fan, 'L'OCCIDENTALE', vellum; pochoir of woman holding flower in scene with ocean and mountain; illustrated by Paul Iribe, 1911 via the Kyoto Costume Institute

Fan, 1910-1920, France via the Met Museum

Fan, mother+of-pearl and silk, 1920, France via the Met Museum

Fan, silk and celluloid, 1925, France via the Met Museum

Fan, paper, wood and metal, 1925, France via the Met Museum

Fan, synthetic, feather and metal, 1925-1935, European or American via the Met Museum

Shulton, Inc. fan, paper, 1939 American via the Met Museum

Fan, plastic and cotton, spring/summer 1989, France via the Met Museum

Which of these do you like best? Or do you have your very own favorite fan? Let me know!  

Pre-Raphaelites in Moscow

If you're a fan of Pre-Raphaelite art and you happen to be in Moscow this summer, you're in luck because
the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is hosting some of the greatest works by the Brotherhood. The exhibition, dubbed "Victorian Avant-garde", is quite spectacular. The space is not large, just one floor, but it has most of the greatest masterpieces and a few lesser-known works from Tate and a few private collections.

I saw it last week and was blown away. An online image or a picture in a catalog could never come close to the brilliant colors, the scope and the beauty of the original paintings. The details are remarkable. And some paintings are so life-like that it's almost eerie.

Here are a few of my absolute Pre-Raphaelite favorites:

"Huguenot Lovers on St. Bartholomew's Day" by John Everett Millais, 1852 

St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572 was the date of a massacre of French protestants known as Huguenots. Roman Catholics, who were doing the killing, would wear white armbands to signal to each other where their own allegiance lay. The context makes the somewhat trite image of a young couple embracing very poignant. The painting itself is vivid in color. The girl's face is so realistic you almost expect her to turn around and look at you. Her dress usually looks plain black in reproductions, but it's actually covered by an intricate design that you can only see on the original.

"Christ in the House of His Parents" by John Everett Millais, 1849-50 

The painting depicts Jesus as a child in the home of his carpenter father Joseph. The little boy bringing in water is probably John the Baptist, while the elderly woman removing the nail from the board is most likely St. Anne. Unlike most religious paintings, this one lacks all exaltation. Everything looks simple to the point of poverty. I also like the painting because of a scandal it caused. When it was first exhibited people were outraged by this depiction of Jesus, his family and their environment. Most critics couldn't stomach that the Lord and Savior would spend his childhood in poverty and obscurity.

"Ophelia" by John Everett Millais, 1851–1852 

This painting seems to have become the official "face" of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. It depictions Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet in the process of drowning herself after her father had been murdered and she had lost her mind. It's quite interesting that drowning Ophelia has become one of the favorite go-to subjects for various artists. Considering that the scene is never shown on stage, but instead is related by Hamlet's mother; artists have a morbid fascination with her suicide. I like it for reasons of personal vanity. I have been told that I look a little like her. (Not sure whether "hey, you look like an insane drowned woman from a play" is really a compliment or an insult)

"The Vale of Rest" by John Everett Millais, 1858-59
 

Speaking of morbid, this is by far my favorite Pre-Raphaelite painting. Why? I don't know. Maybe because it's just so darn mysterious. Who are these nuns? Why is one working and the other one is just sitting there? Why is she looking out of the canvas? What does she want? Whose grave is it? Why do I exist? It's just a lot of unanswered questions. The original painting is magnificent. The background looks so realistic that you can't quite believe that it was created with paint and a brush. And I do like the haunting gaze of the nun at rest.

"Sidonia von Bork" by Edward Burne-Jones, 1860 

The only non-Millais painting (do you see a pattern here?) that I count among my favorites is this one by Burne-Jones. Sidonia is a witch from a Gothic romance where she is a typical femme fatale, scheming, plotting and killing. The romance was popular among the Brotherhood and they produced several works based on it, this one included. What I found astounding was the work is very small, about the size of an A4 or a little smaller. Sidonia's snake dress seems to have inspired Miranda Richardson's gown from Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow".

So what's your favorite Pre-Raphaelite painting?

You can see these, and many other works, at the Pushkin Museum until September 22nd . Or, for the lucky ones who live in London, most of these painting are kept at Tate Britain.

Make-up History from Madeleine Marsh & Lisa Eldridge

Madeleine Marsh is a writer and historian, and I've had an eye on her book 'The History of Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty From Victorian Times to the Present Day' for a while. So imagine my pleasure when I came across these YouTube videos from makeup artist Lisa Eldridge where she talks to Marsh about the history of makeup and goes through her very extensive collection of vintage lipsticks, compacts and rouge boxes.

 

I loved what Marsh said about Victorian era: when makeup was frowned upon, fashion and hair became a substitute for makeup and allowed women to express their personal style.

Camille Clifford, a lady with a tiny waist and big hair.

Though we all know that even then women used all sorts of ointments and some discrete rouge to enhance their features. And certainly actresses did not shy away from makeup both on and off stage.

The second video trances the history of makeup form the harsh times of wartime rationing to the hyper-feminine styles of the 50s (love the little novelty compacts!) to the make-love-not-war freedom of the 60s.    

What I enjoyed most about these videos is that they use actual collectibles to illustrate what makeup and attitudes to makeup were like at different time periods. I'm almost tempted to start collecting vintage makeup myself. Just look at this cute Pierrot compact. Isn't it just the bee's knees?

TOKALON Paris gilded compact, Etsy

The only vintage-looking makeup I own is this lovely little eye shadow by Bourjois Paris from their 2008 Vintage Collection Little Round Pots. The color is a beautiful shimmering brown which is perfect for evenings out. I bought this many years ago when I was visiting France and I still can't forgive myself for not getting all of the limited edition pots with the cute 19th - early 20th century designs.

My very own Bourjois Vintage Collection Little Pot in Marron Glace 

Bourjois Vintage Collection, 2008 

If you want to emulate some of these vintage makeup styles, check out Lisa Eldridge's video tutorials. Take a look at these Tippi Hedren, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn looks. And she has a lot of contemporary makeup tips and tricks on her website.       

A Brief History of Mascara

I had a wonderful time researching 18th century makeup tips and tricks for a modern lady, and so I wanted to do a few more pieces on makeup through the ages.The first on my list is mascara.

What makes mascara so interesting? Well, it is one of the most recent beauty products. Both men and women had been emphasizing their eyes for thousands of years, but eyeliner and eye shadow seemed to have prevailed through history. There is some evidence that in Ancient Egypt people used a substance known as kohl to line the eyes, darken the eyebrows and possibly even the eyelashes. This trend was picked up by fashionable ladies of Babylon, Greece and Rome. Women in Roman Empire used burnt cork to thicken their eyelashes.

The Middle Ages had a very bleak outlook on makeup in general; and mascara, like so many other cosmetics, was ignored. In fact, between 14th and 16th centuries in Renaissance Europe eyelashes were considered unattractive and many women who were cursed with dark and thick lashes would pluck them out to achieve the blank look.       

Agnolo Bronzino - Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi, c. 1540

Up until early Victorian period eyelashes, and eyes in general, were mostly ignored. It was not a very prominent age for eyelashes, though ladies on the stage would use eyeliner to make their eyes more expressive.

Big prominent eyes came back into vogue in early Victorian times. Ladies would concoct mascara at home by heating a mix of ash or lampblack and elderberry juice and applying the mixture to their lashes.

Victorian ideal of feminine beauty "The First Lady of the Silent Screen," Lillian Gish

The first non-toxic and commercially produced mascara was invented by a Victorian named Eugène Rimmel in the mid-19th century. This mascara consisted of petroleum jelly and coal. It was incredibly messy and many women did not know what to do with it preferring to use the true and tried eyeliner instead. However, the invention was immortalized in languages of a few countries as 'rimmel'  means 'mascara' in French, Italian and Portuguese.

A box of Rimmel Cosmetique with the standard block, brush and mirror

And on the other side of the Atlantic another gentleman, T.L. Williams, was working on a very similar product for his sister Maybel. He later started a mail-order business which grew into a company known    
as Maybelline. This was still a pretty messy substance and an improvement soon followed. Mascara was now sold as a hard block containing soap and black dye. A dampened brush had to be rubbed against it and then applied to the lashes. An improvement, but still pretty messy.

Maybelline, 1917  

With the development of photography and motion pictures mascara became very prominent. The great stars of the silver screen were known for their sultry looks and glamorous eyelashes. Women flocked to get products that would help them look like these sirens and femme fatales.

Bette Davis 

A great leap for mascara was made by a shrewd business lady and the empress of cosmetics Helena Rubinstein. In 1957 she turned the hard cake mascara into a lotion based cream that was sold with a brush. It was still a bit messy, but a great improvement.

Mascara Matic by Helena Rubinstein, 1957

And so it went on. The 1960s embraced long eyelashes including false lashes and mascara has remained in good graces ever since.

Jean Shrimpton, 1960s

Today ladies enjoy a wide range of brands; and there are mascaras that promise to make lashes thicker, longer or fuller and some that offer a myriad of colors from the mundane blacks and browns to blue, yellow and pink. By all accounts, mascara is here to stay.