Swedish Costumes of Late Eighteenth Century [1]Wearable ArtMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Swedish Costumes of Late Eighteenth Century [1]
On large estates and farms where it took many people to save all the hay, a big feast was held when the work was done. Some such feasts have been immortalized in art and literature. Pehr Hilleströ large painting 'Haymaking Feast at Svartsjö Castle" from 1782 shows a throng of people celebrating, with peasants, servants and the mistress of the castle, Queen Lovisa Ulrika, with her noble escort. This is a snapshot of the diversity of folk fashion depicted in such detail that we can almost feel the roughness of the colorful striped fabrics, and of course was homespun.

Slåtterö på Svartsö slott.
Painting by Pehr Hilleström.

In her diary, Märta Helens Reenstierna tells of a hay-making festival on her farm, Årsta, which is outside of Stockholm, in 1795:
'All our guests were cheerful and glad, we ate, drank, danced a couple of peasant polkas in the hay...The whole afternoon all kinds of onlookers gathered. The cannonades, toasts, and hoorays lasted into the night...Fiddlers, lackeys, maids, and others were treated to wine and genteel food.'

Slåtterö på Svartsö slott. The party continues.
Painting by Pehr Hilleström.

Svartsjölandet in Lake Mälaren is not far from Stockholm. The district is characterized by a manor-house culture in which even the peasants came into contact with novelties and the rapid changes of fashion. Here one can find no traces of distinctive local folk costumes. Instead the dress of the people followed the fashion of the times, but in simplified form. This meant that dress could show great variation. People used home-woven, half-woolen fabrics, to make bodice skirts, waistcoats and jackets, all cut in keeping with the latest fashion. Since clothes were primarily acquired by people while they were young, and had to last a long time, perhaps even a lifetime, there was sometimes a certain lag in fashion.

Part of a waistcoat made of striped half-wool.

Part of a calico apron.

Woman's shoes from the late eighteenth century.

Stripes were the height of fashion in 1780s, and in the fashion dress, the same cloth was often used in the skirt and the jacket. Some peasant women probably tried to keep up with the fashion, but most of them still wore contrasting combinations according to older traditions. The apron was an important garment that all womwn had; at this time it tended to be white or with a narrow stripes and made of thin linen or cotton for those who wanted to be really grand and up-to-date. Married women did not show their hair, which was carefully set up and tucked in a tight-fitting frame cap edged at the front with lace. To give protection against the sun, a kerchief could be knotted on top of the frame cap. Other soft white caps of fine cotton cloth would also be worn.

One woman below is wearing a fashionable jacket (kofta) of camlet, a purchased cloth from one of the city's wool manufacturers or imported from England. Perhaps she is married to a preist or a parish constable. Her apron of thin cotton and her scarf no doubt come from one of many Swedish calico printing works, established during the eighteenth century when printed cotton and calico were most in fashion. This was something that peasant women could dream about, but rarely afford. Clothes were a clear indicator of social status.

The woman's son is wearing a long frock (kolt) that all infats, girls and boys alike, wore from the time when they started to walk. It was usually very simply made, a straight model that could grow with the child. With this frock it was also easy for children to manage the toilet on their own.

The little boy is wearing a long frock. The man's blue coat is typical for the time and the woman's jacket is made of fashionable camlet.

In the picture from 1782, the men's clothes also have a great deal in common with fashions from the mid eighteenth century. They are as varied as the woman's; they all wear waist coats and kneebreeches, but of different material and colors. Some are wearing a short jacket while others have coats. The fashionable coat of the rococo period had a high slit on the back and numerous pleats, large sewn-on pocket flaps, and wide cuffs. Above all,it had many large large buttons, usually shiny to reflect the owners prosperity. The peasant's coat is also characteristic of these status objects. One man has a blue coat which is typical; coats like these were still worn at many places in the country into the nineteenth century. Blue was an expensive color, so a blue coat was finer than one of gray woven from undyed wool. A broad-brimmed black hat was worn, even in summer. No one is bare-headed.

A peasant's son age which is about seven and so has only recently started to wear a boy's costume. He is dressed in kneebreeches of chamois leather, a linen shirt, and a striped waistcoat, just like the adult men. It was an important and longed-for time when a child grew out of the long frock.

A peasant's son in a boys costume.

A noblewoman wearing a half-silk dress, a simplified form of Gustav III's national dress.

Dress detail of the above costume.

A nobleman wearing Gustav III's national dress.

Dress detail of above costume.

Reference:
[1] Power of Fashion - 300 years of Clothing, B. Eldvik, Catalogue for the exhibition (opened at Nordiska Museet, February (2010).

Navajo Rugs of the Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills RegionArt EssayMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience, I have listed below posts that also focus on rugs.
Navajo Rugs
Persian Rugs
Caucasian Rugs
Turkish Rugs
Navajo Rugs of the Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Navajo Rugs of Chinle, Wide Ruins and Teec Nos Pos Regions
Navajo Rugs of the Western Reservation

Introduction [1]
When the Spaniards began penetrating the southwest, Indian villages fell one by one and, except during relatively brief revolts, they became under foreign rule. Not so the Navajo. They faded back into their tribal lands. Along the perimeters of New Spain the Navajos again turned their lives around. They obtained domestic livestock from Spanish herds. Then, giving less time to farming, they followed their flocks of sheep across vast tablelands. They melded their values with huge horses that ware cheaply kept, easily trained and proudly ridden as fast as the wind.

Their subjugation was brought asbout by a military strategy now called 'scorched earth' that Colonel Kit Carson invoked in 1863. Beginning in 1869 with an issue of government sheep, the Navajos managed to restore their livestock industry and to increase their own population to 35,000 self-sufficient citizens by 1930.

It was Spain that introduced the first catalyst, namely sheep, which would alter forever the course of Southwestern weaving. Following a long-standing policy of making colonies self-sufficient and profitable, the Spaniards brought sheep by the thousands from Mexico, and decreed that their subjects should weave with wool. Submissive natives obliged.

Weaver demonstration at The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

Navajo Rugs of Ganado, Crystal and Two Grey Hills Region
Although geographic names no longer guarantee origin, the terms are still meaningful and useful. Weavers, exhibitors, traders and buyers often continued to be characterize by regional name, if not by geography. Of course some weaves, notably saddle blankets, were never limited to a specific local. Today, as in the past, saddle weaves may originate from almost anywhere.

Navajo Rugs of the Ganado

Dating to the 1870s, the famous trading post of D. Lorenzo Hubbell at Ganado is today under the protection of the National Park Service; this post continues to serve the needs of the Navajos.

This is a one-of-a-kind rug usually done in Ganado red, but on impulse produced in blue by Mary Begay and Grace Henderson Nez in 1974 (48 x 72 inches).
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.

An old motif in a new weave is this third phase chief blanket of handspun, predyed, processed wool by Elizabeth Kirk and Helen Davis (48 x 48 inches).
Courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post.

This Klagetoh by Grace Henderson Nez (48 x 70.5 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.

Navajo Rugs of Crystal
Within the wooden flanks of the Chuska Mountains, due north of the Navajo capital, Window Rock, perches Crystal, another trading post important to Navajo weaving. Crystal is outback, but like all other trading posts, it is more accessible today than in the past. From 1897 to 1911 J.B. Moore, a Crystal trader, educated scores of Navajo women in the weaving of rugs in styles that easteners presumed Indian pattern to be.

J.B. Moore with a weaver and rug at the Crystal Trading Post, from the 1911 catalog.

A modern Crystal rug by Mary Moore has border-to-border designs in muted hues of vegetable dyes (37 x 63 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.


Navajo Rugs of Two Grey Hills
It was to this spectacular and isolated province that the patterns of J.B. Moore migrated eastward from Crystal, to evolve into one of the better known and more prized Navjo textiles. Historians credit two competing traders, George Bloomfield and Ed Davies, with providing the motivation and instruction with which the weavers transformed their nondescript early rugs into premium Navajo fabric by mid-1920s.

Toadlena Trading Post.

There are no two identical rugs woven in the Two Grey Hills style. This is a unique work by premier weaver Daisy Taugelchee.
Courtesy: Mullan Collection.

Two Grey Hills tapestry of the first rank is this 1974 creation by Dorothy Mike, with threads spun as many as ten times to equal the fineness of linen (25 x 37 inches).
Courtesy: Museum shop, Museum of Northern Arizona.

Reference:
[1] D. Dedera, Navajo Rugs, Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona (1990).

‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’2006 ‘EPNPM Refugee’ PortfolioFine Art Print on PaperMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
For your convenience I have listed below other posts featuring my prints on paper that have featured on this blogspot:
Made to Order
Unique State (Partners in Print)
Veiled Curtains
A Letter to a Friend
Beyond the Fear of Freedom
Travelling Solander Project
Star Series
Imprint
Cry for the Wilderness
Federation on Hold – Call Waiting
Wish You Were Where?
The Four Seasons
The Creation of Hurricane Katrina – The Disruptor
The Creation of ‘Whose Place? My Place, Your Space’
The ‘Vine Glow’ Series
Vine Glow - Series 2
Vine Glow - Series 3
‘Whose Church?’
‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’

Introduction
In 2006, Micheal Florrimell, the founder and co-ordinator of the Exchange Partners in Print Media (EPNPM) portfolios (circa 1991 - 2013) selected/invited 22 professional national and international print media artists to undertake a project for the 2006 ‘EPNPM Refugee’ portfolio. Thirty prints were editioned with the paper size being A3 (297 x 420 mm). Each artist received a complete portfolio of all the editioned prints with the remaining portfolios being donated to various Australian and International print collections. The project was funded by the National Association for the Visual Arts with financial assistance from the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts. The ‘EPNPM Refugee’ portfolio of prints was exhibited in 2007 at the Morningside Campus Library, Southbank Institute, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

My contribution to the portfolio print project titled, ‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins,’ was also exhibited at my 2006 solo exhibition, ‘The Journey’, at Megalo Print Studio & Gallery, Watson, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

Art Practice and Research
My art practice explores various contemporary issues. The artworks I create rely heavily on research, discussion and on pondering holistically on the creation of the images and how they engage my conceptual awakening to the viewer.

In 2002 the international Human Rights Watch published - “By Invitation Only” Australian Asylum Policy, Vol.14, No. 10 (C), December 2002. This included, in section three of its document, the “Overview: Refugee’s Path of Flight to Australia,” and the opening summary to this section stated the following:
“In the year 2000-01, 4,141 asylum seekers arrived by boat in Australia (1). Nearly all of them were from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Ongoing and severe human rights abuses in each of these countries prompted people to make the difficult decision to leave their homes. This section traces in general terms why they flee and the obstacles they encounter — including policies introduced by the government of Australia to block their movement. Subsequent sections detail each stage of the refugees’ flight towards Australia, and the abuses they suffer”.

Australia is a vibrant multicultural democracy with a strong record of protecting civil and political rights. The Australian government’s cruel treatment of asylum seekers tarnished the country’s global standing.

Images chosen for my print - ‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’ - weave my voice of dissent; the preciousness and fragility of the living and how little it featured in the decision-making process that led to the abuses of people seeking refuge, because they were fleeing from political violence including assassination, arbitrary arrest, unfair trial, and restrictions on freedoms. With no sanctuary in their regions of origin, many Islamic refugees suffered cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment on their journey to find asylum/resettlement in industrialized first world countries like Australia. Travelling from one country in their region to another, these refugees could not enjoy effective protection in the countries in our region that they passed through on route to Australia, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Instead, with each new journey, they discovered another nightmare had begun.

Artist Statement for ‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’
Refugees journey from their homeland in the hope of finding a promised land. In this new millennium, the end of the journey has often morphed into their new nightmare.

As Judith Wright penned in her poem, 'The Unnecessary Angel,'

“Yes we can still sing
who reached this barren shore,
But no note will sound
As it did before”.

‘A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins’
2006 ‘EPNPM Refugee’ Portfolio

Title: A Journey Ends . . . Another Nightmare Begins (Full view).
Technique and Media: Digital print employing archival inkjet pigments on archival matt digital paper stock.
The print was created using hand printed silk-screened imagery, original photographs, mixed print media, hand drawn illustrations and artwork. The various techniques/images were then digitally collaged to create the final print. Examples of some of these techniques/images feature below.
Size: 297 mm wide x 420 mm high.
Impression: 6/30.

Comment: Semi-abstract interfacing silk-screen print featuring stencil-like human figures, warm/cool hues and multiple distressed layers to create the sense of anxiousness, fear, turmoil, loss, flight/fleeing, the unknown, and desperation, as a background image to the print.

Comment: In the top right-hand corner of the print a drawing of a white dove (see above print - full view) has been employed as a symbol of peace and innocence as doves have had this association for thousands of years in many different cultures. The dove is positioned over black ‘prison bars’ symbolizing freedom from violence and incarceration, and giving a sense of hope.

Commemt: In the top central third of the print, a photograph of a rose has been digitally etched and positioned on the top layer of the print. In Islam, the rose is known as the flower of Heaven. Roses are perceived as symbols of the human soul and so the beautiful scent of roses is associated with spirituality giving a sense of inner peace and freedom.

Comment: At the bottom central area of the print is the image of a woman with her hands over her head. Numerous digital filters and posterization techniques were employed to create the feelings of despair, fear, loss, distress, worry, pain, sacrifice, fear of the unknown, and loss of dignity suffered by those seeking refuge to new lands.

Comment: Positioned on the top left layer above the image of the woman is a hand drawn illustration of a bouquet of roses employing posterization techniques to create a distressed, abstracted image in pale yellow. The national flower of Iraq is the rose. This rose started as a red rose but through the journey to asylum/freedom the rose has slowly turned to pale yellow, eventually fading and losing all colour – becoming a stateless entity as those seeking asylum fear.

Comment: To the right of the woman’s face is a series of Middle Eastern diamond shaped windows which have been designed in a structured and random fashion to highlight the unexpected directions and turns that life can unfold, no matter what society one lives in, much as a chess board.

Comment: Positioned in the bottom right-hand corner of the print in burgundy is an image featuring the Islamic words, “In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful”.

Collections
The ‘EPNPM Refugee’ portfolio is held in the following collections:
Spike Island Studios (Bristol,UK).
Australian Print Council.
University of West England (Bristol,UK).
Limerick Print Workshop (Ireland).
London Print Studios (London,UK).
Monash University, Library Rare Books, Australia.
Castlemaine Regional Gallery, Australia.
Edinburgh Print Workshop (Scotland).
Dundee Print Workshop (Scotland).
National Gallery of Australia Accession No: NGA 2008.990.23.
National Gallery of Australia: IRN: 190483.
National Gallery of Australia (see the link below).
https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/190483?keyword=Marie-Therese%20Wisniowski&includeParts

Oil Painting - Part V [1]Art ResourceMarie-Therese Wisniowski

Preamble
This is the twenty-second post in a new Art Resource series that specifically focuses on techniques used in creating artworks. For your convenience I have listed all the posts in this new series below:
Drawing Art
Painting Art - Part I
Painting Art - Part II
Painting Art - Part III
Painting Art - Part IV
Painting Art - Part V
Painting Art - Part VI
Home-Made Painting Art Materials
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part I
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part II
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part I
Historical Notes on Art - Part II
Historical Notes on Art - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part IV
Historical Notes on Art - Part V
Tempera Painting
Oil Painting - Part I
Oil Painting - Part II
Oil Painting - Part III
Oil Painting - Part IV
Oil Painting - Part V
Oil Painting - Part VI
Pigments
Classification of Pigments - Part I
Classification of Pigments - Part II
Classification of Pigments - Part III
Pigments for Oil Painting
Pigments for Water Color
Pigments for Tempera Painting
Pigments for Pastel
Japanese Pigments

There have been another one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that have focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics;
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio;
(iii) Color theories and color schemes;
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials;
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V;
(vi) Protein fibers;
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers;
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers;
(ix) Fabric construction;
(x) Techniques and woven fibers;
(xi) Basic and figured weaves;
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics;
(xiii) Durable press and wash-and-wear finishes;
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends;
(xv) The general theory of printing.

To access any of the above resources, please click on the following link - Units Used in Dyeing and Printing of Fabrics. This link will highlight all of the one hundred and thirteen posts in the previous a are eight data bases on this blogspot, namely, the Glossary of Cultural and Architectural Terms, Timelines of Fabrics, Dyes and Other Stuff, A Fashion Data Base, the Glossary of Colors, Dyes, Inks, Pigments and Resins, the Glossary of Fabrics, Fibers, Finishes, Garments and Yarns, Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements, Glossary of Paper, Photography, Printing, Prints and Publication Terms and the Glossary of Scientific Terms. All data bases in the future will be updated from time-to-time.

If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g. click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.

The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember - these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student and so undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and in other parts, it may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). The trade-off between these two extremes will mean that Art Resource posts will be hopefully useful in parts to most, but unfortunately may not be satisfying to all!

Oil Painting - Part V [1]
That tempera and other departures from the standard direct oil technique were known to some early American painters is evident; research among the voluminous biographies, letters, and records of these painters of the early nineteenth century would undoubtedly disclose many interesting accounts of their painting materials and methods, but they have been ignored because of the low self esteem in which the mass of early nineteenth-century painters have been held, even though some of them show a degree of craftsmanship far surpassing the usual level of previous times.

Artist: J. Otis Adams (depicted third from the left in 'The Art Jury' by Wayman Elbridge Adams.
History: Born: July 8, 1851 Amity, Johnson County, Indiana, United States. He died January 28, 1927 (aged 75) in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States.
Education: South Kensington School of Art, London (1872–74); Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (1880– 85).
Movement: American Impressionism.
Courtesy: Painting in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Artist: James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
Title: Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862).
Courtesy: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Comment: He was an American painter active during the American 'Gilded Age' and was based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.

Artist: Albert Bierstadt.
Title: Mount Adams, Washington (1875).
Courtesy: Princeton University Art Museum.
Comment: He was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the 'American West.' He joined several journeys of the 'Westward Expansion' to paint scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

Dipping into these records here and there, we find observations on the relative merits of solid painting and the use of glazes; we see portraits of the 1840s in which glaze effects were successfully used both in backgrounds and in faces. The glaze effect became something of a lost art in the second half of the century and beyond, for the works of that period reveal much less success in the attainment of these effects.

Artist: Thomas Eakins' 1902 Self portrait. It is now housed at the National Academy of Design in New York City.
Background: Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was born July 25, 1844, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He died, June 25, 1916 (aged 71) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Nationality: American.
Education: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, École des Beaux-Arts.
Comment: Known for painting and sculpture. Notable work - Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871, The Gross Clinic, 1875, The Agnew Clinic, 1889, William Rush and His Model, 1908.
Art Movement: Realism.

In the past, the discovery, or rather the widespread application of new and improved raw materials and technical methods, almost always coincided with the introduction of new art forms. This statement is not meant to imply that such material innovations were the deciding factor in the genesis of the new art forms, but that such materials and methods were ultimately put to the uses for which they were inherently best suited. This occurs in the present day, when new develpments not only in artists' materials, but in all other fields of activity are often first applied as imitation of older forms, and are not utlized to their fullest extent until a new demand or new conception of their values arises.

Title: Flames Unfurling (ArtCloth wall hanging - full view).
Artist: Marie-Therese Wisniowski.
Comment: ArtCloth is a new form of art where the medium used is cloth instead of say, canvas, as the art medium. To view an exhibition employing this medium click on the following link - When Rainforests Ruled - which will direct you to other posts using this new art medium.
Size: 60 cm (width) x 120 cm (height).

The chart below highlights the influences of various schools of art upon one another. It is also a guide to the study of the development and interchange of materials and methods used in painting. Modern conditions have brought art to a sort of international era in which the works of all schools, regions, and historical periods are available as influences upon current developments. This has brought about an appreciation and valuation of forms and philsophies foreign to our own, and, in similar way, there are no known methods or materials used by any other school, age, or country that we cannot employ if we choose to do so.
To view the slide below more effectively, place it on your desktop and then open it on your computer.

Reference:
[1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer (ed. E. Smith) 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).