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1. The ”Peter Paul Rubens – gown”: Rubens painted himself with his wife Isabella in 1609. She is wearing a distinctive style of dress which is dominated by a certain stiffness. Fashion in the Netherlands (and Spain) was very sombre. The ruff collar, large as a millstone, seems to isolate the head from the torso.
- Rococo
The late Baroque Mantua style developed in the 1720s into...
- Tudor/Elizabethan Era
The Tudor/Elizabethan society was a class society and there...
- Renaissance
An example of the ferronnière in art history is the portrait...
- Empire/Regency
Flowing white robes had already emerged before the...
- Rococo
Nov 13, 2023 · The advent of the farthingale in the female wardrobe of the 1600s dramatizes the dialectic between the aesthetic ideal and the reality of lived experience that has ever animated the history of fashion. Whalebone hoops inserted within cumbersome petticoats created a cylindrical silhouette designed to accentuate the slimness of a lady's waist ...
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What was a Baroque style?
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Who invented Baroque theatre?
- Overview
- Costume in Baroque opera and ballet
- Costume of the 18th and 19th centuries
A galaxy of specialists joined the courts of the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, with Giacomo Torelli, the chief originator of Baroque theatre, arriving from Venice. This monumental scenic style included magnificent colonnades, temples, palaces, and scenes so lavish that only the great ruling houses could afford them. Designers such as Torelli brought great prestige to their patrons. An outburst of Baroque opulence bore witness to the power and splendour of the Sun King. In France in the early 17th century, the designer Daniel Rabel worked inventively, producing many witty and droll effects and costumes of grotesque conception. Burlesque costume had found its way to amuse the court.
Berain and Henri Gissey were attached to the Royal Cabinet of Louis XIV. Gissey is most famous for his celebrated Carrousel (1662), a horse spectacular never since surpassed in its magnificence—500 noblemen in plumed regalia escorted by a greater number of elaborately dressed attendants. Costumes represented different nations, each having a particular colour scheme: the Romans, led by the king, were in red and gold, the Ottomans in black and yellow, the Indians in white and gold, and the Americans in green and gold. The scene, played in front of the Louvre, was indeed the grandest fantasy in costuming, with both horses and riders decorated in full Baroque trappings.
Chroniclers record gorgeous costumes appearing in 17th-century ballet, opera, and dramatic offerings; gold brocades covered with lace, diamonds, emeralds, ribbons, and immense trains graced the stages of France. The French surpassed the Italians in their opera costumes, which were richer than any elsewhere. In the designs of Berain there is a homogeneity of style that is the mark of a great master. Berain’s costumes for women, which were based on contemporary court dress, were serious and noble in style. Their tight bodices and flared basque shirts had decorative overskirts with trains; they followed an almost uniform silhouette. The headdress, also carefully designed, was a formal arrangement of feathers or lace. Male garments were in the Roman style, the tunic fitting tightly to the chest, worn with tonneler (short skirt), high boots, and cape. To avoid monotony, Berain devised an amazing variety of ingenious trimmings—embroideries, fringes, slashings, puffs and paddings, inlaid ornamental motifs, pastes, and semiprecious stones to punctuate every small decorative panel and part. Scaly or bejeweled bodies, serrated leaves—every elegant or fantastic theatrical device was used to create a sophisticated ensemble. Berain coordinated all aspects of scenic decor in an equally industrious way and as a decorative artist dominated French and European taste and costume design. After Berain died in 1711, the sumptuous Baroque of the early years of Louis XIV declined. Berain’s son Jean succeeded his father as court designer and carefully documented his father’s drawings.
Created in 1721, Claude Gillot’s designs for the ballet Les Éléments showed a great change in taste. The heavy fabrics and embroideries used by Berain were replaced by lighter, more delicate weights and appliqués. Ladies’ costumes, following the caprices of the contemporary modes, included a pannier. Peasant and rustic characters began to appear and were most popular with the court, in beribboned garments of pastel satins and silks. Extensive records of these costumes exist in the form of engravings.
A galaxy of specialists joined the courts of the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, with Giacomo Torelli, the chief originator of Baroque theatre, arriving from Venice. This monumental scenic style included magnificent colonnades, temples, palaces, and scenes so lavish that only the great ruling houses could afford them. Designers such as Torelli brought great prestige to their patrons. An outburst of Baroque opulence bore witness to the power and splendour of the Sun King. In France in the early 17th century, the designer Daniel Rabel worked inventively, producing many witty and droll effects and costumes of grotesque conception. Burlesque costume had found its way to amuse the court.
Berain and Henri Gissey were attached to the Royal Cabinet of Louis XIV. Gissey is most famous for his celebrated Carrousel (1662), a horse spectacular never since surpassed in its magnificence—500 noblemen in plumed regalia escorted by a greater number of elaborately dressed attendants. Costumes represented different nations, each having a particular colour scheme: the Romans, led by the king, were in red and gold, the Ottomans in black and yellow, the Indians in white and gold, and the Americans in green and gold. The scene, played in front of the Louvre, was indeed the grandest fantasy in costuming, with both horses and riders decorated in full Baroque trappings.
Chroniclers record gorgeous costumes appearing in 17th-century ballet, opera, and dramatic offerings; gold brocades covered with lace, diamonds, emeralds, ribbons, and immense trains graced the stages of France. The French surpassed the Italians in their opera costumes, which were richer than any elsewhere. In the designs of Berain there is a homogeneity of style that is the mark of a great master. Berain’s costumes for women, which were based on contemporary court dress, were serious and noble in style. Their tight bodices and flared basque shirts had decorative overskirts with trains; they followed an almost uniform silhouette. The headdress, also carefully designed, was a formal arrangement of feathers or lace. Male garments were in the Roman style, the tunic fitting tightly to the chest, worn with tonneler (short skirt), high boots, and cape. To avoid monotony, Berain devised an amazing variety of ingenious trimmings—embroideries, fringes, slashings, puffs and paddings, inlaid ornamental motifs, pastes, and semiprecious stones to punctuate every small decorative panel and part. Scaly or bejeweled bodies, serrated leaves—every elegant or fantastic theatrical device was used to create a sophisticated ensemble. Berain coordinated all aspects of scenic decor in an equally industrious way and as a decorative artist dominated French and European taste and costume design. After Berain died in 1711, the sumptuous Baroque of the early years of Louis XIV declined. Berain’s son Jean succeeded his father as court designer and carefully documented his father’s drawings.
Created in 1721, Claude Gillot’s designs for the ballet Les Éléments showed a great change in taste. The heavy fabrics and embroideries used by Berain were replaced by lighter, more delicate weights and appliqués. Ladies’ costumes, following the caprices of the contemporary modes, included a pannier. Peasant and rustic characters began to appear and were most popular with the court, in beribboned garments of pastel satins and silks. Extensive records of these costumes exist in the form of engravings.
Jean-Baptiste Martin, who was appointed designer for the Paris Opéra in 1748, devised decorative and amusing Rococo variations for the male dancer’s traditional costume. Martin utilized Inca, African, Chinese, and Mexican motifs in his ballets, and under his direction the tonneler took on an elliptical shape.
All the elegance and sophistication seen in the Rococo court circles of Louis XV were brought to the stage by Martin’s successor, Louis-René Boquet. His designs were theatricalized versions of the new fashionable silhouette. Boquet clothes were delicate, artificial, and pale in tone, trimmed with garlands and Rococo finery. All of Europe imitated the French ideas, although the English and German facsimiles lacked Boquet’s innate good taste.
French philosophe Denis Diderot wrote in 1758 of the fashions then current in the French theatre:
Ostentation spoils everything…. Wealth has too many caprices: it can dazzle the eye, but not touch the heart. Beneath the garment that is overloaded with gilding, I never see more than a rich man, and it is a man I look for….
Comedy ought to be played in informal dress. On the stage it is not necessary to be either more or less dressed up than one is at home….
The more serious the play, the more austerity there must be in costume….
Nov 21, 2023 · The Baroque period was a time in art history between the 17th century and the early 18th century. ... Costume Design Definition, History & Types
- What did men wear in the Baroque era?Men began wearing short coats, baggy breeches, square-toed shoes, wigs, and ribbons. As time passed, the coats became longer, waistcoats gained in...
- What are the characteristics of Baroque fashion aesthetic?The aesthetic in Europe during the Baroque era was relaxed and indulgent. As such, the clothing of the time was made from expensive fabrics with ov...
- What are the clothing elements of the Baroque style?The Baroque era ushered in fine fabrics like silk, prevalent ribbons, wigs, and corsets. Ruff collars were popular in the early period, as were bag...
- When was the Baroque period of fashion?The Baroque period took place following the Thirty Years War in Europe. The time from the 1650s into the 1700s became a period of lavishness in clo...
The Baroque is a highly ornate and elaborate style of architecture, art and design that flourished in Europe in the 17th and first half of the 18th century. Originating in Italy, its influence quickly spread across Europe and it became the first visual style to have a significant worldwide impact. A defining characteristic of the Baroque style ...
Ca. 1620 - 1660. Russell, Douglas Costume History and Style; chapter 14, pp. 232-249. Summary: After a century of rigidity and repression, the clothing of the early Baroque, mirroring the new philosophical and artistic outlook, used relaxed fabrics that flowed and expanded outward from the body. Compare, for example, the qualities of dress in ...
Embroidery, never defunct and itself an art of preserved patterns of ways of working and seeing, could be telling of a proclivity to eighteenth-century origins if and when, in style and placement, it accorded with the paradigms of sumptuous costume in the ancien régime.
