Washing Day
Washing DayMelbourne is in for a glorious, sunshiny weekend! It’s been a beautiful day so far and we’re not halfway through yet. There is nothing like sunshine and blue skies to lift your spirits – even if one is taking advantage of the weather and getting lots of washing done. Chores done today, I plan to spend at least part of tomorrow lying under an oak tree in the Botanic Gardens with a book.
Digital illustrations by So Not A Princess, 2010
The Chase
The Rites of Spring
It’s almost the end of the year, and my Vogue calendar gives me The New Silhouette from September 1925, illustrated by Harriet Meserole. It’s long and tubular, and entirely decked in a carnival of fringe – perfect for the Spring Racing Carnival. The new year begins afresh with spring, really, rather than merely following the numbers on a calendar.
Today is Melbourne Cup Day, unfortunately a dreary day at that, belying the promise of frivolity inherent in flimsy skirts and new high heels, and little hats that threaten to be carried off by an entirely seasonable stiff breeze.
When I googled references for ‘November’ all I found were paeans to autumnal harvests and melancholy poems to the dreary drip, drip of coming winter. Where are the Antipodean poets writing of spring, hope and new life and all that jazz? Wait, I forget, we’ll find them in the formguide and in the lyrical descriptions of the fashions on the field, and far too many allusions to the stable: young fillies kicking up their heels, thoroughbred beauties tossing their manes, impatient to be through the starter’s gate and quaffing their champagne. Those are the Australian rites of spring. Chin-chin!
Picture Within a Picture
I can’t believe it’s October already. This year is flying by! Before you know it, it’ll be Christmas. There are Christmas things in the stores already, perhaps that was a common ploy even in the 1930s when this cover was published, with its red, green and white colours?
This illustration Paris Openings, is by André-Edouard Marty, and was first published in September 1932. It is such a lovely, cool-weather cover: the soignée woman nestled in her deep, cosy armchair, huge lamp throwing light in a darkened room. She is reading the magazine she is on the cover of. I was always fascinated by these Escher-type ‘picture within a picture within a picture’ images when I was a child. I even used to stand in front of a mirror with a hand mirror to mimic the effect!
Until the mid 1940s, Vogue covers featured an illustrated masthead, matching or complementing the theme of the cover image. It’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of the covers in the early twentieth century. I can understand why magazines today stick to the same masthead, but they do lose so much liveliness thereby (not to mention the stock-standard glossy, highly-polished photographs of Hollywood actresses – yawn – and an exaggerated proliferation of coverlines). They just don’t make them like they used to…
Until next month then – only two more illustrations to go!
Riviera Weather
‘Riviera Number’ by Helen Dryden, British Vogue, Late January 1922Happy First of September to you! Appropriately for the first day of spring in Melbourne, it is beautifully sunny outside. It’s no Riviera view for me though, sadly.
This light and breezy watercolour Riviera Number is by Helen Dryden, an American artist and industrial designer active during the 1920s and 30s. She embarked on her career with fashion illustration, although it was not an auspicious beginning.
She moved to New York in 1909, and for about a year did the rounds of the fashion magazines, showing her portfolio of drawings. Dispiritingly, none were interested until Condé Nast took on Vogue. This new broom swept the illustrator in rather than out: the fashion editor was directed to contact Dryden immediately.
Considering the harsh criticism Dryden had received prior to this, Nast’s instant championship of her must have been such a vote of confidence. When one looks over Dryden’s oeuvre, it is hard to understand how so many magazines could have disliked her work, but that is the shock of the new.
She went on to become one of Nast’s favourite illustrators. During the 13-year collaboration between Dryden and Vogue, many delightful fashion illustrations and 35 covers were produced, although by 1917 the cover work had dried up. Fashions do change after all.
Scroll down and be enchanted with some more samples of Dryden’s work.
Drawing Admiration
The Scarlet PastoraleA colleague of mine is currently working on a project inspired by the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. Admiring one of the images she is referencing, I instantly decided the time was ripe for a story on Beardsley.
Aubrey Beardsley was born in 1872. A sickly child, he was troubled by tuberculosis from the age of nine, and – alas for the world – was finally carried off by the disease at the too-early age of 26 in 1898.
His distinctive black and white ink drawings are immediately recognisable for the exquisite lines; the delicate traceries of flora and fauna; the uncompromising dense black that heightens the drama of each subject. Influenced by the flat style of Japanese woodcuts, Beardsley’s work encapsulates the decadent eroticism of the hedonists, as well as their grotesqueries. They are compelling – we are fascinated and can’t look away, like passersby observing a crash.
Famous for co-founding The Yellow Book, and his drawings for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, and forever associated with Art Nouveau, Beardsley’s oeuvre continues to this day to inspire and draw admiration.
Also check out Illustration Life’s story, and Wormfood’s online gallery of more than 100 images.
Venus Between Terminal Gods
Salomé