MEN'S FASHION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY - AN IMAGE OF VIRTUE, AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD (Moda weska w XVI w. - obraz cnoty, rozumienie swiata)

• Authors: Pietrzak-Thébault Joanna
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

'Eyes in the face of a man with studied proportions, a perfectly groomed beard, a prominent nose and a disclosed right ear. The juxtaposition of colours enables it to clearly contrast with the snow-white edge of a crimped collar (being extremely high it reaches the neck). We can see only this rim (a ruche, discreet in comparison with the opulence to come in the future), similarly to the gathered cuffs, while the rest of the shirt remains concealed. A black beret decorated with a flowing tinted feather prolongs the effect of colour achieved by the raven-black coiffure. Even if the hair does show first noticeable lighter tinges, it is still devoid of greyness'. With this description of a portrait entitled 'Cavalier in Black' by Giovanni Battista Moroni, Amedeo Quondam began his book on the men's 'black' fashion at the Italian and European courts of the 16th C. 'Tutti i colori del nero. Moda e cultura del gentiluomo nel Rinascimento (series Rinascimenti, Angelo Colla Editore, Costabissara /Vicenza/ 2007). Cavaliers, poets, princes and emperors dressed in black irrevocably replaced the colourfully attired courtiers of the previous generation - a turn of centuries and of epochs. Fashion cased being solely an expression of social status and became also a question of individual choice. For the purpose of understanding these transformations he made use of the avant-garde literature of the period, with the invaluable 'Il Libro del Cortegiano by Baldassare Castiglione'. He penetrated changes of manner and morals, dealt with the technology of dying fabric and the production of paint, browsed through posthumous inventories, recalled the reconstructions of authentic costumes, resorted to semantic analyses and evoked the history of native and borrowed words. The story is illustrated with a series of court and burgher portraits by Titian, Raphael and Moroni, as well as other more or less known or outright anonymous artists of the period. The process of taming the colour black, a hue of grief and madness, the intentional rejection of ostentation and brilliance, the praise of moderation, the emphasis on the noble fabric and monochromatic contrasts of colours were to comprise not only one of the most essential features of Classicism, but also a foundation for the creation of a framework of national consciousness. The significance which fashion was to hold in the history of Italian culture, and the exceptional role which it was to play in shaping Classicism and in the retention of an awareness of the 'Italian form' in those centuries which historiographers are in the habit of calling dark, made it possible at the time of long-lasting crises to discover an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Today, it yields the supremacy of Italian style in fashion and industrial design, an original and inimitable elegance made in Italy, unvarying for decades.

Keywords

EN

MEN’S FASHION (16TH C.)

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Konteksty - Polska Sztuka Ludowa
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 3(286)
• Pages: 128-135
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Pietrzak-Thébault Joanna

• Joanna Pietrzak-Thébault, no address given, contact the journal editor

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA083418