Thinking of Monet

Monet's last years fall into the Belle Epoque....and his art reflected those carefree years before WWI changed the world for good. I have been absent from this blog for more than a year. My husband was diagnosed with a serious illness shortly after the previous blog. I nursed him, and lost him in May. As it goes, it took  a long time to pick up my art again...and I am glad to find that my blogs and my patient followers are still here.

In my new painting, I created a carefree landscape. It is inspired by spring and by matric dance photos I have seen. I am also posting some Monet images:

"Lilac Brollies" by artist Marie Theron
405mm x 305mm oil on canvas board
SOLD

I quite liked an earlier painting that I did in 2011, called "Busy Lizzies". On seeing a photo of figures in movement that I would love to paint, I immediately reverted back to that cool fresh style of painting. The new one is simply called "Lilac Brollies" to rhyme with the earlier name. To crown it all, the owner of the first painting, wants to buy the new painting as well.

"Busy Lizzies" (2011) by artist Marie Theron
405mm x 305 mm oil on board
SOLD

The freshness of the Great Masters of Impressionist painting, will always be appealing, and I decided to add some "wiki" images of Monet's umbrella ladies to this post for everyone to enjoy again and again!

MONET

MONET

MONET

MONET

A Birthday Poem

I found this sweet poem on http://www.Poets.org It was written by Victorian poetess Christina Rossetti and goes well with my painting of a girl on a summer picnic.

A Birthday
by Christina Rossetti
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise me a daïs of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

Black Ascot

The famous “Black Ascot” followed the death of racing loving Edward VII in 1910. Instead of not having a meeting at Ascot, citizens arrived in shades of black and white. Black was also fashionable because of the very popular Merry Widow opera. The lower necklines show the influence of soft materials suitable for draping.

This was a fast sketch made in black and white acrylic paint as preparation for one of my French Belles paintings. I liked it like this and did not complete it in colour.

And yes, I forgot to mention: Cecil Beaton was inspired by this history when he designed the fashions for the Ascot Scene in "My Fair Lady"

The Edwardian Era: A Winter Hat

Large Edwardian hats were easily worn over large hairstyles. The tornure and other frames and pads were used to support hairstyles in such a way that it looked feminine and not stiff. Onto these hairstyles a hat of any size could be securely pinned. It could be the forward leaning saucer hats of my previous posts, or it could be heavy, wide and cozy hats, perfect for winter, like in this painting.

I love the website Fashion-era.com where so much research have gone into the many articles. I recommend that you visit the sections on hair and hats from 1900 to 1918 for some fascinating facts. I learnt, for instance, that there were workshops called "plummasiers" where feathers were dyed and made into ornaments. Hats could be very expensive and Edwardians were quite extravagant. When whole birds were made into hat ornaments it was decided after a while that the press should not report about them, to put a stop to the fashion.

I am still using mostly clip art images as my inspiration for paintings on this blog. This image was found in Dover books. The hat is made in warm velvet layers lined with black and is worn with a suit, a fashion that started about 1908.

The Edwardian Era: Parma Violets

Among the very affluent classes in Edwardian times, fresh cut flowers was brought indoors to decorate each room of the house. "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management" (1906) declared that they added a touch of refinement on the dinner table. Pretty potted parma violets, the chosen flower of the period, could even be used to decorate the breakfast table. After reading my blog (and commenting if you please), look at the delightful Lady with a Bowl of Violets (1910) by Lilla Cabot Perry.

On ladies' clothing former "artificials" would now compete with real roses and carnations. Parma violets, with their lovely scent, appeared as hat, hip, pulse or neck decorations. The shade of these pretty flowers entered fashion in amazing ways! I read about the outfit for an Edwardian bride: "corsets, perhaps in a delicate parma violet shade, could be enticingly pretty"! So here is my oil painting showing a long frock-type walking dress with a swivel hemline in that colour, with matching hat.

I should point out that a ladies' maid had much to do with the completed look of the lady of leisure. She had to be very skilled with hair and with tying in and corsetting the waist. It would take her at least an hour to sew the brush braid (cleaned and laundered) into the hemline of her lady 's dress to catch the mud and dirt (Nowwww, we know!!!)

In 3 previous posts I have summarized the characteristics of Edwardian fashion. So here are more points to take note of:

• The skirts of dresses were narrow and flat-fronted and ended in floor-dragging swivel hemlines that had to protected by the two- and- a-half yard brush braid, sewn on before venturing out.
• Many Edwardian hats were tilted forward to show all that lovely piled hair in the back.
• Hat decorations were elaborate and could feature artificial of fresh flowers and dyed ostrich feathers.
• A very lacy jabot with scarf-like frills was a single piece that could be worn with different outfits. Flower and ribbon posies, jabots and boned collars were called "novelties" in the shops.
• I mentioned before that the S-shaped stance was not very comfortable. Ladies would lean on umbrellas and in my painting she has a long delicate walking stick.

And of course, the aim of today's painting: another trait to take note of! A new colour was born in Edwardian times: parma violet. The photo of the real flower is published with kind permission of the photographer, the rest of the collage shows images of violets from various Victorian cards. I am running away from the main topic here, but it is interesting to read the research done by The American Violet Society about violets in art.

The Edwardian Era: The Walking Dress

The fashions of Edwardian Era is defined by the moneyed classes. Ladies could get into many outfits during the day! Shopping was a typical morning activity during which the lady would buy linens for the house or see her dressmaker or milliner. For the activity a "town dress" was worn. For just staying home she got dressed in her "morning dress"! During the afternoon social calls took place for which the "tea gown" was ideal. Another day activity which took place before dinners, balls and opera, was the strolling through parks or gardens, hence the "walking dress"!

Here are some more of the typical traits in Edwardian fashion. I bet you never suspected that I would take you through so many lectures, just on one particular era!

• No more would the crinolenes and hoops, the bustles and the multi-layered petticoats be seen. From now on the skirts of dresses became narrower, going down straight down in front, a little fullness over the behind, inwards towards the knees and again outwards at the hem. This hem could extend to suggest a train. After I painted my lady I just loved the dainty line of her skirt over narrow hips. This is so different from the old full-skirted styles of previous centuries.
• My cherry red outfit also has a frilled jacket which like a bolero makes the top appear very full and the waist petite.
• A white beaded and embroidered shirt with high boned collar gives a lovely accent to the outfit! Blouses began to become more important after 1910 as a garment which did not always need a jacket.
• Edwardian hats came in many styles, but this they had in common: they had to take the hair into account. This hat has a tiny pillbox with wide rim so designed that the upswept hairstyle is visible.
• The ostrich feather ornament must have "cost a pretty penny" as only the white ones could be dyed to match an outfit. During the ostrich feather boom in Europe some ostrich farmers in South Africa became exceptionally wealthy and the "ostrich palaces" they built for themselves can still be seen around Outshoorn. Sad to say, World War I put and end to this trade.
• The matching parasol for each outfit was not exceptional, but rather the rule in Edwardian times. The parasol was always long and elegant and the lady could rest on hers like on a walking stick when she got tired trying to maintain her tilted figure. Queen Alexandra often carried a long closed umbrella.
• Ladies were never without gloves, and this white pair matches the blouse and hat!

In my next post I paint another walking dress and pay tribute to the most favoured flower of Edwardian times....want to guess in the meantime what it was? (Today I suppose that means guess or Google)

The Edwardian Era: The Wasp Waist

The Victorian era had a somewhat austere atmosphere under their queen who was for ever in heavy mourning gear, under shawls, pleats and petticoats. Edward VII brought with him a licence to lightness, and the fresh spirit of La Belle Epoque blew in from the continent. The Edwardian woman was dressed up, out and about and sure to be seen with her sinuous S-curved silhoette!

The mainstay of the Edwardian fashion form was the tailor made corset, also seen as a "health corset"! The waist was clinched in to the smallest possible size and the tummy totally flattened. All available flesh was pushed backward to form an ample posterior and upwards to show a heavy breast line. Read more about The Edwardian Silhoette here!

I made up this painting to continue my list of typical Edwardian fashion traits:

• Edwardian ladies, although going around with low necklines at night, was dressed from their chins to their feet in the daytime, even wearing long gloves and never venturing out without hats and parasols.
• The "wasp waist" ruled supreme! The process could start with ribbons tied tightly, then the corset would be pulled over and tightened with some help from a ladies' maid!
• Heavy trimmings and lots of detail in the bodice helped to enlarge the top and minimize the waist even more. Even padding could be placed against the skin under the arms. In this dress the mock bolero has scallops, contrasting trim (often in velvet as was seen in my previous painting), a blouse effect and plenty of buttons ( a great craze of the times).
• A flat tummy and neat pleats kept the flattened effect in place in the front of the skirt.
• This was the time of Art Nouveau, with its flowing organic lines. I painted a type of screen to show the relation between Art Nouveau design and the Edwardian sillhoette. Both styles followed a design of balance and counter-balance and exaggerated curves.
• Edwardian collars were high and stiffened with stays and bones, making the neck appear very slim and were playing the role that the pearl "dog collars" played at night.
• The Arts and Crafts Revival put the emphasis on beautiful handmade furniture and objects. Likewise an enormous amount of labour was spent in the making of one ladies outfit with its matching jacket, parasol and hat, belts and shoes, with all the trimmings and insets, boning, ribbons and lace. Working girls with careers could never keep up the pace!

The S-shaped stance, so very pretty, was not very comfortable and one often sees photos of Edwardian ladies leaning onto thin parasol handles, walking sticks or any nearby pedestal! There is a lot more to learn about this fashion era! My collage shows the dress pattern which inspired my painting, ( From "Costume and Fashion") and some waist-thinning corsets from the same book and from Dover clip art. Read more about the wasp waist and waist-thinning corsets here

The Edwardian Era

This blog started off as a fun blog with pretty fashion ladies and other French symbols! But since beginning it, I have ordered books from all over the world and collected lots of clip art. I often spend time in second-hand book stores too, concentrating on period and historical literature .

I am therefore creating some order here and will start with the first great fashion era of the century: The Edwardian Era, fondly known as la belle epoque and also called the Long Edwardian Summer! King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria set the scene with a lavish and opulent lifestyle. He loved France and all things French and Queen Alexandra was the first to wear many of the new trends.

This simple painting shows many Edwardian fashion trends:

• The hair, supplemented by false hair pieces, was piled high and loosely on top of the head with a fringe effect over the forehead. Pads and frames were used to keep the hair gently in place. There were "tornure" frames and heart-shaped frames. With a frame in place the hair could support large hats too.
• The neck for evening wear was wide open to the bust line which appeared as one single rise of flesh.
• The stance of the Edwardian lady was very upright, just think of "Eliza Doolittle" in the ball scene in "My Fair Lady"! Undergarments played a role in this stance and I will have a post about them.
• All soft pastel shades were worn: pink, blue , mauve and soft shades called "eau de Nile" and "ashes of roses"! The soft shades matched the lightness of the fabrics. Here we see a lemon yellow ball dress by Gustav Beer, maybe the first German designer to open shop in Paris.
• Inserts, like the purple velvet insets seen here was popular, and lace was quite the rage! This dress have shoulder straps, rosettes and trimmings of lace and ribbon contrasts.
• The lace- trimmed open-ended sleeves were called pagoda sleeves. Don't they just look like pagodas?
• Another great Edwardian fashion trend shown in my painting, is the "dog collar" made of many rows of pearls and fastened with a diamond clasp, one of the fashions first seen on Queen Alexandra. Read more about Queen Alexandra's Pearls.
• Already in this painting, there is a hint of the small (wasp) waist, of which I will tell more in the next post!

Hats for Smart Wear

Towards 1927 smart suits were worn by women and "misses" alike. The world started a lasting love affair with crisp white shirts, also called overblouses in the Twenties as they were not always tucked into the skirts but had a band around the hips to round off the design. The blouses could be made from chiffon, a material called radium silk, and popular English broadcloth! Now why does that last material sound so strong and practical?

Feathers and porcupine quils were found on hats throughout the Twenties and I decided to use a Berti Borelli type of design for my belle with the unexposed hair, the black parts being part of the hat design and not hair! And, yes, you can buy vintage style hats on E-Bay today! And one last thought, one can still spot the Victorian bonnet in the style!

I Will Remember Your Kiss

I took the title for this post directly from one of the songs in the vintage songbook. There is no publishing date on it, but the fashions look like it could be from the 20-30's. On top of the cover is this warning: This book must not be exported for sale in America, Canada or Australasia. Now why on earth not???, I wonder!

The sketch on the cover is lovely! Those artists knew how to capture the spirit of their time. I used it for inspiration for my latest French Belle, and tried to make it more romantic by showing the man as a silhouette.

The ostrich feather in the girl's hand was the type of fan used in the early thirties, with most of the feathers imported from South Africa, where in our country several "ostrich barons" were smiling broadly at the demands of fashion! Now here is The Duchess of Windsor wearing a feather headdress (very queenly) and holding a feather fan. This was her introduction to the Royal court in 1931. (I took the photo from her book: "The Heart has it's Reasons")

The Little Straw Boater

Now is this true or not: we had our fill of a couple of ridiculous hats this week, on viewing and reviewing the Royal Wedding? What was true of the previous centuries, is true today, and that is that most feathers look better on the original bird than on a lady's hat!

In the Twenties there were actual publicity and movements to stop the use of 'bits of animal or bird', like those bound bundles of feathers or porcupine quills which were perched on the side of hats. Worse were the ostrich feathers which could be seen bobbing way above the heads of most of the males in a room!

So here is something innocent and refreshing, the straw boater! These hats became popular once again when women gained their freedom of dress in the Twenties. What could be more ideal to wear for summer picnic lunches, drives in open Model T Fords, playing golf or tennis, hiking or cycling?

Wearing a scarf with Flair

There is one thing about a Frenchwoman: she definitely knows how to wear a scarf! In my bedroom there are some hooks brim-full with the most beautiful scarves which friends and family brought me.

Every Frenchwoman throws a scarf over her clothes, they say, and you should do it too! Do these lovely gifts suit me? No! If I do try one on, no matter where I wear it, it will seem as if I have headache, neck-ache or toothache! It does not help that many of my forebears were French!

This French Belle was one of the first I painted. She was adopted by a small company that sells imported French fruit drinks. Unlike me, my Belle knows what style of scarf will go with her white sun dress and beads!

The Plain Suit

By the end of the Twenties the Eton crop and severely bobbed hair made way for shoulder-length hair. Little hats were now often worn at an angle to show the hair. Suits of good design became very popular. The style was somewhat masculine but not yet influenced by the military.

In my painting, once again drawn from imagination, the severe suit is softened with a soft pink blouse and umbrella. The photo, a lovely one of the Duchess of Windsor from her book:"The Heart has its Reasons" shows her happily awaiting the arrival of the Duke in France prior to the wedding. The fun butterfly jewellery massed on both sides of the collar adds a wonderful touch of personal style to a severe suit.

The Barrel Line

Utility clothes worn by women during World War I, was extremely drab. Wartime fashion gave us a heavy wide skirt in rough material, not a pretty button in sight!

At last in 1919 at the end of the war this skirt made way for 'the barrel line'. Dresses were now tubular with the anatomy of women quite suppressed. No shape and no waist were shown. If you did not have a boyish built, a 'flattener' was needed. The skirts of these dresses ballooned inwards near the ankles to show for the first time some well-turned ankles in femine shoes to cleverly make up for the absence of daring near the neckline!

In my painting, I exaggerated the length of the barrel line, the way it is often done on pattern packets. The soft detail of the belt shows off the dropped waistline which is the most outstanding characteristic of fashion from 1919 to well into the Twenties. The cloth is soft and silky and pastel-coloured.

Acrylic on Stretched Canvas

COPYRIGHT MARIE THERON 2010

Winter Pleasures

This is my absolutely favourite little painted lady! I have waited until you were truly shivering over there in the Northern Hemisphere before I posted the painting here. So please disregard the fact that I am writing this on a sunny summer's day in Cape Town!

In her book: French Women for All Seasons, Mireille Guiliano writes: "Most of us don't have a choice to sit winter out. The fact is that not every bird gets to fly south. And I confess I wouldn't want to: I love my morning walks in the winter, breathing the cool crisp air, and I can't imagine living in places without much seasonal variation. "

Well said! Wear your coziest coat and let me know what you see and experience out there. And tell me what you eat and drink out there!

180 x 180mm (10 x10)

Acrylic on Canvas Board

COPYRIGHT MARIE THERON 2010

The Lunch Date

The vintage era was a time of great style and elegance. I thought that this neat suit and hat portrayed the spirit of the time!

The Duchess of Windsor gave a lovely description in her autobiography (The Heart has its Reasons) : "There was good company in the Washington of the early 1920's, perhaps the most charming, exciting and cosmopolitan company in the United States" It was known

as the "diplomatic set".

Among the social events she names protracted dinners, dancing in Embassy ballrooms, teas, cocktail parties, Sunday night suppers at the houses of friends, impromptu excursions to little country restaurants, picnics in the Virginia countryside. "One lunched in a leisurely fashion", she wrote.

In the paintings by Modigliani, his beloved Jeanne Hebuterne wears hats like these. For an interesting "artwork- within- an- artwork" approach, you can look at the fashionable Jeanne's hats in Life Without Modi II by K.Madison Moore.

180 x 180mm (18 x 18 cm)

Acrylic on Canvas Board

COPYRIGHT MARIE THERON 2010

The Little Black Dress #1

180 x 180mm (18 x 18 cm)

Acrylic on Canvas Board

SOLD

COPYRIGHT MARIE THERON 2010

What is fondly known as 'the little black dress' was first introduced by the amazingly talented and original Coco Chanel, who emerged as the voice of fashion in the Twenties. Early on in her career she introduced a short, undecorated black dress for evening or cocktail wear. Even today it is considered essential that a lady should own at least one of these practical items of clothing that can be dressed up or down. It still plays a part in fashionable wardrobes after 90 years.

I made two paintings to commemorate an item that is timeless, both vintage and modern!

This is the first painting and is called: 'Le Dance'.

Cool, cooler, coolest!

180 x 180mm (18 x 18 cm)

Acrylic on Canvas Board

COPYRIGHT MARIE THERON 2010

AVAILABLE in South Africa from January 2011

Price R400 + R50 Postage and Packaging

It should be remembered that 1918 not only saw the end of the war, but also the end of clothing restrictions durable textiles. The shorter tube-shaped dresses, silky materials and lace, and light pastel colours during the Twenties gave such a new feeling of freedom of movement.

I had to giggle a bit when I read how v-necks and boat-necks were denounced by one and all. The press and the pulpit were even involved in campaigns against it! But fashion was persistent and everyone got used to "pneumonia necklines" which were supposedly bad for the health!

One of the nicest developments was the easiness of making these dresses. With a sewing machine and pattern, lovely clothes could be made by one and all. Unlike the previous century, girls from all walks of life could dress well.