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newmoonstarSo I managed to get myself to Chicago to see 'Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity' at the Art Institute before it closed, and am majorly glad I did. So many of my favorite paintings in one place, along with actual period clothes, makes for pretty much the best thing ever. :-D
I only had two hours though, and that was definitely not enough time! I like to sit in front of stuff for a while and absorb every detail, but with literally hundreds of goodies to gawk at, it just wasn't possible! Plus it was SO CROWDED! You could barely move in there! I've never seen so many people in a museum in my life! On the one hand, that's awesome, because look at all the people who will be exposed to art and history and find out that there actually WERE women painters in the 19th century! Yay! But from the standpoint of me in the back of a crowd of people thinking, "I just wanna see the back pleats of this dress!" Not so great! But I finally saw works by some of my favorite artists in person, so the overall verdict is: Hurray!!! There were tons of Berthe Morisot paintings, a few Jean Berauds, a Frederic Bazille, and several Worth gowns, and I was all 'omigod! omigod!' whenever I'd spot one of my faves, and run over to it like a kid in a candy store. People probably thought I was a little bit nuts, but I didn't care, 'cause when you only have 2 hours to see things you've been waiting your whole life to see, you can't be a shrinking violet! ;-D And holy mackerel, you do not realize by looking in books how HUGE some of these paintings are! A lot of the portraits are life size or bigger! You really do get a feel for why portraiture was so important in 19th century society. It's funny though how some of the more famous paintings weren't really as exciting in person, whereas some of the lesser known stuff was more captivating. I breezed past Degas' 'At The Milliner' (meh), but Eva Gonzales' smallish pastel of 'A Milliner' was so delicate and light and felt fresh and new all these years later; Renoir's 'Madame Charpentier and her Children' was there, looking resplendent as you'd expect, but I spent more time in front of a Renoir portrait I didn't know very well, 'Lise', which I just loved with it's simple white dress with black and red accents, and the quiet wistful look on the lady's face.
It was also nice to see well known paintings full size, and finally see details I'd been missing all these years, only able to see tiny reproductions in books. For instance, I never saw before that in Tissot's 'The Ball on Shipboard', you could actually see in the background, on the deck below all the beautifully dressed ladies sitting and standing around, a scene with the officers and other ladies actually dancing at the titular ball, and all the sailors sitting around watching! ALL THIS TIME and I never saw that before!! And in Jean Beraud's 'At the Ball' you could see all the details of the interplay of people talking and looking at eachother. And the details of all the ladies clothes in Tissot's 'At the Circus'. Gotta love Tissot for his insane devotion to depicting fashionable clothing, it makes the heart of any historical costumer leap for joy. :)
I have to admit though, I think I drooled over the dresses more even than the paintings! This 1880s ice blue satin Worth ball gown was and is the stuff of my dreams, can I just say. And this beyond darlingly adorable white floral print cotton summer dress is something I need to make a copy of, like, right now! Everything I saw, I thought to myself, "Dude, I would totally wear that! I want it NOW!" Luckily I restrained myself on my subsequent trip to Vogue fabrics, and only ended up buying one piece of fabric there, because it was dirt cheap and looked exactly like the striped cotton worn by one of the ladies in Monet's 'Women in a Garden' (which I also saw for the first time to be green, and not blue stripes. I was like, 'holy cow, every picture of this painting in every book I have makes it look blue! WTF!?'
I did not, however, restrain myself once I got to suburbs for some shopping, since I finally managed to snag a Monster High Clawd Wolf & Draculaura set at the K-Mart there! (By golly, if I have to go out of state to get my dolls, I will!) AND all four of the new Disney Store Frozen dolls. And yes, I actually paid retail price for them, but having the chance to pick out my own dolls in person is worth the extra expense. I don't know if I'll like the movie, but I've gotten a doll from every animated Disney movie that comes out since I was 4 years old, whether I like the movie or not, so I figured I might as well just get it over with, because I'd end up buying them one day anyway! And they are BEAUTIFUL. Oh my goodness, I have never seen this level of detail on a doll this price, ever. The two guy dolls are the best the Disney Store has ever produced. I haven't even taken them out of their boxes yet, and I'm a devoted de-boxer. They're just that gorgeous.
So, a crazy trip (I was running late, it rained, and I was all dressed up in my pretty dress and shoes, need I say more?) -BUT- an awesome, geek-tastic, art history and fabric-loving doll collector's dream trip. (And if I can just recover from it soon & get back to sewing my Doctor Who cosplay projects for Chicago Tardis, I'll be all set for another crazy awesome trip. Yay!)
I only had two hours though, and that was definitely not enough time! I like to sit in front of stuff for a while and absorb every detail, but with literally hundreds of goodies to gawk at, it just wasn't possible! Plus it was SO CROWDED! You could barely move in there! I've never seen so many people in a museum in my life! On the one hand, that's awesome, because look at all the people who will be exposed to art and history and find out that there actually WERE women painters in the 19th century! Yay! But from the standpoint of me in the back of a crowd of people thinking, "I just wanna see the back pleats of this dress!" Not so great! But I finally saw works by some of my favorite artists in person, so the overall verdict is: Hurray!!! There were tons of Berthe Morisot paintings, a few Jean Berauds, a Frederic Bazille, and several Worth gowns, and I was all 'omigod! omigod!' whenever I'd spot one of my faves, and run over to it like a kid in a candy store. People probably thought I was a little bit nuts, but I didn't care, 'cause when you only have 2 hours to see things you've been waiting your whole life to see, you can't be a shrinking violet! ;-D And holy mackerel, you do not realize by looking in books how HUGE some of these paintings are! A lot of the portraits are life size or bigger! You really do get a feel for why portraiture was so important in 19th century society. It's funny though how some of the more famous paintings weren't really as exciting in person, whereas some of the lesser known stuff was more captivating. I breezed past Degas' 'At The Milliner' (meh), but Eva Gonzales' smallish pastel of 'A Milliner' was so delicate and light and felt fresh and new all these years later; Renoir's 'Madame Charpentier and her Children' was there, looking resplendent as you'd expect, but I spent more time in front of a Renoir portrait I didn't know very well, 'Lise', which I just loved with it's simple white dress with black and red accents, and the quiet wistful look on the lady's face.
It was also nice to see well known paintings full size, and finally see details I'd been missing all these years, only able to see tiny reproductions in books. For instance, I never saw before that in Tissot's 'The Ball on Shipboard', you could actually see in the background, on the deck below all the beautifully dressed ladies sitting and standing around, a scene with the officers and other ladies actually dancing at the titular ball, and all the sailors sitting around watching! ALL THIS TIME and I never saw that before!! And in Jean Beraud's 'At the Ball' you could see all the details of the interplay of people talking and looking at eachother. And the details of all the ladies clothes in Tissot's 'At the Circus'. Gotta love Tissot for his insane devotion to depicting fashionable clothing, it makes the heart of any historical costumer leap for joy. :)
I have to admit though, I think I drooled over the dresses more even than the paintings! This 1880s ice blue satin Worth ball gown was and is the stuff of my dreams, can I just say. And this beyond darlingly adorable white floral print cotton summer dress is something I need to make a copy of, like, right now! Everything I saw, I thought to myself, "Dude, I would totally wear that! I want it NOW!" Luckily I restrained myself on my subsequent trip to Vogue fabrics, and only ended up buying one piece of fabric there, because it was dirt cheap and looked exactly like the striped cotton worn by one of the ladies in Monet's 'Women in a Garden' (which I also saw for the first time to be green, and not blue stripes. I was like, 'holy cow, every picture of this painting in every book I have makes it look blue! WTF!?'
I did not, however, restrain myself once I got to suburbs for some shopping, since I finally managed to snag a Monster High Clawd Wolf & Draculaura set at the K-Mart there! (By golly, if I have to go out of state to get my dolls, I will!) AND all four of the new Disney Store Frozen dolls. And yes, I actually paid retail price for them, but having the chance to pick out my own dolls in person is worth the extra expense. I don't know if I'll like the movie, but I've gotten a doll from every animated Disney movie that comes out since I was 4 years old, whether I like the movie or not, so I figured I might as well just get it over with, because I'd end up buying them one day anyway! And they are BEAUTIFUL. Oh my goodness, I have never seen this level of detail on a doll this price, ever. The two guy dolls are the best the Disney Store has ever produced. I haven't even taken them out of their boxes yet, and I'm a devoted de-boxer. They're just that gorgeous.
So, a crazy trip (I was running late, it rained, and I was all dressed up in my pretty dress and shoes, need I say more?) -BUT- an awesome, geek-tastic, art history and fabric-loving doll collector's dream trip. (And if I can just recover from it soon & get back to sewing my Doctor Who cosplay projects for Chicago Tardis, I'll be all set for another crazy awesome trip. Yay!)
