Jean wrote: > Not sure about specific artists, but check out crucifixion scenes and > look for Mary Magdalene. She is very often distinguished from the > other women by wearing something outlandish, particularly in sleeves > or headgear.
Tea rose wrote: > Maybe you could find a well-illustrated book with a general overview > of Flemish saints or something? I just picked up a pretty nice little > book about angels from Taschen. I'm guessing these are indeed the sort of thing E was looking for, but just in case, it's worth making a clarification: Not all non-realistic costumes are allegorical. Allegory is a particular kind of non-literal portrayal (the presentation of a quality or concept via symbols) -- think of images of the virtues or Fate or the Church. The use of attributes to identify saints is iconographical, not allegorical. The use of "foreign" or "historic" elements to mark characters in a story is a visual means of showing distance in place or time. You can have allegorical elements working in the same figure as iconography or other visual symbolism, but they're not all the same thing. So: Mary Magdalen is not an allegorical figure; she's historical/religious/biblical. Her costume may include specific accepted attributes for identification (e.g. the ointment jar), symbols to put her in a time/place context (foreign headdress, Biblical sandals), and/or elements to indicate her personal characteristics (sexy or expensive clothing to indicate her background as a courtesan, undone hair to indicate grief, a cross or rosary to indicate piety, etc.). None of those happen to be allegorical in the technical sense. Costumer's shorthand, though, tends to call all of these things "allegorical," because they are all unreliable for a realistic interpretation. And I think we all understand that, but I figured it was worth pointing out that not all scholars outside of costume would understand the term in this way. So if E wants to ask an art historian for examples of "allegorical art," she'll get only a subset of what she's probably looking for. And if she describes certain uses as allegorical, some people will misunderstand what she is saying. This is something I have been sloppy about in the past, and I should have known better, since my original exposure to this terminology was through art history and literary criticism, not costume! I tend to be much more careful when talking with other scholars than when I'm talking with costumers who I'm certain are more interested in the basic distinction of real/not-real, not "why is it not real." E, if you're looking for the migration of certain costume elements from real life to symbolic use, or the other way around, you might do well to distinguish the various types of symbolic use, e.g. you may find the pattern in some forms of painting but not others. To the medieval artist, there was as much difference between an historical treatment and an allegorical one as there was between a either of those and a portrait. And as much overlap! --Robin --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
