When it comes to 20th century pioneers, Anni Albers is the quietly tenacious artist who defied all expectations, blending technical mastery with Modernist abstraction to revolutionise the ancient craft of weaving into an art form in its own right. Pointing to the rigid divisions between fine and applied arts in her later years, she wrote,…
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The earthy ginger of APRICOT linen echoes Pierre Bonnard’s spicy Mediterranean oranges, colours that became a central focus in his flickering, light speckled canvases. Recognised today as a vivid colourist, Bonnard captured the warm light of his native France with intimiste, naturally lit interiors, blooming landscapes and sunlit gardens. An early abstractionist, his paintings reveal…
Fabric in the shade of SPICE Linen became billowing plumes of fire in the hands of Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, bursting out of the darkness like sparks of light. Leader in the Baroque style, Rubens’ canvases were charged with emotive, sensual energy and movement, as theatrically staged figures are engulfed in epic swathes of…
“We live surrounded by cloth.” Kassia St Clair It is hard to imagine what our lives would be without textiles. From the clothes we wear to the bedding we sleep in and the furnishings that adorn our homes and work places, sumptuous patterns and textures define the world we live in. Visionary textile designers through…
Albert Bierstadt’s dreamy landscapes convey the unspoilt wilderness of the 19th century American outback, conveying the awe-inducing wonder of sharp cliffs, huge skies and cavernous valleys with soft colours and hazy atmospheric light. Refined shades of bluish-grey like that of ELEPHANT Linen stain distant, craggy mountains and heavily laden storm clouds with quietly brewing drama,…
“At the beginning of the seventeenth century, flame-like rivers of cloth could billow behind a prosperous citizen, or flow over his shoulder and across his lap.” Anne Hollander The Baroque era was fuelled by intense, fiery passion and raw emotional impact. Like Renaissance and Mannerist artists before them, Baroque visionaries from the mid-17th to mid-18th…
Fresh, ripe pinks like that of POWER PINK Linen streak across many of Willem De Kooning’s paintings, creating shockingly bright shards of colour amidst his frenetic expressionist visions. Leader in the American Abstract Expressionist school throughout the 1950s and 1960s, De Kooning’s paintings were often based on women, painted with flurried passages of pink in…
The flowing, ostentatious language of Mannerist art in the 16th century grew out of the High Renaissance. But Renaissance naturalism and realism was replaced by heightened, exaggerated drama, and fabric played a vital narrative and compositional role. Moving beyond reality gave artists a newfound, expressive freedom, and drapery was given a life of its own,…
HONEY BLOSSOM Linen’s sumptuous pink flutters through Jean-Honore Fragonard’s decadent Rococo scenes, tinting ruffled skirts, diaphanous veils and the blushing cheeks of hopeful young suitors. Nestled amongst cool, watery greens and dusty blues, this colour brings the fresh, peachy glow of spring and summer into his works of art. But it also symbolises the blossoming…
“Painters of the Northern Renaissance clothe their figures in a fabric that has the friable angularity of carvings made from wood.” Andrew Graham-Dixon During the 15th and 16th centuries, the enlightening ideas of the Italian Renaissance spread throughout Northern Europe, lifting it out of the Dark Ages into the wonder of a new era. Much…
One of the greatest colourists of all time, Pablo Picasso brought radiant yellows like that of EGYPTIAN YELLOW linen into many of his most famous artworks, infusing into them a golden, glowing light. Born in Spain before relocating to France, Picasso remained patriotic to his home country throughout his career, and he would have been…
“Dress was employed by the Renaissance elite to manifest rank and magnificence.” William J Connell, contemporary historian. In High Renaissance Italian art, virtuoso paintings convey an extravagant world of thick piled velvet, metallic embroidery and glossy, stiffened silks. This fabric allowed artists to tell wondrous, exotic stories, whipping and swirling in the wind, circling and…
Fertile moss greens of GREEN Linen are a vital ingredient in Pierre Bonnard’s paintings, bringing into them an energising, ambient glow. A leader in the early 20th century intimiste movement that observed the quiet intimacy of ordinary life, Bonnard made private, simple observations come alive through luminescent colour and scattered strokes of paint. Earthy greens…
“Fabric was more than décor; it became part of the story.” Alan Riding, writer Sinuous, flowing drapes of fabric flow across early Renaissance paintings, wrapping the contours of bodies and breathing into them dynamic life. Taking their cue from the sculptures of Ancient Greece, artists of the Renaissance period produced diaphanous veils of colour and…
Cold, white light runs through Pierre Auguste Renoir’s paintings, leaving dark, mysterious shadows in its wake. The mossy shade of FERN Linen coloured damp, dark corners of his outdoor scenes, soaking into them a weighty solidity and substance. World renowned for his sparkling qualities of light, Renoir helped lead the French Impressionist School to success,…
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