Hans Holbein the Elder and the Younger, represent two generations of a highly regarded, German artistic family from the Augsburg region. Hans Holbein the Elder (1460-1524) was noteworthy for introducing Italian renaissance elements into austere Flemish and German art. He became an acknowledged master of altar paintings in Southern Germany, as well as an outstanding portrait artist.
Over time as his portrait skills developed, he became noted for displaying considerable realism in drapery and ornament, dress and tone, through quickness and delicacy of hand, and a wonderful facility for seizing character. An example of his detailed depiction of blackwork-style embroidery can be seen in Hans Holbein the Elder's "Portrait of a 34 year old Woman" painted in Basel around 1516-1517 (left), almost two decades ahead of the more famous paintings by his son, to whom he passed on his skills. Hans Holbein the Younger(1497/8-1543) was both in education and career, a cosmopolitan. At the early age of 16, after training by his father in Augsburg, he went travelling, working initially on Basel, then Lucerne, Zurich and London, where he painted portraits of German merchants and court personalities. By 1536 he had entered the service of Henry VIII, where, as well as being the royal portrait artist, he was responsible for designing the king's robes, buttons, linens and other household goods. In his last 10 years he produced some 150 life-size and miniature portraits of the royalty and nobility.
The works of Holbein the Younger were characterized by superb technical skill, a strong sense of composition and pattern, and a sharp eye for realistic detail, including the decorative characteristics of the period. The clothing of many of Holbein's subjects features detailed depictions of blackwork-style embroidery, and it is in his honour that the double running stitch, particularly used to give a reversible pattern, has also been named Holbein Stitch (see the detail on Jane Seymour's cuff below).
The introduction of blackwork to the UK is frequently attributed to the first wife of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and the term "Spanish (Spanysshe) work" was often used to describe this style of decoration. Although it is now evident that the arrival of Catherine did not mark the introduction of blackwork to the UK, there is no doubt that her choice of this type of ornamentation for her clothes encouraged the upper classes to embrace it, in order to emulate the style of their new queen.
The blackwork of this period looked like lace and was generally reversible, as it was often used on cuffs and collars which might be viewed on both sides. The black and white scrolling designs had an obvious Moorish influence, and are often described by the term "arabesque". Good examples can be seen in Holbein the Younger's portraits of Catherine Howard (left) and Jane Seymour (right and close-up).
References
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hans_Holbein_%28The_Elder%29Rosen. http://www.abcgallery.com/H/holbein/fholbeinbio.html http://www.abcgallery.com/H/holbein/fholbeinbio.
htmlhttp://www.answers.com/topic/holbein-hans-the-younger
http://www.prettyimpressivestuff.com/blackwork.htm
Langford, P: Embroidery ideas from Blackwork, Kangaroo Press, 1999.
2. BRIDGET RILEY
Bridget Riley, born in 1931, was the first British contemporary painter, and the first woman ever, to achieve the distinction of being awarded the International Prize for painting at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968. She developed an interest in creating optical effects and began to evolve her own style during the late 1950s and 1960s, painting black and white works that produce sensations of movement and colour. She created these illusions through careful use of a great variety of geometric forms, such as straight or wavy lines, and shapes such as discs or squares. Her work was influenced by the pointillism style of Georges Seurat as well as the paintings of Victor Vasarely, who had used designs of black and white lines since the 1930.
This early work, for which Riley is best known, is characterised by its exclusive use of black and white, showing the enormous range of effects that can be created through the use of simple lines and shapes, confined to just two colours, as we have been required to do in this module. This approach was also a source of inspiration for the "op-art" textiles used in fashion garments in the 1960s and beyond.
A couple of examples of this phase of Riley's work are shown below in an example from the Fragment series (left) held in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London, as well as one of her most famous works "Movement in Squares " (1961) (right).
In " Movement in Squares" a 3-D illusion that the page folds inwards to the right of the middle is created by using black and white squares of equal size at each edge and then gradually decreasing their width as you move towards and away from the "fold" line. When they become very narrow, the colours tend to merge, giving a greyer appearance.
In a recent article (At the end of my pencil, 2009) she describes how this piece evolved:
"One evening on my way to the studio, I thought of drawing a square. Everyone knows what a square looks like and how to make one in geometric terms. It is a monumental, highly conceptualised form: stable and symmetrical, equal angles, equal sides. I drew the first few squares. No discoveries there. Was there anything to be found in a square? But as I drew, things began to change. Quite suddenly something was happening down there on the paper that I had not anticipated. I continued, I went on drawing; I pushed ahead, both intuitively and consciously. The squares began to lose their original form. They were taking on a new pictorial identity. I drew the whole of Movement in Squares without a pause and then, to see more clearly what was there, I painted each alternate space black. When I stepped back, I was surprised and elated by what I saw".
Recently I had the opportunity to view another piece by Bridget Riley, "Opening" (1961), on display in the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia).
This work features two squares placed at 45˚ to each other. Each square is composed of vertical lines. The back one is comprised of alternating black and white stripes of similar width, but in the front one the placement of the black and white strips is altered so that there is more black on the outside and more white in the middle. Also, the edges of the white stripes are faintly outlined in black so that the striped impression is not totally lost. This creates a tonal progression from black, through grey, to white, and gives the feeling that the centre is receding (i.e. "opening").
All of these pieces are very interesting, and I wish I had learned more about this before I did my black and white samples during the module. If so, I would have experimented with a more systematic decrease and increase in the size of the strips to see what effects I could create.
In 1966, Riley began working with colour, and subsequently introduced other design elements to her work while continuing to investigate optical effects. She still restricts her subject matter to a simple vocabulary of colours and abstract shapes, from which she develops formal progressions, colour relationships and repetitive structures to generate sensations of movement, light and space. Later works have included the use of dynamic diagonal lines, curves and tonal gradations, as well as experimenting with the use of lines of colour to create shimmering effects or tessellating patterns. The Queensland Art Gallery has one of her colour works, "Big Blue 1981-82" which uses a combination of solid vertical stripes of various colours and widths, with the blue stripes having a shimmering appearance created by having a slightly darker blue at the edge of the stripe and a paler blue in the middle.
The following quotes, from the catalogue of her Tate retrospective in 2006, give some insight into Bridget Riley's philosophy and approach:
• "For me Nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces - an event rather than an appearance - these forces can only be tackled by treating colour and form as ultimate identities, freeing them from all descriptive or functional roles."
• "In general, my paintings are multifocal. You can't call it unfocused space, but not being fixed to a single focus is very much of our time. "
References
At the end of my pencil, London review of books, Vol. 31 No. 19 • 8 October 2009
pages 20-21 | 2009, from http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n19/bridget-riley/at-the-end-of-my-pencil
Extracts from Robert Kudielka, ‘Biographical notes’, in Bridget Riley: Paintings and drawings 1961-2004, London: Ridinghouse, 2004. Commissioned by Karsten Schubert Gallery.
http://www.artinthepicture.com/artists/Bridget_Riley/Biography/
http://metroartwork.com/popup_all-artists_info.php?manufacturers_id=44
http://www.citygallery.org.nz/mainsite/BridgetRileyBiography.html
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/riley/
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12591&searchid=9808 (Fragment 3/11)
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12590&searchid=9874 (Fragment 2/10)
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12589&searchid=9874 (Fragment 1/7)
3. PAT LANGFORD
I selected Pat Langford as my third artist to study because she spent much of her life working in Australia, where she had an enormous influence on the development of creative embroidery, especially at the NSW Embroiderers' Guild of which I am a member. Pat worked in a number of embroidery techniques, including blackwork. However, after mastering the basics, she pushed this technique by exploring how it could be developed to create more "modern looking" works, incorporating colour, paint and other fabrics.
Pat Langford (1927-2003) arrived in Australia in 1960, having studied painting in the UK, and taking up embroidery as her creative medium, studying under Constance Howard. She brought contemporary ideas to this country, having an immediate local impact. She participated in numerous exhibitions and established a correspondence course in creative embroidery for the NSW Guild. She was also instrumental in the development of the Guild's Proficiency Certificate Course and its introductory course in embroidery. As a teacher, her influence was significant. She was a great experimenter and introduced embroiderers in New South Wales to a wide variety of techniques. She regarded herself as a professional artist, and placed an emphasis on original design in her teaching. There was an essential relationship between the theme and content of her work and the techniques and materials by which those ideas were worked out (Susan Wood, 2006).
Pat Langford's embroidery was characterised by an inventive approach to technique and a wonderful use of colour. Most of her works were based on drawings from her sketchbooks, with elements such as scenes from outback Australia, the gardens of people she visited, and scenes of life around her (Wood, 2003). She published three books on embroidery, including one entitled "Embroidery Ideas from Blackwork". This showed how the traditional technique could be extended.
For example, in the piece 'Autumn 1" (left), organza was laid over the blue painted linen before stitching and darker tonal sections were added by placing extra shapes in a deeper coloured organza underneath the top layer. A mixture of hand and machine stitching was then applied. In the second picture, "Blue Box", blue and gold paint were applied before the stitching was added, with gold thread couched around some areas for added emphasis. The third picture "Landscape" shows bark and black cords added to this piece for extra effect.
It is interesting to contrast this with a traditional piece in the Guild's collection, which was worked by Pat as part of her City and Guild's course (below) (used with kind permission from Susan Gower, Curator of the NSW Embroiderers' Guild Collection).For interest I have also included a work with surface stitchery and embellishment with small metal pieces entitled "Reflections" worked circa 2000, which is owned by a friend and fellow-embroiderer, Robin Kaltenbach.
Unfortunately I never met Pat Langford in person, as she died around the time I joined the NSW Guild. However her legacy is still very strong and many still speak very highly of her work and its influence on contemporary practice.
References
Langford, P: "Embroidery Ideas from Blackwork", Kangaroo Press, Sydney, Australia, 1999.
Wood, S: "Creative Embroidery in New South Wales, 1960 – 1975". A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy MA (CSturt), School of Architecture and Design, Design and Social Context Portfolio RMIT University, May 2006.
Wood, S: "Pat Langford, Artist and embroiderer, 1927-2003. An eye for the artistic potential of needle and thread." Sydney Morning Herald Obituary, May 21 2003.
