Visualization of Fashion in European Engravings of the 16th — Early 18th Century

Abstract

Images of people from different countries in their traditional costumes as a genre emerged in the second half of the 16th century and actively existed in the form of prints until the first fashion magazines appeared in the late 18th century. The article attempts to build a chronology of iconic examples of costume prints of the 16th — early 18th century on the basis of a number of sources of theoretical, historical and pictorial nature. The functions it fulfilled as a kind of graphic art in its time and artistic and technological features of its creation are defined. The study considers the works of artists and engravers from Germany, the Netherlands, England and France, since it is in these countries that the art of costume engraving was most developed. Not being for the most part highly artistic works of art, having no portrait resemblance to the depicted characters, protomod illustrations did not attract close attention of art history, which regarded them as one of many ordinary sources, as elements of applied creativity, which largely prevented their detailed analysis. However, these numerous costume prints (woodcuts and etchings) are worthy of attention as examples of graphic art that give an idea of the fashion of the time. The decline in the popularity of costume prints in the middle of the 18th century, despite the development of printing technologies and the growth of population in cities, which implies the demand for products of this kind, is connected, in our opinion, with the absence of a descriptive part — text as an explanation to the picture. For in the epoch of the formation of fashion journalism in the 18th century, costume engravings were revived as part of women’s magazines, acquiring the form of fashionable pictures-illustrations that would exist throughout the 19th — first half of the 20th century.

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