Fashion and the Art of Pochoir the Golden Age of Illustration in Paris
A Brief Introduction to Pochoir
The method of pochoir-style illustration is entirely based on the utilize of stencils to create an epitome. The French term pochoir translates into English as stencil. For this blog entry, I examined the many pochoir prints by artist George Barbier that appear in the 1921 volumes of the Gazette du Bon Ton, a French magazine focused on art, manner and culture. Subsequently this exam, and after researching the method of pochoir-style analogy, I decided to recreate the method with the use of mod twenty-four hour period technology. The illustration I created borrowed heavily from Georges Barbier's style, in attempting to recreate a pochoir mode print that mimics that of the Gazette du Bon Ton. The subject illustrated in my print, all the same, is modern day glory, Kim Kardashian. I decided to explore the method of pochoir printmaking as a recreating history project, every bit making and knowing is part of a multi-stage process. The act of making results in a variety of ways of knowing and text solitary is not always an optimal method for discourse surrounding object based study and the assay of making processes (Lehmann 153).
After a trip to the library enclosed within the Purple Ontario Museum, and a brief meet with the pochoir-style prints in the 1921 issues of the Gazette du Bon Ton, I felt inspired to inquiry farther into this illustration style and method. The method was not new in the start quarter of the 20th century and was re-introduced equally a method for way publishing to differentiate from the mass production of illustrations being made by machine at the time (Cassidy and Zachary, half-dozen). The method of using stencils to create illustrations is 1 that dates back as far equally 40 000 BC. The method was introduced in France subsequently being inspired by Japanese printmakers in the mid 19th century (Cassidy and Zachary 7). Japanese printmakers used stencils to decorate housewares, handheld fans and kimonos, which were prized luxury items coveted past Europeans at this time. Past employing the labour-intensive and costly method of pochoir, way publications like Vogue; Femina and the Gazette du Bon Ton were able to elevate their publications to the condition of luxury objects (Cassidy and Zachary 6).
Although stencils were used in printmaking prior to beingness used in publications such as the Gazette du Bon Ton, never earlier was information technology done with such intricacy and attending to small details and dash. In the early 20th century, André Marty pioneered the new method for French pochoir illustration, while Jean Saudé is known to have championed the fashion (Cassidy and Zachary 7). Saudé was able to interpret intricate details and colours from photographs and original artist'south illustrations using the method. Later the style reached the height of popularity in 1920, it was the method of choice for reproducing images past fine artists beyond merely portfolios and illustration, but also in architecture and design also equally fashion. It was also adopted in press images in books about art. Jazz, a volume by Henri Matisse published in 1947 used the method for all of its images, and Pablo Picasso cited use of the method for 200 works produced during his career (Cassidy and Zachary 7).
The Method
The method of pochoir in early 20th century French republic was cleaved down by Jean Saudé into an instruction manual to be employed past other artists who wished to use the technique. The first stride in reproducing an analogy using the pochoir method involved carefully dissecting the original image by eye, breaking it downwardly into its components, line, colours, highlights and shadows. Saudé took the time to also translate infinitesimal details in images into individual stencils besides which further elevated the craftsmanship of his execution. The stencils for the image would then be created by a decoupeur , whose task was to hand cut the stencils for the image outline and the coloured fills using a scalpel and thin copper sail (Cassidy and Zachary eight). To recreate the method today, I bankrupt downwards an image of Kim Kardashian photographed by Jean-Paul Goude for Paper Magazine in November 2014.
Link to publication: http://world wide web.papermag.com/break-the-internet-kim-kardashian-cover-1427450475.html
I chose to practise this in Adobe Illustrator, where I used the digital cartoon program to create a stencil using vectored lines, drawing on pinnacle of the digital photograph, and attempting to apply the illustration style of Georges Barbier.
Once I had my stencil of the line drawing illustrated, I moved on to making stencils of the fill colours. Though images in the Gazette du Bon Ton would have required upwards of dozens of stencils to create, I used merely sixteen stencils and added additional details by hand without stencils later.
After I was done with creating digital line drawings that would act as my stencils I used a laser cutter to replace the labour intensive hand cutting of the stencils. The laser cutter yet does not cut through metal, and for this reason I used thin sheets of Durolar, which are water-proof semi-transparent polyester sheets in place of the copper which would accept been used originally. Laser cutting software translated my vector images with immaculate precision, merely it did take a few trial cuts using the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation and materials to get the stencil perfect. The speed and intensity of the laser had to exist refined so every bit not to leave burnt edges or destroy finer details.
Jean Saudé instructs that the next step would be to paw the stencils off to a coloriste (or multiple colorists). The task of the coloriste involved using hog-hair bristle brushes, gouache, watercolours and at time metallic paints. A single epitome could use several dozens of stencils depending on the amount of item being translated (Cassidy and Zachary 8). In my reproduction of the method, I focused but on making stencils for the most bones of shapes, and added finer details myself later, due to fourth dimension constraints.
Photograph taken by Alysia Myette, Retrieved event of the Gazette du Bon Ton,Effect 8, Oct, 1921, courtesy of the Imperial Ontario Museum Libraries and Athenaeum, Toronto, March 2018. RB P.S. Ga 250 1921-1922 Oversize.
Photo taken past Alysia Myette, Retrieved effect of the Gazette du Bon Ton, Event eight, Oct, 1921, courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Libraries and Athenaeum, Toronto, March 2018. RB P.S. Ga 250 1921-1922 Oversize.
I used blank ink to transfer the outline stencil onto watercolour paper with a Micron Sakura pen with a .005mm tip. This allowed for the ink to transfer through the incredibly fine lines cut past the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation cutter.
I then used watercolours to fill in colours using the addition stencils cut to complete the epitome. I after went dorsum into the completed image to add together finer details such as shadows on the box, the fabric, the gloves, the face and the leaves. Originally, all of these details would have been added using additional stencils so that every prototype was produced to look exactly the aforementioned, requiring an immense corporeality of labour in each print's production.
The final result was impressive, and when pictured side by side with comparison images by Georges Barbier from the Gazette du Bon Ton looks fitting.
Kim Kardashian, Luxury, and Making as Knowing
At the time of its initial publication in 1912, the Gazette du Bon Ton was a monthly publication produced past Lucien Vogel. The publication was a limited run series and came with a costly subscription. It was coveted as a luxury item, its proper name translating into its very definition of a mag disseminating "practiced taste" in the areas of fine art and fashion (Cassidy and Zachary 139). To quote its first upshot, the mag stated "When style becomes an art, a fashion magazine must and so get an arts mag". Vogel positioned the publication to be a highly sought-after fashion magazine by signing contracts with seven of Paris' leading fashion houses at the time; Paquin; Poiret; Doucet; Doeuillet; Chéruit; Redfern and Worth. Each designer was given one fashion plate per outcome, to be executed using the pochoir method. Over fourscore illustrators worked for the Gazette du Bon Ton between its initial result in 1912 and its last in 1925 (Cassidy and Zachary 139). Such illustration artists included Pierre Brissaud, Georges Lepape, George Barbier, Jean Besnard, André Edouard Marty, Charles Martin and Paul Iribe, all who studied at the É cole des Beaux-Arts (Cassidy and Zachary 140). The fashion plates illustrated past these esteemed fine artists divorced fashion plates from frivolity and elevated manner designers, as well as the magazine, to a form of loftier art and culture.
Adept gustation was communicated through the illustrations and text within the contents of the magazine to its readership. French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu describes taste and the ability to discern good from bad gustation, every bit an extension of those members of society who concur higher cultural upper-case letter (Rocamora 233). Bourdieu describes culture as both material and symbolic (Rocamora 235). He argues that in lodge for an object to be considered a work of art, it must exist identified equally such by the habitus it is placed within (Rocamora 235). In order for the Gazette du Bon Ton to be consumed every bit a luxury item by its readership it had to communicate not but good gustation, only its textile composition must communicate value and the contents inside it must likewise communicate symbolic value. The Gazette du Bon Ton's use of fine artists, with images produced using the pochoir method was indicative of high cloth value. The contracts signed between the magazine and haute couture mode houses, as well as its loftier cost and express publication run communicated its symbolic value through luxury, exclusivity and adept taste.
The readership looking to the Gazette du Bon Ton were looking to the publication in order to remain upward to appointment on the latest trends, much like readers today consume images of celebrities, models and way spreads in order to remain on tendency and current. I used the paradigm of Kim Kardashian as a modern iteration of this advice of taste. Famou due south for their wealth and celebrity status, the Kardashian and Jenner sisters are followed on diverse social media platforms by adorning fans for their fashion, make-up and lifestyle. Outside of starring in their own television show, the sisters model for various designers and photographers, appear on red carpets and have contracts with makeup lines which they endorse. The ways that many viewers "keep up" with the Kardashians, mimics the readership that followed the Gazette du Bon Ton for its advice of fashion, art and culture. My illustration echoes the sentiments of the Gazette du Bon Ton in its pochoir method and analogy style, only as well reaffirms its luxury and status past using Kim Kardashian as the model for the fashion plate created.
Special Thanks to the Majestic Ontario Museum Libraries and Archives for admission to the Fashion collection and archive materials used in this post.
Works Cited
- Calahan, April, and Cassidy Zachary. Fashion and the Fine art of Pochoir: The Gold Historic period of Illustration in Paris. Thames & Hudson, 2015.
- Lehmann, Ulrich. "Making as Knowing: Epistemology and Technique in Craft." The Journal of Modern Craft, vol. five, no. ii, 2012, pp. 149-164.
- Rocamora, Agnès. "Pierre Bourdieu: The Field of Style." Thinking Through Fashion, I.B. Taurus & Co. Ltd., 2016, pp. 233–250.
- Smith, Pamela H. "Introduction: New Directions in Making and Knowing." West 86th: A Periodical of Decorative Arts, Blueprint History, and Material Culture, vol. 23, no. ane, 2016, pp. 3-five.
Source: https://fashionma.blog.ryerson.ca/2018/04/04/illustrating-luxury-kim-kardashian-and-the-art-of-pochoir/
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