I'm still here…just been pretty sad and work's been kicking my ass. The snow we had yesterday on the first day of spring was particularly cruel and depressing. So today I'm hoping to perk myself up a bit by posting about more spring goodies.
I thought this past holiday season was the peak of angel-themed items, but Guerlain's Angelic Radiance Météorites proved me wrong. The design is a departure from previous Météorites as they've got a delicate paper lid, and instead of a pattern there's a scene of two cherubs frolicking among some foliage. Usually I like a sturdier lid since paper is more prone to damage long-term, but in this case I think it works well combined with the illustration and the soft pink tones. It also makes me a little hungry – I think a larger version of the box would be perfect for macaron packaging. 🙂
I've written about cherubs before and gave some examples of them in Renaissance art, but the ornate decorations on the Guerlain box look more like they were inspired by 17th century art rather than the Renaissance. I poked around online to see if I could find anything similar and came across the work of engraver Jean Lepautre (1618-1682), whose work, I think, is reminiscent of the Guerlain container. This site has a concise description of Lepautre: "[He] has been described as the most important ornament engraver of the 17th century. His prodigious output extended to more than 2000 prints, mostly from his own original designs. He was not only the originator of the grandiose Louis XIV style but was also responsible for disseminating and popularizing its full lavish repertoire throughout Europe. Le Pautre's often over-elaborate and flamboyant designs frequently included arabesques, grotesques and cartouches, together with elements from classical mythology. His diverse range of subject matter, influenced by his carpentry/joinery architectural background, included: friezes, wallpaper, alcoves, fireplaces, furniture, murals, ceiling mouldings, fountains and grottoes."
In 1751 Charles-Antoine Jombert produced a 3-volume series of Lepautre's work, and astonishingly enough, the University of Heidelberg digitized the entire thing and made it available to the public. I went through each image and picked out what I thought most resembled the Météorites case.
Admittedly I chose this one not just because of the angels but because there seems to be mermaid angels in the bottom panel!
I tried to get some more close-up images so you could see the similarities between these engravings and the Guerlain box – the etch marks, the lines of the foliage, even the cherubs' hair are nearly the same.
I wonder whether this is just a coincidence or if the design team at Guerlain had been looking at Lepautre. I'm also curious as to why they decided to do a scene featuring angels as I didn't think cherubs were a Guerlain motif. As it turns out, angels appeared on a Guerlain powder container from 1918. The Poudre aux Ballons were scented with various Guerlain fragrances. (For the record, this is officially on my wishlist – I hope I can track one down! I also just remembered that I've come across the Poudre aux Ballons before.)
Anyway, while I can't say definitively that Guerlain's latest release is in any way inspired by 17th century ornament engravings, it at least caused me to discover an artist that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. And I really like the Météorites packaging – so feminine and springy and French. It may not be as sleek and sophisticated, as, say, the Impériale Météorites (holiday 2009) or the 2012 Pucci collection, but I think it's a refreshing change from what they normally do.
What do you think?
I loved last year's holiday coffret from Cosme Decorte so it's no surprise I'm pleased with this year's version. King of Sweets features the same basic design as the 2013 coffret – a red outer box with a laser-cut scene on the interior of the lid – but with a different theme. The box has been outfitted with a golden bow to resemble a box of candy, while the inside cutout depicts a magical candyland.
The design is really precious, with a jolly crowned snowman as the"king of sweets" holding court amidst a delectable landscape of candy.
The set includes a stick blush (upper left, wrapped in red), an eye shadow palette (lower left, meant to look like chocolate), a candy cane-packaged gel liner and pink lip balm.
When the coffret first arrived I spent a few minutes daydreaming about a forest made of candy (sort of like when Homer visits the land of chocolate). Imagine my great delight a few weeks later when one of my favorite blogs featured the art of Will Cotton, who specializes in painting truly amazing dessert-filled landscapes. They were exactly what I was envisioning when looking at the coffret! While Cotton's work sometimes represents the darker themes of excess and greed, I personally like to interpret it as a purely happy fantasy, where one can escape to a wondrous world overflowing with an abundance of sweet treats. The bright colors and perfectly rendered textures of all the sweets make these imaginary scenes appear real. That accuracy is not accidental either: Cotton has a professional pastry oven in his studio so that he prepare desserts and re-create them flawlessly on canvas. He also sometimes builds other props and life-size sets, because, as he says, "this way I can really lose myself in the surprises and unexpected details of the subject, and in a very real way, I’m no longer painting something imaginary, because in fact, it’s right there in front of me."
Getting back to the coffret, I think it would be a perfect addition to a revamped Sweet Tooth exhibition (and maybe I could have some of Mr. Cotton's work hanging as a backdrop!)
What do you think of the coffret and of Will Cotton's work?
In honor of the snowy weather that's hitting my neck of the woods I thought I'd post this pressed powder by T. LeClerc that I spotted at Beautyhabit. I don't think I have anything in the Museum's collection from this brand and I was impressed by the understated elegance of the design, which features the Eiffel Tower amidst softly cascading snowflakes. "Paris l'Hiver" is embossed in the center in T. LeClerc's classic Belle Epoque-style font, with their signature frieze motif encircling the wintry scene.
The simplicity of the design is, oddly enough, what makes it so striking. There's no shimmer, glitter or even more than one color, yet the illustration perfectly represents the quiet beauty of Paris during a snowfall. It's rather unexpected too. Most people, including me, think of Paris in springtime – it never occurred to me to consider how gorgeous the city's landmarks must look under a blanket of snow.
Fortunately, renowned French photographer Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) took some truly breathtaking pictures of the City of Lights, capturing all facets of Parisian life. La tour Eiffel sous la neige (1964) reminds me quite a bit of the T. LeClerc palette.
If you've never heard of Doisneau before now, don't feel bad – I had no idea who he was until I came across this article at the Daily Mail, which also included a picture of his that I actually recognized. I remember that a poster of Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (1950) was hanging in nearly every girl's dormroom in college (except for me, of course…I had Pulp Fiction posters adorning my walls). It's arguably Doisneau's most famous work, sort of like what Starry Night is to Van Gogh.
Doisneau mostly did street scenes and pictures of people rather than landscapes, but his whole portfolio is really amazing and is available online if you want to browse. 🙂
Getting back to the T. LeClerc powder, I thought it was very refreshing in the unique scene it depicted, the subtle design and the fact that it was something a little different for the brand, as I don't think this company usually puts out collectible pieces. Interestingly, T. LeClerc dates all the way back to 1881, so I'd love to get my hands on some vintage items from them.
What do you think of the powder?
Today I want to share a relatively hard-to-find Chanel quad that debuted during their 2015 cruise collection show. (This quad is also being given away by me – there's still a few hours left to enter – but will be arriving soon to the Chanel website so don't fret if you don't win the giveaway!) Rêve d'Orient has a gorgeous color scheme consisting of shimmery ivory, warm gold, deep bronze and matte black, all embossed with a smattering of tiny stars.
This quad was used on the models for 2015 resort collection runway show to create a smoky, Middle East-inspired eye with a dab of luxurious gold leaf placed on the inner corners.
However, I have no idea why a star design was included on the shadows themselves. Stars didn't appear on any of the clothing. One possibility is that it's an homage to Islamic religion (the show took place in Dubai), whose mosques are sometimes adorned with stars. The most famous example is the Star Mosque in Bangladesh.
Still, most star patterns in Islamic art and architecture consist of 6-, 8- and 10-pointed stars so it's quite a reach to assume Islam is what Chanel was referencing, especially considering there's no symmeterical pattern but rather a random scattering of stars. It could just be that it's a nonspecific expression of Karl Lagerfeld's latest take on the East-meets-West theme. As Lagerfeld remarked, "It’s a collection made for this part of the world, but I think, and hope, it’s for women all over the world."
The more likely possibility is that as with the Camelia de Plumes highlighter, the stars are borrowed from the first jewelry line by Coco Chanel that was introduced in 1932; specifically, the Comète series. Here are some of the original pieces (does anyone else find the mannequins to be incredibly creepy?)
Since I have no conclusive answer on the star pattern, I thought I'd show you a slightly different Rêve d'Orient. This 1881 watercolor by Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) has the same name as the Chanel quad and shows a Peri (a fairy-like creature from Persian mythology) perched on a dragon and holding a lotus flower. The top of a mosque appears on the right side in the background.
You can read the entire description of this work and the meaning behind it here, since Christie's does a much better job than I can. Moreau is one of my favorite artists – I love French Symbolism and I'm actually reading this book on it now, so I was really excited to find this.
Anyway, as with the Chanel Camelia de Plumes highlighter, I'm a little disappointed there was no concrete explanation for the pattern. Both palettes vaguely reference Chanel fashion and history, but there's no real, literal connection to the clothing we saw in recent shows. Nevertheless the Rêve d'Orient quad is pretty and the star design is perfect for the upcoming holiday exhibition, so I can't complain too much.
What do you think the stars mean? And I know it's comparing apples to oranges, but do you prefer Chanel's Rêve d'Orient or Moreau's?
I came across this promo image for new NARS nail polish line and couldn’t take my eyes off it. A variety of beautiful colors languidly streaming downwards…where have I seen this before?
Aha! I remember being struck by this ad for German brand Uslu Airlines way back in 2010:
In turn, both of these ads remind me of the work of Morris Louis, whom I discussed in my post on the Uslu Airlines ad. So I won’t rehash it here – I’ll just give a quick refresher so you can see for yourself. The new NARS ad has a similar approach to the 1960 painting Where by Louis, although the latter has slightly more subdued, desaturated shades, and the stripes of color aren’t quite nestled right against each other.
The drips at the ends also are reminiscent of this untitled work by Louis:
There is just something so appealing about seeing beauty products presented in a high-art fashion. Or am I the only one who drools over more artsy ads? Tell me what you think.
No April Fool's jokes here today, just some spring prettiness from Clinique. Daisies are the most cheerful flowers besides sunflowers – you just can't be sad while looking at them, especially when they come in such bright colors. (Unsurprisingly, daisies and sunflowers belong to the same general family of flowers.) I picked up Berry Pop and Peach Pop.
As I did last year with Elizabeth Arden's sunflower palettes, I'm providing a brief round-up of daisies in art. Unfortunately I can't give any commentary, as none of these works were given any significant scholarly exploration (online, anyway), but generally speaking, daisies are considered a symbol of innocence and purity.
I wish I had something more meaningful to say, but sometimes it's nice to just sit back and enjoy pretty things, be it makeup or paintings, rather than analyzing them.
Will you be picking up any daisies, in blush form or actual flower form? I received a lovely bouquet of gerberas over the weekend, which is probably why I ended up posting on this subject today. 🙂
Oftentimes I'll be researching a topic for a blog post and stumble across something else entirely that leads me to concoct a new blog post. This was the case with today's round-up of vintage ads which feature some form of disembodiment. (In case you're wondering, this idea came up as I was scouring ads for my previous post on cultural appropriation in cosmetics ads.)
It's common nowadays to see close-ups of models' faces or heads or any other body part by itself to advertise a new beauty product. However, these images never strike me as odd or somehow detached from the rest of their bodies, whereas with some vintage ads I got a decidedly eerie, surreal impression.
Let's take a look at these ads, starting with lips.
In the case of Max Factor and Du Barry, I can sort of see the use of lips by themselves in order to showcase the various shades that the lipsticks come in, but they're still markedly different than what we see today. The other two ads for Pond's and Letheric are downright strange – in the case of Pond's, a pair of lips is just floating on the right side, while in Letheric multiple pairs of lips are patterned diagnonally across the ad, almost like wallpaper.
Next up we have hands – or rather, ads for nail polish.
Some of these by the better, more skilled fashion illustrators aren't so creepy, like these Dior and Elizabeth Arden ads from 1957.
But in most other vintage nail polish ads, the hands seem to be severed at the wrist.
In the case of Guerlain, an assortment of white, ghostly hands float against a charcoal background, almost like they're made of smoke. Interestingly, the company is using disembodied hands rather than lips for a lipstick ad (although they did go that route as well for their original Rouge Automatique circa 1936.)
Here's where things get really weird. Dura-Gloss depicts not only bodiless hands but ones growing out of the center of a flower (1945 and 1951):
Then we have the ATTACK OF THE GIANT HANDS! They're coming after planes and puppeteering women from above. Not only are the hands/fingers coming out of nowhere, they're in a clearly disproportionate scale to everything else in the ad. I understand the need to highlight the product that's being sold, but why do it in such a strange way?
And as we saw with lips and hands, we have twofers here as well, except in this case it's disembodied heads and hands. The ad for Naylon nail polish (1948) on the right is one I find to be especially disturbing – given the pin on the lower right and the envelope on the lower left, is this supposed to be a bulletin board with the woman's head trapped in some sort of sheet that's pinned to it?
So what does all this mean? We see disembodiment in contemporary ads, and many argue that it objectifies and dehumanizes women. So are these vintage ads relentlessly sexist as well? Many of them appear long before feminism's second wave, and thus also before most women were able to hold a position of authority in many fields, including advertising, so the argument could be made that male ad executives simply reduced women to their parts to sell beauty products.
However, I do think there's a big difference between today's images and these vintage ads. I think the impact of surrealism was more far-reaching than we recognize. For example, here we have a 1931 Guerlain lipstick ad showing a floating, upside-down woman's head. This would seem creepy…if we didn't consider that the illustrator, Jacques Darcy, was most likely referencing Surrealist artist Man Ray.
Coupled with the tag line, "The lipstick of your dreams", this image shows a strong surrealist bend, as the surrealists were fascinated with the subconcious mind and dreams especially. And could Man Ray's Observatory Time: The Lovers (c. 1931) be partially responsible for all the floating pairs of lips we see in advertising over the next 2 decades?
As for heads, there is a parallel between the floating, antiquity-inspired busts of some surrealists and the ones used in some Lancôme ads…perhaps this connection is the inspiration for the other disembodied heads we've seen.
Take, for example, De Chirico's Song of Love (1914) and Magritte's Memory (1945):
I'm pondering whether the surrealist interest in antiquity carried over into using comparable images in makeup ads. Of course, there are differences – Lancôme's ads obviously center on Venus, goddess of beauty, while the surrealists generally didn't specify which god/goddess they were referencing. But it's still an interesting theory.
In conclusion, it's my opinion that these vintage ads aren't actually misogynist, but came about as a result of a heavy surrealist influence, a movement that was rooted in the early 20th century, but still pervasive through the early '60s. And even today we see uncannily similar ads, ads that don't necessarily sexualize and objectify women through disembodiment but rather give off a surrealist energy. This 2012 video for Lancôme's Rouge in Love was described as "a surrealist take on a typical cosmetics ad — disembodied lips sing along to the words of the song and apply the new lipsticks to their floating pouts while the Eiffel Tower and Times Square loom in the background."
What do you think about these vintage ads? Were they at least partially feeling the effects of surrealism? Or was it that these types of illustrations just happened to be the most popular stylistically for cosmetic ads at the time?
(Note: I want to preface this post by saying that my references are a bit uneven – sometimes I include links, sometimes footnotes. This is due to the enormous amount of information on the artist. My inability to include everything on him and highlight only the sources I was able to access and that I thought were relevant has led to the need to use several forms of citation. I hope that since this is a blog post and not a formal academic paper I will not be under much scrutiny.)
The works of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) have been garnering much attention in the art world recently. The Gagosian Gallery saw record attendance for their Basquiat show earlier this year, while one of his paintings fetched $48 million at a Christie's auction in May. There's even a Broadway musical about him in production. This rekindled interest may be part and parcel of a larger cultural trend: a revisiting of Manhattan's grittiness in the late 70s and early 80s and the burgeoning underground movements therein. Punk's fashion roots were examined by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Chaos to Couture exhibition and proved to be significant inspiration for many designers' fall 2013 collections. Graffiti is also having a moment: in addition to the Basquiat collection, MAC has teamed up with contemporary graffiti artist Indie 184, while Smashbox collaborated with Curtis Kulig for their spring 2013 collection. Basquiat both represented and helped defined that era in New York City when punk, hip-hop and graffiti were blossoming.
Fittingly, for their summer 2013 collection Japanese department store brand Addiction released several palettes featuring three of Basquiat's paintings. While the website doesn't fully explain how the collaboration came about or what spurred the brand's founder to pursue it, it is right on trend.
Basquiat, born to a Haitian-American father and Puerto Rican-American mother in Brooklyn, moved away from home at the age of 15. At 17 he was tagging buildings under the name SAMO, an abbreviated version of "same old shit". Soon after he shifted his method to paint on canvas while still retaining some of his urban style. By the time he was 21, his work was one of the most highly sought-after both domestically and internationally. (Read an excellent bio here.)
As for this collaboration, I managed to pick up two of the three limited-edition palettes: Mudd Club and Black or White.
Mudd Club, named after the club Basquiat frequented in his late teens and early 20s with his band The Grays, has for its outer casing the design Basquiat produced for his only musical recording entitled Beat Bop. A reference to his lifelong love of jazz, the album cover displays many of Basquiat's signature motifs: a crown, text (some of which is crossed out), and bones. LACMA's Curator of Contemporary Art Franklin Sirmans describes the cover and song: "…[I]t was the subject of bebop that found reasonance most
particularly in paintings like Trumpet, Max Roach, Now's the Time, and Horn Players…focusing on the bebop generation of artist, also a
subject Basquiat and Fab [Five Freddy] tangled on, these paintings give visuality
to the aural invention of the master jazz players. Not coincidentally,
Basquiat named his one musical recording 'Beat Bop'…[it's] a
nightmarish conversation piece, spat, chanted and incanted by Rammellzee…over the dense and often nasal rhymes is a deep, moody,
industrial soundscape of brooding rhythms and disjointed melodies. It
is a New York City filled with poverty, violence, and apathy across
class lines. Yet…the song bears witness to the rumblings,
underground, of a creative flowering the likes of which New York City
may never see again."1 You can listen to the track here.
"I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are
obscured makes you want to read them."2 – Basquiat
I will discuss Basquiat's crown symbol later, but for now I want to focus on his use of words in his paintings. He was, in short, a master at combining text and images. Since I can't do it justice I will leave it to National Gallery of Canada Director and CEO Marc Mayer to illuminate Basquiat's genius at this. "In purely plastic terms, Basquiat integrated text into his pictorial
project more successfully than any other artist of his generation,
perhaps because of the harmonious affinity of written and drawn marks
produced by a single hand…they recall the scat singing of his beloved
jazz, except in recognizable words (and paint). And yet they announce
themselves to be, and even feel like, real information. Quite a few of
Basquiat's paintings and a great many of his drawings are thick with
words that appear related to each other logically, but that never choose
to progress beyond the state of raw expression and teasing suggestion."3
The bones on the right are repeated throughout many of Basquiat's work, stemming from the copy of Gray's Anatomy he received as a child while he recovered from a car accident (his aforementioned band is also named for this tome). Some scholars see the bones as a preoccupation with death; others view them as a reference to the Maasai peoples' use of bones in their art.
Let's move on to the Black or White palette, which has Basquiat's 1982 work Sugar Ray Robinson as its design.
I was a little confused by both the subject and the title, until I read this: "Basquiat's production in the mid-1980 displays a pronounced
emergence of Pop icons, reminiscent of the early 1960s work of Roy
Lichtenstein, Larry Rivers, and Andy Warhol – all of whom featured comic
book heroes, cartoon characters, popular celebrities, and references to
art history, anatomy, and money in their paintings. Basquiat primarily
emphasized the symbols of childhood and juvenile popular culture, and
his works contain hundreds of words derived from comics, cartoon
characters, advertisements, junk food, and joke tricks."4 Thus, the cartoonish dinosaur coupled with a title that refers to perhaps the fundamental symbol of childhood – a pocket-sized candy dispenser in the shape of comic book heroes, cartoon characters or other child-friendly figures – point to the artist's fascination with these attributes.
All three of the works chosen for the palettes incorporate Basquiat's signature crown. While used repeatedly in his works, this motif doesn't take on the same meaning in each – there are many different interpretations based on what else is going on in the painting. The most common explanations are that Basquiat used the crown to identify his heroes, which makes sense when viewing the works that pay homage to Sugar Ray and other famous black figures5, or that he is crowning himself as king given the crown's visual similarity to the dreadlocks he often wore gathered on the top of his head. Perhaps the most compelling theory is that the crown suggests a sort of supremacy over the earthly realm. "The preponderance of halo
or crown-like imagery in Basquiat’s oeuvre asserts a spiritual aspect to
the work, but the specific meaning of this symbolism thus far remains
largely unexplained. It should be kept in mind that his use of such
symbolism changed over time. By 1982, Basquiat had more or less replaced
the halo with a personalized, even trademark, image of a three-pointed
crown. The crown often accompanied a figure but occasionally appeared on
its own throughout the remainder of the artist’s career. The intent
behind this symbol is revealed in the 1982 silkscreen on canvas called Tuxedo, in which a crown is the culminating image atop tiers
of texts and images alluding to diverse political, historical, social,
and cultural events. The crown hovering over manifestations of the
temporal/phenomenal world signifies a 'going beyond,' or transcendence,
as suggested by the numerous ladders and arrows leading up to it." (source).
My final thoughts: While I do wish there was a little more background provided at Addiction's website about the collaboration, I'm really impressed with this collection since the three works chosen are a good representation of Basquiat's work as a whole. I also think that the choice of artist was excellent – not obscure but not as well-known as, say, Monet. As with the NARS Andy Warhol collection, I wonder what Basquiat would have thought of his images appearing on cosmetics. I find it unnerving and sad, however, that given the artist's untimely death at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose, one of his few posthumous retail collaborations is with a company named Addiction. I had such a hard time naming this post – "Basquiat for Addiction" seemed to be in very poor taste!
What do you think? Are you familiar with Basquiat and if so, did you like the pieces chosen for the collection?
References
1Franklin Sirmans, "In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip-Hop Culture," in Basquiat, ed. Marc Mayer (New York: Merrell, 2010), 100.
3 Marc Mayer, ed., Basquiat, (New York: Merrell, 2010), 54. For more on Basquiat's use of text, see the essay "Word
Hunger: Basquiat and Leonardo" by Jeffrey Hoffeld in Basquiat, ed. Rudy Chiappini (Milan: Skira, 2005), 87-103.
4 Richard Marshall, "Jean Michel Basquiat:
Speaking in Tongues," Basquiat, ed. Rudy Chiapipni (Milan: Skira, 2005), 60. For a firsthand account of collab with Warhol, see "Jean-Michel
Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Andy Warhol: Collaborations" by Bruno
Bischofberger in the same book. For a discussion of Pez Dispenser, see this article.
5 "Basquiat's canon revolves around single heroic figures: athletes,
prophets, warriors, cops, musicians, kings, and the artist himself. In
these images the head is often a central focus, topped by crowns, hats,
and halos. In this way the intellect is emphasized, lifted up to
notice, privileged over the body and physicality that these figures –
black men – commonly represent in the world. With this action the
artist reveals creativity, genius, and spiritual power." Kellie Jones, "Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix," Basquiat, ed. Marc Mayer (New York: Merrell, 2010), 171.
We have another pretty bronzer for summer 2013. Clarins Splendours Summer Bronzing Compact features a translucent red case that holds a bronzing powder with an exquisitely intricate design.
I had a lot of trouble getting a picture of the case without getting a ton of reflections.
So then I tried putting the flash on, which worked a lot better. The way it went off in this picture makes it look like there's a candle inside the palette, spreading a warm glow and softly illuminating the pattern.
Here's the collection description: "Sunshine into gold. Travel to far away lands, to the heart of an ancient people…and discover the splendours of a pre-Columbian civilization that worshiped the sun. Gold, a rich cultural symbol, is the highlight of this summer make-up collection. Sprinkle it on the eyes, neck and lips. Jade, sapphire, ruby and tourmaline appear as crystalline gemstones and illuminate this elegant sun-kissed collection."
Of course, they don't mention specifically which Pre-Columbian civilization. As we saw with the Guerlain Terra Inca collection, I'm in over my head in
trying to decipher what specifically this palette is based on – I'm no
archaeologist or Pre-Columbian scholar. But after a brief search on Google I think it most resembles this Aztec sun stone:
Looking closely at the palette, I'm more inclined to think this particular stone was the inspiration for the design. The circle in the center surrounded by four square shapes is found in each, along with the concentric triangle at the top of the center circle and the four dots placed around the squares and one at the bottom of the inner circle. The tiny horseshoe-like pattern appears throughout both as well. The triangles with the scrolled edges in the stone find themselves in the outer case of the palette and are also present in the powder, albeit slightly deconstructed there (the triangle is broken up into its base shape with two scrolls on each side). Additionally, this stone (weighing in a whopping 24 tons – wow!) is actually believed to be an altar or ceremonial container for the sun god Tonatiuh rather than a calendar. So it would make sense that the Clarins collection, based on people that worshipped a sun god, would choose an item used in worship instead of a calendar for their inspiration.
I think this is a beautiful palette and for once, Clarins provided at least a glimmer of explanation as to their vision for the collection. What do you think?
I'm counteracting yesterday's snow (!) with some oh-so-springy palettes from Elizabeth Arden. These are the first Makeup Museum purchases from this company, and as far as I know, the first time sunflowers have been used as a motif in makeup packaging (save for some vintage compacts). I was so excited to see these as sunflowers have been my favorite flower for as long as I can remember.
The New York in Bloom collection consists of a teal eye liner and nail polish, plus three palettes: a bronzing powder and two eye shadow trios. While I'm not crazy about the cartoonish flowers on the outer cases, I love the gorgeous embossed sunflower patterns on the inside.
Here's the bronzer.
Violet Bloom eye shadow trio:
Viridian Bloom eye shadow trio:
While I do think these are beautiful pieces, I couldn't find any information on the relevance of sunflowers to the Elizabeth Arden brand. I do know of their Sunflowers fragrance, but other than that there haven't been any references to sunflowers – it's not integral to the brand's identity in, say, the way the rose is to Lancôme or the camellia to Shiseido. But that's okay because it gives me a chance to talk about sunflowers in art instead!
We're all familiar with Van Gogh's sunflower paintings, but many other famous artists used this bloom as their muse too. We'll start all the way back in the 1600s with Van Dyck's Self-Portrait with a Sunflower, in which the sunflower was generally seen as "an emblem connected with royal patronage" but could also signify "Van Dyck himself…the picture is to be understood primarily as an expression of the painter's devotion to the king rather than as an acknowledgement of royal patronage."
Fast-forwarding a few hundred years (hey, I can't include EVERY single sunflower-related work of art!) we have Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones's fascination with sunflowers. He wrote to his friend Frances Homer, "Do you know sunflowers? How they peep at you and look brazen sometimes and proud – and others look shy and some so modest that up go their hands to hide their brown blushes…I could draw them forever, and should love to sit for days drawing them…it is so right to make them talk mottoes, they all look as if they were thinking." These include a stained glass panel at Christ Church in Oxford depicting scenes from The Legend of St. Frideswide and a drawing, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came (1861):
Some more examples from around Van Gogh's time include Mary Cassatt's Mother Wearing a Sunflower on Her Dress (1905), while Paul Gauguin actually painted a picture of Van Gogh painting sunflowers in 1888. How very meta.
Tons of sunflowers by Emil Nolde (these range in date from 1920-1932). I had a hard time narrowing it down to just these four works! Nolde was a huge admirer of Van Gogh, and "it took considerable boldness for a painter who
admired van Gogh as much as Nolde did to paint
sunflowers, yet he often returned to them and added a new and rich
interpretation to the motif."
In the latter half of the 20th century we have abstract artist Joan Mitchell's take on sunflowers, which she painted early on in her career and revisited throughout – below is Sunflowers III (1969) and Sunflowers (1990-1991).
If I were an artist, sunflowers would be my number one subject. 🙂
Anyway, I hope that this little survey of sunflowers throughout art history was an acceptable substitute for more in-depth information on Elizabeth Arden's use of sunflowers in the company's spring 2013 collection. I found the palettes to be a refreshing change from the usual florals we see each spring (especially roses).
What do you think of these palettes? And what's your favorite flower? Has it been featured on a makeup item before?
