Innovations in Twenty First Century Costume Design - Research Paper Example

Arts and costume. Throughout history, artists have drawn inspiration from all around them, and this includes other artists in their own field, andeven, at times, artists in other fields. One can think of the movements of Romanticism and Realism which affected both literature and painting. In the field of costume design there have been significant new impulses which have been brought by designers whose most famous work was done in other fields. This paper examines the contribution which three designers have made: Sergei Diaghilev, Leon Bakst, and Aleksandra Exter. None of them saw fashion as their major interest, but each of them has made a big difference to fashion through their work in costume design. A further influence, that of the German Bauhaus school, is also examined. Together, these four main influences from Russia and Germany greatly influenced costume design in the first half of the twentieth century and they are outlined one by one in the discussion below. Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872-1929) grew up in a rich family and studied music but he became more interested in theatre and ballet and started working with members of the Russian royal family. He had a fiery temperament, which meant that he often changed jobs and worked with different people, but whatever he chose to work at, whether it be setting up exhibitions, editing art journals, or organising theatre, opera or dance performances his energy and enthusiasm were legendary and he became very successful. One of the reasons why Diaghilev had trouble with some of his collaborators was that he had a taste for novelty and experimental work. At first Diaghilev was happy working for the imperial theatres, and using traditional Russian motifs and stories in his work, (Siegel, 2011) but increasingly he fell out with the establishment figures, and insisted on setting new trends that would retain the best of Russian traditions but also embrace the new. His company, the Ballet Russe, sought out the daringly different music of Stravinsky, and Diaghilev tried to ensure that costumes, set and music were equally provocative and different from forms that were popular at the time This was not always appreciated by the public, or by influential patrons and sponsors of the performing arts. Diaghilev took his ballet to Paris, where he rightly concluded that there was more willingness to experiment with new ideas, and an audience of art-loving people who could appreciate what he was trying to do. It would be difficult to over-estimate the importance of Diaghilev in the history of costume design, and indeed some scholars sing his praises so highly, that they credit him with creating the foundations of all our modern ballet and dance costume culture: “Stage costume as we know it today depends on the use Sergei Diaghilev made of principal designers during the twenty years (1909-29) of his Ballets Russes.” (Kirstein, 1970, p. 39) He was an enigmatic character whose skills were not so much in creating designs himself, as pulling together the very best artists and designers available, and somehow enabling, or perhaps even forcing, them to work together and create something new that was greater than the sum of its different parts. His work was performed long before it was possible to have proper film recording of the performances, and so all that is left of his genius today is a collection of testimonies from eye witnesses, and some startling set and costume designs. In summary, then, Diaghilev made two very significant contributions to the history of design: he fostered new talent in Russia, especially in his Ballets Russes years, which introduced a clear break from the restrictive costume design of previous decades, and he brought these startling innovations to the notice of European audience through the ballet and opera schedules which he organised in Paris. (Polonsky, 1998, p. 241) The Diaghilev Ballet flourished in Paris, and on tour in Europe, in a way that it never could have done in Russia after the revolution of 1917, and it is this interesting combination of a cultures that brought about such startling innovations. (Florinsky, 1961, p. 57) Leon Samoilovich Bakst (1866-1924) was born into a Jewish family. Bakst travelled widely in his youth, and acquired a deep knowledge of historical art and culture. Many of his later designs would draw on his familiarity with ancient Greek or Persian museum pieces: “Long before he undertook his first Diaghilev commission, he had turned his encyclopedic knowledge of the artistic past to account in more than half a dozen productions, mostly for the Imperial Theaters.” (Garafola, 1998, p. 17) . He was fascinated also by the flamboyant and somewhat decadent personal style of Oscar Wilde, and contemporaries report that he used also to dress in this way, copying the rather provocative style of speaking that Wilde was known for, and wearing also loud cravats and bright clothing. ( p. 158) Working from St Petersburg, Leon Bakst undertook commissions from Diaghilev for a total of fourteen complete productions including most famously Daphnis and Chloé in 1912 and The Sleeping Princess in 1921. (Schouvaloff, 1999, p. 5) “Costume unfettered the body no less than choreography… He dressed his women in tunics and harem pants, soft flowing garments that released the torso from the constricting bodice of the tutu.” (Garafola, 1998, p. 38) A good example of this new, flowing style can be seen in the costumes for Daphnis and Chloé as in figure 1 below. The main part of the costume is cut very fully, in a lightweight fabric which enhances the movement of the dancer. The styling of the hair and open shoes represent a reference to classical Greek styles, reminiscent of a statue, formally attired and with a classical grace. The extremely bold prints, however, suggest something much more modern, in a deliberate clash of cultures that is intended to shock, and to raise questions in the minds of the viewers. This is art which does not reproduce and imitate familiar styles, but deliberately sets out to challenge traditional assumptions. Leon Bakst: Costume for Daphnis and Chloé (1912) Source: http://www.heritage-print.com/costume_design_for_a_ballets_russes_production_of_ravels_daphnis_et_chloe_1912/print/1236036.html The classical tutu left the arms and legs free, but concealed the middle part of the body. The innovations of Bakst freed up the female dancer to show off parts of the body that had previously been constrained by the classical costumes. Bakst deliberately courted controversy by creating costumes where the navel was exposed, such as in Cléopâtre or where a slit in the fabric revealed the legs: “That this body moved easily only heightened the impression of nakedness and naturalness … a Bakst costume flowed with the movement, rounding, loosening and enlarging it.” (Garafola, 1998, p. 39) The costume for Ida Rubenstein’s Cleopatra was based on the exotic, oriental style: “Her glittering metal bustier and girdle mimicked those worn by other popular dancers of the moment such as Maud Allan in Salomé (1904).” (Bellow, 2009, p. 8) The bodice of this costume was held up by fake pearls, and it clearly was intended to make the figure of Cleopatra sensuous and exciting. The effect was made still more interesting by the slender and somewhat androgynous figure of Ida Rubenstein, and the use of a flesh coloured body suit to make it appear that even more skin was on display. Unfortunately many of the costumes were destroyed in a fire in 1917 and later performances had costumes designed by Sonia Delaunay, which retained much of the sensuality but brought it more closely into a connection with contemporary Paris fashions. (Bellow, 2009). It seems that as ballet influenced fashion, so fashion influenced ballet, and the early years of the twentieth century provided a particularly international opportunity for these cross-fertilisations to occur. In his designs for male dancers, Bakst also broke the conventions of classical ballet, revealing parts of the anatomy such as the collarbone, that had traditionally been covered, and using styles which had previously been used only for women. An example of this can be seen in his costume for Nijinski in the ballet Le Dieu Bleu which was first performed at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, in 1912, and can be seen in figure 2 below. Nijinski in Baktin’s costume for le Dieu Bleu Source: http://www.regietheatrale.com/index/index/thematiques/auteurs/cocteau/jean-cocteau-1.html Both Diaghilev and Bakst contributed also to a magazine called World of Art, which expressly sought to bring new ideas from Europe into the Russian arts scene, which was perceived by them at the time to be backwards and stale. This sharing of ideas worked in both directions, with Russian and European artists in many fields learning more about each other’s latest works through join exhibitions. The magazine also brought reports from Paris, Munich and Vienna to a Russian public and this sparked new ideas across a wide area of applications. (Kennedy p. 64 Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Exter (1882-1949) was born in Belarus, in a part which now is part of modern Poland, to a wealthy industrial family. She trained at Kiev art school and travelled widely as a student of art to the great centres of Paris and Rome, as well as visiting Russian cities such as Moscow and St Petersberg. Exter is best known for her work as a painter and she was able to absorb radical new influences such as the Avant-garde and Cubism through her time in Paris. Her contribution to costume design came about through a collaboration with the great dancer Nijinski’s sister, known as Nijinska. Nijinksa choreographed ballet using the modern music of Stravinsky and others, as well as experimenting with jazz, which had arrived from the United States of America and was taking Europe by storm. Exter produced costume designs for a ballet duet called originally called the Savage Jazz, and soon reduced to just Jazz (1925) which was based on Stravinsky’s composition Ragtime (1919). The idea to have the two dancers in blackface, a thick, dark makeup intended to make white people look like Africans, was taken from American music hall traditions, but also from earlier Russian experiments such as L’Africaine which was performed in St Petersburg in 1897 which the six year old Nijinska had seen with her parents. This production imitated exotic African costumes: “ all the artists wore brown, heavy, wool-knitted tops and tights, big brass earrings and enormous black woollen wigs, their lips outlined broadly in red paint and their eyes in white and black.” (Nijinska, 1992, p. 55) The costumes that Exter produced for this ballet were astonishingly colourful: “a drop-waist, large red and white polka dot dress for Nijinska, and a rectangular tunic in broad red and white stripes for Eugene Lapitsky.” ( Nijinska, 1992, p. 204) . These bright and contrasting elements appear to have been specifically chosen to match Stravinsky’s rather jagged music: “The interplay of the diagonals and dots in the costumes with the syncopated rhythms of Stravinsky’s score was surely intentional and indicative of Exter’s desire to thrust herself into modern life” (Nijinkska, 1992, p. 204). Figure 3. Aleksandra Exter Figure With a Dagger, Costume Sketch, 1920. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/arts/design/04ukra.html?pagewanted=all A good example of Exter’s bold and fresh painting style can be seen in Figure 3 above, “Figure with a dagger.” Using a very restricted palette of red, black and off-white this sketch combines spiky dagger and headdress elements with the curving sweep of the leg and the red cloak. There is no visual expression on the face, which is turned away from the viewer, so that all the attention is focussed on the stance of the figure, in a position of alert expectation, ready to use the dagger, which is outstretched, in a position of attack. The costume represents a stylized mood, deliberately capturing a key moment in the drama which is unfolding on the stage. This is evidence that Exter is conceiving the painting as a part of a total artistic effort, combining static and active arts in a dynamic way. It conjures up some elements of cubist painting, with its somewhat awkwardly placed right hand and critics note also that it combines the traditional with the modern in a unique and striking way: “Her rhythmic color abstractions and her exuberant designs for ballet costumes are a dazzling mix of Cubist forms and Futurist dynamism with Ukrainian motifs like icon-derived colors, patterns from village embroideries and weavings, and bright peasant costumes” (Glueck, 2006, p. 1). The term Bauhaus was originally used for a design school which was started by Walter Gropius (1883-1969) in the German city of Weimar. It moved to Dessau and to Berlin, and it was very influential in Europe and further afield in bringing about a move towards simplicity, and a focus on aligning form and function in the most efficient way possible. It is associated with the international movement of Modernism, and although it was most influential in the fields of architecture and interior design, it also had an effect on stage and costume design in the performing arts. A generally left-wing ideal prevailed, encouraging the mixing of craft with fine art, which was heavily influenced by socialism and communism. It drew some inspiration from the Russian revolution, and had a fascination for working class art. It ran into political problems because of its refusal to submit to the Nazi agenda, but even though the school itself was closed in 1933, it continued to have a big impact long after this turbulent time in European history. An important feature of the Bauhaus philosophy was the inter-connectedness of different genres of art, and students were offered a wide range of lectures and extra-curricular activities, including parties and costume-balls so that they could apply their learning broadly. (Droste, 2002, p. 36) Famous teachers at the Bauhas included artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Here abstraction was sought as a way of drawing things back to their essential, and this was in part a reaction against the more emotional approach of Expressionism, which at that time was fashionable in Germany. Oskar Schlemmer produced ballet costumes which idealized robots and machines, in keeping with the rapid mechanisation of industry in the early twentieth century. An example of this is seen in figure 4 below. Figure 4: Oskar Schlemmer, Triadic Ballet Costume, 1922. Source: http://weimarart.blogspot.com/2010/08/oskar-schlemmer.html Another Bauhaus student who contributed Bauhaus principles to ballet costume design was the Ukrainian painter Anatol Petrytzky (1895-1964) . His sketch for a ballet of 1922 uses, like Exter, bright red, off-white and black colours for a costume depicted in a dramatic pose. It can be seen in figure 5 below, and uses straight lines and sharp angles to denote the dramatic action, with a sparing use of curves to show a female head on the left, who appears in contrast to be static, perhaps a victim or observer to the main character. The male figure on the right has, paradoxically no facial features at all, creating a dynamic tension between the bodiless head on the left and the headless body on the right. Figure 5: Anatol Petrytzky: Modeles for the costumes of a ballet. Source: http://www.thearttribune.com/spip.php?page=docbig&id_document=678 Despite its preoccupation with architecture, pottery, sculpture and other static art forms there was always, in the Bauhaus approach, an affinity with stage performances which were seen as an opportunity to put all art forms together in a single, unified art form or Gesamtkunstwerk. The human figure was central to this, but it was subjected to the forces of abstraction and symbolism, never conforming to naturalistic representations and always challenging the viewer to view the human condition in a different way. The Bauhaus costume parties allowed students to experiment with different ways of covering and revealing the human form. The preoccupation with robots and dolls, for example, was a way of distilling universal features out of individual personalities. Their drawings are typically vibrant in terms of movement, as shown by sweeping lines and off-centre stances, but strangely devoid of individual emotional expressions. Dolls and robots were one way of expressing the disturbing forces of modernism, and Nazism : “Vessels of empathy and estrangement, the expressed and encouraged a reciprocal relationship between performers and spectators, increasingly exemplifying the bond between gender and mass culture, to provide models of mass spectatorship for the Weimar Republic” (Koss, 2003, 644). In conclusion, then, it is clear that the coming together of talented people in many different branches of the arts has been a major source of innovation in the early part of the twentieth century. The talents of such diverse artists as Baxt, Exter and Schlemmer would not have been able to develop so exponentially without the initiative and drive of the impresario Diaghilev and the visionary educator Gryphius. The genius of these men was the ability to create opportunities for cross-fertilisation across Europe and Russia, drawing on influences from as far away as Africa, America and the Middle East. Taking inspiration from each other, artists, musicians, designers, architects and choreographers were able to apply new ideas such as the French Avant Garde, German Modernism, and Picasso’s Cubism to the subtle and transitory genre of costume design. Together they helped to transform ballet from a rather refined but dry backwater for the very privileged elites of Europe, into a centre of dramatic tension, where current ideas were debated and challenged, even to the extent of public riots and newspaper condemnations, when the offerings on stage challenged the moral sensibilities of the largely conservative audiences. The Ballets Russes and the Bauhaus movement both contributed something to costume design which could not have arisen from the narrow world of fashion alone. The coming together of different specialists was particularly pronounced in costume design, and it made this small sub-set of the fashion discipline into a medium which fostered a new artistic dialogue. The individuals mentioned above which brought about significant innovation which crossed over geographical and historical boundaries, and we are fortunate that although the ballets and costume parties themselves have not been preserved for modern audiences to enjoy, at least we can trace their significance through the surviving images and in some cases also examples of costume design from the early 1900s. [3006 words] References Bellow, J. (2009) Fashioning Cléopâtre: Sonia Delaunay’s New Woman. Art Journal 68 (2), pp. 6ff. Droste, M. (2002) Bauhaus: 1919-1933. Cologne: Taschen. Florinsky, M.T.(Ed.) (1961) The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union. New York: McGraw-Hill. Garafola, L. (1998) Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. New York: Da Capo Press. Glueck, G. (2006) Ukrainian Modernists, Al Alone, Here at Last. New York Times, November 4th. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/arts/design/04ukra.html?pagewanted=all Hill, C.V. (1996) Jazz Modernism. In, G. Morris (Ed.) Moving WordsL Re-Writing Dance London: Routledge, pp. 198-214. Kennedy, J. ( 1999 ) The World of Art and other turn of the century Russian Art Journals 1898-1910. In, A. Rosenfeld, (Ed.) Defining Russian Graphic Arts: From Diaghilev to Stalin. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 63-78. Kirstein, L. (1970) Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks. Toronto: Praeger. Koss, J. (2003) Bauhaus Theater of Human Dolls. The Art Bulletin 85 (4), pp. 644 ff. Nijinksa, B. (1992) Early Memoirs. Translated and edited by Irina Nijinska and Jean Rawlinson. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Polonsky, R (1998 ) English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, H. (1998 ) Music. In N. Rzhevsky, (Ed.), Modern Russian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 236-243. Schouvaloff, A. (1999) Introduction. In J. Barran, (Ed.) Serge Diaghilev: the Centenary Exhibition of Les Ballets Russes: 1909-2009. Exhibition Programme, for exhibition held at the Daniel Katz Gallery, London 19th May to 8th June 2009. Available at: http://www.jbarranltd.co.uk/julian_barran_les_ballets_russes.pdf#page=25 Siegel, M.B. (2011) The Russes at 101. The Hudson Review 63 (4), pp. 636 ff. Read More