How aesthetically pleasing should it be... earlier I found this image on deviantart.com that really caught my attention.
I want to use these images, to create the feel of ruins, and decay. The city would be a well-looked after one but all around are the reminders of a catastrophe that keeps the people in fear for their future:
Locals walking through bombed ruins of city of St Lo.
A World War II picture of the bombed Hull, UK.
Mount Olympus in The Clash of the Titans (2010).
The forest on Mount Cithairon (from deviantart.com):
Abundant decadencewas the first thing I thought of when I looked at Dimtris Dassios' Fall-Winter 2012 collection.Here is a selection I made, pictures from CatwalkMag.
I want to contrast the Royal Maenads with the Minor Asia Bacchants and the poor Woman of Thebes who join the following. These women would be able to copy the dress-style, the jewellery and the ornaments of the original Bacchae but substituting it with more expensive materials.
A selection from Dassios' jewellery, accessory, and garment collections from his website, it is even called jewel art, a self-explicative name that mirrors the fashion house's talent with jewellery.
Dimitris Dassios uses very structured textures, with a sense of floral organics and hint of tribalesque.
One difficulty of the play is the need of a head on stage when Agave comes back from the Mount Citharion. An effective representation must be found for this, be it tactile (like a prosthetic head, the use of which I do not find attractive) or symbolic.
When we got the project I imagined I would much rather make use of masks than a prosthetic head, which in my case is out of question, I do not find them useful, as it would destroy the illusion and transport the audience back into themselves, making them aware of themselves, of the theatre.
So I took to the research of masks:
First the Ancient Greek of course, where the use of these objects was crucial to make the audience recognise the persona, the gender of the characters.
Notice the differences between these two pairs.
I personally found that the second ones from the pairs were a bit... perhaps wackier, more playful. And the first ones were more attractive, more worked upon, which for me raised its worth.
Dionysus
Warrior
I cannot hold back from looking at wonders inspired by the faerie-folk. This organic, beautiful kin, has the lightness which I had originally attribute to the followers of Dionysus.
Another strange find was "Fantasy Masked Statues", I would most certainly would not want to bump into one of these by accident on a nighttime stroll. They certainly do set an "atmosphere" as the website cites.
After looking at fantasy inspired masks, my heart took me down the path it desired, I looked for "creepy masks" and I found this beautiful pair which I could imagine for my crazed Maenads:
Julia Sanderl made these in April 2008, on her site she wrote: "Here are the completed mask examples that I created. The fabric additions on the left mask were recycled headdress materials from my friend Lara."
About the female face she says: "This is a sample I made to demonstrate the process of mask-making for my students. Inspiration was derived from African art, and body art from a variety of cultures. While working on this face, I was thinking about the ritual scarring practiced by many African tribes, Maori facial tattoos, and the Indian art of Mehndi. The neck coils are reminiscent of the Kayan women of Myanmar and Thailand who modify their bodies by stretching out their necks with ornamental brass coils."
However, it is not just these masks that are inspiring, looking at the rest of her Art also has a tribal-esque playfulness to it.
A picture I took in Vrbnik on the island of Krk, Croatia this July.
Amber and I were looking through Italian Vogues for our research in the library, it must be done you see, as a look into the "contemporary" is greatly encouraged... to put it lightly.
Those who are intrigued, fascinated by and respect historical costuming can do it in their own time, dears... indeed, I find it a shame that we have to drive away so much from the historical. However, I do understand the concept, I see that today's audiences are used and thus crave the contemporary designs, that is the means for us to get through the message of the play... some people dressed up as the Ancient Greeks, and as Gods, playing a cat-and-mouse game in the great old city of Thebes... well, how would that affect us? Instead, if we see a mother in jeans ripping of the head off her son in a haze of crazed drunkenness, now, that may get to us. (Exaggerations, we love them don't we?)
Human beings were always interested in mysterious things, in sexual, or vulgar things, it is just that they had different ways of presenting it to the audience, and it is for today that we must fashion these depictions. So, yes, in short that is the whole idea. Yet... who could not be in love with all that is ancient, who would not feel such great respect that they would want to use the same type of thread, the same dye for the same fabric they used...?
It is a very hard one, one that we as students must learn to balance... and not forget that we are who we are, we have our own styles, tastes, and this is what we must keep to.
So, enough with the talking and onto the Italian Vogue:
The Italian Vogue is set up in a very tasteful manner, beautiful fashion stories, and not as much nudity as in the UK or USA version.
Two fashion stories really caught my attention, these two I hope to use as inspiration.
One is The April 2011 Beauty Story by Greg Lotus, the other is called The White Story by Paolo Roversi.
Greg Lotus
Using a natural environment for his photoshoot, with interesting angles and composition, as well as boasting a flair for applying lighting, and shadows; this photoshoot develops an exotic and organic beauty, which I see as perfectly fit for the Bacchae who become deeply and shamelessly connected to Nature and their selves.
Another shoot from Greg Lotus is "Romantic" from the December 2008 issue of Vogue Italia, modelling is Alana Zimmer again. The inspiration of classical paintings is apparent it, and after all who does not love anything Pre-Raphaelite inspired.
Just like a Rossetti painting
Paolo Roversi
The April 2010 shoot White Story features models Sasha Pivovarova and Guinevere van Seenus. Here Paolo Roversi plays on the beautiful textures reached by the immaculate perfection of white: pleats, ruffles, lace.
There is also a video on youtube of the shoot:
"The Great Illusion" featuring Lara Stone has one picture that is amazing, looking at those pleats, makes one wonder how long it takes to make the garment.
"The time period around 1400 B.C. was an era where Mycenae, the traditional home of Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and leader of the Greek warriors in Troy, dominated the mainland, and his island of Crete assumed the political and militaric status of master of the eastern Mediterranean. A golden age of splendor arouse during this period, as shown by excavations of the royal graves at Mycenae, and the cultural and religious traditions of the eminent classical Greece began to take form. This is the Homeric, or Herioc, Age - also called Mycenaean, or Late Minoan -for the culture and values of the latter part of this period are those permanently embodied in the Homeric poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The fall of this age is often credited with the Dorian Invasion which is believed to have happened around 1100 B.C., and which came to be the conclusive death blow to the Minoan civilization." from Homer's Greece
Dionysus- Satyr/Pan, Nymph, Maenad, Thiasos- an explanation of these terms, and a collection of research materials, and indeed more disturbing phallic images, it is unfortunately impossible to escape them.
Some more written research, although I know that visual research is prompted I am one of those type that need to do reading research, in a more academic manner. I want to be able to know about the time period, way of life, thinking, rules... of the time period before I feel comfortable to "butt in" to the play.
How do you deal with this? If anyone has any good advice, please share. As I often find myself filling sketchbooks with merely writing and less images than what might be expected (it is also true that I do not like high printing costs, so I much rather sketch and copy out images by hand, which naturally is time consuming, yet more useful as it naturally resutls in a more thorough observation).
Great findings must be shared of Dionysian depictions on Ancient Greek vases. It must be noted that while researching there are too many phallic representations for my tastes.
Carpenter, Thomas H. Dionysian Imagery in the Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
This image of a Bacchae is captivating, it looks like a sweet representation of the oneness with Nature that the Bacchants could reach trough their Bacchic release. It is of a "mid-fifth century amphora in Brussels a nymph wearing an ivy wreath and animal skin and holding a snake and thyrsos looks down at a fawn that jumps up toward her like e pet dog." p.115 On some vases however the nymphs are shown dancing with torn halves of fawns.
The nymph resists the approach of a satyr.
"[...] nymphs in red-figures scenes (as opposed to those on black-figure vases) are often hostile to the erotic advances of satyrs, and they often use their thyrsoi to defend themselves." p.116
Dionysus and his companions
"a naked child holding a kantharos and vine branch stands on the lap of a bearded man seated on a chair. A woman with stylized flowers stands behind him, a woman holding a small himation stands in front. The seated man wears a wreath of pointed leaves (laurel?) and holds a thyrsos. The child wears an ivy wreath.
These figures have frequently been mis-identified as Dionysos and Oinopion, but they are almost certainly intended to be Zeus and the infant Dionysos. Only the thyrsos raises doubt. The child has the attributes appropriate to the young Dionysos..."
Dionysus portrayed as he tears apart a fawn. "Depictions of the madness of Dionysos appear earlier [before 5th century] are [...] linked with Thrace. On a late archaic stamnos in London, the god dances a mad dance with the halves of a rent goat in either hand. He has an ivy wreath on his head and a leopard skin tied at his throat over a chiton. On his feet he wears Thracian boots. [...] In fact, the imagery links him with neither drunkenness nor ecstasy. The scene is not an existential statement but rather a narrative account of the madness sent by Hera. The teraing of an animal in two becomes a symbol of the ultimate stage of this madness and is used to show the same madness inflicted by the god on others." p.38
A "Dionysian procession", "back-flung head is introduced on Attic vases to indicate song, not ecstasy" p. 83.
Sometimes the nymph figures resist and defend themselves from the advances of the satyrs; however on some vases they are depicted as unresisting, emphasizing how the Bacchic ecstatic state takes over the minds of women and men.
Dionysus with his satyr companions
A Winged Fury with a wreath of snakes on her hand and arms.
"Women of various ages also took part in specificreligious festivals, some of which even included men—thePanathenaiain honor of the goddess Athena, the Eleusinian Mysteries that honored Demeter and Persephone, and the Anthesteria sacred to Dionysos."
Oinochoe-chous (jug) depicting women perfuming clothes, ca. 420-410 B.C,
"The shape of the vase facilitates the association of the scene with the Anthesteria, a three-day festival held in January/February to celebrate the new wine with the special inclusion of young children, an epiphany of Dionysos."
"Despite the extreme social restraint on women in classical antiquity, it is interesting that they had a number of powerful female goddesses of the type that were never available to Christian women. Demeter was able to retrieve her daughter Persephone, Artemis could send a fatal arrow, and Athena had the ability to resist marriage and motherhood, and to provide advice to respected Greek heroes. Aphrodite, Hera, Hestia, and Hekate were also powerful goddesses, intensely honored and greatly admired by women and men alike."
"The Greeks believed that at the moment of death thepsyche, or spirit of the dead, left the body as a little breath or puff of wind. The deceased was then prepared for burial according to the time-honored rituals. Ancient literary sources emphasize the necessity of a proper burial and refer to the omission of burial rites as an insult to human dignity (Iliad, 23.71). Relatives of the deceased, primarily women, conducted the elaborate burial rituals that were customarily of three parts: theprothesis(laying out of the body), theekphora(funeral procession), and the interment of the body or cremated remains of the deceased."
And it is of course the representation of the Bacchae/Maenads that is the most interesting in the play, as they are strong female characters becoming aware of their ability of self-empowerement.
The strange fit of the costumes seen in the upcoming French movie Les Adieus a la Reine are very much noteworthy. I have to post a picture after reading Demode's blog, the most interesting one I found, dear reader, was this:
I cannot quite decide whether if this lady is trying to be pregnant, or terribly modest and ashamed of her own body, thus resorting to misshapen-ness, with her high neckline.
I am however very interested to see what this movie will be like, wondering what the overall effect of the vivid colours (greens) and strange fitting costume will be. I suppose it is very easy to get away with such designs, as most viewers won't be too picky about historical accuracy. It is after all the overall image, mood, atmosphere that will leave an impact in the viewer.
Les Adieux a la Reine is directed by Benoit Jacquot, and I msut admit I have not found information about who the costume designer is.
There is also a behind the scenes interview.
Le us give permission to that queen to drink some wine!
Today we got our first project for our second year at colleg: The Bacchai! It will be qonderful to explore the theatre of Ancient Greece,where better to start anything drama-related than there?
And now, my dearest reader, off to bed for my timid-self, as it is getting late.
More to come later!
