Contextual Studies

In our first seminar with Jane De Teliga we looked at fashion photography through from the early 1900's to present day. I found this extremely interesting to see how fashion and beauty photographs and ideas has inspired so many other beautiful ideas and photographs but never really gave it much thought until now. After she showed some inspiring images I took note and researched an image later at home that stood out to me.

This was the image that was shown in class created by painter Johannes Vermeer in 1665 with oil on canvas. It stood out to me because of its name at first, The painting clearly shows a young girl wearing a headdress (what would of been seen to be fashionable in those days) and a very obvious pearl earring. The painting is so simple but so beautiful in many ways and I think the artist has captured the innocence of this girl very well which has inspired so many other artists of today to recreate this piece.

This is an image of Scarlett Johansson from the film 'The girl with the Pearl Earring' recreated from the original painting. The same innocence has been created as Scarlett Johansson was slightly older than the girl in the original painting but the same pale face with almost no makeup on with rouge lips shows the photographers intentions to stay true to the painting.

Here is an image of Beyonce as the girl with the pearl earring, and you can see from this picture that the photographer has taken more of a modern approach to the photograph. Beyonce is seen as more of an adult version of the girl with makeup on but still wearing the same headdress so the images are not too far apart. 

This is a piece done by a Vienna-based artist called Dorothee Golz who combined modern day imagery with the original 1665 painting to create something odd and thought provoking. The girl here is seen to be a normal present day girl of 2009 with the clothing and her carefree posing. I'm really inspired by this image as it's taken an old idea and added a modern twist which is something very skilled that the artist has done very well.

These images have all been inspired from that very image of the girl with the pearl earring and it shows how fashion, beauty and photography from the past can inspire so many new artists to create new and exciting pieces and even our work from today could inspire others in years to come!


Image 1: http://www.salon.com/2003/12/12/pearl_earring/
Image 2: 8http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24334678
Image 3: http://flavorwire.com/276113/dorothee-golz

What is Fear?

If anyone were to ask you what fear is how would you respond?
Is it a feeling, a physical thing or maybe even just a figure of our imagination?
What feeling do you get when you experience fear?

 Fear for me is the unknown. When I'm watching a film or tv series that has me on the edge of my seat it's the not knowing that invokes fear in me.
The way in which todays 'gothic horror' genre creates a sense of fear is to take us, as the audience, into another world where anything can happen and does happen and that stimulates a sense of fear and we're left wondering what will happen next.

An example of a modern day gothic horror tv series that has become extremely famous world wide is 'American Horror Story'. The way the characters change every series keeps the audience on their toes as well as knew characters being introduced. But what makes this so frightening? A character from a film surely can't be real. This is where I think the fear comes in, when horror is introduced into a known 'normal' society in films we start to picture that this could actually happen, to us; and the creators of tv series and films want to create that feeling of it being so real that we are fearful of it. A known fear of many people and children for example could be a clown.

The reason we may fear clowns is that they have become humanized and what are meant to be friendly children's entertainers can now be seen as something of a common fear for some people.This character 'Twisty' from American Horror Story: Freak Show has been taunted and teased in his career as a clown so much that he disfigures himself and ends up becoming the bad guy and as you can see he's pretty scary! The fact that these are humans and real people in the series makes me a little scared as I watch them as it makes you think could this really happen?

Fear is different for everyone, some people see fear in something physical in a person or character etc and some people see fear in nature, in make believe animals or even a fear of water or heights. For some people fear can take over their lives or prevent them from doing things. So fear is very real for all of us but in what form 'fear' comes in is what differs...

http://www.etonline.com/tv/2014/10/24108395/set_american_horror_story_clown640.jpg

Miss Havisham

Everyone that has read the book or seen a production of 'Great Expectations' would agree that Miss Havisham's character is both intriguing and spooky all at once. The way she is portrayed in the book when pip is first introduced to her is that she is barely there at all in mind or body 'she had the appearance of having dropped, body and soul, within and without, under the weight of a crushing blow.' Her appearance is described as almost ghost like as if she has nothing left to live for. Her watch and her clock were both stopped at twenty to 9 which seems to reiterate that she's living in the memory of being 'jilted' at the alter many years previously.

I recently watched the BBC's 3 part  production of 'Great Expectations' and noticed that Miss Havisham's character had a wound on her hand that she, when nervous or distressed would scratch and the wound would then reopen and never seemed to heal. I think this for me symbolized her life and how what happened in the past has molded her into the judging strange woman that she appeared to be, with a vendetta against men for what her husband to be had done; it seems as if the wound had never healed.

When I read the book I thought of Miss Havisham to be a frail pale looking woman with sunken eyes and grey features as that's what my mind had made her up to look like. The BBC's film sort of confirmed what I had imagined her to be whereas other versions of 'Great Expectations' saw Miss Havisham to look slightly different. The 2013 version of 'Great Expectations' starring Helen Bonham Carter portrays Miss Havisham to be a slightly larger woman with greyer hair that was alot more 'wild and unkept than the BBC's interpretation of the character. Other versions have also given their own spin on the character; the 1946 version of Miss Havisham also makes her look slightly larger and her hair more wispy on the top of her head with what looks like a very weathered veil hanging behind her.

My imagination thinks of Miss Havisham as a small framed old looking woman and I think I enjoyed the BBC's portrayal of her the best. Her curls at the sides of her head seemed more of the Georgian era as she was living in the memory of the past and as the film went on they appeared to become more disheveled as Estella her adopted daughter seemed to be drifting away from her, it seemed her life no longer really had meaning so her appearance didn't either.

I find Miss Havisham such an interesting character to observe and it's interesting seeing others perception of her after reading the book as your mind makes up what her character should look like creating almost your own character of Miss Hasvisham.

Picture: Telegraph,co.uk (2015). Gillian Anderson, Helen Bonham Carter and Miss Havisham on film - Telegraph. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/8907506/Gillian-Anderson-Helena-Bonham-Carter-and-Miss-Havisham-on-film.html [Accessed 21st Jan 2015]

Video: Youtube.co.uk (2012) Great Expectations| Clip | Starts Sunday, 4 March, 7:30pm, ABC1 - Youtube. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJgomNXezxQ [Accessed 21st Jan 2015]

Victorian Beauty Ideals

For my brand new project on Gothic Horror I've been looking at Victorian women and their beauty ideals and wanted to show my recent introduction to my research. The Victorian era showed me that women were seen to be substantially inferior to men or boys. With one town clerk in Stockport giving evidence in 1843 that families had poisoned their daughters and that it was deliberately planned, the boys were not poisoned he said "because the parents considered them to be useful" (1). This made me think of how women were not seen to be as important as men which can be seen in society briefly today. Women have a lot more opportunities than we had before but women were only seen to be beautiful and to serve men.

Dress was a very important interest to Victorian women as it showed their rank and position. "jewellery was a badge that women wore like a sergeant- major's stripes or field marshal's baton" It was important it seems as this showed their status. Having a small waist and straight back were also important as well as having a 24 inch waist or less using a corset. The corsets were made of "whalebone" and a "whalebone busk". Tightening the laces to achieve the small waist which was seen as the ideal of beauty however at the start of the century the fashion was loose dresses which fell softly from high up on the waist and this quickly changed from the 1820's and when Queen Victoria came to the throne. Victorian women's hair was looped over the ears in the 1840's they say to almost "protect women from coarse sounds" and the bonnets that they wore became more like a "shield to the face". (1)


"Like in past historical periods, even in the Victorian era a pale complexion was a sign of nobility. It meant that women were well-off and could afford not to spend hours working outdoors, which would inevitably result in a tan, something considered very vulgar. What changed though, was the way to achieve this fair complexion. Although some of the deadly mixtures of the past were still around, it was during this time that women started using Zinc Oxide, a white mineral powder, which was safer but still achieved the same effect.
However, in line with the decrease of the use of cosmetics, ladies would also preserve their skin pale by avoiding the sun and fresh hair, using parasols when outdoors to protect their skin from the sun rays and even by drinking vinegar. A white and translucent complexion was so desired that some women would even paint some very fine blue lines on their skin to make it look more translucent, as the veins underneath were showing." (2)
 
This is very similar I find to Elizabethan times where a pale complexion was seen as a thing of beauty and a personal show of your stature and nobility.
 
I'm looking forward to looking further into the lives of Victorian women and how we can relate to them today because although it seems like a long time ago, it really wasn't which interests me as our views on what beauty is has changed so much within around 160 years and I wonder what the world will perceive beauty to be in 160 years into the future?

 

 

(1) Joan Perkin. JP. (1993) Victorian Women, London: John Murray Publishers Ltd.
(2) Beautiful With Brains [Online] Available from: beautifulwithbrains.com [Accessed: 16.01.15]