visual essay for Punkt Magazine

visual essay for Punkt Magazine

THERE is something faintly subversive about ''Fabric of Vision: Dress and Drapery in Painting,'' the new show at London's National Gallery. Instead of looking at whole paintings, you end up studying their component parts and, yes, the yards of cloth that for centuries provided the mise-en-scène of most figurative art. Indeed, from the Renaissance to the 18th century, more canvas was devoted to the depiction of fabric than to anything else. What better place to start than the fold? Early Renaissance painting was religious and, as such, portrayed people in flowing robes. The compositions were invariably static, yet the folds of the cloth added life. For inspiration, artists turned to Greek statuary, so remarkable in depicting even transparent fabric as it clings to the naked body. By the 15th century, painters had caught on. Flawless depiction of the fold became a testimony to virtuosity.