- 1. This Gilded Age Gown – I love the art, the architecture, the decor, the jewelry and especially the dresses of the Gilded Age. Of course one can’t overlook that there was so much wrong with the era. But like so many times and places where there is tremendous inequity and obnoxious wealth, breathtaking beauty often is born. One has to wonder, would such beauty have been possible if not for the inequity? For example, the Taj Mahal; it is extremely unlikely that it would have been built if the emperor Shah Jahan hadn’t been an emperor and didn’t have all the wealth of his kingdom.
Anyway, as usual, I’ve gotten off topic. Let’s get back to this dress. There are several clothing designers of that era that I like but my absolute favorite is Charles Frederick Worth. His House of Worth spanned over a few eras and his designs were exquisite.
I’m not sure who designed the dress below, it could be a House of Worth, but the garment appeared in a painting by one of my favorite painters, John Singer Sargent. Everything about it is perfect – the color, the design, the fabric. C’est magnifique.
And here is the John Singer Sargent painting (sadly it’s not a full-length portrait):
And while we are on the subject of the Gilded Age, Julian Fellows, the creator of ‘Downton Abbey,’ has a new series coming out called ‘The Gilded Age’ and they’ve started filming!
It stars Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon and many other top actors. The show follows “young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.”
‘HBO Filming ‘The Gilded Age’ In Central Park, Written by Downton Abbey Creator‘ from Westsiderag.com, posted April 8, 2021
Here are several photos from last week (click on the image to go to Instagram so you can scroll them all)…
And here is a video…
The show will be aired on HBOMax and there is an official page though there isn’t a lot up yet. It’s clearly a work in progress.
Someone posted screenshots of the first posts on the “Gilded Age Society” Facebook group that I belong to and you aren’t going to believe how many fruit loops made comments about how they “shouldn’t be wearing masks” because it isn’t historically accurate or they could have at least worn historically accurate masks. And then people (for the most part) would politely reply back – they aren’t actually filming in these photos, this is while they are on break, but they are still in costume. (Are people really this stupid or are they just looking for things to be pissed about?)
2. This Youtuber – this young man makes me happy. I want to be his friend.
3. This Cover of the Beatles’ Song ‘Blackbird’ Sung in the Indiginous Mi’kmaq Language – this is beyond beautiful and I prefer it to the English language version, by far! Her voice is so lovely and soothing. I would love to listen to an entire album of songs by her!
To raise awareness of her native language, 16-year-old Emma Stevens sang a version of The Beatles’ 1968 classic “Blackbird” in the Mi’kmaq language, an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 in Canada and the United States. A member of the Eskasoni First Nation, the Nova Scotia student sang lyrics that were painstakingly translated by Katani Julian, a teacher who works in language revitalization. Julian told WBUR. “My language is very different from other ones.” “There’s a lot of syllables in ours. And there’s a lot of long words that translate into something really easy in English.”
[discovered on Open Culture by way of Kevin Bacon’s facebook page.]
4. This Muse of Gustav Klimt – I’ve been a fan of Klimt’s artwork for decades but it turns out I may actually have been a fan of Emilie Louise Flöge all these years, or at the very least the combined effort of their work.
Flöge was a friend of Klimt’s for decades. There are rumors that they were lovers but there is no real evidence, though apparently he was a womanizer. I suspect that they weren’t lovers and that is why they stayed friends for so long.
The clothing and fabric designs of Emilie Flöge were extremely unique for the time. Unlike the traditional, more fitted clothing, she preferred dresses that were looser, more smock or caftan-esque, with big flowing sleeves. Her designs sometimes would have a bit of an Asian influence and often she incorporated her own native Austro-Hungarian decorative design. I would LOVE to have some of her dresses to wear now.
Klimt used Flöge in her own dresses as a model for many of his paintings. So the question is, was it Klimt’s painting that I was drawn to, or was it Flöge’s designs within the portraits?
5. This Article/Blog Post on Maximalism – This is probably my favorite art movement. I’m never been one for the minimal thing. In fact, a friend of mine used to describe me as a Victorian-era woman living in the late 20th century.
Click on the image below to go to the blog post and you’ll see many more maximalism paintings. I find them all so interesting and inviting.
[via MessyNessyChic]
6. This New Series on HBOMax, The Nevers – It premiered yesterday, April 11th and they will be releasing a new episode every Sunday through May 16th (at least that it what it says on the IMDB.) I’ve only seen the first episode but I’m completely absorbed!
Starring Laura Donnelly (Outlander and Brittania), Ann Skelly (Vikings), Pip Torrens (The Crown and Poldark), Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark), Olivia Williams (The Halcyon and Counterpart), Amy Manson (White Princess and Once Upon a Time), Ben Chaplin (The Dig and The Letter for the King) and a zillion other people.
7. This Cornucopia of Art in the Form of Portuguese Sardine Labels – I suppose 50 years from now people will look at packages of things like ziplock bags or Keebler cookies (if any survive that long) and think they are quaint. Naaaaaaaaah.
You can find hundreds more at this website.
[Discovered via Hyperallergic]
Word of the Day
Quote of the Day
By the way, today is (was) …
If you didn’t get a chance to celebrate Drop Everything and Read Day today, do it tomorrow. Or better yet, do it every day!
