2 Audley Square
Mayfair, London W1K
UK
Established in 1994, The Course offers exciting Art History, Literature and Music lectures.
In this 3 part series, you will from shimmering silks and sumptuous satins, glittering gold brocade to sheer muslin gowns, how artists through the ages have revelled in depicting details of dress. Whether clinging to every contour or concealing the shape of the wearer, clothing can create dynamism and drama – stories that contemporaries could read. Through the words of key dramatists and writers, and portraits in paint and print, this course will investigate how character can be created through clothing.
“Pins and Poking Sticks”: Dress in Shakespeare’s Time
“God has given you one face and you make yourself another” says Hamlet – condemning the use of make-up, and the fine line between “art” and “artifice”. With a focus on the heavily “painted” face of Elizabeth 1 (whom Spenser termed the “Faerie Queene”) we will consider the words of moralists, playwrights, painters and poets as they created impossible images of ageless.