Baz posted:Eugene's Lair posted:Baz posted:Eugene's Lair posted:Anyone-else watching "A Stitch in Time"? The third episode is on BBC4 tonight (Wed) at 8.30pm.
Each week, Amber Butchart supervises over the reconstruction of a historical set of clothing as portrayed in a famous painting. Not perhaps the most entertaining-sounding brief for a TV show (and tonight's subject matter, "The Hedge Cutter", isn't perhaps the most exciting introduction to the programme for those who haven't seen it before), but I found last week's reconstruction of the dress from the Arnolfini portrait absolutely fascinating...
I remember having to analyse that painting at uni
In what ways, Baz? From an artistic perspective, or other aspects of it?
I know from my own experience that it's a famously complicated painting, and gets discussed in a lot of very different ways...
I can’t remember the exact ins and outs Eugene ....but it was part of an art history module , so symbolism in the painting , in the context of the times
Ah; right, Baz. The reason I was asking was because - as I mentioned - that painting has a habit of cropping up in unexpected places.
I studied fibre-optics as part of my Electronics Engineering degree, and the first chapter of my Optics textbook - by way of a *ahem* "light" introduction - looked at a number of famous paintings and how they illustrated the behaviour of lenses and mirrors.
The Arnolfini portrait was used because of that convex mirror in the background.
The other famous one was Manet's "A Bar at the Follies-Bergère" - a painting which is often assumed to get the reflections wrong, however recent studies have shown Manet to have been a lot cleverer than he's often given credit for...
