beautiful things: the art of romaine brooks

romaine brooks, self-portrait, 1923.

so i hope you’ll forgive me the flying post – i plan to come back and write about brooks properly (once i have more time and, more importantly, more research) but i discovered her work on one of my usual internet jaunts, and couldn’t resist the lure of an immediate post.

romaine brooks, peter, a young english girl, 1923-4.

there is more information here, for anybody in a hurry (i plan to scope out the archives myself, at a later date, and report back), but for the moment, let me just say that ‘the epitome of elegance’ really does seem an appropriate tagline, from what i’ve seen thus far of brook’s work.

romaine brooks, una troubridge, 1924.

i came across this painting first, quite by accident, at sublimefemme unbound (the topic was monocles – and really, why wouldn’t it be?  also, i must now look up this troubridge character.  she looks fascinating).  i rarely find painters i love quite this much at first glance. 

turn of the century women artists are hard to track down (i should know, i’ve tried often enough).  any suggestions on other female painters of the era worth looking up?

beautiful things: marina bychkova

 

i love this photograph of marina bychkova and one of her creations (from cisley’s flick stream).  i am perpetually enchanted by images of artists  with their work, particularly when it is sculptural, or in 3 dimensions.

honestly i’ve always had mixed feelings about bychkova’s dolls; the craftspersonship is clearly phenomenal, and the way she joints her bodies, the range of movement she achieves…well, it’s quite breathtaking.  plus the costumes are nothing but stunning.  the faces, though…just…they’re not so much my thing.  sweet but not arresting.  something about the strong anime influences.  they look like drawings, not creatures – which is interesting, and they’re certainly very pretty – but they don’t speak to me.  it’s a personal preference thing.  they’re undeiniably beautiful just…well.

 

 however.  her work is certainly worth looking at, and if you do, you should also check out her blog to see the piece about how she made this marie-antoinette wig (behind-the-scenes shots!  hurrah!).  and there’s an audrey kawasaki picture in the background.