While researching the phylloxera epidemic in France, I couldn’t find any photos of the blighted vines….However, Vincent Van Gough is thought to have painted an afflicted vineyard in 1888, twenty-five years after the onset of the devastation.
In Van Gough’s piece called The Red Vine, the one and only painting he sold (publically) during his lifetime, the grapevine being harvested are wearing…
The Red Vine, Matinicus Island, Maine (1919) print in high resolution by George Wesley Bellows. Original from Minneapolis Institute of Art. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. by Free Public Domain Illustrations by rawpixel
Via Flickr:
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com George Bellows (1882-1925) was one of America’s greatest artists. Rooted in realism with focus on social, political and cultural issues, his powerful drawings and paintings depicted boxing matches, and the gritty life of the New York working class. Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Conner, showing up at the manor with a kitten wrapped in a blanket, not noticing until it was too late that the Wayne's were being interviewed- Would Tim Drake please report to the foyer? I have a surprise for him.
Tim, in full-on 'son of Brucie Wayne' mode- Is that a chicken!?!
Zendaya at the Met Gala 2024, wearing custom Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano, and hat by Stephen Jones.
The fruit, flowers, insects and birds on the gown fit the dress code of the night, 'The Garden of Time', inspired by J.G. Ballard's 1962 short story (explained here by the BBC).
The gown also references John Galliano’s Spring 1999 couture collection for Dior, in particular the gown below, decorated with grapes.
Maison Margiela said:
'A sage lamé bias-cut ‘siren dress’ overlaid with iridescent electric blue organza with ‘retrograding’ in undulating bands of hand-painted metallic crin, swathed in an aluminium material and iridescent organza drape and bow, with a corsage hand-embroidered in a bacchanal of hand-painted impasto in the grammar of the electric blues and emerald greens of scarab amulets, with formations of birds, flowers, vines, grapes and nuts, worn over a boudoir-coloured duchess satin corset. A silver metal-wire ‘reverse swatching’ hat and a black hand-painted voile crafted in the memory of plume and enveloped in matching coloured stockings by Stephen Jones for Maison Margiela, and Eau de Nil velour and faux lizard Tabi interlaced ankle-strap pumps by Christian Louboutin for Maison Margiela.
Created for Zendaya by John Galliano for Maison Margiela, the haute couture silhouette was inspired by the 1930s mythological works of the photographer Madame Yevonde and imbued with the memory of the orgiastic sceneries of the bacchanals of Ancient Greece. In a dance between painterly cutting and draping techniques – unique to each layer of the construction – and the superposition of fabric textures such as tin foil with transparent iridescent organza overlay, the composition conjures the staccato brushstrokes of Giovanni Boldini. The bias-cut ‘siren dress’ is a key expression in the creative practice of John Galliano, which first appeared at Maison Margiela in the Spring-Summer 2020 Artisanal Collection. Infused with a certain ‘snobisme’, the look is given the epithet of ‘86 and Lexington’, a nod to the subway station near The Met.
The dress was crafted with ‘retrograding’, a technique through which variations of thread-work, appliqué or encrustation degrade from the bottom to the top of a garment like the linear base drawing of a painting that hasn’t yet been finished. The ‘reverse swatching’ technique employed in the hat exchanges the fabrics traditionally used for certain parts of dressmaking with materials of a contrasting value.' X