Silent partners: artist and mannequin from function to fetish

Uittreksel

"The articulated human figure made of wax or wood has been a common tool in artistic practice since the 16th century. Its mobile limbs enable the artist to study anatomical proportion, fix a pose at will, and perfect the depiction of drapery and clothing. Over the course of the 19th century, the mannequin gradually emerged from the studio to become the artist's subject, at first humorously, then in more complicated ways, playing on the unnerving psychological presence of a figure that was realistic, yet unreal-lifelike, yet lifeless. Silent Partners locates the artist's mannequin within the context of an expanding universe of effigies, avatars, dolls, and shop window dummies. Generously illustrated, this book features works by such artists as Poussin, Gainsborough, Degas, Courbet, Cézanne, Kokoschka, Dalí, Man Ray, and others; the astute, perceptive text examines their range of responses to the uncanny and highly suggestive potential of the mannequin"--

Inhoud

'Some artful instrument': the mannequin as tool -- The 'naturalistic' mannequin: invention and evolution -- Finding the bodies: distribution -- Silent partner -- Wooden narratives: the mannequin in the picture -- Hystériques! hystériques! Tous hystériques!: woman mannequinized -- Flesh and bloodlessness -- Artificial others: the mannequin and its kin in fin-de-siècle Paris -- Vivified commodities: Paris and the development of the fashion mannequin -- The assembly line goddess: modern art and the mannequin.