Preliminary research
Traditional Chinese painting – symbolic signs of clothes reflect personal charisma
Clothing doesn’t merely serve practical purposes,but bears other values endowed by a certain group in a certain time and place. Some fashion elements that prevail nowadays can find their origin in history. Primitive human beings living thousands years ago wore clothese because of clothes could protect them from exposure. Yet, as we stepped into the age of texts and signs, clothing became a social sign for recognition. Rohan Sharad Dahotre donned animals with clothes in the paintings, which not only suited the animals and personified the animals, giving them different characteristics – Queen Lion, Warrior Brown Bear,Messenger Crow…
1. denim fabric gives a sense of vigor and youth
Ian Berry, a British artist, collected thrown-away clothes made of denim fabric from people of different professions and piled them up in his studio. Then, according to his framework, he drew from the pile of fabrics clothes of proper colors to splice together an artistic picture. The figures in the picture emitted youth and vigor, which could be attributed to texture of denim fabric.
2. lace embodies elegance and grace
Whether it is in the west or in China, in Chinese paintings or oil paintings, lace has been a material embodying the upper class. In “Portrait of Marten Soolmans” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, the delicate lace was used to show the elegant, debonair charisma in the upper class; it is also true in the painting “Monodrama” by Zhang Jian, a Chines artist.
3. Silk and the sense of antiqueness reflect personal charisma of well-educated families and scholars
Tang suits, made of silk, are very popular among the older generation. These suits reflect their eruditeness, like the characters in ink-and-wash paintings by Yang Zhiguang.
Given consideration to all these, I donned the characters with clothes of different textures and their personal traits were reflected from the clothes. Only through a glimpse at sections, one can perceive the personal charisma of the characters.