Journal des Demoiselles, Supplement au No. 21, 1 Novembre 1913, No. 5236 : Modes de Paris 1913

This is a fashion plate made for the Journal des Demoiselles in Paris in 1913, and the anonymous artist worked with thin lines and subtle color washes on paper. I can imagine the artist making this. There’s a pressure to make it perfect, right? It’s a fashion plate; it needs to be exact. The overall composition has a certain verticality to it, which is emphasized by the striped suit on the left. It's also kind of amazing how the artist uses these vertical lines to make the brown suit flow from the top all the way to the bottom, creating this seamless effect. I can see how that kind of flow and composition could become a way of thinking about how other types of paintings get made, too, you know? It becomes a way to play with how a painting moves and lives. Even though this artist and I may have been separated by time and intention, there’s a way that we both think through line and form.