Comme il faut

Anonymous German Artist
Künstler-Redoute, Centraltheater Leipzig
ca. 1903
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Curt Behrends
Heute gehen wir zur Rollschuh Bahn
ca. 1910
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Henri Chachoin
La Teddy
(brand of suspenders)
ca. 1925
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Hans Rudi Erdt
Wintersport in Saarow
1911
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Joseph J. Gould
Lippincott's - October
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Dudley Hardy
Cinderella - Drury Lane
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Josef Rudolf Witzel
Wienrestaurant Volkstheater
1908
lithograph
(poster - proof before lettering)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ludwig Hohlwein
Boll's Kindergarderobe, Munich
1908
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ernst Heilemann
Wolfframm Piano, Dresden
1903
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ernst Deutsch (called Dryden)
Der Trainer
(silent film)
1914
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Adolf Höfer
E.O. Merzbacher Furs, Munich
ca. 1909-1911
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Moritz Veit
Mademoiselle Milly Dagmar and her Performing Dogs
1906
lithograph
(poster - proof before lettering)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Edward Penfield
Harper's - Christmas
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Emile Schneider
Strasbourg Tramline - Timetable
1897
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ludwig Hohlwein
Tanz-Palast Blumen-Säle
1913
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous British Artist
The New Woman has Arrived
ca. 1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

And just as the historian can never explain the individual work of art with all the decisions involved in making it, so the psychologist can never fully interpret its meaning to the questioning art lover.  This admission may come as a surprise to any reader who has felt troubled by so much rationalism in the face of art.  Yet it is rational, I think, to maintain that the meaning of human expression will always elude scientific explanation.  Have we not seen that our responses to facial expressions or speech sounds are always immediate, global, unanalyzed, and in that sense intuitive?  Where we understand we understand directly, as we understand the meaning of a musical phrase or the inflection of a voice.  The mystic and irrationalist errs only in thinking that such intuition must always be superior to reason, infallible.  There are misunderstandings of expression as there are other false responses.  The rational approach can help to eliminate such mistakes by showing what a work of art cannot have meant within the framework of its style and situation.  Having thus narrowed down the area of misunderstandings it must retire; for the particular in all its richness is bound to slip through the clumsy net of general concepts which we make by asking our twenty questions.  Created as a tool to help us find our way through the world of things, our language is notoriously poor when we try to analyze and categorize the inner world.

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

American Frocks

Anonymous American Needleworker
Two-Piece Day Dress
ca. 1815-25
silk satins (striped and solid)
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1847
silk taffeta and embroidered silk chiffon
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Summer Dress
ca. 1855-65
printed silk gauze
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Ensemble worn by Mary Todd Lincoln
1861
silk velvet and silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1867
silk satin and needle lace
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous American Needleworker
Ball Gown worn by Minnie Maddern Fiske in silent film Becky Sharp
1915
embroidered silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Evening Gown worn by Mrs Woodrow Wilson
1915
beaded silk crepe, silk satin and silk velvet
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Evening Gown worn by Mrs Woodrow Wilson
1916
brocaded silk satin and tulle
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown
1927
beaded silk satin crepe
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Coconut Grove Caricature Dress
(depicting silent film stars)
ca. 1927
printed silk
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Child's Dress
ca. 1930-40
silk satin
Anacostia Community Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous American Needleworker
Wedding Gown made from a World War II Parachute
1945
parachute silk
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Ruth Hensinger
Wedding Gown made from a World War II Parachute
1947
parachute nylon
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Ann Lowe
Dress
ca. 1960
silk taffeta and silk chiffon
National Museum of African American
History and Culture, Washington DC

Oleg Cassini
Evening Gown worn by Jacqueline Kennedy
ca. 1962
embroidered and beaded silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Carolina Herrera
Dress
ca. 1987
printed silk with ribbon trim
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Arnold Scaasi
Evening Gown worn by Barbara Bush
1989
silk velvet and silk satin
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

    In my own shire, if I was sad,

Homely comforters I had:

The earth, because my heart was sore,

Sorrowed for the son she bore;

And standing hills, long to remain,

Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.

And bound for the same bourne as I,

On every road I wandered by,

Trod beside me, close and dear,

The beautiful and death-struck year:

Whether in the woodland brown

I heard the beechnut rustle down,

And saw the purple crocus pale

Flower about the autumn dale;

Or littering far the fields of May

Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,

And like a skylit water stood

The bluebells in the azured wood.

    Yonder, lightening other loads,

The seasons range the country roads,

But here in London streets I ken

No such helpmates, only men;

And these are not in plight to bear,

If they would, another's care.

They have enough as 'tis: I see

In many an eye that measures me

The mortal sickness of a mind

Too unhappy to be kind.

Undone with misery, all they can

Is to hate their fellow man;

And till they drop they needs must still

Look at you and wish you ill.

– A.E. Housman (1896)

Outfitted

Anonymous American Designer
Julia
ca. 1835-40
hand-colored lithograph
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Doll - opera singer Jenny Lind 
ca. 1850
die-cut chromolithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Doll - Jenny Lind in Les Huguenots
ca. 1850
die-cut chromolithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Doll - Jenny Lind in Norma
ca. 1850
die-cut chromolithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Doll Costume
ca. 1865-70
die-cut and hand-colored lithograph
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Doll Costume
ca. 1870-75
die-cut and hand-colored engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Miss Ada Rehan - Harlem Opera House
1898
lithograph (poster)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Cinema Card - Mary Astor
1934
hand-colored offset-print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Cinema Card - Merna Kennedy
1934
hand-colored offset-print
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Xenia Cage
Paper Doll
1935
watercolor and ink on cut-out card
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Xenia Cage
Paper Doll - Two-Piece Suit with Blouse
1935
watercolor and ink on cut-out card
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Xenia Cage
Paper Doll - Evening Gown
1935
watercolor and ink on cut-out card
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Paper Dolls - Career Girls
ca. 1955
die-cut offset-prints
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Wedding-Cake Figure - Bridesmaid
1957
painted plaster
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

Anonymous American Designer
Picasso
1980
offset-lithograph
(exhibition poster - Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Shopping Bag from Martha, New York
ca. 1990
offset-print on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous American Designer
Sergeant Jacqueline Wiegand, 
U.S. Army Reserve
1993
offset-lithograph (recruiting poster)
National Museum of American History,
Washington DC

from Hell Gate

    Onward led the road again

Through the sad uncoloured plain

Under twilight brooding dim,

And along the utmost rim

Wall and rampart risen to sight

Cast a shadow not of night,

And beyond them seemed to glow

Bonfires lighted long ago.

And my dark conductor broke

Silence at my side and spoke,

Saying, 'You conjecture well;

Yonder is the gate of hell.'

    Ill as yet the eye could see

The eternal masonry,

But beneath it on the dark

To and fro there stirred a spark.

And again the sombre guide

Knew my question, and replied:

'At hell gate the damned in turn

Pace for sentinel and burn.'

– A.E. Housman (1922)