Our aim in this project was to choose and investigate one theme from an art and design period. I began by looking into Romanticism. I was at first very intrigued by romanticism for it’s strong emotion, very visual, deep coloured paintings. However, what I found even more interesting was the variety of different paintings and painters, and their unclear connection to one another. Something which is common in Romanticism is that each painting is unlike anything else and has it’s one style. Although this interested me, I found it hard to find a starting point. Looking into Romanticism’s context helped me to explore themes and cultivate a link between Romanticism and knit.
Romanticism appears to be a very complex artistic and literary movement that arose in the second half of the 18th century. I found that a lot of the inspiration or cause for Romantic art was triggered or resulted due to the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution, as the art itself was a revolt against aristocracy and political custom, and against the realization of science. I was encouraged to pursue such integral themes of ‘escaped confines’, ‘revolt’, ‘change’ and ‘contrast’. Contrast is clear within both the revolutions; the contrast before and after. These bases of contrast gave me most of my inspiration for my work within knit – through contrast of techniques, or construction.
However, I was struggling to find a way of expressing my ideas in a sketchbook rather than just by word or diagrams. I had to go back to the drawing board and look back into the paintings and the artists who I felt clearly show romantic art. William Blake was a very famous Romantic artist, and not only for his visionary images, but also for his emotional poetry.
I tried copying his painting ‘Whirlwind of Lovers’ using strong thick colour by oil paint. I wanted to show the vibrancy of the blue and the sections of beige and green. Although I found it really helpful to break down the colours, to see their impact and to relate that to knit, I felt that I was losing the strong sense of movement that Blake captures well within his work. I then had to find a way to express his movement through other mediums; I used watercolour, sewing, pen and something, which I discovered earlier on the project, the use of word and text. I feel that text correctly and successfully portrays my meaning, and outlines the aims of my work. I also feel that romanticism holds a lot of inspiration from poetry and word play. I chose to use text from the book ‘Romanticsm and Art’ which tries to uncover the mysteries of Romantic art.
Moving my project on in terms of looking more closely at movement, I sourced inspiration from other artists who demonstrate this within their art. One artist whose work I found very interesting was David Hockney, who experiments with different mediums in order to successfully express movement. In this painting on the left ‘A bigger splash’ although the image is rather still and flat, the focus of the painting is the movement of the water. I like the contrast between the stillness and the movement. It is interesting to see that there are different sections to the splash – the centre, which is the whitest and most concentrated, and then the straggling lines to the right. I think the lines on the right are effective in showing a trickling effect.
I was inspired by the trickling effect and wanted to experiment with different mediums in order to portray movement. I tried dripping paint in order to get the same motion of fluidity. I liked the idea that the paint was moving itself and that it was completely moving on its own accord. I used wet paper with ink and found the outcome really grasped the feeling of movement. It created quite a fluffy, dispersed effect, that could be easily interpreted through woollen yarns. It was interesting combining stitch with the paint flow as I liked the movement that the thread created, and think that it emphasises and highlights the inner shapes of the dispersed paint. The linear thread formed a nice contrast to the moving paint. This, then took me forward to looking in depth at the theme of contrast; between movement and stillness; fluidity and formality. In order to show this contrast I used the fluidity of the paint against the structure of the text. I found it interesting that text is so structured yet there is a link to movement and how words flow.
this idea further, I cut between the lines of the dispersed paint and put graph paper behind it. I think that this successfully shows the great contrast between the formality and the fluidity.
When converting my visual research into knits, I used drop stitch to create a similar linear effect as the dripping. I think that the loose dropped stitch contrasts well to the structured rib knit next to it. I also used the hand held stitch on the domestic machines to give the look of waves and fluidity. With the final pieces I’m focusing on the notion of movement between structure as the shapes created in the drop stitch link closely to those created by the dripping.
In terms of developing my visual research to produce a collection of knitted textiles, I will be focusing my knit to produce a structured and very visual garment. I take a lot of interest in artists and designers such as Sandra Backlund who creates conceptual yet wearable pieces. She has an idea and designs clothes to fit it, so it becomes more of a wearable art piece. I like the idea of bringing aspects from the art side of knit to a garment as my designs are very structural and quite conceptual. However, looking at artists such as Shane Waltener and Rania Hussain gave me inspiration for ways to use knit to create really dynamic and unique designs. I found Rania Hussain , who creates knits to be exhibited, particularly interesting for technique and the for looking at shape and form. Shane Waltener goes beyond the aesthetics of knitting and focuses on the social dimensions of the knit. His web like structure inspired me to look at drop stitch.
I think I will be designing for a haute couture line for a design house such as Missoni. Missoni has a unique collection of knitwear and produces a variety of very interesting and dynamic garments. The image on the left involved really loose lace sitcth – something which I am very inspired by. Missoni is also known for using very vibrant and dynamic colours.
Overall I am very please with my project, although I felt that it took me a long time to develop and properly focus with it. I think that I could still develop my ideas further and continue to experiment with different materials and mediums. I am pleased with my final designs, and feel that they relate well to my visual research and the colours link well to the Romantic era.
