When Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck moved to England in 1632 to become court painter to Charles The introduced an entirely new way of representing dress in portraiture. In women's portraits. he left off fashionable accessories, depicted subjects in unbuttoned sleeves and collars, and added lavish drapery and jewels. For the first time an artist actively participated in dressing his subjects, creating an amalgam of fantasy and reality. While Van Dyck was most innovative when representing women, he used similar elements in portraits of men.
Van Dyck's Portrait of Thomas Killigrew and Willian. Lord Crofts (1638) demonstrates how the artist relaxed and unbuttoned men's dress to accord with an underlying theme. The double portrait may be seen as an essay in grief: Killigrew. a poet and playwright, had lost his wife Cecelia to the plague shortly before the sitting, and Crofts was her nephew. The painting contains clear references to the situation at hand. The background features a broken column, a traditional emblem of earthly transience. A drawing in Killigrew's right hand depicts two Itinerary monuments. Crofts holds a blank sheet of paper, seen by some scholars as an analog to the drawing Killigrew holds: a symbol of what is gone.
At historians have interpreted the clothing depicted in this portrait, particularly Crofts' doublet which is worn unbuttoned in back, as an allusion to the subjects' grief-stricken distraction. It is true that Killigrew's dress includes references to his loss—he wears a cross inscribed with his wife's initials. There is an intimate nature to this painting, which seems underscored by the loose clothing worn by both subjects. However, diis reading of the costumes as signs of grief does not take account of seventeenth-century fashion conventions. Only Killigrew appears in noticeably disheveled attire;
Crofts" dress would be quite appropriate for a formal portrait. Though black clothing, such as that won by Crofil, was common for mourning, it was also ordinary on other occasions. Furthermore, during the first stage of mounting no shiny surfaces, such as Crofts' satin doublet, would be permitted. The unbuttoned slit on Crofts" doublet was probably a matter of style: a French courtier in a 1635 fashion print by Bosse. who is gallivanting rather than grieving, wears a similarly undone doublet. Evidence suggests that by the late 1630s a certain calculated looseness was conventional in men's formal dress. Ribeiro. for example, cites the writings of moralists objecting to this style.
Killigrew's attire, though even looser than Crofts", should not necessarily be associated with grief. Other seventeenth-century subjects depicted in melancholic states do not dress this way. Although Killigrew's "undress" lends this portrait a distinctive intimacy, it might also refer to Killigrew's literary career. Many of Van Dyck's other subjects who engaged in literary pursuits are depicted in loose clothing. The blank sheet held by Crofts may be a reminder not only of Killigrew's loss but also of his solace: he had but to express his grief in writing.
The author of the passage suggests that if the cited "art historians" had taken account of seventeenth-century fashion, they would have been more likely to
To help the reader understand the actions of and the decisions made by people of another time, the historian's narrative must be_________what they knew; the narrative should not refer to anything not known until later.
Although a Inch concentration of cholesterol in the blood increases the body's ability to fight off infections it typically also increases the risk of dying from a stroke or heart attack, two of the most common causes of death However, in a recently completed ten-year study of people eighty-five and older, higher cholesterol levels tended to be associated with greater longevity.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the contrast between the highlighted effect of high cholesterol levels and the result of the study?
The efficacy of a placebo may not _________ deception: inert sugar pills have been shown to reduce the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome even in patients who were explicitly told they were receiving a placebo.
It is nn ironic reversal that just those politicians who most vociferously lambasted the distorting complexities of the country's tax system are now the ones_________an agreement that worsens the mess.
Scientists have recently confirmed that Mercury possesses a lot of ice._________discovery for a place that ranks among the hottest in the solar system.
Typefaces, in one sense, are just like styles of shoes: they________ because different people have different tastes and identities and because both creators and users value novelty for its own sake.
The politician's record while in office, though (i)_________- hardly accounts for her high standing three decades later
—a standing all the more (it)_________because of continuing assaults on her reputation during those years.
As originally formulated, the selfish-herd theory of prey species aggregation assumed that predatory attacks were equally likely to be launched from any position within the environment. In some circumstances (e.g.. avian predators attacking prey from above), such an approach is appropriate. However, as James et at. argue, in many predator-prey associations, attacks are unlikely to occur from positions within the group. For example, it is likely that an ambushing predator waiting in the path of a group would be detected before the group moves over its position. Hence, in many ecological situations, predatory attacks on grouped prey will occur exclusively from outside the group. In such circumstances, there is a strong premium to a group member in being in the interior of the group.
The passage suggests that compared to members of the prey groups in "some circumstances." certain members of the prey groups in "many ecological situations" are likely to be less
Carbon dating of charcoal gathered from a Nok iron smelter at Intini. Nigeria, suggests thai iron technology was established there by 410 B.C. This may not be the oldest smelter in sub-Saharan Africa, however. Archaeologists have located evidence of iron-smelting in the Termit Hills of Niger from as early as 1400 B.C.. but skeptics say the wood used for that dating could have already been centuries old when burned as fuel—a problem that dogs carbon dating, especially in arid places like Niger, where wood desiccates and lasts longer. Of course, the same problem could distort dates for the Intini furnace as well, but here there is an important piece of corroborating evidence: Nok pottery found inside the furnace alongside the charcoal
The passage is primarily concerned with
