Dress c. 1936

Charles Criswell made this watercolour of a dress, we don’t know when, but sometime between 1855 and 1995, which are the years he lived. I love the washy blue he’s used for the gown, it almost dissolves into the flowers that bloom across it. The texture is all on the surface here. I can see how the watercolour bleeds into the paper, giving it this ethereal, dreamy quality. The dress itself seems almost like a ghost, a memory of something beautiful. Look at how Criswell has used these gentle vertical lines to create the form of the inner dress. It’s so economical, so simple, but it works. I like that they are actually stripes. It reminds me a little of Giorgio Morandi, who made all these paintings of bottles, exploring the same shapes and forms over and over again. Maybe Criswell was doing the same thing here, exploring the essence of a dress and what it means to adorn and to decorate. Art is an ongoing conversation, isn't it?