Today's outfit is inspired by black Madonnas, a devotional image of Mary and Jesus that depicts them both with dark skin. There are various reasons for that, and a lot of unknowns, too. It's a fascinating little corner of the art history world. I don't know much about the images, honestly. For my purposes, I find that many examples of black Madonnas were simply beautiful images that I found inspired for this project.
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Today's outfit is based loosely on Our Lady of Guidance in Manilla. The embroidery is very elaborate! I knew that I couldn't create a graphic that elaborate without my computer getting very, very grumpy. So I simplified it somewhat. If the flowers look familiar, they are a remix of folk flowers that I created in Illustrator. That's probably my absolute favorite thing about digital art: the ability to use, reuse, and remix assets for endless possibilities.
Feel free to let me know what you think. We're one quarter of the way through the months and there's plenty more to come!
This is so beautiful. I have always found Black Madonnas really fascinating. There's a great blog called People of Color in Art History and she often posts about them.
ReplyDeleteI follow Medieval POC and I think I found it because of you :) My BA is in Art History and I love reading a blog that is so thoroughly researched. She's brilliant.
DeleteThe information on Black Madonnas is pretty thin, but I really, really wanted to include something inspired by them. I've been a little gradient happy with this series but I think it works here.
these gowns, made for the Madonnas are so intricate and so dense in their textures--i think you captured the idea really well! sewing these dresses and mantillas for parades and holidays is always a great honor.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit, I didn't do much research into the significance of statues like these. I honestly just saw how beautiful they are. I was raised Catholic so I think somewhere in the back of my mind I still have a certain reverence for devotional figures.
DeleteThis looked pretty flat til I added a pattern to the body of the dress. It's amazing what one little change can do!