Style Imitating Art: Floral Forms by Emil James Bisttram

“Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.”

Miranda Priestly, The Devil Wears Prada

While it may not be all that groundbreaking, I do love a floral overload especially when spring finally arrives in the cold North Country, so I was very excited to style an outfit for this week’s art challenge. Keep reading for more details…

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Terri of MeadowTree Style, and Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as curator, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the curator by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the curator will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join! You are invited to share your images on Instagram or other social media platforms. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Terri, and Shelbee or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

The Inspiration Artwork

The inspiration artwork was chosen by Terri. You can read why she picked this work here.

The Artwork

Floral Forms by Emil Bisttram

About the Artist: Emil James Bisttram

Emil James Bisttram was a Hungarian-American modernist painter. Born in Nagylak, Hungary on April 7, 1895, his family immigrated to the Lower East Side of New York City when he was 11 years old. His artistic talent emerged early which led him first to the National Academy of Art and Design followed by additional education from Cooper Union, Parsons, and the Art Student’s League. Soon after he completed his schooling, Bisttram quickly obtained a teaching position, first at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts and later at the Master Institute of the Roerich Museum.

In the summer of 1930, Bisttram visited Taos, New Mexico, for the first time. He later won a Guggenheim Fellowship to study mural painting in Mexico in 1931 and he subsequently fell in love with the scenery in that part of the world. This love led him to move to Taos and he called it home for the rest of his life.

During the years of the Great Depression, Bisttram financially supported himself with various federal commissions for murals including works at the Robert F. Kennedy Building in Washington, D.C., the Taos County Courthouse in Taos, New Mexico, and the Federal Courthouse in Roswell, New Mexico.

In 1932, he opened the Heptagon Gallery and the Taos School of Art. He co-founded the Transcendental Painting Group with a collective of Santa Fe artists in 1938. In 1952, he co-founded the Taos Art Association and went on to win the Grand Prize for Painting at the New Mexico State Fair in 1959. He was an active member of the Taos art scene during his entire forty plus years living there.

He passed away on February 26, 1976, at the age of 80. Just prior to his death in 1975, he received one final honor when his birthday, April 7, was declared Emil Bisttram Day, a New Mexico state holiday.

About the Art: Floral Forms

Floral Forms is a 1935 watercolor painting over traces of graphite on paper in which Bisttram applied his trademark style of dynamic symmetry, which is a proportioning system and natural design methodology intended to achieve the best possible approximation of the golden ration. Red, orange, and yellow dominant the foreground in the shapes of flower petals on a background of mottled blue. There are also diagonals and other hard lines in teal and orange spaced intentionally to direct the viewer’s eye in a certain way. I am not sure which way exactly because that dynamic symmetry business is really confusing.

The original work, which measures with its frame 24 x 19 inches (60.96 x 48.26 cm), was gifted by Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Hollander to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where it resides but is not currently on view. The gallery label includes the following two quotes by the artist.

“Art should concern itself not with imitation but with creation, otherwise it fails in its prime purpose: that of inspiring and stimulating thought.”

Emil Bisttram

“Abstraction, I found was merely expressing ideas in simple symbolic fashion. In simple planes and colors and lines. It’s then you discover that there is more to art than just what you see. There’s imagination, there’s beauty.”

Emil Bisttram

There is beauty, indeed, Mr. Bisttram. I could not agree more.

References/Resources

• Emil Bisttram: Wikipedia
• Emil Bisttram
• Floral Forms
• The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• Dynamic symmetry: Wikipedia

About My Outfit

Okay, y’all, I am so excited to share this one! As soon as I saw Terri’s art pick this week, I knew that I had to plug in my sewing machine and transform this hideous red floral maxi dress into something much more fabulous. This was my intent when I purchased the dress on clearance at Kohl’s for $8. I absolutely loved the color and the print, but you can see in this next photo what a horrible, awful, terribly unflattering dress it is. But it was only $8 and there is a lot of fabric for just $8 and I once saw Nancy convert a maxi dress to a kimono by slitting the front open and hemming it. I figured now that I have a sewing machine, I could turn this ugly dress into an amazing duster in exactly the same way. So I got to work and the result is even better than I expected.

So now that I had the perfect duster to style for this gorgeous floral artwork, I went digging in my old magic closet room to see what type of red, orange, and yellow garden was blooming in there. I plucked this old patterned slip dress from the depths of my fashion archives and discovered that the colors and different patterns were very close representations of some of the shapes and colors in the painting. But alas, this old dress is now two sizes too big on me, so I required a belt for both function and fashion.

As a nod to Emil Bisttram’s home of Taos, New Mexico, and also because it is my current style aesthetic, I added a whole bunch of Western elements to my outfit from my head straight down to my toes. Since it was all about the flowers, I wore my new white cowgirl hat that is painted with pink roses, an old red floral scarf tied in a cowgirl style bow around my neck, a tan leather belt with gold embossing and a big gold buckle, and my two-tan-toned Tony Lama cowboy boots. That last one is a bit of a tongue twister…two-tan-toned Tony Lama cowboy boots. And because there is a bit of blue and teal in the painting, I wore red copper earrings with a dot of turquoise on the ends.

And the final result…Me feeling pretty fine in an abundance of florals!

By the way, I bought the same ugly dress in a ditsy floral print that has also been transformed into an equally fabulous duster. Stay tuned for that one coming soon.

So how do you think I did with this challenge?

Be sure to check out Terri’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Salazar’s take on it. If you would like to participate in this challenge and have your photo included in Terri’s review post on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, be sure to email your photos to her at meadowtreestyle@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. I look forward to seeing your creative interpretations of Emil Bisttram’s 1935 Floral Forms. 

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Linking up with these Fabulous Link Parties.

Outfit Details: Duster-Kohl’s / Slip Dress-Target / Boots-Tony Lama (Thrifted) / Hat-Wona Trading / Earrings-Handmade and Hammered / Scarf and Belt-I can’t remember