Principles of Modernism: Line for Line's Sake

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: Study for Louise de Broglie

This 1853 drawing by Ingres (pronounced somewhat like Ang) shows

his masterly use of line to create form and likeness.

For centuries line was a tool that artists used to depict a 3-dimensional world on a flat surface.

Franz Kline, Buttress, 1956, 

Collection of the Museum of Modern Art

Modernism aimed to free art's tools. Kline did not

use line to portray anything else. His lines were the art.

Line for the sake of line influenced fabric design as

in these mid-20th-century abstract feedsacks, drapes and dress prints that celebrate line.

High fashion and low....

Princess Elizabeth about 1950 in a print by Gerald Wilde 

for Ascher Ltd. (London)

Feedsack

Feedsack

Dress print

Drapery fabric

Feedsack

The great appeal of some antique quilts

is how they echo the abstract artists' celebration of the line.

Crazy quilts from early 20th century

String quilt from about 1960

See another post about line:

http://historicallymodernquilts.blogspot.com/2013/11/art-deco-textiles.html