The New Taste by Susan L Siegfried

The New Taste by Susan L Siegfried

A fascinating consideration of the dynamic relationship between fashion, art, and the modernizing forces of the early nineteenth century
 
Across the visual arts in France and Britain in the 1820s and 1830s a dynamic culture of fashion was taking shape. Wide-ranging in taste and driven by a quest for the new, fashion flourished in the period’s expansive print production, while the fine arts negotiated demands for novelty more paradoxically, partly by reviving styles from the past. Susan L. Siegfried argues that the intersections between fashion, costume, and art in these pivotal decades embody the fractured conditions of early nineteenth-century modernity.
 
The New Taste examines depictions of clothing and hairstyles in fashion plates, paintings, prints, and sculpture by artists including Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Horace Vernet, Achille Devéria, and Bertel Thorvaldsen, alongside texts by writers such as Honoré de Balzac and Thomas Carlyle. Siegfried reveals how both the commercial and the fine arts responded to social and economic transformations, including colonialism, changes in print technology and textile manufacture, as well as perceptions of the male dandy and the active role of women as consumers. Highlighting a largely overlooked period in art and fashion, this richly illustrated volume offers insights into the social, artistic, and gendered questions that troubled the shift from classicism to realism.

Susan L. Siegfried is Denise Riley Collegiate Professor Emerita of the History of Art and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780300282177
ISBN 10	0300282176
Title	The New Taste
Author	Susan L Siegfried
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Yale University Press
Year published	2026-01-06
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.