The Devil's Cloth
Book by French historian Michel Pastoureau
The Devil's Cloth is a book by Michel Pastoureau. The book was originally published in French in April 1991, under the title L'étoffe du diable : une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés.[1] The English edition was published in July 2001. It is about the cultural biases surrounding striped patterns, and the cultural history of these patterns, in Western culture.[2][3][4]
The Devil's Cloth begins with a medieval scandal. When the first Carmelites arrived in France from the Holy Land, the religious order required its members to wear striped habits, prompting turmoil and denunciations in the West that lasted fifty years until the order was forced to accept a quiet, solid color. The medieval eye found any surface in which a background could not be distinguished from a foreground disturbing. Thus striped clothing was relegated to those on the margins or outside the social order—jugglers and prostitutes, for example—and in medieval paintings the devil himself is often depicted wearing stripes.
— Michel Pastoureau, The Devil's cloth, Angeline Goreau, The New York Times Book Review[5]
References
- ^ "L'Etoffe du diable. Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés". Seuil. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
- ^ Sekules, DR Veronica (2003-01-01). "The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric by Michel Pastoureau". Textile. 1 (1): 110–112. doi:10.1080/17518350.2003.11428637. ISSN 1475-9756. S2CID 193598987.
- ^ "The Devil's Cloth". Goodreads. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
- ^ National Gallery of Art (U.S.) (2009). The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff collection : selected works. Internet Archive. Washington [D.C.] : National Gallery of Art. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-84822-050-8.
- ^ Pastoureau, Michel (July 2001). "The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric". Columbia University Press.
Further reading
"The Devil's Cloth: Chapter 1 sample". 4 June 2003.
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