We are here shown the value of a carefully considered outline which is sharply registered on the background by posing figure against the light, a method for suppressing all details not effecting the outline.
III. EGYPT, BYZANTIUM, GREECE AND ROME
During the periods antedating Christ, when the Roman empire was all-powerful, the women of Egypt, Byzantium, Greece and Rome, wore gilded wigs (see [Plate I], Frontispiece), arranged in Psyche knots, and banded; sandals on their feet, and a one-piece garment, confined at the waist by a girdle, which fell in close folds to the feet, a style to develop later into the classic Greek.
The Greek garment consisted of a great square of white linen, draped in the deft manner of the East, to adapt it to the human form, at once concealing and disclosing the body to a degree of perfection never since attained. There were undraped Greek garments left to hang in close, clinging folds, even in the classic period. It is this undraped and finely-pleated robe (see [Plate XXI]) hanging close to the figure, and the two-piece garment (see [Plate IV]) with its short tunic of the same material, extending just below the waist line in front, and drooping in a cascade of ripples at the sides, as low as the knees, that Fortuny (Paris) has reproduced in his tea gowns.
An Englishwoman told us recently that her great-great-grandmother used to describe how she and others of her time (Empire Period) wet their clothes to make them cling to their forms, à la Grecque!
The classic Greek costume was often a sleeveless garment, falling in folds, and when confined at waist line with cord the upper part bloused over it; the material was draped so as to leave the arms free, the folds being held in place by ornamental clasps upon the shoulders. The fitting was practically unaided by cutting; squares or straight lengths of linen being adjusted to the human form by clever manipulation. The adjusting of these folds, as we have said, developed into an art.
The use of large squares or shawls of brilliantly dyed linen, wool and later silk, is conspicuous in all the examples showing woman as decoration.
The long Gothic cape succeeds it, that enveloping circular garment, with and without the hood, and clasped at the throat, in which the Mother of God is invariably depicted. Her cape is the celestial royal blue.
The stained silk gauzes, popular with Greek dancers, were made into garments following the same classic lines, and so were the gymnasium costumes of the young girls of Greece. Isadora Duncan reproduces the latter in many of her dances.