THE ARMADA PORTRAIT: COSTUME AND THE BODY POLITIC

Authors : Esra MELİKOĞLU

Pages : 1-10

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Publication Date : 2014-08-16

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :    The Armada Portrait : Costume And The Body Politic Esra MELiKOGLU      Fashion and image-making were a pivotal strategy in transforming a 25-year-old woman, into the much revered Queen Elizabeth I, indeed, it encouraged the cult of Gloriana, the virgin queen, who, during her 45-year reign, defeated the Spanish Armada and thus saved Protestant England from Spanish catholic domination as well as Jed her nation to prosperity, peace and primacy as a great colonial force. In the Armada Portrait , which was painted by an unknown painter, the body of Queen Elizabeth I, clad in ostentatious costumes, functioned as an emblem of the body of imperial England and its politics. Image-making intervened: the queen's heavily structured, padded, stiff and richly embroidered costumes were meant to counteract any impression of a soft female shape and thus female frailty. Moreover, one of the dominant principles in the pattern of her costumes is a striking centrality as emblematic of her central position as ruler, her centralised government, success in elevating England to a primary world power, its central position to its colonies and still on a larger level, of the centralised Ptolemaic cosmology.
Keywords : ARMADA, PORTRAIT, COSTUME

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