Product Description

The fantastic costumes of Carnival's Golden Age (1870-1930) depicted themes drawn from mythology, epic literature, history, nature, and whimsy. Beginning with the first tableaux and pageant balls of the Twelfth Night Revellers, Rex, and the Knights of Momus, Golden Age costume design was a tremendous spectacle of whimsy, mythology and satire. Costumes included an extraordinary array of creatures: demons, fairies, magicians, animals and vegetables (real and imagined), and a host of others. Many of the artists and designers who created the fabled pageants have remained obscure or unknown, their tremendous body of work largely forgotten. Presented in this collection are stunning examples of original costume designs as rendered in water colour and lithographs -- most of them reproduced here for the first time, including some whose artists were, until now, unknown.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388476 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

About the Author
Henri Schindler, a New Orleans native, is the acclaimed designer of Mardi Gras parades and balls for some of the city's most eminent societies. He is highly regarded among Carnival historians for his knowledge of the festival's rich cultural legacy and its forgotten artists and builders.

Customer Reviews

AWESOME FOR DESIGNING COSTUMES
I DESIGN MARDI GRAS COSTUMES. THIS BOOK HAS BEEN EVERY USEFUL FOR IDEAS

Savor the "Real" New Orleans Carnival
If you wish to view the real New Orleans carnival celebration, take a look through this window opened by its legendary artist/historian, Henri Schindler. Schindler is a local icon, the touchstone of this unique cultural expression. Students of cultural and social history as well as art lovers and designers will share delight in Schindler's masterful recreation, through well-researched and entertaining text and beautiful color plates, of the "golden age" of the celebration--an oeuvre to which Schindler adds annually through his own designs for several of the old-line carnival organizations, thus keeping alive the artistic and cultural tradition of which he writes in this and his previous books. The reader comes to know, through the insights of a true "insider", the meaning and spirit of the "real" Carnival.

How Mardi Gras is NOT about nudity...
This book is exquisite.
In New Orleans, Mardi Gras as practiced by the faithfull is the high holy event of the year. Mr. Schindler has documented the aesthetic traditions of the rites in a series of beautiful books- this is the lastest and focuses on costume designs from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The plates are all original drawings by the great designers of Carnivals' past (Mr. Schindler is the great designer of Carnivals present). New Orleans Mardi Gras is rooted in the aesthetic of 19th century Italian opera and this book has some truly surreal illustrations. Any Carnival faithfull, opera fan, theatre designer or just folks who love costume parties should love this book. It also stands as a serious work of art history- the talent and effort that go into mounting parades and tableaux balls in New Orleans get overlooked and all of Mr. Schindlers books on the subject document a rich history of artists and artisans who worked in the city and built its most revered tradition.