First a characteristic scene from the late Middle Ages, portraying a mid-fifteenth-century Italian battle. Note that this is an all-cavalry scene; the horsemen carry enormous lances, and wear heavy-duty armor.
(The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.)Nobles continued to fight in later centuries, but there was growing emphasis on looking educated and graceful. The young man portrayed here (from mid-sixteenth-century Italy) holds a book, and the portrait emphasizes his gracefulness—in the overall pose, and in such details as his hands, with a ring on one finger. Despite the dark color, the clothing is very fancy: bows on his hat, and on his coat buttons, complicated stitching, and a series of cuts designed to show off the lining.
(Image from Wikimedia, under a Creative Commons licence.)This sketch of an early seventeenth-century French nobleman makes the same point; every item in this look required careful and expensive tending—the hair, the beard, the ruff around the neck. The look seems deliberately to blur gender boundaries, but this young man in fact was one of the most violent in seventeenth-century Paris; he fought in the royal army, and in about a dozen private duels, before the king finally had him decapitated.
(Image from Wikimedia, under a Creative Commons licence.)Women's dress of course was even more expensive. These two examples come from the mid-seventeenth century. The one (a portrait by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck) shows the richness of the fabrics that might be used; the other (a portrait of the French writer Madame de Sévigné) shows a more casual look, but one that cost plenty of money— note the lace and gauze, the pearl buttons on the arms and the jewels buttoning the front. As in the portrait of the young man above, a lot is made of the young woman's hand. Here and in the two following portraits, the message is, it's not just about clothing; these people have been trained to carry themselves well.
(The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.)
(Image from Wikimedia, under a Creative Commons licence.)The new civil servants who became so prominent after 1500 had a very different look. The portrait shows the French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, wearing the black robes that marked him as an official. The look is dignified, restrained, non-flashy; but his shirt underneath is abundantly trimmed with lace, making the point that he too has money to spend on his clothing.
(Image from Wikimedia, under a Creative Commons licence.)
