Stripes. A cultural history.
Threshold| N° d'inventaire | 23801 |
| Format | 24 x 28 |
| Détails | 160 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782021477948 |
What could Saint Joseph and Obelix, the medieval prostitute and the baseball umpire, the Carmelite friars and the bathers of the Belle Époque, the sans-culottes of the year II and jazz musicians have in common? They wear striped clothing, a sign of their situation on the margins or outside the social order. An ambiguous structure, which does not clearly distinguish figure from background, the stripe has long remained in Europe a mark of exclusion or transgression. The Middle Ages saw striped fabrics as diabolical, and modern society has long continued to make them the sartorial attribute of all those it placed at the lowest end of its scale (slaves, servants, sailors, convicts). However, from the Romantic era onwards, these degrading stripes, without really disappearing, began to be rivaled by stripes of another nature, carrying new ideas: freedom, youth, pleasure, humor. Today, the two value systems coexist. But there are stripes and then there are stripes. The stripes of the banker are not the stripes of the criminal; those of zebra crossings or prison gates are not the stripes of the seaside or sports fields. By exploring this long history of the Western stripe, Michel Pastoureau questions more broadly the origin, status, and functioning of visual codes within a given society. What is an infamous mark? A sign of exclusion? Why are striped surfaces more visible than plain surfaces? Is this true everywhere in the world? Is it a neurobiological fact or a cultural problem?
What could Saint Joseph and Obelix, the medieval prostitute and the baseball umpire, the Carmelite friars and the bathers of the Belle Époque, the sans-culottes of the year II and jazz musicians have in common? They wear striped clothing, a sign of their situation on the margins or outside the social order. An ambiguous structure, which does not clearly distinguish figure from background, the stripe has long remained in Europe a mark of exclusion or transgression. The Middle Ages saw striped fabrics as diabolical, and modern society has long continued to make them the sartorial attribute of all those it placed at the lowest end of its scale (slaves, servants, sailors, convicts). However, from the Romantic era onwards, these degrading stripes, without really disappearing, began to be rivaled by stripes of another nature, carrying new ideas: freedom, youth, pleasure, humor. Today, the two value systems coexist. But there are stripes and then there are stripes. The stripes of the banker are not the stripes of the criminal; those of zebra crossings or prison gates are not the stripes of the seaside or sports fields. By exploring this long history of the Western stripe, Michel Pastoureau questions more broadly the origin, status, and functioning of visual codes within a given society. What is an infamous mark? A sign of exclusion? Why are striped surfaces more visible than plain surfaces? Is this true everywhere in the world? Is it a neurobiological fact or a cultural problem?