Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944) (77 works)

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Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1945) - American illustrator. He became famous as the creator of the image of a sophisticated lyrical heroine, called the "Gibson Girl".

At the turn of the century, illustrations in magazines played the same role in people's lives that television plays today. From there came fashionable styles, behavior and stereotypes.

If now a TV viewer compares herself with the heroine of a TV series or film, and builds her life according to the biography of film actresses and singers, then the magazine reader was guided by the heroines of short instructive stories or their images in magazines.

In the 1890s, such a role model became the “Gibson Girl,” a fictional collective image of the ideal heroine. She received a good upbringing and is quite traditional in her views and manners, however, every now and then a sly or rebellious spark flashes through her eyes. She is ideal in everything, and even the most correct reader will find in her an example to follow. Gibson's girl is above envy and vanity, above base emotions, however, she is not arrogant and does not boast of her “supra-worldliness”. She positioned herself as an achievable ideal, and this became the key to her popularity.

And although the heroine changed her appearance from illustration to illustration (in fact, these were images of completely different women), her image was easily recognizable due to the manner of writing.

The author of these popular illustrations was Charles Dana Gibson, born in 1867 in Massachusetts. In the 1890s-1920s he collaborated with such famous publications as Scribner's, Harpers, Collier's, and The Century. The illustrations were done in ink, and served as an example not only of fashion trends, but also of life in general. Gibson's girl was extolled by men and copied by women, while short captions accompanied the drawings with comments and explanations that revealed the historical and sociological implications of the illustrations.

Barbie 1900s

The Gibson girl was so popular that she became a symbol of the era. Her recognizable image (noble features, wasp waist and pinned hair high) was found not only in magazine illustrations, but also on household items. From 1895 to the mid-1910s, America experienced real “Gibsomania”: images of the heroine were embroidered on fabric, burned on wood and leather, and engraved in metal. The Gibson girl looked out from the fans, umbrella stands, pillows, tablecloths, bedspreads. The heroine was immortalized in songs, poems and even cinematic productions! Hundreds of girls from good families, accompanied by governesses, flocked to Charles Gibson's studio to become the prototype of their favorite heroine.

Over time, the Gibson Girl acquired a partner - an ideal Gibson Man in all respects. He was both a romantic and a realist, standing firmly on his feet. It reflected all the girlish dreams about the “brilliant party” - a young man who constantly and sincerely admires his chosen one and at the same time has weight and authority in society. But no matter how ideal the beloved heroine’s groom was, each series of drawings emphasized the superiority of a woman over a man. The center of the universe created by the artist was still Gibson's girl. This couple can be considered a kind of prototype of Barbie and Ken, symbolizing popular culture in the 1900s. In one of the series of 1899, the artist even depicted the entire life cycle of the Gibson girl from a teenager to a venerable ancestor.

From the steamship of modern times

The outbreak of the First World War weakened public interest in their favorites. Mass consciousness slowly turned from arrogant optimism to restrained cynicism, within which there was no place for enthusiasm for the couple of Gibson's heroes. During the First World War, Charles Gibson introduced the illustrations of his students into the world, and uplifting subjects became the prevailing themes of their drawings. After the war, the artist headed Life magazine, which at one time gave him a start in life, and he practically moved away from illustrating magazines. There were two reasons for this: firstly, now he could devote himself entirely to academic oil painting (previously he did not have enough time for it), and, secondly, after the First World War the era of flappers came, and the ideal of the Gibson girl slowly became go back to the past. She no longer had such authority - the images of the artist John Held became icons of style. Flat-chested, short-haired, relaxed, shocking girls - flappers - have replaced the elegant and sensual women of the turn of the century. If the Gibson girl built her life in accordance with the advice of her parents and smart books, flappers professed the cult of sports and youth. They smoked, contradicted their fathers, got jobs, ate in cafes and visited hairdressers. A Gibson girl would never have stooped to such “disgrace”!

However, turn-of-the-century symbols continued to appear on the pages of magazines well into the 1920s, and although their authority was notno matter how weakened, the public favorably accepted the new illustrations. The last surge of nostalgia for the “Belle Epoque” came from Hollywood films of the early 1940s. Charles Dana Gibson himself died in 1944, still surrounded by the halo of his former glory.