Coursing Costumes and Deco Dianas
摘要
This chapter is about greyhounds as elegant accessories in the history of feminist iconography—a function that they had long served in the past, but which became particularly prominent in the early twentieth century. Initially the emphasis is on the function of the Diana myth within George Meredith’s novel Diana of the Crossways (1885) and in a once acclaimed painting, Diana of the Uplands, by Charles Wellington Furse (1868—1904), purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1906. By the 1920s greyhounds and other slim breeds were regular motifs among the pictures and artistic objects that had come to be labelled ‘Art Deco’, a geometric mode epitomised in the designs of ‘Erté’ (Romain de Tirtoff). The greyhound silhouette now belonged to modernistic ‘streamlining’, a powerful association that was reinforced by the growing popularity of urban racing and some stylish greyhound owners.