James Tissot: Fashion & Faith is the first major reassessment of Tissot’s career in over 20 years. New scholarship on the artist presented in this international retrospective, co-organized with the Musée d’Orsay, and the accompanying monographic publication demonstrate that even Tissot’s most fanciful society paintings reveal rich and complex commentary on topics such as nineteenth-century society, religion, fashion, and politics. Below is an excerpt from art and fashion historian Justine De Young’s essay in the exhibition’s catalogue, which argues that Tissot’s fascination with ruffles, ribbons, and ruching was about more than just fashion.
