Tartuffe

For my historical interpretation of Moliere’s Tartuffe, I began by researching the time in which the play originally took place; 1664. During the 1600s cold temperatures had settled across the North Atlantic region in what is referred to today as, The Little Ice Age. When reading about this topic, I came across an article which included a quote from the 1600s which stated that it was so cold, the King of France’s hair had frozen overnight while he slept. This quote inspired me in my initial design ideas for Tartuffe.

A print development for the women’s costumes, playing on the historical idea of flowers representing women in Dutch still-life paintings.

As I often rely on my use of colour to create visual differentiation between villains and heros, I challenged myself by using only three colours in my design process. Without being able to separate characters into cool/warm tones, I was pushed to convey their individual stories through my use of texture, shapes, and silhouettes.