My Inspiration for May 2023

This May was strange; a month of wistfulness and intense yearnings… I was “athirst for far-away things”, and people, to quote Tagore. The most romantic things filled my mind this month artistically; Pre-Raphaelite paintings, the Sleeping Beauty illustrations, paintings by Henri le Sidaner, Elaine, the Lady of Shalott in art and Victorian photography, J.J. Grandville’s series of drawings called ‘Flowers Personified’ which is absolutely fun and whimsical… I’ve been enoying the fields of poppies and the dew-drenched roses, and also Anais Nin’s diaries.

“I am still ashamed of myself, afraid to let myself go, to let things pour out of me; I am dreadfully inhibited, and that is because I have not yet learned to accept myself as I am.”

(Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life: the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork (translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans)

“I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.
O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land…”

(Tagore)

Mary Ellen Mark – Arlo Guthrie & Jacklyn Hyde, 1969

Picture found here.

Poppy Field on Misty Morning by Teruo Araya

Vivienne Mok Photography: Natascha, Uttwil

Picture found here.

Palais Longchamp, Marseille, France ~ Jean F. Vole

by i.Anton ☂



Picture found here.

Picture found here.

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J.J. Grandville: Flowers Personified (Les fleurs animées)

Grandville, Les Fleurs Animées, 1847, Rose

Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, known under the pseudonym of Grandville, was an extremely imaginative and somewhat underrated French Romantic artist, illustrator and caricaturist who was active in the first half of the nineteenth century. Grandville made a series of fifty engravings and two wood engravings called “Les fleurs animées”, translated as “Animated Flowers” or “Flowers Personified”, which served to accompany the texts written by Taxile Delord, 2 wood engravings, 50 engravings, Gabriel de Gonet, Paris 1846. The series of whimsical, playful and dreamy illustrations was completed in 1846 and published posthumously in 1847; Grandville died in March 1847 at the age of forty-three. What a beautiful last gift to the world from such a genius mind.

Each of the fifty illustrations is devoted to a single flower and the flower is presented in the shape of a woman; a splendidly dressed woman. Those who are well versed in the history of the nineteenth century female fashions will recognise that the silhouettes of the dresses that the flower-ladies are wearing, as well as their hairstyles are based in the real fashions of Grandville’s times, that is, in the 1840s fashion. The flowers are seen wearing the typical 1840s narrow bodice with a bell-shaped skirt and the flower which they are representing is usually decorating their dress and their hair. Often time these flowery beauties are accompanied by none other than their majesty the bugs and Grandville’s portrayal of beetles might just be the cutest one I’ve seen of these, usually, not so cute creatures. At the moment, I feel that the “Rose” is my favourite out of his flower illustrations. She is seated on the throne, like the Queen that she is, wearing a rosebud crown on her head and the rosebuds also decorate her bosom while the rose leaves serve as a trimming on her long flowing skirt. She looks dreamy and humble and sweet as she sits there with her sceptre while the green beetles are gazing at her. In the illustration for “Poppy”, the poppy flower is seen showering the beetles with a rain of poppy seeds and I wonder was Grandville actually trying to make a point there. The “Camellia” has a huge camellia blossom on her chest, like a large red pulsating heart. “Dahlia” and the “Briar Rose”, on the other hand, are sporting a vast dahlia and briar rose flowers as their hair decor. The “Lily” is presented as a shy, wistful bride with a long veil, her dress being held by a beetle. The little Violets are shy girls, hiding under their leaves with their purple heads. “Lilac” has a very interesting lilac bonnet as she is seen conversing with the beetle, probably discussing the deep philosophical questions such as; what is the meaning of life etc. “Tulip” looks a tad oriental with her turban-clad head. As hard as it was to chose my favourites from all of Grandville’s flower illustrations, I have chosen them for this post. Enjoy!

Camellia

Dahlia

Poppy

Briar Rose

Lily

Violet

Orange Blossom

Lilac

Marguerite

Tulip

Carl Krenek – Sleeping Beauty: I’d Sleep Another Hundred Years, O love, for Such Another kiss!

“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;”
“O wake forever, love,” she hears,
“O love, ’t was such as this and this.”

…..

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”
“O happy sleep that lightly fled!”
“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”
“O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”

(Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream)

Carl Krenek (1880-1948), A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty, n.d.

“In the topmost bedchamber of the house he found her. He had stepped over sleeping chambermaids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the place, he finally stood in the door of her sanctuary. Her flaxen hair lay long and straight over the deep green velvet of her bed, and her dress in loose folds revealed the rounded breasts and limbs of a young woman. He opened the shuttered windows. The sunlight flooded down on her. And approaching her, he gave a soft gasp as he touched her cheek, and her teeth through her parted lips, and then her tender rounded eyelids. Her face was perfect to him…”
(Anne Rice, Sleeping Beauty)

French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé said that “To define is to kill. To suggest is to create”, and even before him, the seventeenth century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho wrote that “a poem that suggests 70-80 percent of its subject may be good, but a poem that only suggests 50-60 percent of the subject will always retain its intrigue”. This way of looking at things stuck with me and, suddenly, while looking at this painting by Carl Krenek and wondering why is it that I love it so much, it dawned on me… The reason for my immense appreciation of Carl Krenek’s painting “A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty” is because of its deliberate vagueness.

I have seen many nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrations of this famous fairy tale, but this one strikes me as the most original and perhaps also the most vibrant and flowery one as well. Instead of boring us with architectural details of the chamber where the Sleeping Beauty is sleeping in her bed, and painting all her entourage and all the sleeping courtiers and what not, Krenek focuses on the bare essentials; the slumbering princess and the roses that have grown over her bed, which are the two main motives of the fairy tale and the most recognisable to our eyes. This instantly brings freshness and our eye is excited. This is not to say that Krenek wasn’t detailed in his approach, far from it. The scene is very detailed, but in areas where it matters. Just look at the meticulous way he had painted all the flowers and thorns and branches, how they fill the space beautifully and naturally.

Krenek certainly wasn’t vague when it came to depicting the roses; here is one roses, now you, my dear viewers, imagine the others. No, it seems he really put his heart into all these flowers and they look ever so cheerful and vibrant, from the delicate pink ones above the princess and the more richly coloured red, orange and yellow ones that are growing around her bed. There is little to be seen of the actual Sleeping Beauty; only her pale face with the peacefully closed eyes and her white dress. It seems the roses are more of a main character than she is. Otherwise, I may have preferred to see the princess painted in more details, her beauty more enchanced, but in this painting I find the whole vagueness just delightful and I don’t regret there not being more of a focus on the princess. In fact, our eye may be even more drawn to the princess precisely because we cannot see her clearly. They mystery is alluring.

Sleeping Beauty is perhaps my favourite fairy tale and there are so many ways to look at this story on a symbolic level. Is she really just a princess who fell asleep because of the evil witch, waiting for a kiss to awake her? The theme of awakening can be interpreted in many ways; these days the nature, kissed by spring, is waking up from a long slumber of winter, but also, it can symbolise the girl’s awakening and ripening into womanhood, after that fateful kiss, just as the main character Faustine in the French 1972 film “Faustine and the Beautiful Summer” says, after being kissed by a man for the first time, “With this kiss my life begins!”. Is it the kiss of the Prince which awakens the Sleeping Beauty’s dormant soul, or is a love arrow shot by Cupid from above?

And now, to end the post, here are some beautiful verses from Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Day-Dream”:

“And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold;
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy princess followed him.
“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss!”

Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Heinrich Lefler. Part of a fairy tale calender published by Berger & Wirth, Leipzig, 1905

Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat Guarded the Sacred Shield of Lancelot

“Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where the morning’s earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk… (…)
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it…
(…) … so she lived in fantasy.”

(Lord Tennyson, Idyll of the Kings: Elaine and Lancelot, 1859)

Henry Peach Robinson, Elaine Watching the Shield of Lancelot, 1859

Lady of Shalott, also known as Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat, is by far my favourite and most relatable character from the Arthurian legends. In the poem Lord Tennyson refers to her sweetly also as Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable. The Pre-Raphaelite artists seem to have had a particular penchant for portraying Elaine as well, inspired partly by her rather different depictions in Lord Tennyson’s poetry as well as by Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Mort D’Arthur”. Still, not only Victorian painters but photographers such as Henry Peach Robinson were inspired to portray the loneliness of Elaine’s life in the tower and her exceeding yearning for a knight. Elaine “hath no loyal knight and true”, as Lord Tennyson wrote in another poem about her. The poet also writes that she “lived in fantasy”, and that she is “half-sick of shadows”; hers is a lonely, lovelorn life filled with yearning and pining, and a lot of free time which she uses, it seems, to gaze day and night at Sir Lancelot’s shield. She not only gazes at it and traces its decorations with her pale fingers, but she also tends to it as if it were, and indeed it is in Elaine’s eyes, the most precious object in the world. It is something that belongs to the man she loves oh so desperately. These verses from Delmira Augustini’s poem “From Far Away” made me think of poor Elaine:

“Ah! When you are far away my whole life cries
And to the murmor of your steps even in dreams I smile.
I know you will return, that another dawn will shine.”

The basis for Robinson’s photograph seems to have been the Lord Tennyson’s description of Elaine’s obsession with Sir Lancelot’s shield. The poet writes that Elaine had placed the “sacred shield” in her chamber up a tower to the east where it can be bathed by the first rays of sun, and how she made a silk case for the shield so it doesn’t get rusty, and how she would leave her household all the time to climb the tower and gaze at the shield for hours, tracing every dint and scratch on it completely entranced, imagining all the battles and tournaments that Sir Lancelot had been in, and shivering at the thought that he may almost have died in some of them.

In Sir Thomas Malory’s telling of the events Elaine’s father, the Lord of Astolat, had organised a tournament to which King Arthur and his knights came. Sir Lancelot, who had not originally planned to attend, was persuaded to come and, upon seeing him, Elaine becamse enamoured of him and she begged him to wear her token at the torunament. Sir Lancelot, knowing how jealous Guinevere would be, decided to wear Elaine’s token and compete in the tournament but only under disguise so he takes a different shield, that of Elaine’s brother, and leaves his own shield to Elaine to keep. Here is what Lord Tennyson writes about that moment:

“(…) ’True, my child.
Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me:
What is it?’ and she told him ’A red sleeve
Broidered with pearls,’ and brought it: then he bound
Her token on his helmet, with a smile
Saying, ’I never yet have done so much
For any maiden living,’ and the blood
Sprang to her face and filled her with delight”.

And then Lancelot tells Elaine:
’Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield
In keeping till I come.’ ’A grace to me,’
She answered.’”

Sir Lancelot gets injured in the tournament and Elaine tends to him in her chambers. When he gets better, he thanks Elaine and she returns the shield to him. Now he is aware of her affections for him but he departs nevertheless and Elain dies from a broken heart ten days later. Sir Lancelot later pays for a lavish funeral – as if that is a reparation enough for a broken heart. Hm!

Nick Cave – Are You the One That I’ve Been Waiting For? – Carl Krenek – The Lovers

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s single “(Are You) The One I’ve Been Waiting For?” was released on the 19th May 1997. It was the first out of two singles from their album “The Boatman’s Call” which Nick Cave personally had expressed a dislike for, claiming the album was too personal and that music shouldn’t be that personal. The other single from the album is the song “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere” which is sad but very beautiful as well. For some reason this painting of lovers in the month of May by the Austrian painter Carl Krenek seemed very fitting to accompany the song’s lyrics. I do love the tenderness between the lovers and the way the entire natural space is filled with flowers and leaves.

Carl Krenek, May – The Lovers (Mai – Die Liebenden), 1905, tempera

Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?

I’ve felt you coming, girl, as you drew near
I knew you’d find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my destiny?
Is this how you’ll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat, babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

As you’ve been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I’ve sat and I’ve watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They’re only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There’s a man who spoke wonders
Though I’ve never met him
He said, ‘He who seeks finds
And who knocks will be let in’
I think of you in motion
And just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Abhisarika Nayika (The One Who Goes Out to Meet her Lover) – Indian Love Painting

Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

Abhisarika Nayika, A Painting from a Nayika Series. c 1820

Some time ago I wrote about some really beautiful Indian miniature paintings one of which was the Kangra style painting of Utka Nayika or the heroine anxiously expecting her lover. The nature in those watercolours and the overall mood is dreamy, sensuous, and idyllic, the landscape is especially verdant, lush and fragrant, as if inviting all the love naughtiness to take place, but the paintings that I will be showing in this post have a completely different mood. While Utka Nayika is the one waiting for her lover, usually in a beautiful natural setting, the Abhisarika Nayika is the courageous and daring heroine who goes out into the deepest, darkest depths of the forest to meet her beloved there. Dressed in a splendid blue attire, adorned with all the possible jewellery, she is ready to meet her lover, but before she does, the path is long and thorny. The forest is dark and those clouds don’t look at all promising. They are dark and heavy with rain. There is thunder and lightning. And oh – if only the thunder were the worst thing that awaits the poor, but relentness and brave heroine! No, there are snakes coiling themselves around her foot, there are spooky creatures, forest witches, and who knows what else, in her way. Her light in the darkness, her candle of hope, is the love that she is feeling in her heart and this love is guiding her through all the trials and tribulations.

Abhisarika Nayika

In these paintings we see just how big of a role nature plays in conveying the mood. The heroines are dressed almost the same way in nearly all of these watercolours, usually with elaborate adornment, jewellery, perfume and veils. It is nature here which is changing her robes; from lush and sensuous in the Utka Nayika paintings, to the dark and spooky in the Abhisarika Nayika watercolours. The trees are no longer offering a warm, kind shelter but are instead creating eerie shadows in the moonlight and their long twisted branches are like the long arms of some demon about to grab the nayika around her waist and pull her into the deepest darkest depths of the underworld. The sky is not smiling and calm, but instead the clouds, heavy with rains, are gathering, wanting to spoil the lovers’ night of passion with rain and thunder. The wind is not cooling the heat of the summer, but rather it is swaying the branches of the trees in an unsettling way, and it seems to whisper to the nayika: go home, go home… But of course this nayika will not listen to or take anyone’s advice. She didn’t spent all day picking out that magical midnight blue attire and all that jewellery for nothing! Oh, she will see her man tonight, even if the sky fell down and all the witches and serpents leave their home that night to torment her! She is untouchable. I love the effect of thunder and rain in these paintings, especially in the 1840 one bellow, those rain drops, just marvellous. I have no words at how spooky the portrayal of those witches are. And I truly adore the midnight darkness of the last painting in this post; the dark colour palette with the touches of white in those flowers, and the nayika’s blue attire, truly stunning visually and captures the nocturnal atmosphere.

Abhisarika Nayika – The Heroine Going to Meet her Lover, India, Guler, circa 1810-1820

When the nayika does indeed meet her beloved, her hero or nayaka, this conversation occurs:

Nayaka: “You have enslaved me,dear, by coming here even though not called.”
Nayika: “But, Ghanasyama, clouds came and brought me here.”
Nayaka: “I can’t even see your body in this darkness. I wonder how you found the way.”
Nayika:“Lightning showed me the path.”
Nayaka: “But your feet must have been hurt on the uneven path covered with mud and thorns.”
Nayika: “The elephant of courage which I was riding was very comfortable indeed.”
Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

(taken from “Kangra Paintings on Love”, M.S.Randhawa)

Lady keeping tryst on stormy night, Abhisarika Nayika, Bilaspur, c. 1840

Abhisarika Nayika braves the forest at night to meet her lover, Early 19th century. Kangra

Claude Monet – Irises – Japonisme

“When I am happy I paint the iris, when I am angry the bamboo.”

(Monk Jue Yin)

Claude Monet, Irises, 1914-17

Despite the popularity that Monet’s paintings of water lilies seem to enjoy, the irises were also one of his favourites flowers and they lined the pathways in his garden. During the time of the first world war Monet kept returning to the motif of irises and painted around thirty paintings, or portraits I should say, of them. Each of these paintings is very simple in terms of compositional but instead captures the vibrancy of the irises in various different moods and shades of purple and blue. This portrait of the irises above is perhaps my favourite, or at least it is my favourite at the moment, because of its intense blueness. I just cannot separate my eyes from it! The vibrancy and the depth of that blue! Oh to be a little butterfly and fly into that nocturnal blueness and linger there on and on, listening to its sweet music and inhaling the fragrance of the spring night. There are only five irises in the painting, painted in warm purple and yellow, and yet the entire painting is screaming with the colour of the iris. It is as if the blueness of the petals had spillt itself, like a bottle of ink, all over the garden. There is no boundary anymore between the flowers and the garden, the colours of the petals are spilling everywhere and posessing everything. This deep shade of blue gives the painting a mystical, almost dream-like mood, and the irises, tall and independant, each blossom growing on its own sturdy stem, are laughing and shining in that blueness like the stars. Each long thin leaf is painted in a single brushstroke which, although intensely green in colour, is fading against the dark background.

The interest in the iris was newly awoken in the late nineteenth century, especially in the context of the Art Nouveau, through the influence of the Japanese art. Aemil Fendler wrote in 1897: “We have found the way to nature again, and it lies through Japan. No longer does the living art of our time take its nurture from past styles, no longer does it seek its models in the pattern books of the Renaissance or the Rococo… The wonderful art of Japan offers a rare combination of untarnished natural freshness with the most refined decorative taste and the highest stylistic assurance: let us be grateful to it for showing us the right path to follow and for opening the eyes of those that have eyes to see.” The manner in which the Japanese artists portrayed the irises brought a freshness and enthusiasm into western art; a new way of seeing the flower, for those who have eyes to see. The iris itself is just perfectly shaped for the aesthetical exploitation, it is a flower made to be immortalised in art, it is mysterious and slightly erotic, and perfect for all sorts of arabesque-like Art Nouveau stylisations. The iris seems to embody both the masculine and the feminine traits both at once; its flower petals being shaped in such an ambiguous manner, and the stems and the leaves being vertical, tall and strong. Indeed, the iris has gone a long way, from being seen as merely ornamental and painted as such to being the shining star of the canvases such as these by Monet.

Arhur Hughes – Fair Rosamund

“‘My Rosamonde, my only Rose,
That pleasest best mine eye,
The fairest flower in all the worlde
To feed my fantasye…”

Arhur Hughes, Fair Rosamund, 1854

Arthur Hughes’ painting “Fair Rosamund” may be vibrant and beautiful visually, but the story behind this artwork is sinster and cruel. A beautiful, fair, long-haired and rosy cheeked young woman in the garden, what can be a more innocent motif to paint? But things are not as flowery and fragrant as they seem…

According to the legend, Fair Rosamund was the mistress of Henry II of England and he had created a garden specially for her at his royal residence in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which was accesible only by a maze so that no one else could find their way in. How lovely to think of Fair Rosamund, safe there in her garden, a flower amongst the flowers. Unfortunately, one day, in 1176, Henry’s wife Eleanor of Aquitaine found her way into the garden, found Fair Rosamund there and poisoned her. Poisoning as a method of murder has been historically linked to women, perhaps because it’s less direct and more passive-agressive, an art that women have mastered. In the Victorian era poisoning was also a common choice of murder so perhaps the motif resonated with the Victorian artists. The tale of Fair Rosamund was a popular motif for the nineteenth century artists, in particular the Pre-Raphaelites and those associated with the movement.

Now, this is really one of those paintings where every single detail tells a story and where you eye can just wander all over the canvas and take in all the details, delight in the colours, and let it all come alive. Despite the beautiful, lush and fragrant garden setting, Hughes chose to depict a dramatic moment when the Queen has entered the garden. Drama is lurking from the background. In the foreground there is Fair Rosamund with her beautiful, long wavy coppery hair and her sweet round face. I must say, I do love the way Arthur Hughes paints female faces, they are just so lovely. Her medieval-style dress, in green and purple, seems to echo the colour of the irises that are growing beneath her feet. She looks like a nymph almost, with her coopery locks all loose and untied, a flower-child, a hippie gal. Her hand gesture, her slightly parted lips and a look of worry in her eyes suggest that something is not quite right. Something has disturbed her and it is evident. In the background we see the Queen Eleanor who has just entered the garden. The path that leads from the garden gates where the Queen is standing to the Fair Rosamund is lined with blue foxgloves; a flower known for its poisonous properties. The painting may be silent, but the flowers in it speak volumes. The irises before Rosamund are not perhaps solely here for the aesthetic, as beautiful as they are. The Greek goddess Iris, amongst other things, had also the task of chaperoning the souls of the dead females to the Elysian fields. In a way, this hints to Fair Rosamund’s fate; from her flower garden she will depart into the Elysian fields.

Arthur Hughes was not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but he was closely associated with the movement, he exhibited his paintings alongside the Pre-Raphaelites and he focused on portraying medieval themes. As I said, I really love the vibrant colour and the attention to details in this painting. I just cannot get enough of this painting. Just look the play of the sunlight and shadows on the garden path and the fallen leaves, how alive it seems. The dense ivy, the white roses, all the different shades of green. It is just stunning!

Botticelli – Primavera: The Rose Is Full Blown, The Riches of Flora Are Lavishly Strown

“O come! (…) The rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown…”

Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, tempera on panel, c.1482

These days I was really enjoying Botticelli’s painting “Primavera”; and I took great delight in gazing at all the details and especially gazing at the figures of Flora and the nymph Chloris caught in the wicked embrace of the God Zephyr. This painting needs no introduction because it is so famous in the Western world, but I still felt the need to share its beauty here and to show my appreciation, or rather, adoration. Sandro Botticelli was one of the Medici family’s favourite painters at the time and this painting was probably painted for the occassion of the marriage of Lorenzo Medici’s cousin which took place in 1482 and that is the date usually asigned to the painting. The painting’s themes of love and new beginnings, tied with the arrival of spring, as personified by the Roman Goddess Flora, are fitting for such a happy occassion indeed.

The court poet of the Medici family, Angelo Poliziano, described the garden of Venus as a place of eternal spring and peace, and his descriptions may have served as an inspiration to Botticellli for this painting. As the title “Primavera” suggests, the painting shows the arrival of spring and the celebrations surrounding the event. The arrival of spring is the most joyous time of the year for me! Who would not wish to celebrate it!? For long winter months I yearn to see the flowers blooming, the weeping willows coming alive with many little leaves, the birds singing… It is natural then, that the arrival of spring and the entire season of spring is also tied with the season of love. The central figure in Botticelli’s painting is Venus, the Goddess of Love, in the company of of her son Amor who is flying above her with his love arrows, and the Three Graces, dressed in flimsy white dresses that reveal more than they conceal. Venus is in the centre of the composition but, compared to the other figures, she is standing more in the background, as if she is allowing the spring to come before her. In the far right corner is the God Mercury who is holding off a rainy cloud with his stick; nothing is allowed to disturb the idyll of the beautiful garden where orange trees are ripe with fruit and a sweet fragranace of flowers colours the air. The Roman poet Lucretius’ poetic work “De Rerum Natura” may have also served as an inspiration to Botticelli and indeed in some of the verses we find similarities:

“Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus’ boy,
The winged harbinger, steps on before…
Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all
With colours and with odours excellent…”

It is as if Botticelli is describing these verses because most of the characters from the painting are here in the poem; the Venus and her ‘boy’, Zephyr and Flora. My favourite part of the painting is the right corner where we have an interesting motif of metamorphosis presented all in one painting, although it doesn’t happen at the same time. Zephyr, the God of Wind, is seen forcefully embracing the beautiful yet frightened nymph Chloris who then transforms into the Goddess Flora who is represented by the woman dressed in a long white gown decorated with little flowers, for she is the Goddess of spring. A woman touched by love becomes all flowery and spring-like; what a beautiful analogy! Here are more verses from Lucretius’s “De Rerum Natura”:

“For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth…”

This “transformation by love” that has happened between Zephyir and Flora is the most beautiful element of the painting for me. Also, I am really enjoying Flora’s fashion choice; the long white gown and flowers. Flora as imagined by Botticelli made me think of a few fashion pictures from the sixties and seventies, and also of the costume worn by the sweet Jane Birkin.

Jane Birkin in “Wonderwall” (dir. Joe Massot – 1968)

Detail

ELLE Magazine – July 7th 1975 Yves Saint Laurent and Liberty of London Photographed by Barry Lategan

Toni Frissell – Vogue (June 1967)

Aubrey Beardsley – How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying

“SO it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster. “

Aubrey Beardsley, How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying, 1893-4

Aubrey Beardsley’s pen and ink drawing “How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying” shows the Queen Guinevere and her two companions on horseback. The drawing is just one of many illustrations that Beardsley had made in 1893-94 for Sir Thomas Malory’s prose work “Le Mort d’Arthur” which revolves around the world of Arthurian legends. This particular illustration, of the Queen riding in the meadows around the castle, refers to this scene from the Book 19 chapter 1 of “Le Mort d’Arthur” and Malory writes: “SO it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster. And I warn you that there be none of you but that he be well horsed, and that ye all be clothed in green, outher in silk outher in cloth; and I shall bring with me ten ladies, and every knight shall have a lady behind him, and everyknight shall have a squire and two yeomen; and I will that ye all be well horsed. So they made them ready in the freshest manner. … And so upon the morn they took their horses with the queen, and rode a-Maying in woods and meadows as it pleased them, in great joy and delights; for the queen had cast to have been again with King Arthur at the furthest by ten of the clock, and so was that time her purpose.” Still, the idyllic mood of the sunny May day horseriding turns sour when Sir Meliagrance, who was lusting after the Queen, took it as an opportunity to kidnap her and have her for himself at last. But that is another story…

In this particular illustration by Beardsley, the Queen and her entourage are seen enjoying a sunny May day, out and about, birds are singing and the flowers are blooming. I am assuming all this, of course, because there is nothing sunny and blooming about Beardsley’s black and white illustration. As is typical for all of Beardsley’s illustrations for Arthurian legends, the scene is reduced to its main elements and the figures are stylised and attenuated, yet very delicate looking, and the knights are always depicted as effeminate, wistful and weak. The illustration is spread out on two pages, giving Beardsley more space to develop the scene. On the left side we have the Queen Guinevere and her companions, the number of which was reduced from ten in Malory’s description to only two in Beardsley, there just wouldn’t be space for more without the illustration looking cluttered and it is not even necessary as we can get the point. On the right side is the castle from which they have just departed into nature. Some parts are exceedinly detailed, such as the leaves on the trees in the foreground, and yet the meadow is just a black space. The nature seems dead and frozen in all of Beardsley’s illustrations.

Medieval themes and especially the tales from the Arthurian legends were all the rage for Victorian artists and especially for the Pre-Raphaelite, one of whom, Burne-Jones was, at first, a sort of a protege for the young and talented Beardsley, but he changed his opinion after seeing Beardsley’s illustrations for “Le Morte D’Arthur”. Their friendship gradually cooled down and he later even spoke with anger of the ungrateful manner in which Beardsley radically departed from his influence and from his precious Pre-Raphaelite ideals. For the Pre-Raphaelites such as William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones “Le Mort d’Arthur” was little short of a sacred book. But provocation was Beardsley’s oxygen, it seems, and it is certainly natural for a younger generation or artists to rebel against the older generation. Still, Beardsley’s depiction of the scenes from Arthurian legends with the emphasis being not on romance, chastity and chivalry, but rather on the more nihilistic, sensuous and doomed aspects of it, is less a reflection of Beardsley’s uniqueness and more a reflection of the decadence of the fin-de-siecle art in general; nothing was sacred and ideals were there only to be destroyed.