My Inspiration for October 2023

This October I dwelt alone in a world of moan and my soul was a stagnant tide… Well, not really. I am simply quoting the poet Edgar Allan Poe whose anniversary of death was on the 7th October. I dwelt, as usual, in my own world, now a swamp of memories and broken illusions, alone and forlorn, but still I dreamt of flowers and love sonnets. I was inspired by autumn landscapes by Zinaida Serebriakova and dreamy landscapes by Henri le Sidaner, their strange and hazy mood fits the moods I am in these days a lot. Strange places. The feeling of walking through the fog and not knowing how to find my way home.

“I was living only half in Gion; the other half of me lived in my dreams of going home. This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely.”

(Memoirs of a Geisha)

“I am made of memories.”

(Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles)

“Then the appetites of the flesh, the craving for money, the melancholy of passion, all blended together in one general misery. (…) Her drab surrounding drove her to dreams of luxury; marital tenderness prompted the desire for a lover. She would have liked Charles to hit her, that she might have just cause for hatred and revenge. She was surprised sometimes at the hideous ideas that occurred to her. And all the while she must go on smiling, hearing herself insist that she was very happy, pretending to be so, acting the part.”

(Flaubert, Madame Bovary)

Picture found here.

The Marvelous Marriage – Violet Baudelaire, The Puttanesca Project, picture found here.

Picture found here.

Backstage at simone rocha by Kuba Dabrowski,fw 2020.

Art Nouveau doors, mostly made between 1900-1910, Oradea, Romania. Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Jane B. by Agnès V. (Agnès Varda, 1988)

Blossoms of crabapple and dogwood are reflected in the pond of this woodland garden.

Home Landscaping: Ideas, Styles, and Designs for Creative Outdoor Spaces, 1988

Jane B. by Agnès V. (Agnès Varda, 1988)

Instagram: everlinet.

COTSWOLDS CASCADE: COWLEY MANOR FOUNTAIN

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Never Knew Your Name
Beograd

© Dragana Dimitrijević

Francesco Balsamo (Italian, b.1969)

Viktória Vámosi @ Yves Saint Laurent Fall/Winter, 1995 Ready-to-Wear

Picture found here.

The Swing: Fragonard and Indian Miniature Painting

Lady on a Swing in the Monsoon, India, Punjab Hills, 1750-75, opaque watercolour and gold on paper

I have recently discovered these two lovely Indian miniature paintings; “Lady on a Swing in the Monsoon” from 1750-75 and “The Swing” from 1790. The motif of a woman on a swing instantly reminded me of Fragonard’s famous painting “The Swing”. It is exciting to see how this fun, frivolous and playful motif is portrayed in the art of the same century but very different cultures and styles. Both of these Indian miniatures show a beautiful nayika or heroine on a swing accompanied by her maids. The ladies’ pale faces exude calmness which stands in contrast to the dark and rolling clouds up there in the sky. The monsoon is approaching the air is coloured with excitement and anticipation. The clouds are heavy with rain and the sky is on the edge from all that accumulated energy. When the thunder roars and the clouds release the heavy rain, all will be calm again. The weather here can also serve as a sort of an erotic insinuations. Though the Punjab miniature above is, at first sight, perhaps more similar to Fragonard’s painting as in both paintings the ladies are dressed in pink gowns and are facing the same direction, the Kangra watercolour bellow is dearer to me for some reason. Just how pleasing is the idealised female form to the eye, and how lovely the contrast between her off-white dress and her coy, downward gaze in contrast to the dark sky in the background. She is exuding sweetness, playful innocence and delicacy, while the sky is potent and bursting with energy and eager to show its power. The swing brings to mind the fun and playful moments of childhood, but it can also have erotic connotations. If Radha was on the swing and Krishna was sitting in the grass bellow, we can imagine that his eyes would be feasting on her loveliness. Though, more likely, he would be sitting on the swing with her and that would, and is in many paintings, a romantic scene indeed.

The Swing, Pahari, Kangra, in opaque watercolour and gold on paper, Kangra, ca. 1790

Painting “The Swing“ is Fragonard’s most well-known work, and the epitome of Rococo; it’s a fun, frivolous, hedonistic painting imbued with erotic insinuations and painted in rich colour palette full of lightness and vivacity. “The Swing“ shows a young woman sitting on a swing and two male figures lazing around in a pastoral setting. The woman takes a central place in the canvas and she is a true eye-candy; dressed in a silk peachy-pink gown and a straw hat. Rosy cheeked and laughing, she’s dangling her legs in white stockings and playfully throwing one of her pink shoes in the air. The man in the background, a layman, is pulling her swing, while the one on the left, resting amidst delicate pink roses, gets to have all the fun, gazing mischievously at the legs of this gorgeous girl, and not just legs – women of Rococo didn’t wear knickers. Fantasies, flirting, and debauchery are all intermingled in this voyeuristic scene placed in an idealised setting of lush nature, marble statues and roses, all painted in soft fluttering brushstrokes and bathed with luminosity and lightness. The scene is painted so beautifully that one can feel the mood of that carefree afternoon, smell the flowery sweetness that lingers in the air on this late spring or early summer day, you can heard their laughter and a peaceful birdsong.

Sensuality of this erotic reverie is emphasised by the vibrant, lavishing glistening pastel shades, from her pink dress to the gorgeous hazy background painted in the most exquisite shades of green; notice the gradation from the gentle light green where the rays of sun fall to darker greens which exceed into a mystical turquoise mist on the right part of the painting. And then the soft, dreamy blue sky with delicate clouds: the perfect background for us to notice the little pink shoe flying in the air. Sculptures of Cupids, Venuses and angels are popping up everywhere in Rococo art, and this painting is no exception. There’s a sculpture of Cupid on the far left; his finger is pressed on his lips, suggesting secrecy and conspiracy of this naughty game. But will the roses keep their little dirty secrets safe, or will they maliciously whisper them to the moon when the night falls?

Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing (The Happy Accidents of the Swing), 1767

10 Years on the Blog! Upon the sea of time can we not ever drop anchor for one day?

“Let’s love, then! Love, and feel while feel we can
The moment on its run.
There is no shore of Time, no port of Man.
It flows, and we go on…“

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman at the Window, 1822

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Byron’s Muse. When I started this blog I certainly could not have imagined that I would be writing it ten years down the road, nor could I imagine how it would develop or how even my personal life could develop. It is bittersweet to think of ten years passing by, just like in the poem “The Lake” by the French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine I wonder can we not drop anchor upon the sea of time for one day? This blog is deeply entwined with my personal life and thus this is a time of self-reflection as well for me. What fruits has my artistic labour borne in these ten long years? Who knows. At times I feel I have accomplished, and that I am still accomplishing, what I had wanted regarding my writing, and at times I feel it all means nothing at all. I have gone through various moods and feelings regarding my writing in all these years, from feeling like I have a clear vision and a mission, to feeling like it makes no difference at all. If there is something that I have accomplished, then it is the creation of my own world, in a way that Anais Nin writes: “I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.” No matter the turbulence of the seas of my private life, this blog has always been a safe harbour, a place where I could anchor my boat until I regained strength for another sail. Broken and beaten by life I escape into aesthetics. And yet, the more I write about art the more I feel that I know nothing about it. I am frighteningly aware of how little I know of it and I wonder will I ever know enough to feel confidence about it. Caspar David Friedrich’s painting seems fitting at this ocassion as I am feeling more than a little melancholy and also the woman in the painting is shown looking out the window, looking out into the world and observing it but not being in it, and this image chimes with me well; the clouds are slowly gliding in the sky, autumn leaves are falling, the last songs of the birds are dying in the treetops, what awaits me?…  To end, verses from Lamartine’s “The Lake”:

“So driven onward to new shores forever,
Into the night eternal swept away,
Upon the sea of time can we not ever
Drop anchor for one day?(…)

Pause in your trek O Time! Pause in your flight,
Favorable hours, and stay!
Let us enjoy the transient delight
That fills our fairest day.

Let’s love, then! Love, and feel while feel we can
The moment on its run.
There is no shore of Time, no port of Man.
It flows, and we go on…

(The Lake – Alphonse de Lamartine, translated by A.Z.Foreman)

Music Is the Most Romantic of All Arts (Death Anniversary of Frédéric Chopin)

Frédéric Chopin died on the 17th October 1849 and this post is dedicated to his memory.

“Just as Orpheus’ lyre opened the gates of the underworld, music unlocks for mankind an unknown realm—a world with nothing in common with the surrounding outer world of the senses. Here we abandon definite feelings and surrender to an inexpressible longing…“

George Roux, Spirit, 1885

I read a sentence in a schoolbook a few years ago which said that “music is the most romantic of all arts” and this line stuck with me. It awoke something inside me, it inspired me at school and at home, it was the most beautiful sentence I had read. The idea that music was the most romantic of all arts enchanted me beyond belief. Later I read the entire essay by E.T.A. Hoffmann, a study of Beethoven’s instrumental music which first appeared in 1810 and was revised in 1813. Perhaps in our day and age the word “romantic” is simplified, overused and misunderstood, it stands for something shallow and sugary, but when Hoffmann used it to describe Beethoven’s music, he used it to describe the powerful, unrestrained passion, emotions and expressiveness. As much as I love paintings and enjoy reading books, I must say that only music awakens that something within me, and I imagine most of you would agree with me. When I listen to Chopin’s Nocturnes and his Waltz in A minor, Debussy’s work for flute and harp, some Ravel, and even other music such as Tindersticks or Echo and the Bunnymen, it sends me into a trance, my imagination is awakened and images appear before my eyes, sentiments I never knew I had suddenly posses me and afterwards I feel a catharsis calmness and a new found love and inspiration. Even in visual arts this romantic nature of music is portrayed. In George Roux’s painting “Spirit” a gorgeous ghostly white lady is seen playing the piano. Her thin waist and ethereal form are aesthetically pleasing and the man’s face shows both shock and awe. Perhaps he is a widow and this is the ghost of his wife playing their favourite tune. Painting is open to interpretation, but one thing is certain; only the music has such power to move us, bring us to tears, purify us, infuse us with yearning and romance, and even make us fall in love with whoever is playing it or sharing our love for it.

John William Waterhouse, Saint Cecilia, 1895

Now here are E.T.A Hoffmann’s words:

“When music is discussed as an independent art, should it not be solely instrumental music that is intended, music that scorns every aid from and mixing with any other art (poetry), music that only expresses the distinctive and unique essence of this art? It is the most romantic of all arts, and we could almost say the only truly romantic one because its only subject is the infinite. Just as Orpheus’ lyre opened the gates of the underworld, music unlocks for mankind an unknown realm—a world with nothing in common with the surrounding outer world of the senses. Here we abandon definite feelings and surrender to an inexpressible longing. . . .
Thus Beethoven’s instrumental music opens to us the realm of the monstrous and immeasurable. Glowing rays shoot through the deep night of this realm, and we sense giant shadows surging to and fro, closing in on us until they destroy us, but not the pain of unending longing in which every desire that has risen quickly in joyful tones sinks and expires. Only with this pain of love, hope, joy—which consumes but does not destroy, which would burst asunder our breasts with a mightily impassioned chord—we live on, enchanted seers of the ghostly world! Romantic taste is rare, romantic talent even rarer, and perhaps for this reason there are so few who are able to sweep the lyre with tones that unveil the wonderful realm of the romantic. Haydn grasps romantically the human in human life; he is more accommodating, more comprehensible for the common man. Mozart laid claim more to the superhuman, to the marvelous that dwells in the inner spirit. Beethoven’s music wields the lever of fear, awe, horror, and pain, and it awakens that eternal longing that is the essence of the romantic. Thus he is a purely romantic composer, and if he has had less success with vocal music, is this because vocal music excludes the character of indefinite longing and represents the emotions, which come from the realm of the infinite, only by the definite affects of words? . . .“

Sir William Quiller Orchardson, Her Mother’s Voice, exhibited in 1888

Monotonous beige and yellow colours and a slightly sentimental mood of this late Victorian genre scene painted by English painter William Quiller Orchardson hides a more wistful theme. Evening has fallen and a lamp is casting a yellowish glow all over the sumptuous interior and yet, despite the richness of the interior, a certain sadness hangs like a cloud over the room. An old gentleman was sitting in his armchair and reading the newspapers until something happened… A familiar voice, a very dear voice, colours the stuffy air filled with memories and hopeless wistful reveries. The voice awakens old wounds and merry memories that he can never get back “And all the money in the world couldn’t bring back those days”, to quote the song “This is the Day” by The The (and later Manic Street Preachers). His daughter, dressed in a fashionable pale pink evening gown, is sitting at the piano, playing and singing while a young man is standing by her side. She has her mother’s voice, as the title of the painting suggests. It is through music, singing, but still music, that the inexplicable yearning enters the man’s heart and soul and awakens a river of emotions which usually remain buried deep within him.

Barbara Jones – Fairground

Barbara Jones, Fairground, 1945, colour litograph

This beautiful colour litograph by Barbara Jones has been on my mind for a few years now but after watching Wim Wenders’ film “Wings of Desire” (1987) again the other day, I feel in the mood for the circus, carousels and carnival scenes.

The colour litograph shows two carousels, the one in the foreground has horses and roosters which look very vibrant and animated, almost as if they are about to escape the carousel and run off somewhere else. The carousel in the background has dragons which is very exciting as well. The colours are vibrant and childlike, but the style is sophisticated and clearly grown-up. The only people in the litograph are the coconut seller and a woman with two young children in the lower right corner. The three figures are standing and watching the carousels with their backs turned against us. The contrast between the fun and vibrant carnival scene with the absence of people, and especially children, gives the litograph a slightly melancholy feeling. Where are the children? Why isn’t there anyone riding the carousels?

The background for this artwork is interesting as well. The “Fairground” litograph was made for the first series of School Prints; a scheme that commisioned different artists to make litographs which could then be sold at low cost and printed in schoolbooks so that children could get access to real works of art made by contemporary artists. The two most important series of School Prints were made in 1946 and 1947. The plan, although based in the post-war optimism, eventually failed because they made a mistake of commisioning too famous and therefore too expensive artists such as Matisse, Braque and Picasso and the whole thing was not profitable anymore.

Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs and Krishna Steals the Gopies’ Clothes

“Those nymphs, I want to perpetuate them.
So bright,
Their light rosy flesh, that it hovers in the air
Drowsy with tangled slumbers.
Did I love a dream?”

(Mallarme, Faun)

Gopies demanding their clothes from Krishna, Kangra, c 1800

(Disclaimer: this post was written in April.) As spring approaches, my thoughts start turning to Debussy, the playful games of the Faun and forest nymphs, forest groves and clear waters, lotus in bloom, weeping willows. There is without a doubt something sensual about the awakening in nature that always, in turn, awakens something inside of me. No other painter had painted nymphs as beautifully as John William Waterhouse in his 1896 painting “Hylas and the Nymphs”; the melancholy, the languour, the stilness of the green waters…

The painting shows Hylas, the young and handsome companion of Hercules, surrounded by enchanting nymphs that are seen arising from the tranquil greenish water as the lotus flowers themselves. Hercules and Hylas had arrived at the island of Cios and no sooner than the nymphs had noticed the handsome and young Hylas, that they became enchanted by his beauty. Hylas is being pulled into the nymph’s sinister watery abode, lured to his doomed. Nymphs are female creatures in Greek and Latin mythology. They are usually depicted as beautiful and fatal maidens who love to sing and dance, and behaving in a naughty way as one can see in the story with Hylas. Their name ‘nymph’ comes from Greek word ‘nymphē‘ which means ‘bride’ and ‘veiled’, referring to a marriageable young woman. One of the meaning is a ‘rose-bud’, perhaps indicating the beauty all the nymphs possess. The nymphs have been painted in art before, but never quite as magically, or as sinisterly. In previous versions they appeared plump and cheerful, whereas Waterhouse portrayed them as having more girlish bodies, with fair skin that takes on the greenish shade of the mystical waters around them. They appear otherworldy; their skin pale with a touch of absinthe green, their hair sleek and wet, decorated with but a few simple flowers. Their face expressions come in a wide range; from cold and posessive, to gazes full of yearning. My favourite are the two nymphs on the far right of the canvas; the dreamiest of them all, playfully coiling with the lotus leaves and staring somewhere into the distance.

John William Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896

Waterhouse’s painting is the first visual thing that comes to my mind when I think of nymphs and how beautiful and fair these Waterhouse’s nymphs are, as beautiful perhaps as the gopis from these Indian minature paintings. It is an understatement to say that I am obsessed with the Indian miniature paintings at the moment, in particular the Kangra paintings on love, and recently I have discovered these two paintings that depict a scene from Bhagavata Purana where the Hindu God Krishna in which he has stolen the clothes from the gopies bathing in the river Yamuna and now they are begging him to return the clothes to them. This is a fun and visually beautiful example of Krishna’s naughty, playful nature and his love of pranking. Saffron-clad Krishna is seen sitting high up in the tree above the river where the gopis are enjoying their bath. Their clothes are hung on the branches all around him and he is taunting them from above. The gopies, upon realising what has happened, are all in shock. Their different face expressions and body gestures are interesting to observe; some are pointing at hime and pleading with him, stretching out their arm and begging for the clothes to be returned, some are bowing their head down in shame or hiding in the lotus flower, and some are swimming away as if untouched by the situation. The gopis, or cowsherd girls, are Krishna’s devoted companons and as soon as the sound of Krishna’s flute starts spreading throughout the forest, the gopies arrive to his feet and gaze at him in absolute awe, with unrivalled love and pure devotion. Naturally, what the painting doesn’t show is that the gopis eventually let go of their shame and surrender to Krishna as they are.

Krishna Steals the Gopis’ Clothing, Garhwal, 1775-1800

Both the nymphs from Waterhouse’s painting and the gopis are painted as beautiful women with fair skin and long hair sleek from the water, there are lotus flowers in the water in both scenes, and both show a watery, natural setting with one male figure surrounded by beautiful women. In the Garhwal painting the water is painted in a very expressive manner, it seems to be flowing fast and in all directions and the gestures of the gopis are really expressive as well. Though a painting is silent, the faces of the gopis have so much to say. Although the visual resemblance is striking, the mood of these paintings, their symbolism and the play of dominance in them greatly differs. While the poor Hylas is powerless against charms of the nymphs, the beautiful gopies are powerless against the charms of Krishna.

Detail

Waterhouse detail

Detail