“Sleep on and dream of love, because it’s the closest you will get to love.”
(Morrissey, November Spawned a Monster)
Konstantin Somov, Lady Lying on a Divan, 1917, watercolour
The Russian painter Konstantin Somov is a gift that keeps on giving! With all seriousness, I just keep finding new paintings of his that I simply adore. Somov’s prolific oeuvre consists of a diverse yet repetitive range of motifs; from his splendid carnival scenes with Harlequins, Pierrots and ladies dressed in eighteenth century style dresses, to lovers in forest settings, male nudes in bedrooms, meadows and rainbows…
Beautiful ladies reclining on a sofa, sleeping or just daydreaming is a yet another motif that is seen often throughout Somov’s work. My favourite of these “sleeping beauties”, at the moment, is the one above; a watercolour from 1917 titled “Lady Lying on a Divan”. A little detail, the snow-capped roof of a house across the street seen through the window in the upper right corner gives us a clue as to when exactly the painting was painting, in the winter of 1917-18, an ugly time of war, revolution and upheavals. Still, this delicate, doll-like reclining beauty is in a world of her own, oblivious to it all, or perhaps she is trying to take a nap and forget about it all. She is closing her eyes to reality and dreaming of the better days to come. I love the contrast of her porcelain pale skin with the redness of her cheeks, and also her pose, with the head and neck so stretched and then her left hand so elegantly placed on her waist, as if she were indeed a porcelain doll or a ballerina. The contrast between her dark dress and that vibrant red shawl around her shoulders is visually stunning. There is such an elegance about her figure and her face, and the fact that she is sleeping only intensifies this feeling. She is beautiful and passive, unaware of what is going on around her, dreaming away on a winter’s afternoon while the clock on the wall is ticking the minutes, hours away… What should land on her delicate, fragrant neck; a kiss or a butterfly? Since there are no butterflies in winter, a kiss it is, I say. Is she dreaming of flower gardens and kisses, of fountains of joy and secret caresses, or ripe apples and pink sunsets? Who knows, but we will let her dream…
Konstantin Somov, A Sleeping Woman, 1909
Konstantin Somov, Sleeping Young Woman, 1909
We may indeed call these paintings “variations on a theme” because they all share similiarities; the ladies are all in the same pose on the divan, even facing the same direction with their heads to the right, and the space around them, an elegant and sumptuous drawing room, is nearly identical. It is the details and colours that change, but the essence remains the same. In “Sleeping Young Woman”, painted in 1909, before the war and before all the turmoil, Somov had a more wild, rough approach. In times of peace, Somov sought vibrancy and , while in times of turmoil of 1917, as seen in the watercolour above, he sought harmony and peace. What energy and intensity is there in the woman’s dark blue dress! Attention to details was not his foretee here, but there is a palpable rush of energy. The lady’s arm, again, is placed in a doll-like way and her head stretched back, as if in some moments of secret ecstasy.
Konstantin Somov, Sleeping Lady in a Room, 1919
Painting “Sleeping Lady in the Room” from 1919 is the most detailed and the most ‘artificial’ looking out of all three paintings. The colours are almost too vibrant and the space almost too neat, too clean looking. The yellow dress that the Sleeping Beauty is wearing, with its ruffled details, low-cut bodice and three-quarter sleeves with ribbons, is just screaming Rococo and Boucher. One can almost feel the charm of the by-gone eras and sense a faint trace of Madame de Pompadour’s perfume… The lilacs in the vase are an indication of spring and she is also holding a letter or a note in her hand; who wrote it and what is in it, that is the real question! The lightness of a clear, sunny spring day is flooding the room. While the lady is sleeping, the couples on the panel behind her are giggling and kissing and having fun in the park. Somov is constantly referrencing the glory days of the eighteenth century and in particular of Rococo throughout his work.
Tags: 1909, 1917, 1919, art, art blog, dreams, Dreamy, Konstantin Somov, Russian art, sleeping, Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Lady in a Room, woman
Krishna and Radha Gambling with Stick Dice by Candlelight, Kartika (October-November); Folio from a Baramasa Series, 1780
Byron's Muse 