Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love – John George Brown, Fragonard, Winslow Homer, Marcus Stone

Heart, we will forget him!

You and I, tonight!

You may forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me

That I my thoughts may dim;

Haste! lest while you’re lagging.

I may remember him!

(Emily Dickinson)

John George Brown, Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love, 1865

Carving names, initials or symbols into barks of the trees is a thousands of years old practice that is popular among lovers. The mention of the practice dates back to the writings of Callimachus who was a librarian in the famous library in Alexandria, the writings of Virgil and is even mentioned later in works of Shakespeare. The indiginous Moriori people of New Zealand also practiced the carving of the tree bark. But in this post we will take a look at some examples of love-related tree carving in the art of four artists; John George  Brown; Jean-Honore Fragonard, the Rococo master of frivolity and carefreeness; Winslow Homer and Marcus Stone.

The first painting in this post is a visually beautiful and striking one, but its title alone is alluring; “Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love”, painted in 1865 by the American painter John George Brown. The painting shows a young girl in the lush, vibrant yellow forest. She is turned towards us, but her downward gaze is hiding her eyes, probably glistening with tears. With her left hand she is holding onto the soft tree trunk whilst her right hand is carefully tearing away the love carving which says “W&Mary”. The light falling on her snow white skin and bare shoulders makes her seem almost angelic and pure, all alone in that soft, dreamy birch forest. The detailing on that birch bark is wonderful and birches are one of my favourite forest beauties. Their whiteness, gentleness and delicacy are in accord with those same qualities that the young lady seems to be exuding. But perished have the memories of her love. It’s over between she – Mary – and the mysterious Mr W. (perhaps William?) Oh, William, he must be thinking that it was really nothing! Nothing for him and everything for her. Now this tree is the last memory of the transient ardour shared by those two souls. From sweet hopes to bitter disillusionment, such is the trecherous, thorny path of love.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Souvenir, 1775

Fragonard’s painting “The Souvenir” is a sweet little Rococo reverie with touches of the upcoming Romanticism in the flutter of the leaves and delicacy of the trees. A young girl in a salmon pink gown with a matching pink ribbon in her hair is seen carving something into the tree. Her faithful companion, a cute little dog, is observing her all the while. The opened letter is lying on the ground; presumably from her beloved. And the words he wrote must be bursting with unbearable honey-and-ripe-fig sweetness and juicy with promises because she is enthusiastically carving her and her lover’s initials into the tree, to symbolically represent their love. The 1792 catalogue from the exhibition says that the girl in the painting is the lead character of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel “Julie or the New Heloise” (titled at the time as: “Letters from two lovers living in a small town at the foot of the Alps”) The background is painted in a very delicate and gentle manner with detailing of the tree branches typical for Fragonard. The way he paints trees makes them seem otherworldy, the only other example for this comes to mind in some artworks of Camille Corot. Anyhow, Fragonard’s painting is sweet and slightly sentimental, but definitely shows the merry side of love and so does our next rendition of the motif by the American painter Winslow Homer.

Winslow Homer, The Initials, 1864

Winslow Homer’s painting “The Initials” is an interesting romantic digression in his otherwise nature oriented oeuvre. The painting shows an elegant Victorian lady dressed in her beautiful blue walking attire. She is standing very near the tree and carving something into it, judging by the title, she is carving the initials of herself and her beloved. The blueness of her dress is in contrast with the almost garish orange-brownness of the woods. Visually the painting is similar John George Brown’s painting “Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love” because it shows a girl and a tree upon which something is being carved or taken down and the scenery of the backdrop is a lush forest, but Homer’s painting shares its mood of hope and romance with Fragonard’s “Souvenir”. Homer and John George Brown’s paintings are both painted around the same time, in the mid 1860s, but their ladies are dressed very diffently in these paintings. Homer’s lady seems to be dressed more appropriately for a walk in the woods, but Brown’s is more visually striking for the centre of the painting.

Marcus Stone, Love’s Daydream End, 1880

Marcus Stone’s painting strikes me as fascinating by the title alone; “Love Daydream’s End” because it implies that there is a (day)dreamy aspect to love that will inevitable fade away; wither like a flower, turn to dust like a dry moth… The girl in the painting, dressed in an elegant, white dress which brings to mind the Regency dresses from the first quarter of the century, is experiencing the same sadness and disappointment as the girl in the first painting by John George Brown. And how sombre her furrowed brow appears, how unconsolable and broken. Two hearts are seen intertwined together, carved in the tree against which the lady is leaning her sad little head, silent like a Greek muse. She experienced the very thing that The Shirelles famously sang about. One day you are carving initials or hearts in the tree and exchanging lovelorn glances, and the other you are weeping over the loss of something which but yesterday was the source of all your delights… Ah, love, what a fickle thing!

“Tonight you’re mine, completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure
Can I believe the magic in your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow?”

(The Shirelles, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Venus Verticordia

“‘Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart

That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—”

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia, 1864-68

Painting “Venus Verticordia” is a gorgeous example of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s style of portraits from the 1860s. The original model for the goddess of love was an exceptionally beautiful cook that Rossetti had met in the street. We don’t know what she looked like; perhaps she fit Rossetti’s ideal of a woman perfectly, or perhaps with his imagination and with his brush he transformed her into his feminine ideal. Regardless,in 1867 he had altered the face on the portrait to fit the features of his favourite model Alexa Wilding who sat for many of his paintings. The goddess of Love was portrayed in so many ways and so many times throughout history, but here she takes on the typical features of Rossetti’s feminine ideal; her hair is long, lush and auburn, her eyelids heavy and langorous, her lips thick and pouty, her neck strong. This is a far cry from the weak, frail and melancholy beauty exemplified by his lover and muse Elizabeth Siddal whose face and figure domineered his art of the previous decade.

“Venus Verticordia” means “Venus, changer of the heart” and was said to change the hearts of men from lust to love, but the mood and symbolism in Rossetti’s portrait tell a different story. The eroticism isn’t subtle and subdued here, but rather the goddess’ breasts are lavishly exposed. The space around her is filled with lush, vibrant flowers, roses and honesuckles, whose symbolic connotations of passion and female sexuality would have been known to the Victorian audience. She is holding a golden arrow in her hand, a motif we usually see with her son Cupid, the god of desire erotic love. A contrasting motif to all this is a golden halo and butterflies around her head, both are symbolically connected with spiritual, not earthly or sensual matters. The halo typically graces the heads of saints and butterflies are sometimes seen as symbolic of the soul, so perhaps a soulful love and not just a carnal one.

The painting left no one speechless when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Art critic and writer John Ruskin found the painting tasteless to put it lightly while others such as the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote: “The great picture of Venus Verticordia has now been in great measure recast; the head is of a diviner type of beauty; golden butterflies hover about the halo of her hair; alight upon the apple or the arrow in her hands; her face has the sweet supremacy of a beauty imperial and immortal; her glorious bosom seems to exult and expand as the roses on each side of it. The painting of leaf and fruit and flower in this picture is beyond my praise or any man’s; but of one thing I will here take note; the flash of green brilliance from the upper leaves of the trellis against the sombre green of the trees behind. Once more it must appear that the painter alone can translate into words as perfect in music and colour the sense and spirit of his work.”

Stills from the film “Love Witch” (2016)

When I look into the eyes of this redhead Venus conjured in the imagination of the Victorian artist, poet and an aesthete, the image of Elaine Parks from the film “Love Witch” (2016) comes to mind; both have that look of indifference and power in their eyes, a certain awareness of their beauty and dominance, and they are confident about their inevitable success in love matters. It is a gaze that brings doom to a man who gazes back at it.

Victorian Photography: Girls in Silk Cages, Pale and Fragile as Lilies

A friend recently reminded me of the photograph of Ellen Terry that you see below and its mood of sadness and wistfulness struck a chord with me. Naturally, I thought of many other Victorian photographs of girls in contemplation so I decided to share them all in this post; they are perfect for daydreaming.

Sadness (Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen), photo by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864

All of the photographs here were taken by female photographers: Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) who is perhaps a pandan to the Pre-Raphaelites in the field of photography because of her inclination toward the Arthurian world and medieval romances, and Clementina Maude Hawarden (1822-1865) who often took photos of her daughters and is sometimes called “the first fashion photographer” because many of her photos feature the lovely crinoline gowns from the era, full of ribbons and flounces.

What draws me to these photographs is their dream-like quality; they are like windows to the long lost worlds, they evoke as much feelings from me as a poem can, they portray beautifully the inner world of Victorian girls and young women. Gorgeous fashions and delicacy of the fabrics, dazzling play of light and shadow, a tinge of melancholy and wistfulness. In this long lost world from the other side of the mirror long haired dreamy maidens in their dazzling silk and tulle cages are shown reading or praying, or travelling the landscapes of their thoughts, sitting by the window and gazing into the outside world of freedom and strangeness; girls as fragile as lily flower, with faces pale from the moonlight, yearning hearts and silent tears that smell of jasmine, trapped in claustrophobic interiors of damask and daydreams, touching life only through veils, “seeing it dimly through tears”, drunk, not from cherry cordial, but from the heavy fragrance of roses in their vases. Caught between girlhood and adulthood, in their dreamy interiors, with mirrors and books, they are gazing through the glistening bars of their cages, in silence, for the captive birds sing no ditties.

“I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.” (Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights)

Li Qingzhao – Ruined Flower

Today I will share with you a beautiful little poem by a Chinese poetess Li Qingzhao, born in 1084 and known as the greatest female poet in China, that I recently stumbled upon.

James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl), 1864

“Flowers dance and shed tears, Flowers cry and their petals fly away. For whom do blossoming flowers wither? For whom do withered flowers grieve?“

Olga Boznańska, Girl with Chrysanthemums, 1894