Kyōsai Kawanabe – Hell Courtesan – She’s a Maneater

“She’ll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new, I’ve seen her here before
Watching and waiting…

Money’s the matter
If you’re in it for love
You ain’t gonna get too far
Watch out boy she’ll chew you up
She’s a maneater…”

Kyōsai Kawanabe, Hell Courtesan, 1874, colour woodcut

I usually appreciate the Japanese ukiyo-e prints because of their innovative compositions, or because of their sense of calmness or contemplation, but in this woodcut by Kyosai Kawanabe called “Hell Courtesan” it is definitely this strange and creepy mood that lured me and keeps luring me to gaze at it again and again. I mean, just the title alone, “Hell Courtesan”, yes – I want to see a painting by that name, absolutely. The visuals of this woodcut justify its title. “Hell Courtesan” shows an evil, blood-thirsty courtesan sleeping and dreaming, and the space around her represents her dreams. There is no need for a small crimson letter to be stiched onto her dress, for she is a walking ‘crimson letter’, wrapped in a fetching red robe. Even the King of Hell is seen peeking from the lower part of it. Looking at his crazy protruding eyes and a grimace on his blood red face, I am scared indeed; I certainly would not want to be dreaming of him, but in comparison to the King of Hell, this courtesan is even scarier and all the skeletons in the background are a living, no wait, a dead, proof of that. The skeletons might be seen as representitive of all of her victims. Perhaps for some murderers, to dream of their victims would be a nightmare, but to this courtesan it is a pleasant, fun almost, dream.

As it goes with old tales, the story about Hell Courtesan or “Jigoku Dayu” has many variations but generally it is said that the courtesan lived once upon a time in the pleasure quarters of old Japan and that she was very beautiful but also very cruel. She was wicked to everyone around her; her servants, fellow courtesans and even her clients. When she died suddenly one day the King of Hell forced her to wear an outer-kimono which was made out of all the souls of hell which were being tortured by the demons, and this was to be a constant reminder to her of how badly she had treated others when she was still alive. The skeletons seem rather jolly; the are dancing, laughing, joking and drinking, it’s a whole party going on there!

Kyosai Kawanabe has been called “the painting demon” and also “the last virtuoso of Japanese art”, well he certainly had a wild imagination as you can see in this woodblock. There is almost a sense of humour present in his work and skeleton do appear in his other artworks as well. Now that I think of it, his macabre spirit makes me think of James Ensor’s paintings. But now, to end a post, here is a song that kept reminding me of the painting, by Daryl Hall and John Oates called “Maneater”:

“She’ll only come out at night
The lean and hungry type
Nothing is new, I’ve seen her here before
Watching and waiting
Ooh, she’s sitting with you but her eyes are on the door
So many have paid to see
What you think you’re getting for free
The woman is wild, a she-cat tamed by the purr of a Jaguar
Money’s the matter
If you’re in it for love
You ain’t gonna get too far

Watch out boy she’ll chew you up
(Oh here she comes)
She’s a maneater
(Oh here she comes)
Watch out boy she’ll chew you up
(Oh here she comes)
She’s a maneater

I wouldn’t if I were you
I know what she can do
She’s deadly man, she could really rip your world apart
Mind over matter
Ooh, the beauty is there but a beast is in the heart…“

–

Alfred Sisley – Fog, Voisins

“Every day the fog gets thicker and thicker around the house. It has now covered the trees whose branches brush against the edge of the terrace. Last night I dreamed that, through the cracks of the doors and windows, the fog was slowly leaking into my room, diminishing the color of the walls and the furniture, filtering into my hair, and sticking to my body, as it dissipates everything, absolutely everything…”

(María Luisa Bombal, The Final Mist)

Alfred Sisley, Fog, Voisins, 1874

What a drab month January is! These lonesome and cold winter days I find myself captivated by Alfred Sisley’s dreamy and atmospheric painting called “Fog, Voisins”, painted in 1874.

In 1871, Sisley settled in the little village of Voisins which is situated near Louveciennes which, interestingly, is the place where Anain Nin had lived with her husband at the time she met Henry Miller in 1932. “Fog, Voisins” has none of the love and drama that is found in Anais Nin’s life and diary, for Sisley wasn’t the painter of intense emotions and dramatic scenes. Instead, he devoted his life to portraying landscapes in all their changing beauty. This dreamy landscape shows a garden in fog; trees, bushes and flowers all arising from the veil of mist that covers everything. The contours of objects conceal more than they reveal, they are merely hints of what is there, ghostly and ephemereal. The colours Sisley uses here are a harmony of greys and blues, with only the pink and yellow flowers in the bushes in the foreground being the only exception. The tree on the right is painted in dark grey tones but the trees on the left are painted in even paler shades of grey, fading away even more, escaping our sight, vanishing into the fog… The figure of a woman working in the garden probably wasn’t something that Sisley saw directly that day in the garden. It’s more likely that the figure was taken from his other sketches of peasants working in nature.

Fog transforms even somehing as mundane as a garden into something poetic and profound. Even in real life, walking through the fog and seeing the distant treetops or a road disappearing, adds a mystical elements to otherwise boring scenery. Bellow you can see some details from the painting. I am continually amazed how just a few careful brushstrokes can create a figure or a tree; a few simple strokes and instantly something very recognisable. Sisley here presents us a typical Impressionist motif; nature, garden, trees, but the real protagonist of this painting aren’t the trees of the peasant woman but the fog itself which envelops the garden with its silvery-blue gauzy veil, hides and distorts, coats the everyday into the magic of dreams. Alfred Sisley, the somewhat neglected Impressionist, stayed true to the spirit of the Impressionism and didn’t stray away like other Impressionists (I’m looking at you, Renoir). This painting is a wonderful exercise in capturing the atmosphere and Sisley did a great job at capturing something as vague as fog. I’m sure it’s hard to paint the effect of fog but Sisley makes it look effortless. Sisley painted many wintery snow scenes, as did other Impressionists, but paintings of fog are perhaps more rare.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler – Harmony in Grey and Green

“A fallen blossom
Returning to the branch?
It was a butterfly.”

(Moritake)

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander, 1872-1874

Whistler painted quite a few ladies in white gowns, but those ladies usually have a look of melancholy or wistfulness on their gentle faces. The little girl appears to be showing off her clothes, her white stockings, her black satin slippers, her hat with a large feather, all the way to her dazzlingly white muslin gown, but as our gaze slowly moves up, we see a pale face with pouting lips and a distant gaze that doesn’t speak of joy or rapture. This little girl however looks rather moody, hiding her anger because she isn’t allowed to express it. But how can someone dressed in such a pretty gown be so moody? How can someone posing for an artist not have cheeks blushing from thrill and rapture? This dolly isn’t a typical melancholy muse as Joanna Hiffernan was; Whistler’s lover and companion who posed for his Symphony in White no 2 and some other paintings. This little girl is Miss Cicely Alexander, a daughter of a banker that Whistler met because of their mutual interest in Oriental art, and she was eight years old when this unfortunate sitting took place. More than one sitting naturally. It took the pedantic Whistler more than seventy sittings to paint everything just as he had envisioned it. He didn’t seem to take Miss Cicely’s feelings into consideration and despite the lyrical beauty of the portrait, it didn’t remain in good memory for the little girl. This is what she had to say about the sittings: “I’m afraid I rather considered that I was a victim all through the sittings, or rather standings, for he never let me change my position, and I believe I sometimes used to stand for hours at a time. I know I used to get very tired and cross, and often finished the day in tears.”

That’s why she looks moody! Why, wouldn’t you be moody and angry yourself, if you had to stand still for a long time and not be able to play with dolls or joke around with your friends or siblings. Sitting for Whistler surely made her feel like Sisyphus carrying that huge stone to the top of the hill over and over again; a never ending pursuit…  which did have its ending after all. And the result is a very dreamy painting that continues Whistler’s tradition of portraits of wistful ladies inspired by Japonism. In this portrait, hints of Japan come in form of bright curious daisies on the right and a few butterflies that desperately want to escape the canvas. I really love how the tall daisies seem to be leaning towards the girl, as if they are trying to comfort her; “shhh little girl, don’t cry, that Mr Whistler may be awfully demanding but the painting will be a dream once finished”. The daisies are such prophets and they were right. Whistler’s eccentricity, love for l’art pour l’art philosophy and his pedantic approach to his art truly shine through in this portrait. He paid meticulous attention to all the aspects of the setting, especially the colours because he wanted to achieve a palette of muted shades, white and greys. The carpet and the walls are in many shades of grey while Miss Cicely shines in white like a resplendent white flower. The carpet was order made and that gorgeous muslin dress was designed by Whistler and made especially for Miss Cicely to wear in this portrait. He even made sure the family find the right muslin, as a dandy he would know the fabrics!

I really love all of Whistler’s harmonies and symphonies and their balanced colour palettes, dreamy ambients and pretty wistful sitters. For a long time my favourite was The Little White Girl, and perhaps it still is, but I feel that in this portrait Whistler achieved the minimalism of colours and space that he so loved in Japanese art; the background isn’t cluttered with fur carpets or fireplaces, it is just that meditative grey that stretches on and on, the mood of infinity broken only by that black line which somewhat reminds me of a canvas by Rothko, and the canvas is a little bit elongated which brings to mind the ukiyo-e prints and the formats they used. When I look at this portrait for a long time, at first I hear silence but then I hear quiet music emerging, an echo of the daisies’ laughter, and a sound of flute carried on by the butterflies chasing each other around the moody girl in white… Oh, how she wishes she could join them!