Konstantin Somov’s Sleeping Beauties

“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.

Galileo Chini – L’Amore: To sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lip

“Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
(…)
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lip.”
(Khalil Gibran, from The Prophet)

Galileo Chini (Italian, 1873– 1956), L’Amore, 1919

Galileo Chini was an eclectic and vibrant figure in the Italian art scene at the turn of the century. Painter, designer, decorator, ceramic artist, and an important figure in the “Liberty style” (Stile Liberty), which was the Italian version of Art Nouveau, just as Secession was the Austrian (or rather Austro-Hungarian) version of Art Nouveau. These days I derive a great joy in simply gazing at the vibrant paintings with ornamental background, where the figures and the decorative background fight and compete for the dominance on canvas, especially in works of Klimt, but also of Vittorio Zecchin and Galileo Chini. In particular, I have enjoyed Chini’s painting “L’Amore” painted in 1919.

The painting shows two lovers, kneeling down, in an embrace. The setting is natural but whimsical, not realistically depicted but dream-like. In addition to the undefined, somewhat mysterious setting, there is another element which brings a sense of mystery to the painting; we cannot see the faces of the lovers. Chini painted it from such a wonderful perspective that the man’s face is hidden by the woman’s head and we see only the most beautiful, most important and symbolic elements; his strong arms wrapped around her and her long golden hair flowing down her back, like a golden river made out of flickering stars. The woman’s rosy pink dress is falling straight down at first and then, the moment it touches the grass, it starts spreading out like a pink puddle in which the pale pink blossoms and the stars are reflected. The surface of the painting seems to be dissolving and every little thing in the painting, especially in the background, whether a flower or a star, seems to be flickering, shimmering, twinkling, it is just such a joy to gaze at it.

The shapes are clear enough to be recognised, but abstract enough to be dreamy and to provoke the viewer to sink into a daydream. Is that a weeping willow falling from the upper left corner? An ocean of golden stars in the upper right corner? A vertical straight cloud of cherry blossoms or a sea of pink May roses right behind the couple? A round shape of a full moon falling behind the horizon? And the meadow upon the couple is kneeling, a lake made entirely of daisies or some other white flowers which are so gentle that they are almost transparent, ghostly. Is this heaven? Oh, a hug is a heaven while it lasts. Which brings to mind the lines from Andre Breton’s poem “The Road to San Romano”:

“The embrace of poetry,
Like love’s impossible, perfect fit,
Defends while it lasts
Against all the misery of the world.”

While their embrace lasts, it is a shield against the miseries of the world. Everything is so delightfully vague and so inspiring for daydreaminess. I also love the almost spiritual, otheworldy aura of their love, despite their embrace being physical and the man being naked, it seems, (or is it only in my imagination?), it seems to me this is a visual representation of the ‘confluence of souls’ as is a title of a painting I love by Max Švabinský from 1896.

Galileo Chini, La Primavera, 1914, one of the panels in the Venice Hotel Terminus

In the artwork above, “La Primavera”, from 1914, you can see more of Chini’s decorative style. I love the different decorative panels; are those vibrant circles or heads of carnations and dahlias, then the elegant women in long dresses, as beautiful as the flowers, fruit and triangles, but both so beautiful that it is incredible. I wish the world were as vibrant!

Lilian Westcott Hale – Nancy and the Map of Europe

Lilian Westcott Hale, Nancy and the Map of Europe, 1919

American painter Lilian Westcott Hale’s paintings are a doorway to the gentle and secretive world of femininity as she mostly painted interiors with women and children. Lilian was in Connecticut, studied at the School of Fine Arts in Boston where one of her tutors was William Merritt Chase and also Philip Leslie Hale who later became her husband. She painted many delightful interiors with wistful girls, but painting “Nancy and the Map of Europe” is my faovurite at the moment because it is so very simple in composition, but very interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Nothing excessive clutters the scene; Nancy is sitting on the chair, dressed in a pretty blue gown, with a book in her lap. The little porcelain doll is sitting on the floor and is dressed in the matching blue gown. A map of Europe, painted in soothing pastel shades, covers nearly the entire wall and the entire background. The scene reminds me of those long, golden afternoons spent at school which were so sunny and bright and seemed never ending; the sun coming through the curtains would reveal the dust in the air and the shadows would dance on the map of the world on the wall. This sentence comes to mind “The late afternoon sunlight, warm as oil and sweet as childhood, slanted through the high, bright gymnasium windows.”, from Stephen King’s novel “Carrie”.

I use to spend many moments just gazing at maps; following the contours of the countries with my finger, whispering the names of the mountains and river, and imagining how beautiful all those places must be. The colours and the mood of this painting awake a certain nostalgia in me; for childhood, its simplicity, wonder and possibilities. Childhood, a time of hope, joy and possibilities. Nancy can be whoever she likes; all doors are open to her, she can visit all the countries that are shown on the map behind her. There is a mountain of books for Nancy yet to read, a plethora of experiences to gather. Nancy was eleven year old when this painting was painted, having been born in May 1908. She seems like a smart, dreamy and pretty girl in this painting, with her long hair, wistful gaze and that pretty dress. Who knows what dreams occupy her mind? What books fuels her fantasies? What secrets did she whisper to that doll on the floor? Little Nancy doesn’t yet know what a fascinating life she will have, even though the seeds of it were already planted. Nancy published her first story “The Key Glorious” at the age of eleven. A writing career,troubled marriages, emotional breakdowns, that is all ahead of her. In this lovely painting painted by her mother, Nancy is still a simple eleven year old and her head is filled with dreams.

Broken Blossoms (1919) – A Lyrical Tale of Love, Idealism and Death

Today I will talk about my favourite silent film ever, Broken Blossoms (1919), which tells a story of an innocent love between a beautiful waif girl Lucy and a Chinese opium-smoking dreamer Cheng, broken idealism and death, set in the seedy and decaying Limehouse district of London.

D.W. Griffith’s film “Broken Blossoms” first premiered on 13th May 1919, almost a hundred years ago. The introductory title card says: “It is a tale of temple bells, sounding at sunset before the image of Buddha; it is a tale of love and lovers; it is a tale of tears“. It was based on Thomas Burke’s short story “The Chink and the Child” from his collection of short stories called “Limehouse Nights”, first published in 1916, and it tells the story of a sad, helpless and beautiful twelve year old girl called Lucy Burrows (Lillian Gish), her loutish and abusive boxer father (Donald Crisp), and a man recently arrived from China, Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess), whose dream is “to spread the gentle message of Buddha to the Anglo-Saxon lands.”

I have immediately been attracted to the atmosphere of the film; seedy, dangerous streets and alleys of London’s East End, with poverty-stricken immigrants, thieves and prostitutes, and a little girl wandering the streets all alone, an untainted little blossom whose heart yearns for kindness, gentleness and flowers. The same dark gritty streets have swallowed Cheng’s idealism. He is presented as a naive and romantic opium-smoking idealist and a dreamer, who finds himself too weak to fight evils and injustices that surround him, and instead of spreading the gentle message of Buddha, he wastes time in opium-induced reverie, working in his shop or standing at the corner, lost in his thought, not just powerless against the mud of society, but lying in its dirt.

“The Yellow Man watched Lucy often. The beauty which all Limehouse missed smote him to the heart.” (32:43)

“Lucy’s starved heart aches for the flowers.” (36:38)

Thomas Burke’s literary style is described as a blend of realism and romanticism, and this is exactly the kind of mood that Griffith has created. Throughout the film, the opposites clash and meet; Lucy lives in poverty and is abused mentally and physically and yet she dreams not of wealth and power, but of flowers and kindness, and Cheng is just a shop keeper on the outside, but his mind is always in the state of sweet reverie. Their life-conditions are realistic, but their idealistic friendship and love are so naive and romantic. When the two finally meet in the street, Cheng’s kindness soon grows into innocent adoration for this pretty little thing.

“Burke’s fantasy of Limehouse follows in this tradition of an alternative world-turned-upside-down … a French definition of chinoserie that neatly encapsulated the late-Victorian and Edwardian concepts of Chineseness which found expression in the staged Orientalisms of Looking-Glass worlds. (…) In Bakhtinian terms, Chinese Limenhouse presented itself as a place of carnival. The district of Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway are London streets overlaid with the trappings of an alien culture.  The shop windows are filled with arcane products, restaurants are denoted by weird hieroglyphs and serve weirder food. Stragely dressed people and the locality’s dimly lit glooms provoke an early association with theatrical spectacle and grotesquerie, Limehouse is always enveloped in transforming mists and enveloping fogs.” (Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie: Limehouse Nights and the Queer Spell of Chinatown, by Anna Veronica Witchard)

Sad little Lucy forcing a smile

Here’s a lyrical part from the story describing the moments Cheng saw Lucy and his daydreams about her from then on: “So he would lounge and smoke cheap cigarettes, and sit at his window, from which point he had many times observed the lyrical Lucy. He noticed her casually. Another day, he observed her, not casually. Later, he looked long at her; later still, he began to watch for her and for that strangely provocative something about the toss of the head and the hang of the little blue skirt as it coyly kissed her knee.

Then that beauty which all Limehouse had missed smote Cheng. Straight to his heart it went, and cried itself into his very blood. Thereafter the spirit of poetry broke her blossoms all about his odorous chamber. Nothing was the same. Pennyfields became a happy-lanterned street, and the monotonous fiddle in the house opposite was the music of his fathers. Bits of old songs floated through his mind: little sweet verses of Le Tai-pih, murmuring of plum blossom, rice-field and stream. Day by day he would moon at his window, of shuffle about the streets, lightning to a flame when Lucy would pass and gravely return his quiet regard; and night after night, too, he would dream of a pale, lily-lovely child.”

A quote from the story:

“Always the white face was scarred with red, or black-furrowed with tears; always in her steps and in her look was expectation of dread things. (…) Yet, for all the starved face and the transfixed air, there was a lurking beauty about her, a something that called you in the soft curve of her cheek that cried for kisses and was fed with blows, and in the splendid mournfulness that grew in eyes and lips. The brown hair chimed against the pale face, like the rounding of the verse. The blue cotton frock and the broken shoes could not break the loveliness of her slender figure or the shy grace of her movements as she flitted about the squalid alleys of the docks…”

Cheng had seen Lucy many times before, but they have never conversed. Their encounter takes place one evening when Lucy, after being beaten up by her father, weak and vulnerable, aimlessly wanders the dangerous streets at night and somehow finds herself lying on the floor of his shop. When Cheng returns to his shop after going out for noodles and tea, his mind still floating in a vibrant opium dream, he think she too is a product of his altered conscience, but quickly comes to his senses and takes care of her. These are his thoughts upon that sweet unexpected encounter: “O lily-flowers and plum blossoms! O silver streams and dim-starred skies! O wine and roses, song and laughter! For there, kneeling on a mass of rugs, mazed and big-eyed, but understanding, was Lucy … his Lucy … his little maid. Through the dusk she must have felt his intense gaze upon her; for he crouched there, fascinated, staring into the now obscured corer where she knelt.”

“Breathing in an amber flute to this alabaster cockney girl her love name – White Blossom.“ (from a title card, at 55.18)

Now, for the first time in her life, Lucy feels safe and loved, and he nurtures her for three nights; showers her with kisses, gentleness and hugs, listens to her sorrows, buys her a doll and flowers, cares for her as if she were indeed a gentle flower found on a road. He dresses her up in beautiful, sumptuous gold and blue fabrics from the far East, thus turning her into a little Chinese princess, he even gives her a love-name: White Blossom. In this pale, frail Cockney girl he found an object of affection and a soul to offer nourishment to. This is where an interesting technical aspect of the film comes from; the scenes in his Oriental fairy-tale bedroom are in a pink-purple colour so they look magical indeed compared to the  which is black and white. His room is a safe haven of beauty.

“What he brought to her was love and death. For he sat by her.  He looked at her – reverently, then passionately. He touched her – wistfully yet eagerly. He locked a finger in her wondrous hair. She did not start away; she did not tremble. (…) No, she was not afraid. His yellow hands, his yellow face, his smooth black hair… well, he was the first thing that had ever spoken soft words to her; the first thing that had ever laid hand on her that was not brutal; the first thing that had deferred in manner towards her as though she, too, had a right to live. She knew his words were sweet, though she did not understand them.”

“Slowly, softly they mounted the stairs to his room, and with almost an obeisance he entered and drew her in. A bank of cloud raced to the east and a full moon thrust a sharp sword of light upon them. Silence lay over all Pennyfields. With a bird-like movement, she looked up at him – her face alight, her tiny hands upon his coat – clinging, wondering, trusting. He took her hand and kissed it; repeated the kiss upon her cheek and lip and little bosom, twining his fingers in her hair. Docilely, and echoing the smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled him almost to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly. (…) So they stood in the moonlight, while she told him the story of her father, of her beatings, and starvings, and unhappiness.”

After the rapture of their encounter passes, Cheng began to redecorate his little room to make it fit for his White Blossom:

“… the clock above the Millwall docks shot twelve crashing notes across the night . When the last echo died, he moved to a cupboard, and from it he drew strange things… formless masses of blue and gold, magical things of silk, and a vessel that was surely Aladdin’s lamp, and a box of spices. He took these robes, and, with tender, reverent fingers, removed from his White Blossom the besmirched rags that covered her, and robed her again, and led her then to the heap of stuff that was his bed, and bestowed her safely. For himself, he squatted on the floor before her, holding one grubby little hand. There he crouched all night, under the lyric moon, sleepless, watchful; and sweet content was his. (…) Weary and trustful, she slept, knowing that the yellow man was kind and that she might sleep with no fear of a steel hand smashing the delicate structure of her dreams.”

Here is how the room of his Oriental princess is described in the story:

“…and now at last his room was prepared for his princess. It was swept and garnished, and was an apartment worthy a maid who is loved by a poet-prince. There was a bead curtain. There were muslins of pink and white. There were four bowls of flowers, clean, clear flowers to gladden the White Blossom and set off her sharp beauty. And there was a bowl of water, and a sweet lotion for the bruise on her cheek. (…) Cleansed, and robed and calm, she sat before him, perched on the edge of many cushions as on a throne, with all the grace of the child princess in the story. She was a poem. The beauty hidden by neglect and fatigue shone out now more clearly and vividly, and from the head sunning over with curls to the small white feet, now bathed and sandalled, she seemed the living interpretation of a Chinese lyric. And she was his; her sweet self and her prattle, and her birdlike ways were all his own. Oh, beautifully they loved. For two days he held her. Soft caresses from his yellow hands and long, devout kisses were all their demonstration. Each night he would tend her, as might mother to child…”

So far, everything seems idyllic; a tale of love, a tale of blossoms, sweet melodies and sweet words spoken in moonlight, in the seedy streets of Limehouse where the warm light of lanterns permeates the eternal mists, but after three dreamy nights, Lucy’s father found out of her whereabouts and was furious to hear that a foreigner, a yellow-man had taken his daughter, even though he himself had never loved her. When Cheng was out to buy more rice, the furious Burrows came to the chamber of White Blossom, smashed all the beautiful porcelain, ripped the muslin curtains, and dragged Lucy by hair downstairs and back to their house… To quote the story: “The temple was empty and desolate; White Blossom was gone.”

There is a famous scene from the film called “The Closet Scene”, which you can watch here, where Lucy is hiding in a closet and her father is trying to smash the door with an axe, and she’s screaming (we can’t hear her of course), but her face expressions reveal the fear she’s feeling. It is said that in reality she was screaming so convincingly that lots of people gathered outside the studio, thinking that there really was something bad going on.

Death of the White Blossom had made life impossible for Cheng too:

“The sacrament of his high and holy passion had been profaned; the last sanctuary of the Oriental  – his soul dignity – had been assaulted. The love robes had been torn to ribbons; the veil of his temple cut down. Life was no longer possible; and life without his little lady, his White Blossom, was no longer desirable.”

More in the state of deep sadness and despair than anger, Cheng took the frail lifeless little body of Lucy, still warm, to his home, not a soul had seen him in that night of thick velvety river mist and….

“He laid her upon the bed, and covered the lily limbs with the blue and yellow silks and strewed upon her a few of the trampled flowers. Then, with more kisses and prayers, he crouched beside her. So, in the ghastly Limehouse morning, they were found – the dead child, and the Chink, kneeling beside her, with a sharp knife gripped in a vice-like hand, its blade far between his ribs.”

American screen actress Lillian Gish (1893 – 1993) in costume for her role in the MGM film ‘Romola’, an adaptation of George Eliot’s novel, directed by Henry King, 1924

Last spring I watched a lot of Old Hollywood films, in particular I found myself falling in love with silent films and watched a lot of those. I really loved the Gothic suspense mood of “The Sparrows” (1926) starring Mary Pickford, but “Broken Blossoms” is still my favourite silent film. I’ve fancied Lillian over all other silent film actresses for a long time. Mary Pickford is more famous, without a doubt, but she is cheerful, happy-go-lucky, like the Sun, while Lillian’s face exudes melancholy and wistfulness, she is more like the Moon. One line from Rabindranath Tagore comes to my mind whenever I think of Lillian: “Her wistful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.”

Role of the frail and gentle Lucy is typical for Lilian Gish. She said it herself: “I played so many frail, downtrodden little virgins in the films of my youth that I sometimes think I invented that stereotype of a role.” I happen to love the characters of gentle, fragile, helpless, beautiful waif-like virgins, guilty as charged. I know that silent films are not for everyone, but I see them as hidden jewels! I’ve noticed that I pay way more attention while watching a silent film, because the face expressions, gestures and title cards mean way more;  you have to read their feelings from their face, isn’t that wonderful?! I also very much love the fashion aspect of the films; Lillia Gish has the cutest hairstyle, and the same goes for the clothes both she and Mary Pickford are often wearing; hats, frilly dresses, white lace… It is amazing how they were in their twenties and still playing child-parts, while today girls of fifteen are encouraged to look older and more attractive.

In the end, they are both “Broken Blossoms”; broken idealism and broken life. Have you see the film? Read the story? Don’t you think Lillian is a pretty little thing? The film is on Youtube, as are many other silent films, and Thomas Burke’s stories you can read here. I felt so inspired after watching the film again, that I decided to read not just this story, but some other from the collection as well. They are so interesting and lyrical, and despite being set in London, the atmosphere is that of a magical Oriental world. Suddenly everything is about street lamps, mists, blossoms, perfumes, sweet melodies and roses. Here is a quote from another story, “The Sign of the Lamp”: “He talked of a land of lilies and soft blue nights which he had left that he might adventure in strange countries, and see the beauties of the white girls of other lands and learn great things… All these things he told her in successive sweet evenings of June, when Limehouse, was a city of rose and silver, and the odour of exotic spices lured every sense to the secret amiable delights of the pillow.” So alluring, can you resist not reading it?

Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Silent Films and Frilly Dresses

America’s sweetheart, The girl with the curls, Little Mary – these are some of the nicknames for Mary Pickford, a silent film actress who recently captivated me.

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Before I started writing this post, I gave myself a task of watching a documentary about her called Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies (2012), which is really interesting and you can watch it on YouTube. It’s a good quality documentary; amusing with plenty of information, and the narrator has a pleasant voice. I liked that the focus was not only on Mary Pickford’s personality and different stages of her career, but on the development of Hollywood as we know it today, film industry and ‘flickers’, as the early films were known back then.

I utterly recommend you to watch the documentary as it is a great introduction into the glamorous world of Hollywood – a topic which has, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, captivated me recently. Like majority of people, I like watching films, but I’ve never been a massive ‘Old Hollywood’ fan like my mum, for example. Films of the 1930s and 1940s somehow never captured my attention, and I always wondered, with a slight dose of envy, what my mum saw in them. Then, a few weeks ago, out of nowhere, I’m ill with a disease called ‘Old Hollywood glamour’, and the only cure is to watch as many films as you can!

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As you might have guessed by the title, a Hollywood phase I became fixated on is the Silent era and its main star, actress Mary Pickford. Her eyes are her most charming feature; two bright stars surrounded by long eyelashes, with the ability to express every emotion; from sadness and resignation to gratitude and rapture. Then her gorgeous curls, her famous curls, which she cut off in 1928 much to the dismay of her fans. Bobbing her hair happened as a sort of ritual of transition: her mother had just died, and she found herself incapable of playing little girls now that she wasn’t anyone’s ‘little girl’. Her phase of playing child-parts was over.

That’s a personality trait I liked about Mary Pickford – she knew how to end things while they were still good. She was a woman who achieved everything she set her mind to. A remarkable person, not just a great actress. Her ‘rags to riches’ life story continues to captivate people’s imagination. ‘America’s Sweetheart’ was born as Gladys Smith in Canada, on 8th April 1892, in a poor family with an alcoholic father. Not the best starting point for someone who’d later be the first Hollywood actress to earn a million dollars.

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Mary Pickford in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917)

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‘When Mary smiled, you could hear the angels sing’, said Lillian Gish, a fellow silent film actress and Mary’s lifelong friend.

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Advertisement in ‘Moving Picture World’, September 1916

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Mary Pickford’s life story is interwoven with the life story of another silent film actress – Lillian Gish. In 1905, the Smith family shared quarters with the Gish family. Namely, Lillian Gish (14 Oct 1893-1993) had a younger sister Dorothy (11 March 1898-1968) who was also an actress. Similarly, Mary Pickford was the eldest sibling, her sister Charlotte ‘Lottie’ and brother Jack were actors as well, though both had succumbed to alcohol and died fairly young. Both families led bohemian lives which are as rich as they are hard to endure. Mary and Lillian became lifelong friends.

Starting in theatre, both girls quickly transferred to films or ‘flickers’. Early films were sensationalistic (does anyone sense a revival these days?), and often close to being pornographic. Targeted audience was the working class. After a long day’s work at the factory or a construction site, they could go and a watch a film, which was cheap as chips, travel in their imagination and escape the greyness of their lives.

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Mary Pickford being painted, c. early 1920s

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Even though both were great actresses, Mary Pickford’s name stayed synonymous with the era of silent films. Early cinematography produced a great deal of actresses and icons such as Louise Brooks, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Pola Negri – all of which played very seductive and flirtatious roles. Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford had a different quality about them – they played more virtuous, innocent and girlish characters. They looked like dolls with their large expressive eyes and lush curls.

Lillian said herself: “I played so many frail, downtrodden little virgins in the films of my youth that I sometimes think I invented that stereotype of a role.” (source)

Lillian Gish plays a ‘frail, downtrodden little virgin’ Lucy Burrows in the film ‘Broken Blossoms‘ (1919). Brilliantness of the film comes from the combination of Lillian’s poignant portrayal of a ‘fragile waif’, gloomy and decaying Limehouse district of London as the setting, and the opium-laced mood and Eastern flair brought by Cheng Huan – a Chinese lad who came to London with a dream ‘to spread the gentle message of Buddha to the Anglo-Saxon lands.’ Lillian’s performance was remarkable, and the ending truly brought tears to my eyes, and I’m not someone who cries easily at films. Somehow, when watching a silent film, you focus all your attention at the face expressions, gestures, eye movements; everything is intensified. Some quotes from the title cards, Cheng Huan’s thoughts about Lucy.

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”Blue and yellow silk caressing white skin – her beauty so long hidden shines out like a poem.” (at 50.50 min)

”Breathing in an amber flute to this alabaster cockney girl her love name – White Blossom.” (at 55.18)

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I reckon Lillian has a naturally melancholic face, perhaps it is because her eyes are large and her lips really small, I dunno, but most of the photos of her have a slightly morbid appeal, at least for me. She’s a true Ophelia.

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Mary Pickford played a variety of roles, and often performed the stunts herself as a matter of fact, but her most memorable films are those where she plays a role of a little girl, something she successfully did up until the age of thirty-something. Up to now, I’ve watched four of such films, in this order: Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) where she stars as Gwendolyn, Pollyanna (1920) as Pollyana Whittier, The Little Princess (1917) as Sara Crewe, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) as Rebecca Randall. There’s more films where she plays child roles, but the next thing I want to watch is ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ (1929) – it’s a ‘talkie’ she performed with her then-husband Douglas Fairbanks. That should be smashing!

There’s something so appealing about Mary Pickford’s roles in these particular films; a mixture of naivety and innocence, enhanced by her costumes and curls, and a courage and generosity. Goodness always wins in the end: in Poor Little Rich Girl she unites her previously money-and-success-distracted parents, in The Little Princess she finds a wealthy foster parent and brings her friend along, in Pollyanna she brings optimism to everyone she encounters. If audiences of the time saw a hope for the better world in those films, I fully understand them.

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Mary Pickford in The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

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Isn’t it strange, back then, a twenty-five year old actress could play a little girl, while today fourteen year old girls are encouraged by the media to look much older and ”attractive”.

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Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish’s expressive eyes reminded me a great deal of Anna Karina, just because I watched her films first. I noticed a certain ‘silent film’ quality about Anna Karina’s acting. Others did too: With her expressive, luminous eyes and radiant presence she had the looks of a silent movie star while simultaneously embodying the self-confident spirit of the 60s generation.” (source) This correlation is especially prominent in Godard’s film Vivre sa Vie (1963) where Anna Karina ironically plays – an aspiring actress. Really, even if you excluded the speaking parts, her eyes would reveal everything.

Another thing I wanted to discuss was the costumes. Mary Pickford has a marvellous wardrobe in her child-roles: straw hats or flowers in her lush curly hair, knee-long white dresses with lace and frills, worn with white tights, then her cute polka-dot dress with several petticoats and a parasol as an accessory in the role Rebecca, her cute one piece pyjama in ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’. Even in others pictures I’ve shown here, she looks elegant like a spring day – in frilly white dresses, wide hats, string of pearls, empire waist for a girlish appeal, lots of lace. Is it a charming 1910s revival of Rococo and Marie Antoinette countryside style, or a prelude to modern Japanese Lolita style?

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Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories (1919)