Kay Nielsen – Illustration for The Story of a Mother

“Then she pressed the bramble to her bosom quite close, so that it might be thawed, and the thorns pierced her flesh, and great drops of blood flowed; but the bramble shot forth fresh green leaves, and they became flowers on the cold winter’s night, so warm is the heart of a sorrowing mother.”

Kay Nielsen, Illustration for The Story of a Mother, c. 1910

“The Story of Mother”, a fairy tale written by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, tells a tale of a mother who is tending to her sick child and when she closes her eyes for a moment she finds that the child is gone; taken by Death. The mother then asks the Night to tell her which way the Death went and she goes out to claim her child back. But first she must sing to the Night all the songs that she was singing to her child, only then the Night tell her the way; “Then the mother wept and sang, and wrung her hands. And there were many songs, and yet even more tears; till at length Night said, “Go to the right, into the dark forest of fir-trees; for I saw Death take that road with your little child.” The mother goes out then, into the icy-cold winter night, to seek the place where the Death’s dwelling. The winter setting is perfect for the mood and the theme of the fairytale, but it is also perfect for Kay Nielsen’s illustration which has been captivating to me these last few weeks. The illustration shows the moment in the tale when the mother doesn’t know the way and a thorn-bush offers to help her, but only in an exchange for her warmth. The mother is prepared to give everything to find her child and so she presses the thorns against her bosom to warm them. Here is the description from the fairy tale:

“Within the wood the mother came to cross roads, and she knew not which to take. Just by stood a thorn-bush; it had neither leaf nor flower, for it was the cold winter time, and icicles hung on the branches. “Have you not seen Death go by, with my little child?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied the thorn-bush; “but I will not tell you which way he has taken until you have warmed me in your bosom. I am freezing to death here, and turning to ice.”

Then she pressed the bramble to her bosom quite close, so that it might be thawed, and the thorns pierced her flesh, and great drops of blood flowed; but the bramble shot forth fresh green leaves, and they became flowers on the cold winter’s night, so warm is the heart of a sorrowing mother. Then the bramble-bush told her the path she must take.“

Kay Nielsen’s illustration of the scene is absolutely beautiful, and heart-wretchingly poignant. The simplicity of the scene, the curve of the woman’s body, the bare tree and the blossoms, the moon seen in the distance all remind me of Japanese art. I am also reminded of many of Egon Schiele’s drawings as well. The simplicity of the scene helps to emphasise its emotional depth. The mother’s pale face reveals all the pain and torment that she is feeling. There are shadows under her eyes from all the unslept nights spent tending to her child. And she is dressed in black like the Night and like the Death themselves are. You can feel the coldness in the air and the sharpness of the branches that she is pressing to her bosom. There are even drops of blood falling from her chest onto the fresh, pure white snow. The white blossoms are strange in the middle of the winter, but as the fairy tale tells us, and how touching is this, that the blossoms grew only because the mother’s love was so strong that her heart exuded so much warmth and love.

Details

Aubrey Beardsley – How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying

“SO it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster. “

Aubrey Beardsley, How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying, 1893-4

Aubrey Beardsley’s pen and ink drawing “How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying” shows the Queen Guinevere and her two companions on horseback. The drawing is just one of many illustrations that Beardsley had made in 1893-94 for Sir Thomas Malory’s prose work “Le Mort d’Arthur” which revolves around the world of Arthurian legends. This particular illustration, of the Queen riding in the meadows around the castle, refers to this scene from the Book 19 chapter 1 of “Le Mort d’Arthur” and Malory writes: “SO it befell in the month of May, Queen Guenever called unto her knights of the Table Round; and she gave them warning that early upon the morrow she would ride a-Maying into woods and fields beside Westminster. And I warn you that there be none of you but that he be well horsed, and that ye all be clothed in green, outher in silk outher in cloth; and I shall bring with me ten ladies, and every knight shall have a lady behind him, and everyknight shall have a squire and two yeomen; and I will that ye all be well horsed. So they made them ready in the freshest manner. … And so upon the morn they took their horses with the queen, and rode a-Maying in woods and meadows as it pleased them, in great joy and delights; for the queen had cast to have been again with King Arthur at the furthest by ten of the clock, and so was that time her purpose.” Still, the idyllic mood of the sunny May day horseriding turns sour when Sir Meliagrance, who was lusting after the Queen, took it as an opportunity to kidnap her and have her for himself at last. But that is another story…

In this particular illustration by Beardsley, the Queen and her entourage are seen enjoying a sunny May day, out and about, birds are singing and the flowers are blooming. I am assuming all this, of course, because there is nothing sunny and blooming about Beardsley’s black and white illustration. As is typical for all of Beardsley’s illustrations for Arthurian legends, the scene is reduced to its main elements and the figures are stylised and attenuated, yet very delicate looking, and the knights are always depicted as effeminate, wistful and weak. The illustration is spread out on two pages, giving Beardsley more space to develop the scene. On the left side we have the Queen Guinevere and her companions, the number of which was reduced from ten in Malory’s description to only two in Beardsley, there just wouldn’t be space for more without the illustration looking cluttered and it is not even necessary as we can get the point. On the right side is the castle from which they have just departed into nature. Some parts are exceedinly detailed, such as the leaves on the trees in the foreground, and yet the meadow is just a black space. The nature seems dead and frozen in all of Beardsley’s illustrations.

Medieval themes and especially the tales from the Arthurian legends were all the rage for Victorian artists and especially for the Pre-Raphaelite, one of whom, Burne-Jones was, at first, a sort of a protege for the young and talented Beardsley, but he changed his opinion after seeing Beardsley’s illustrations for “Le Morte D’Arthur”. Their friendship gradually cooled down and he later even spoke with anger of the ungrateful manner in which Beardsley radically departed from his influence and from his precious Pre-Raphaelite ideals. For the Pre-Raphaelites such as William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones “Le Mort d’Arthur” was little short of a sacred book. But provocation was Beardsley’s oxygen, it seems, and it is certainly natural for a younger generation or artists to rebel against the older generation. Still, Beardsley’s depiction of the scenes from Arthurian legends with the emphasis being not on romance, chastity and chivalry, but rather on the more nihilistic, sensuous and doomed aspects of it, is less a reflection of Beardsley’s uniqueness and more a reflection of the decadence of the fin-de-siecle art in general; nothing was sacred and ideals were there only to be destroyed.

Voyage of Delights: Fragonard – Alcine Finds Ruggiero in His Chamber

“….now that nothing restrains
his ardor he gathers her into his arms to begin
their voyage of delights.”

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Alcine finds Roger in his bedroom, c. 1780, black stone and brown sepia wash, 38,5 x 23,5

I discovered Fragonard’s drawing “Alcine finds Ruggiero in his bedroom” a few months ago and was instantly smitten by it. And now every time I see it again, I find myself overwhelmed by delight. I just love it! I think it is now, if not the favourite, then at least one of the favourite works by Fragonard. Both the style and the theme appeal to my tastes. The drawing shows lovers in an embrace and the background indicated that the setting is – appropriately – the bedroom. Motif of lovers in the privacy of their chamber, giving kisses freely or stealing them, is something we stumble upon often in Fragonard’s work; “The Stolen Kiss” (1788), “The Useless Resistance” (1764-68), “The Lock” (1777), “The Stolen Kiss” (1769), just to name a few. So, the motif of lovers isn’t something new, neither in art in general, nor in Fragonard’s art specifically. Then what is it that appeals to me so strongly about this particular drawing? Ahh… where to start…

Firstly, let us delve into the literary inspiration behind the drawing; the Italian epic poem “Orlando Furioso” written by Ludovico Ariosto and published in its complete form in 1532. Fragonard enjoyed creating works inspired by literature and he made 179 sheets of drawings for the poem “Orlando Furioso” around 1780. The drawing above is just one of those sheets and it shows one scene from Canto VII where Ruggiero succumbs to the love charms of the sorceress Alcine on her love island. The poem described him waiting anxiously in his chamber for Alcine while she, in her chamber, is slowly getting ready for their love union. She knows that in the other chamber Ruggiero is burning with passion for her, but she also knows that that is the part of the thrill of love; waiting will only intensify their “voyage of pleasure”, as the poem says. We must bear in mind that Alcine is a witch of sorts and that Ruggiero is under her spell, so perhaps these kisses are stolen too? Nevertheless, here is the scene as it is described in the poem:

“…he leaps from the bed, and now that nothing restrains
his ardor he gathers her into his arms to begin
their voyage of delights. Nothing remains
but for Alcina to take off all that pretty
lace and silk. to tear it would be a pity.

she has neither robe nor petticoat but merely
a filmy peignoir over a filmier gown
so that Ruggiero is able to see clearly
what he has only imagined. he can drown
in loveliness such as this (or very nearly).
he has long ago removed his own
garments, and, as ivy clings to a tree,
they cling to one another and try to be

a single being, straining to touch and taste
such spices and perfumes as do not grow
in india or Arabia’s sandy waste.
who but the two of them can tell of so
sweet an encounter? there, as they embraced,
neither of them could with certainty know
whose tongue was in whose mouth…“

(translated by David R. Slavitt)

Isn’t this a perfectly romantic and libertine scene for Fragonard to capture? His drawing has that wonderful, flowing, almost sketchy style which, in my view, perfectly matches the mood of the scene and the motif in question. It makes it seem as if the artist was there, hiding behind the curtain, witnessing the sweet-as-honey moments of lovers’ delights, and capturing the scene immediately with his pencil. The drawing has immediacy and spontaneity; we can imagine that the very next moment the lovers would be in another position; their kisses would fall too fast for Fragonard or any artist to capture. The lines are confident, energetic and expressive; faint and subtle in some places, fading like a movement in a composition, and strong, bold and loud like a bang in other. Their wild passion of the lines matches the palpable passion that can be felt between Ruggiero and Alcine. Still, there is so much tenderness present in the drawing too. Fragonard perfectly balances the two; passion and delicacy.

Ruggiero is sitting on the bed, ecstatic that Alcine has finally arrived to his chamber. He is embracing her sweet body with eagerness, his arms wrapped around her waist, going down… His eyes, although mere dots of colour, have a lovelorn look in them as he gazes up towards her and she, in turn, is gazing down at him. Her beautiful bosom is exposed and her wavy hair is loose and free. In this drawing you can really feel the lines described in the poem: “she has neither robe nor petticoat but merely/ a filmy peignoir over a filmier gown/ so that ruggiero is able to see clearly/ what he has only imagined. he can drown/ in loveliness such as this”. Behind them we see only the contours of the bed and pillows; detailed enough to suggest the setting but it is obvious that Fragonard’s focus was on other things. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about this drawing is its universal language of love; even if we didn’t know the literary background of the drawing, and if we didn’t know the lovers are Alcine and Ruggiero, the drawing would still speak the same language spoken by Klimt’s golden lovers in a kiss, Chagall’s flying blue lovers, and Brancusi’s statue “The Kiss”. The utmost loveliness of this drawing comes from its simplicity and spontaneity, and its expressive and untamed portrayal of love.

Arthur Rackham’s Illustration for The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

Arthur Rackham, “The Oval Portrait,” Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 1935

One of my favourite stories by Edgar Allan Poe is “The Oval Portrait”; it’s short and sweet, and its main theme is art and the artist. When, by serendipity, I found this gorgeous illustration of the story by Arthur Rackham the other day I knew that it was a sign from the universe to write about it today because today is the anniversary of Poe’s death. The doomed poet died in Baltimore on the 7th October 1849 at the age of forty; the last days of his life were as mysterious as the man himself. In a wonderful biography, Peter Ackroyd wonders: “No one knew where he had been, or what he had done. Had he been wandering, dazed, through the city? Had he been enlisted for the purposes of vote-rigging in a city notorious for its political chicanery? Had he suffered from a tumour of the brain? Had he simply drunk himself into oblivion? It is as tormenting a mystery as any to be found in his tales.”

The mystery of the story “The Oval Portrait” is, as the title suggests, about a portrait of a beautiful woman. The story starts as a Gothic tale with an unnamed narrator who seeks safe shelter form the rain in an old castle. Before falling asleep in one of the old bedroom he becomes enamored with a portrait of a beautiful young woman on the wall. The plot quickly switches from the narrator to the story about the portrait itself and its history, again there’s “the most poetic topic in the world” according to Poe himself; the death of a beautiful woman, a pale wistful bride who, adoring and obedient, died as a sacrifice for her mad artist husband who cared for nothing else but his art. Arthur Rackham was a very prolific and imaginative artist so I am not surprised that he portrayed this scene from the story so wonderfully.

Rackham portrayed the tower-chamber setting accurately and the high windows only add to the lonesome feeling of the tower. The light of the day is entering the chamber sparingly. We cannot see the forests and moors around the castle. Instead the space feels hermetic and secluded from the outside world. It’s almost like a theatre stage; the painter, the pale model and the Portrait are the only figures on this stage of life. A stone wall on one side and the draped curtains on the other are the background to the scene. Rackham depicts the background with equal detail as he does the figures; the wooden floor, the stone wall, the shadow of the easel and the gorgeous fabric are all so detailed and life-like. The portrait in Rackham’s illustration seems unfinished, but perhaps the vagueness is the desired look. Anyhow, the lady’s face in the portrait does look like the face that might haunt a man at night if he saw it on the wall of his chamber, stranded in the desolate castle while the rain is beating against the windows.

The costumes that the Painter and the damsel are wearing bring back the spirit of gone-by days. The Painter’s necklace and his hair are reminiscent of Van Dyck’s portraits, and the lady’s golden ringlets, pearl necklace and her silk dress with puffed sleeves look as if they were stolen from the royal portraits of Louis XIV’s mistresses. Rackham chose to depict the last and the most thrilling part of the story; the moment when the Painter finishes his portrait and realises that his beautiful young wife is death, or, to quote the story directly: “the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed Life itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!”

Here is the last part of the story which describes the story behind it:

“She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to pourtray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead.

But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well.

But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp.

And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed Life itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!”

Constantin Guys – A Grisette and Other Watercolours

“M.C.G.[Monsieur Constantin Guys]loves mixing with the crowds, loves being incognito, and carries his originality to the point of modesty.” 

(Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life)

Constantin Guys, A Grisette, 1859, Pen and ink with ink and watercolor washes on wove paper

These watercolours and drawings by Constantin Guys have caught my attention these days. I just love how brilliantly they capture the vibrant and busy social life of the mid-nineteenth century rich and posh Parisians. Guys is almost like a precursor to a paparazzi, capturing every move, every laughter, every nuance of what is going on. These works were mostly made during the Second French Empire times; from 1852 to 1870, and lucky for us viewers, those decades were the decades of the sumptous and extravagant fashion for women, mostly because of the crinoline which made the skirts excessively wide thus making the women look like giant lotus flowers walking around. These sketchy and quick yet so vivid and detailed pen and ink drawings with watercolour washes give us a sneak peek into the era that is gone by. But Guys doesn’t just paint the wealthy ladies. His drawing of a grisette from 1859 can vauch for that. A grisette is a flirtatious coquettish working class woman. Guys stunningly captures the flounces of her dress and the way he painted the black fabric makes it appear like waves on the dark waters of Venice. His use of blue is equally thrilling in the drawing “Leaving the theatre”. Guys seems always to be walking on the tightrope between sketchiness and brimming with details.

I imagine these ladies and gentlemen are the characters from Gautier’s stories, from Chopin’s concerts, maybe one of these beauties is the fatal mistress of Mr Rochester from Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, stepping out of the carriage and giving a kiss to her other lover while Mr Rochester awaits her on the balcony, hidden by the roses, heartbroken and disappointed. I imagine these are the kind of ladies that Balzac wrote about in Father Goriot, the kind of ladies who know every little gossip and secret of Parisian budoirs and bedroom, they are the flies on every wall and no one is safe from their watchful eye. But little do they know that all along Monsieur Guys is gandering at them from afar, his eyes catching scenes like the camera, his hand drawing on its own. It is for a reason that the decadent poet Charles Baudelaire called him “the painter of modern life” in his essay of the same-name. In that essay he especially praises Guy’s endless curiosity about life and the world around him, the same curiosity that children have and which makes them ecstatic about everything. This curiosity, tied with perceptiveness, artistic skill and a flaneur lifestyle make Guys the brilliant painter that he was. Here are some interesting passages from Baudelaire’s essay:

“Today I want to talk to my readers about a singular man, whose originality is so powerful and clear-cut that it is self-sufficing, and does not bother to look for approval. None of his drawings is signed, if by signature we mean the few letters, which can be so easily forged, that compose a name, and that so many other artists grandly inscribe at the bottom of their most carefree sketches. But all his works are signed with his dazzling soul, and art-lovers who have seen and liked them will recognize them easily from the description I propose to give of them.

Constantin Guys, Leaving the Theatre, 1852, Pen and brown ink, brush and black, gray, red, blue, and yellow wash

M. C. G. [Monsieur Constantin Guys] loves mixing with the crowds, loves being incognito, and carries his originality to the point of modesty. (…) when he heard that I was proposing to make an assessment of his mind and talent, he begged me, in a most peremptory manner, to suppress his name, and to discuss his works only as though they were the works of some anonymous person. I will humbly obey this odd request. (…) M. G. is an old man. Jean-Jacques began writing, so they say, at the age of forty-two. Perhaps it was at about that age that M. G., obsessed by the world of images that filled his mind, plucked up courage to cast ink and colours on to a sheet of white paper. To be honest, he drew like a barbarian, like a child, angrily chiding his clumsy fingers and his disobedient tool. I have seen a large number of these early scribblings, and I admit that most of the people who know what they are talking about, or who claim to, could, without shame, have failed to discern the latent genius that dwelt in these obscure beginnings.

Constantin Guys, Two Gentlemen and a Lady, n.d., Pen and brown ink, brush and brown, green and blue wash, over graphite; touches of red chalk

Today, M. G., who has discovered unaided all the little tricks of the trade, and who has taught himself, without help or advice, has become a powerful master in his own way; of his early artlessness he has retained only what was needed to add an unexpected spice to his abundant gift. When he happens upon one of these efforts of his early manner, he tears it up or burns it, with a most amusing show of shame and indignation. In this context, pray interpret the word ‘artist’ in a very narrow sense, and the expression ‘man of the world’ in a very broad one. By ‘man of the world’, I mean a man of the whole world, a man who understands the world and the mysterious and legitimate reasons behind all its customs; by ‘artist’, I mean a specialist, a man tied to his palette like a serf to the soil. M. G. does not like being called an artist. Is he not justified to a small extent?

He takes an interest in everything the world over, he wants to know, understand, assess everything that happens on the surface of our spheroid. (…) With two or three exceptions, which it is unnecessary to name, the majority of artists are, let us face it, very skilled brutes, mere manual labourers, village pub-talkers with the minds of country bumpkins. (…)  Thus to begin to understand M. G., the first thing to note is this: that curiosity may be considered the starting point of his genius.

Constantine Guys, Reception, 1847, Pen and brown ink with brush and watercolor, over graphite, on ivory laid paper

Do you remember a picture (for indeed it is a picture!) written by the most powerful pen of this age and entitled The Man of the Crowd? Sitting in a café, and looking through the shop window, a convalescent is enjoying the sight of the passing crowd, and identifying himself in thought with all the thoughts that are moving around him. He has only recently come back from the shades of death and breathes in with delight all the spores and odours of life; as he has been on the point of forgetting everything, he remembers and passionately wants to remember everything. In the end he rushes out into the crowd in search of a man unknown to him whose face, which he had caught sight of, had in a flash fascinated him. Curiosity had become a compelling, irresistible passion.

Now imagine an artist perpetually in the spiritual condition of the convalescent, and you will have the key to the character of M. G. But convalescence is like a return to childhood. The convalescent, like the child, enjoys to the highest degree the faculty of taking a lively interest in things, even the most trivial in appearance. Let us hark back, if we can, by a retrospective effort of our imaginations, to our youngest, our morning impressions, and we shall recognize that they were remarkably akin to the vividly coloured impressions that we received later on after a physical illness, provided that illness left our spiritual faculties pure and unimpaired. The child sees everything as a novelty; the child is always ‘drunk’. Nothing is more like what we call inspiration than the joy the child feels in drinking in shape and colour.

Constantin Guys, Meeting in the Park, 1860, Pen and brown ink, brush and gray, blue, and black wash

I will venture to go even further and declare that inspiration has some connection with congestion, that every sublime thought is accompanied by a more or less vigorous nervous impulse that reverberates in the cerebral cortex. (…) But genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed. To this deep and joyful curiosity must be attributed that stare, animal-like in its ecstasy, which all children have when confronted with something new, whatever it may be, face or landscape, light, gilding, colours, watered silk, enchantment of beauty, enhanced by the arts of dress.”

Andrew Wyeth – Three Master Aground, 29 May 1939

“Set sail in those turquoise days…”

(Echo and the Bunnymen, Turquoise Days)

Andrew Wyeth, Three Master Aground, 29 May 1939, watercolour and pencil on paper

This gloomy watercolour by Andrew Wyeth instantly struck a chord with me because it brought to mind the solitary landscapes of the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and the moody music of Echo and the Bunnymen’s second album “Heaven Up Here” (1981) which is an all time favourite of mine, and I especially savour it in this time of the year. As someone who is continually seeking the connections between painting and rock music, literature and art, music and literature etc, this is a perfect match in mood, for the sounds of the “Heaven Up Here” transport me to a wet, solitary beach where the sea and the sky meet in a kiss while the dusk is slowly taking over… Wyeth’s watercolour strongly conveys a similar mood, at least to me because the colours are beautifully chosen.

Wyeth, who usually had a penchant for taking an ordinary motif and transforming it into an extraordinary one, took a simple motif of a three master or a ship with three masts and painted a stunning watercolour using a palette of only a few colours, but visually strong and captivating ones. The ship is leaning on its right, the sea waves are strong, they are cradling the ship as if it were a baby in the crib. The nature can easily destroy something man-made, even if it is as big as the ship, and it’s easy to see just how powerless and meaningless the small human figures are compared to the vastness of the sea. The figures here almost appear to be melting into the rest of the scene and they bring to mind the figures in Caspar David Friedrich’s melancholy seascape painting though Wyeth’s watercolour is more dynamic and expressive than meditative and dreamy. The combination of the dark colours and the whimsical, playful way the watercolour seemed to be painting itself creates a contrast that stimulates and excites our eyes.

The liquid and often capricious medium of watercolour is perfect for this kind of a scene because it vividly portrays the sea waves, better than a dry medium of pastel would, for example. When you gaze at these dark and murky waters you know they were painted with water, you can imagine the brush heavy with drops of rich colour hitting the surface of the paper and leaving a rich, dense trace which grows paler as the stroke gets longer… The greedy paper takes in the colour just as the sand on the beach drinks in the water of the sea. I feel that watercolour can translate the mood of melancholy, isolation and gloom better than other mediums. Wyeth was only twenty-two years old when he painted this watercolour; the same age as Echo and the Bunnymen’s singer Ian McCulloch when he sang the lines “set sail in those turquoise days…” from the above mentioned album. In 1937, at the age of twenty, Wyeth had his first one-man exhibition of mostly monochromatic watercolours. Seeing the gorgeous “Three Master Aground” we needn’t be surprised that the exhibition was a huge success and that all the watercolours were sold.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Elizabeth Siddal Having Her Hair Combed

Earlier this year, on the 12th May, I wrote a post to celebrate the birthday of the great artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and I think it would only be fair to celebrate Elizabeth Siddal’s birthday as well. She was born on this day in 1829 in London.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal Having Her Hair Combed, c. 1855, brown ink on paper, 153 x 115 mm

Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti is mostly remembered for his richly coloured, dense and detailed close-up portraits of languid and beautiful women that bring back the spirit of the High Renaissance portraits by painters such as Titian and Veronese, but his pencil and ink drawings show a completely different side to the artist.

“Elizabeth Siddal Having Her Hair Combed” is an ink drawing made sometime in 1855, as stated on the back of the drawing by Rossetti’s brother William Michael Rossetti. The drawing shows Rossetti’s lover and muse Elizabeth Siddal who is having her hair combed by a maid while she is reading a book, maybe a book of Keats’ poetry. The drawing doesn’t do justice to Elizabeth’s long, lush, coppery red hair, but it gives us a glimpse into the intimate world of two bohemian lovers. Rossetti met Elizabeth in 1850 and she quickly became his favourite thing to paint. At first she posed for other artists in the Pre-Raphaelite circle, but very soon Rossetti made sure she posed for him only. Rossetti’s brother commented once that the walls of Rossetti’s studio were filled with drawings of Elizabeth; Elizabeth combing her hair, Elizabeth having her hair combed, Elizabeth reading or just sitting in a chair and daydreaming. Such was the extent of Rossetti’s passion and obsession for his melancholy girl. This might seem a bit extreme, even creepy, but in Rossetti’s case it shows just how much Elizabeth fueled his art and how, at last, in Elizabeth’s face and person, he found a perfect muse. The small drawing executed in brown ink is a glimpse into their everyday life, almost like a photograph, it captures the moment in a quick and sketchy manner. It must be noted how stylised Elizabeth’s face is and how skillfully executed the drawing is. The ink drawing above and the pencil sketch bellow unite two of Rossetti’s lifelong obsessions; Elizabeth Siddal and lush, long woman’s hair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal Plaiting her Hair, c. 1850s, graphite on paper, 117 x 127 mm

Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita – Little Girl With a Doll

Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Little Girl with a Doll (Fillette a la poupée), 1950-51

Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita was born in a rich, aristocratic family in Tokyo and he had an urge to study Western art since a very early age. As soon as he had graduated high school, he wanted to move to Paris to study the art he so admired but was advised by a family member to stay in Japan for a little while longer and study Western art there. In 1913, at last, Foujita moved to Paris and settled in Montparnasse where he quickly befriended fellow bohemians and artists such as Chaim Soutine, Picasso, Henri Matisse and Modigliani. Foujita was a vibrant, extroverted and eccentric addition to the artist’s colony in Montparnasse. Some of his eccentricities include wearing a lampshade whilst going to the opera and pretending that it was a common thing in Japan; he was known for throwing big, lavish parties and wearing eye-catching clothes and haircuts; he was married five times and each of his wives also served as his model. Women, cats, and little girls with their dolls were a common and repetitive motif in Foujita’s art. Recently these paintings of girls, all painted during the last decade of Foujita’s life, caught my attention because they are so unique and strange.

Painting “Little Girl with a Doll” is an oil on canvas from 1950-51 but at first sight it looks like a drawing, at least to me. It’s only if you take a closer look that you see the visible brushstrokes, especially on the creases on the girl’s dresses. This isn’t unusual because Foujita loved trompe-l’oeil, and he often showed little interest in the effect of volume, preferring the flatness which is a typical element of Japanese art. Standing against the grey doors a blonde girl with a ponytail is painted holding her Japanese doll. All of Foujita’s drawings of girls follow the same formula; a closely cropped girl, very pale, with thin lips, blonde hair and no eyebrows, dressed in strange off-the shoulder dresses, holding a cat or a doll, with a simple background or one showing a townscape.

These girls look out of time and out of place; their pale oval faces with thin lips, no eyebrows and thin hair make me think of late Medieval and early Renaissance portraits of damsels and martyrs. Their appearance is very different to the beauty ideal of the times, just think of Sandra Dee and how different these girls are to her. And yet, the girl’s clothes brings to mind the Rococo era; they are like little Rococo orphans, in fancy yet worn-out clothes, looking like wistful little dolls; forgotten and left behind… Painting “Little Girl with Clasped Hands” has a specially early Renaissance flair; the girl’s head-wear is reminiscent of that worn by many Tudor ladies and Henry VIII’s unfortunate wives, and the composition of a girl with the town in the background is also very Medieval. Foujita mixes all these elements together in these oil on canvases and still manages to create something unique and eye-catching.

Foujita, Little Girl With a Cat (Fillette au chat), 1955

Foujita, Little Girl With a Doll (Fillette avec poupée), 1951

Foujita, Girl With Clasped Hands (Fillette aux mains jointes), 1960

Foujita, Little Girl with a Mexican Doll (Fillette à la poupée mexicaine), 1950

Vincent van Gogh – Orchard in Provence

“Trees should be allowed to grimace.”

(Vincent van Gogh)

Vincent van Gogh, Orchard in Provence, 1888, pencil, pen and reed pen and ink, watercolour, on paper, 39.5 cm x 53.6 cm

This seemingly simple, spontaneous and even impulsive little pen and ink sketch by Vincent van Gogh is actually a very important and very beautiful portrait of trees which are all part of the orchard in Provence and yet they are also individual creatures with their uniquelly twisting, contorting branches and leaves. Vincent van Gogh always painted directly from nature and he was a very passionate and observant individual, but this way of seeing and portraying the trees came from the artists of the Far East. Their philosophy, when it came to portraying a tree, was that it was not enough to paint a tree as it was before your eyes, but to capture its essence, its uniqueness, its spirit. The tree had to resemble a real tree, but the artist had to transform the physical appearance of a tree into a poetic portrait of a tree which would speak to the viewer of its character. European tradition of copying from nature and achieving perfection was the complete opposite to the philosophy behind the art of the Far East. The Chinese painter and poet Su Tung-po who lived in the 11th century wrote “Above all, trees, bamboo, and so on, possess a constant, characteristic form, and furthermore express a principle, which it is possible to offend gravely against; if the artist falls short of it, the transgression is far worse than if he fails to render the external form adequately.” I think we can all agree that this is true, how often have you seen something that is painted correctly, without a flaw, and yet is has no soul? Vincent’s sketch is soulful and rich in expression and you can tell he drew it with ease and confidence, there is no hesitation there; his twigs and swirling tree tops look almost like some beautiful, strange calligraphy. Also, it is important to note that the patches of white watercolour that you see stand out against the tan colour of the paper but that is because the paper changed colour over the years.

Nicolaas van der Waay’s Orphan Girls and Jane Eyre

Nicolaas van der Waay, Orphan girls from the Burgerweeshuis, Amsterdam, c. 1900, Black and red chalk and pencil on paper

Late nineteenth and early twentieth century portraits of orphan girls from Amsterdam are the most interesting and unique works of Nicolaas van der Waay’s oeuvre. He painted other things as well but these orphan girls, recognisable by their wistful faces and matching uniforms in traditional Amsterdam colours; black, red and white, are really interesting. This drawing of the orphan girl made in black and red chalk was just a sketch for other paintings of the same motif that van der Waay painted, but I prefer this drawing to other paintings because it seems so immediate and alive. The two colours of the chalk, plus the white paper, go perfectly well with the colours of the girls’ attire, which is a fortunate coincidence. I like how the girls are sketched in their everyday activities; two are chatting, one is holding a bucket of water, one is wistfully staring in the distance, perhaps daydreaming of a better life. These drawings and paintings reminded me of Jane Eyre’s life at the Lowood Institution and the uniform she had to wear there. Jane was an orphan but that school wasn’t an orphanage, but still the cold, unloving atmosphere, the strictness and deprivation of the school isn’t so unlike that of an orphanage. Here is a passage from chapter five where Jane gives her first impressions of the school and she also describes how the girls there are dressed:

“Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander’s purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work- bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.“

Jane Eyre (2011)

When I gaze at these paintings I am not just thinking of their aesthetic beauty but also of the conditions in which these girls lived which, I am pretty sure, weren’t the greatest. Jane Eyre, in chapter 6, also mentions the freezing winter cold, which is very familiar to me in these dreary January days, and the bad conditions in general:

“The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice. Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been doubled.”

Nicolaas van der Waay, Amsterdam Orphan Girl, c. 1890

Nicolaas van der Waay, Les Orphelines d’Amsterdam, 1900