Konstantin Somov – Carnival Scenes: Pleasure is addictive, Pleasure is a dream

“Pleasure is addictive. It can have all the elements and attributes of a fever. Pleasure is a dream.”

Konstantin Somov, Italian Comedy, 1914

I had written about Konstantin Somov carnival scenes, in particular his watercolour “Lady and Pierrot” from 1910, but today let us take a look at some of his other carnival scenes filled with figures of Harlequins, Pierrots and elegant Rococo ladies. In his choice of themes Somov was greatly influenced by the eighteenth century painters and themes, in particular the elegant, fanciful world of Watteau’s art where everyone is searching love and happiness in the ambience of elegant parks with marble statues and forest groves with whispering ivy-overgrown trees. If you take a look at Somov’s paintings that I’ve chosen to present here, “The Italian Comedy”, “The Fireworks”, and even the scenes from the notorious “Book of the Marquise”, and then compare them with the paintings by Watteau, it is easy to see the similarities. Still, it is not to say that Somov’s paintings are mere copies of Watteau, not at all, for his artworks have a distinct flair and are rich in colours and a tad more flirtatious and daring than Watteau’s which I enjoy greatly. In Somov’s carnival scenes we find none of that suble yet tangible wistfulness, no sense of transience and fragility that permeates Watteau’s paintings. In Somov’s portrayal of the carnival and leisure, there is a mood of frivolity, of carelesness, of unashamed pleasure; let the champagne flow and kisses, wherever they may, fall!

I feel that Somov’s art, not just the paintings here but many of his other artworks as well, are a visual companion to the line “Pleasure is addictive, pleasure is a dream”. I mean, the figures in Somov’s art just cannot seem to get enough of it – the pleasure, in whichever form; the parties, the laughing, the dancing, the kissing, the drinking, the gambling, the staying up all night and gazing at fireworks, it’s just constant frivolity and playful decadence. In Somov’s painting “Italian Comedy”, painted in 1914, we have a playful garden scene. The smiling Pierrot takes the centre stage, but there is also a Harlequin and a lady dressed in a striped Rococo gown and a Lady Harlequin as well. Despite the setting being a garden, it feels oddly like a stage, choreographed and somewhat stiff, more so than Somov’s other carnival scenes. In the background there are fireworks; another motif seen often in these paintings by Somov.

Jean-Antoine Watteau, Harlequin and Columbine, 1716-1718

Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Italian Comedy, 1716

In Watteau’s painting “Columbine and Harlequin”, painted two hundred years before Somov’s painting, there is a similar garden-carnival scenes. The centre is occupied by a dashing, flirty Harlequin in his vibrant attire and he is trying to seduce Columbine. Look at his hand gesture, I wonder what joke is he telling her? She doesn’t seem all that amused, perhaps it is Pierrot who is on her mind… In the background there are other young people, yearning for love and fun. I do love Watteau’s paintings and now Somov’s watercolours and other paintings are giving me the same thrill. The art of the early twentieth century with its radicalism and experiementation, the harsh squares and rectangles of Cubism, the garish colours of Fauvism, the angst and horror of Expressionism, none of it was for Somov who looked back in time when seeking inspiration, who wanted to drink from the fountain of beauty and love, and not from fountain of modernity and speed.

Konstantin Somov strikes me as a man who painted what he could not live, and that is partly true as reveiled in his letter to a fellow painter Elizaveta Zvantseva, dated 14th of February 1899: “Unfortunately, I still have no romance with anyone—flirting, perhaps, but very light. But I’m tired of being without romance—it’s time, otherwise life passes by, and youth, and it becomes scary. I terribly regret that my character is heavy, tedious, gloomy. I would like to be cheerful, easy-going, amorous, a daredevil. Only such people have fun, those not afraid to live!” Also, the world that we see in both Watteau and Somov’s art is a world that… simply does not exist, and never will come a day when it will exist, only perhaps in the hearts and minds of the imaginative romantics and in these beautiful canvases that we can gaze at for hours and fantasise. For me, these paintings are a world just beyond reach and so gazing at them fills me with excitement, but also provokes inside me an inexplicable yearning that may, if I allow it, turn into a heartache.

Konstantin Somov, Fireworks, 1929

Now, again, I would love to connect these Wattea and Somov’s carnival scenes with a passage from Peter Ackroyd’s book “Venice: Pure City” because I find it fascinating:

“The Carnival was instituted at the end of the eleventh century, and has continued without interruption for almost seven hundred years. After a period of desuetude it was resurrected in the 1970s. “All the world repairs to Venice,” John Evelyn wrote in the seventeenth century, “to see the folly and madness of the Carnevall.” It was originally supposed to last for forty days, but in the eighteenth century it was sometimes conducted over six months. It began on the first Sunday of October and continued until the end of March or the beginning of Lent. This was also the theatre season. In a city that prided itself on transcending nature, it was one way of defying winter. Yet if the festivities last for half a year, does “real” life then become carnival life? It was said in fact that Venice was animated by a carnivalesque spirit for the entire year. It was no longer a serious city such as London, or a wise city such as Prague.

There were bands and orchestras in Saint Mark’s Square; there were puppet shows and masked balls and street performers. There were costume parties in the opera houses, where prizes were awarded for the best dress. There were elaborate fêtes with gilded barges, liveries of gold and crimson, gondolas heaped with flowers. The Venetians, according to William Beckford in the 1780s, were “so eager in the pursuit of amusement as hardly to allow themselves any sleep.” In this season, everyone was at liberty. Evelyn described the Carnival as the resort of “universal madnesse”.

Konstantin Somov, Book of the Marquise. Illustration 8, 1918, lithography

Konstantin Somov, Book of the Marquise, 1918, lithography

(…)There were firework displays; the Venetians were well known for their skill at pyrotechnics, with the reflection of the coloured sparks and flames glittering upon the water. There were rope-walkers and fortune-tellers and improvisatori singing to the guitar or mandolin. There were quacks and acrobats. There were wild beast shows; in 1751 the rhinoceros was first brought to Venice. There were the elements of the macabre; there were mock funeral processions and, on the last day of the Carnival, a figure disfigured by syphilitic sores was pushed around in a barrow. Here once more is the old association between festivity and the awareness of death.

Venetians dressed up as their favourite characters from the commedia dell’arte. There was Mattacino, dressed all in white except for red shoes and red laces; he wore a feathered hat, and threw eggs of scented water into the crowd. There was Pantalone, the emblem of Venice, dressed in red waistcoat and black cloak. And there was Arlecchino in his multi-coloured costume. There were masked parties and masked balls.

(…) Pleasure is addictive. It can have all the elements and attributes of a fever. Pleasure is a dream.”

John Anster Fitzgerald – Fairies and Victorian Escapism

It turns out that escaping reality and harsh truths of it is not a new phenomenon at all; it is as old as society itself but no one escaped the grim, gruesome and gray daily life in a more imaginative, whimsical and colourful way than Victorians and they sure had a lot to escape from.

John Anster Fitzgerald, Fairy Hordes Attacking a Bat, c 1860

Fairy art in the Victorian era developed directly as a result of all the realism that was going on at the time; Industrialisation, child labour, poor living conditions, poverty and prostitution, Positivism, science and Darwinian theories, invention of photography, add to all that the climate of restrictions and (fake) morality and it was just too much for any normal individual to process. Jeremy Mass, the author of the book “Victorian Fairy Painting” (1997) recognised the genre as being reactionary rather than revolutionary. “No other type of painting concentrates so many of the opposing elements of the Victorian psyche: the desire to escape the drear hardships of daily existence; the stirrings of new attitudes toward sex, stifled by religious dogma; a passion for the unseen; the birth of psychoanalysis; the latent revulsion against the exactitude of the new invention of photography.” Dionysian energies need an outlet, and too much Apollonian clarity and ratio cripples the imagination. The sea of reason and harsh truths was overwhelming and the imagination had to find its way in the arts and in people’s life. Dreams, laudanum, local legends and mythology, Shakespeare, and Victorian fairy scenes were born.

While writers such as Charles Dickens chose to write about the horrible conditions, thieves, orphans and the poor, other artists chose to dip their quills and brushes into the colour of fairies and dreams and see where this new genre can take them. Through the fairy and fantasy genre they could express the inexpressible; a fairy isn’t a woman so a nude fairy in a painting isn’t really a nude, as is the case with Paton’s painting “The Quarrel of Titania and Oberon” (1849) that Queen Victoria loved and admired. John Anster Fitzgerald, mostly self-taught and no stranger to opium dens, was one such artist who provided an escape for Victorians through his whimsical paintings filled with strange looking and often grotesque tiny creatures, half-mythical half-imaginary, birds, bats, fairies and flowers. These paintings, full of details and painted in vibrant colours, appear very innocent and childlike at first glance, but their whimsicality was fueled by laudanum and chloral; Victorian drugs of the moment. He was also known as “Fairy Fitzgerald” to his friends because he painted the fairy world so obsessively, and in my opinion, the most beautifully. I prefer his work over the similar works made by other fairy painters who created at the same time such as Richard Dadd and Sir Joseph Noel Paton. Sometimes the titles of Fitzgerald’s paintings alone give me a thrill, “Fairy Hordes Attacking a Bat”, for example.

John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906), The Stuff Dreams are Made of, 1864

In Fairy Fitzgerald’s paintings, flowers, leaves and mushrooms seem large in comparison with the small fairies who bodies have luminous glow and strange attire. Dense with details and rich with colour, these paintings were really made to be gazed at for a long time, preferably right before bedtime so all these cheerful and surreal scenes can blend into ones dreams just like in the painting bellow called “The Stuff Dreams are Made of” where the sleeping girl is dreaming of her real or imagined beloved but all of a sudden these strange creatures crash the dream like uninvited party guests. The also surround her bed and play all sorts of instruments, but her rosy cheeks and closed eyes speak of undisturbed sleep.

In another painting, “Nightmare”, a similar young Victorian girl is having a nightmare, tossing and turning in her bed all because the strange beings from the fairy lands have visited her sleep, which brings to mind Fusseli’s The Nightmare painted in times when the Gothic wave swept European art in the last quarter of eighteenth century. In yet another painting, “The Artist’s Dream”, now it is the artist himself who is having strange dreams whilst dreaming about a painting a portrait. Dreams and reality mingle in these artworks and the fantasy finds a way to enter the everyday life, no matter how narrow the path for dream may be. These dream-works are often seen as portrayals of his laudanum-induced hallucinations and they just might be that, but how fun to imagine that these things go on while we are asleep.

These paintings were made to be gazed at and daydreaming over so tune in to these vibrant sparkling colours and drop out of the boring real world.

John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906), Nightmare, c 1860s

John Anster Christian Fitzgerald, The Intruder, 1865

John Anster Christian Fitzgerald, The Artist’s Dream, 1857

John Anster Fitzgerald, The Captive Robin, 1864

 

John Anster Fitzgerald, The Fairy’s Lake, c. 1866

John Anster Fitzgerald, The Faerie’s Funeral, 1860

John Anster Fitzgerald, In Fairy Land, date unknown

John Anster Fitzgerald, Fairy Lovers in a Bird’s Nest watching a White Mouse, 1860s

John Anster Fitzgerald, The Marriage of Oberon and Titania, unknown date

John Anster Christian Fitzgerald, The Concert, c 1860s

John Anster Fitzgerald, Fairies in a bird’s nest, 1860

Haunting Melancholy Dolls by Mari Shimizu

“She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her.”

(Tom Waits)

Some time ago I discovered these gorgeous dolls made by a Japanese artist Mari Shimizu, and I was instantly drawn to their beautiful pale haunting faces, large eyes radiating melancholy and rosebud lips which hide secrets. Mari Shimizu has been creating these dolls for almost twenty years now, having started in 2000, and she is entirely self-taught. The detailing and the inspiration that went into creating each doll individually is baffling! They are all unique and yet they all seem to belong to this one world; half-fantasy and half-macabre. As I gaze at each doll, it seems to me that their eyes, shiny and large like gemstones, jade or sapphire, are gateways to this other world, that of the imagination.

Some of them are inspired by Alice in Wonderland, some are vampire-like, with delicious little fangs and faded lavender coloured Rococo-style gowns, others are skeletons with rich inner lives, and I mean literary so; their insides, instead of organs, have a whole other vivid crazy world inside them; nude maiden riding a horse of Fuseli-inspired fantasy, anything goes. Mari Shimizu wasn’t into the whole pink, sugary, kawaii aesthetic that Japan is famous for (that isn’t the only aspect of Japanese culture, I know, but it seems a lot of foreigners are drawn to the cuteness and childlike stuff that Japan offers, from mangas to Lolita clothes).

Her imagination wanted to go to greater depths and greater lengths, and looking at these dolls you can notice a whole scale of inspiration that went into it, from Western art and fairy tales and stories, and she said in an interview here that she especially likes Renaissance and Victorian eras which would explain some of the themes behind these dolls, Death and the Maiden, a popular motif in the Middle ages and the Renaissance, and Alice in Wonderland: “Alice in Wonderland is fascinated by being an absurd drama with a girl as the main character, depicted in an era when human activities are automated in the industrial revolution. I interpret that the innocent and pure existence of a girl is a story that fights adult absurdity over time. Human emotions and growth are inherently absurd.  It is animals and nature that tell us the truth, not formulas.  Alice in Wonderland is drawn through the eyes of a girl whose world is still undifferentiated, and she can listen to animal conversations and freely change the size and presence of objects.  It is a theme that always has new discoveries that break our fixed concept.” (in the artist’s own words)

Henri Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1791

Viktor Vasnetsov: Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf

Viktor Vasnetsov, Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf, 1889

A brave Prince and a tired, frightened Princess are riding the grey wolf through the dark and mysterious Slavic woods where the trees grow so close together, their branches entwined, that not even a ray of moonlight can shine through, illuminate the darkness and make the journey less eerie for the Prince and the Princess. Shining yellows eyes are staring at the them from the heights. Strange whispers linger in the air… or is it just the wind, singing its lonesome song. “Worry not, my Princess, the journey won’t be long,” Ivan Tsarevich, the youngest and perhaps the bravest son of the King whispers to the Princess, but she is silent, too afraid to speak, but her attire speaks for itself; her jewellery is jangling, her heavy brocade dress rustling, her long wavy hair flying as if enchanted, for the wolf is riding through the forest with such an unearthly speed that his paws barely touch the leaf-littered and moss coated ground of the dark woods where a weak soul will not wander.

This dark, dreamy and romantic painting is a scene from a Russian fairy tale called “Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf” which was collected by a Russian Slavist and ethnographer Alexander Afanasyev in “Russian Fairy Tales” (1855-1863), modeled after Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The fairy tale has a crazy and complicated plot, and, as with many fairy tales, there are different versions of it. The base of the fairy tale is that a King had a garden with a golden apple tree and every night one apple would go missing, and naturally he assumed it was the Firebird who stole them. I would assume the same! Only the Firebird would be wicked enough to do such a thing. The King had three sons; the oldest two tried to stay awake all night and catch the Firebird but fell asleep and failed, and then the third and the youngest son Ivan Tsarevich begged to try and the King finally permitted him. He stayed up all night and saw the bird, even nicked its red feather but failed to catch it.

Viktor Vasnetsov, Knight at the Crossroads, 1882

Again, the two oldest sons ventured out bravely to find the Firebird, but quickly found themselves confused because they came to a stone that gave them three choices; the first path would bring the knight hunger and cold. The second path meant the knight would live, but his horse died. And whoever took the third would die, but his horse would live. They couldn’t decide what to chose, so they gave up and returned to their idle lives. Vasnetsov portrayed this moment in the fairy tales as well, in three versions in fact, and above is the one from 1882, possibly the most beautiful with vibrant colours and a beautifully captured atmosphere. Look how sinister the crossroad is, with the crows and skeletal remains of the previous knight who hath failed in his quest…. Lavender sky in the background is tinged with melancholy and the last rays of sun are casting a warm orange glow on the stone. Ivan Tsarevich took the second road and a wolf ate his horse. This is where the story gets bizarre, and complicated so I won’t go into the details. The wolf takes on the form of a horse, then of a princess… But in the end, Ivan Tsarevich returns to his kingdom with a Firebird and a Princess, but the jealous brothers kills him and slice his body into pieces. Later the Grey Wolf finds him and a water of death restores his body. And on the Wolf, Ivan Tsarevich rides back home and marries Princess Helen at last.

The moment of the fairy tale that Vasnetsov decided to portray, Ivan Tsarevich and the Princess riding the Grey Wolf, is a thrilling one because it is during that strange ride through the dark and mystic woods that Ivan and the Princess fall in love; look how his arms provide a shelter for her, and how her head is almost resting on his chest. Viktor Vasnetsov became famous for his folklore and fairy tale inspired paintings, which went well with the second wave of Romanticism that flooded Europe and inspired artists to find inspiration in folklore and fantasy. This isn’t the only fairy tale scene that Vasnetsov has painted, he painted many in fact, so it’s interesting to know that he began his career as a genre painter and was part of the Russian realist art group called Peredvizhniki, known in English as “The Wanderers” or “The Itinerants” who rebelled against the Academy’s strictness and narrow view of the world. Vasnetsov joined the Peredvizhniki colony while in Paris in 1876, and he became acquainted with Impressionism while there. Leaving the realism behind, Vasnetsov took an interest in painting fantasy and fairy tale motives and began working on the painting “Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf” in 1877, while in Paris, before returning to Moscow the same year.

A doll copy of an original art “Ivan Tsarevich Riding a Grey Wolf” by Viktor Vasnetsov

I found a doll version of the painting and I thought it would be interesting to share it too because it is just wonderful! I love all the detailing on the Princess’s dress, her soft hair and tired face. And the Prince, looking in the distance, hoping he will succeed in his quest, slightly worried. They both look charming together on that wolf. But the wolf in the doll version though, he looks dead tired, drunk and worn out, not like the brave, determined and strong wolf in Vasnetsov’s painting. No, this is a Capitalist wolf who works nine to five and is in desperate need of a vacation.

Giorgio de Chirico – Melancholy and Mystery of a Street

In this post we’ll take a look at Italian Metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico’s perhaps most well-known painting called “Melancholy and Mystery of a Street” and the way its portrayal of space and mood connect to some scenes from Vítězslav Nezval’s Surrealist novel “Valerie and her Week of Wonders”.

Giorgio de Chirico, Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, 1914

When we think of melancholy, mysterious and lonely streets and squares in art, Chirico must be the first painter to come to mind. He painted many such scenes with cold sharply precise architecture and a strange almost sinister mood, and a well known example is the painting above called “Melancholy and Mystery of a Street”. I hesitate to call it an urban scene, even though it is a city and not countryside, because it belongs completely into a world of its own, with unique logic and moods which have nothing in common with our world. At first sight, his paintings look similar to the world we live in, but then the strangeness start lurking from the shadows and we cannot help but notice the isolated and creepy mood of the street. A white building with a repetitive row of arches, disproportions, shadows… One can almost feel a deep layer of silence and then a strange giggle coming from afar, as the shadow starts growing bigger until it covers the whole square. And yet, Chirico’s paintings manage to stay lyrical despite their coldness. Another work of art which has a world of its own is Vitezslav Nezval’s novel “Valerie and her Week of Wonders” written in 1934, at the height of Surrealist movement in Czechia, and published a decade later. Partly inspired by Surrealism and the dream theory, and partly by the tradition of the Gothic novel, Nezval’s novel is a beautiful contradiction in mood and themes. While some motifs are ever so romantic and gloomy such as the vault, long corridors, crypts, burial sights, others brings an anxious mood of dreams that is more reminiscent of Chirico’s paintings, especially the beginning of the Chapter V called “Losing the Way”:

“Valerie had lost her way. For the third time, without knowing how, she had entered a deserted square that seemed to be enchanted. When she glanced at one of the locked gates, a missionary appeared to her standing in front of it. She left the square and entered the square. Her legs were tired and were leading her on her own, while her spirit wandered like that of someone sleeping. Over one doorway she noticed a cluster of grapes held in the beak of a dove. Then she was alarmed by four windows that seemed to have been forged from a storm. She thought she heard a groan. Her eyes settled on a tall gas lamp with moths fluttering around it. But the groan came again. Having circled the square, she suddenly found herself just a few steps from the lamp and saw to her amazement a terrifying image: tied to the lam’s base was a girl, emitting plaints from deep in her throat. As Valerie stepped up closer, she recognised her clothes, which were torn in several places.”

Scene from Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)

Naturally, the small square of a picturesque Czech village that Valerie has found herself on has nothing to do architecturally with Chirico’s classical and monumental Italian squares. It’s Valerie’s inner state, her emotions, fear and curiosity which give the square a slightly nightmarish mood. It’s not what she sees in front of her, it’s how she feels within that is projected on on the outside. Space in Chirico’s paintings is illogical to the eyes of grown ups, but to Valerie it isn’t unusual because she still sees things from children’s point of view, or rather, she is in the middle; just like the girl in the painting, childhood is behind her and she is walking slowly towards the shadowy figure; the adulthood. This connects to something that Chirico himself said: “To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.“

Rogelio de Egusquiza – The End of the Ball

“I am like a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings. Ecstasies do not occur often enough.”

(Anais Nin)

Rogelio de Egusquiza, The End of the Ball, 1879

Dear diary,

All was quiet in the salon, but laughter, loud voices of drunk guests and music were coming from the ballroom. I had too much champagne and my cheeks were burning so I retreated to the salon for a while. The enveloping silence seemed strange after the noise in the ballroom. My heart was beating loudly under the corset laced so tightly that it made me wonder how it would beat at all. I reclined on the sofa and laid my head on my hand. Warm orange light from the lamp on the end table cast a warm glow on the chamber and I easily sank into reverie. The gorgeous pink tulle dress adorned with crimson red roses that I had made especially for the occasion made me feel as if I were a capricious butterfly flying from flower to flower, dancing with one gentleman and then with the other. But now its stiffness made it hard to breathe and I couldn’t wait to take it off. The roses which were fresh and fragrant just this afternoon were now withered. The soft fabric was now soaked with my sweat and heavy perfume. My aching feet longed to walk freely on the fur carpet, their silk confinement was tormenting, but how they made me dance with Julio but moments ago! I knew he would come, even though mama hoped he wouldn’t.

My heart was beating so fast when I saw him approaching me; so tall and slim, dressed in a dark suit in the latest fashion, with his silky chestnut hair and dark eyes that seemed to look through me. He took my hand and the orchestra started playing again a beautiful tune which brought tears to my eyes, for it filled me with ecstasy and melancholy at the same time. I felt Julio’s warmth so close to my body, and yet I could feel his absence as well. I was too aware that the music would stop, the dance end and we would part until… who knew? Julio was unpredictable with his travels, I never knew when and if his next letter would arrive, and what other ladies held his attention. I longed to join him in his travels, but I knew I was too weak, weak and scared of life I would be no companion. I felt his strong arm around my waist as the music carried us in swirls across the room. The scent of flowers in the air mingled with the rich manly smell of Julio’s body. Minutes felt like a dream. I followed his steps and laid my head on his shoulder. I wondered whether he would inhale the scent of my hair.

I wondered what he was thinking, but dared not assume that this moment held as much importance to him as it did to me. Julio was a man that didn’t belong to anyone, and I was but a girl who longed for the ecstasies in life; a winged creature who was too rarely allowed to use its wings. These kind of ecstasies did not occur often enough. I knew that the very next day I would be sitting in the drawing room and doing embroidery under mother’s watchful eyes, and I felt tears swelling in my eyes when I compared the endless rapture of the moment with the boredom that awaits me, from dawn to dusk. Such was my life, perhaps one day I would dare to sail the seas that I dream of and that Julio had told me about. But at that moment, breathing the same air as Julio, nothing else existed for me but the pure delight of his presence. I softly sank my nails into the fabric of his coat and sighed: I wish this moment would never end… But I could hear the orchestra’s playing was getting quieter and the enchanting tune was slowly drawing to an end. I closed my eyes and…

Your Isabel

Rogelio de Egusquiza, A reverie during the ball, 1879

Here is a photograph that Rogelio de Egusquiza used to paint the painting