Félix Vallotton – Indolence or Laziness

“Indolence is fatal only to the mediocre.”

(Albert Camus)

Félix Vallotton, Indolence or Laziness, 1896, Woodcut, 30.5 x 24 cm (sheet)

“Less and less is done
Untile non-action is achieved
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”

(Lao Tzu)

History of art is littered with depictions of women being idle – beautiful and idle. In most cases, the indolence is not explicitely proclaimed, but Felix Vallotton’s woodcut doesn’t shy away from putting the woman in an indolent position by naming his artwork “Indolence or Laziness”. Fair enough! The woodcut doesn’t pretend to show Venus or some other mythological woman, but it shows a normal, everyday woman who just happens to be idle. She is seen naked, lying on the bed on her stomach and playing with a cat that wants to climb up on the bed or is simply teasing the woman, or trying to scratch the bedcovers. The idleness depicted here is so suitable for women that we don’t even blink twice upon seeing this or similar artworks. If it was a man in the same position then we would assume all sorts of situations; his soul is sick, he is melancholy, he has no purpose… Otherwise, he would be active, go out into the world and do things – even if those things were drinking absinthe or arguing. But for a woman, lounging on the bed and playing with the cat are the most natural way to spend a day.

In all the depictions of Venus for example, those by Giorgione or Tizian for example, we never want to see Venus doing anything apart from what she is already doing; lying on bed, being beautiful and coquettishly looking back at us. As long as she is beautiful – that is the job of Venus, and every woman. Artistically looking, this woodblock by Vallotton shows a clear influence of Japanese woodblocks by the use of patterns. It is quite interesting, the simplicity of the black and white woodblock print embellished by the intricate patterns of the bed cover and the cushions, the patterns created by the play between the white and black. The woman and the cat are both white surfaces while the space is mostly black. It is interesting to observe all the patterns; checquered, zig-zag, dots, dashes, lattices, which shows what a variety can be achieved with such a simple technique. Artworks like these are dear to me, not only because they show a Japenese influence which I am always eager to see, but also because the theme of indolence is dear to my heart  – now and forever. I am a huge advocate of idleness. Sadly, in our faced-paced world one must almost be ashamed for it, always defending it to people who are blind to its beauties and benefits. Well, at least art is always understanding.

Vallotton’s woodblock print also made me think of this passage from Irving Singer’s book “The Nature of Love: Courtly and Romantic” in which the passivity is emphasised as a woman’s element and also as a way of being more connected to nature:

“Schlegel thinks that nature has endower women with a temperamental passivity foreign to the dynamic activism of men. Unlike others who have insisted upon this type of distinction between the sexes, he thinks that woman’s passivity is her source of strength. He associates it with vegetative aspects of nature that men fail to understand. The intuitive ability to love which he ascribes to women results from their greater kinship to the organic principle that underlies all creativity. In being passive, they know how to submit to nature and therefore can enjoy the virtues of idleness and quiescent love. By merging with them, men learn that striving and doing are less important than being, and masculine determination less valuable than feminine self-abnegation. Restless activity, which Schlegel calls “nordic barbarity”, changes through the process of loving into “the sacred tranquility of true passivity.“

Gerde Wegener – The Little Bride (La petite mariée)

“In solitude I question myself and read my soul. I dread that shroud which imprisons me, which moves me to see all things through the vaporous clouds of dreams and imaginings. I seek to look upon the face of reality. It awes me. I place my fingers upon the throbbing pulse of actual life, repeating to myself: Hugo is coming. We may be married soon… married, married… Oh, I have lived too long in a world of my own making and I have suffered by the destruction of it. Do I know the truth of things now? Do I know love, and wedded love? Am I true woman?”

(The Early Diary of Anais Nin, 1920-23)

Gerda Wegener, The Bridal Recessional or The Little Bride (La petite mariée), 1927

Gerda Wegener was a female Danish painter who loved to paint women, often in a very eroticised manner, but her painting “The Bridal Recessional – La petite mariée” shows a more delicate side to her work, and indeed, eroticism and delicacy are intertwined in her paintings and always coexist in a beautiful and harmonius way. The painting shows a bride and a groom, leaving the church probably, followed by their entourage. The bride, holding onto her husband’s arm, is dressed all in white, as is usual, but Wegener really does paint white clothing beautifully. Even her tights are white and her long veil, decorate with a headband, is held by a little girl in a yellow gown. The wedding guests are all showing different emotions, some smiling and some holding handkerchief to wipe off poignant tears. In the background, only a few trees, houses and towers can be seen. The most interesting thing in this painting, besides the lovely bride, is how artificial in a deligtful way everyone looks, truly, doll-like I might say.

There is not much depth and poignancy about this wedding scene, as there perhaps is in some other paintings in art history. It is very decorative, as most of Wegener’s paintings are anyway, but that doesn’t lessen its beauty in my eyes nor does it make it any less interesting. Still, despite the bride’s doll-like face – with those big blue eyes and bright rosy cheeks – there is an emotion hiding behind the mask-like stillness, a certain dynamic going on between her and her husband; while he is gazing down at her attentively, she seems to be gazing out into the distance, delicate and fawn-like, with a look of wistfulness perhaps, a slight worry, in her eyes, which is perhaps natural on the ocassion, but still made me think of something from Anais Nin’s diary entry, written just prior to her marrige to Hugo in 1923, around the same time that Wegener’s paintings was painted; “I place my fingers upon the throbbing pulse of actual life, repeating to myself: Hugo is coming. We may be married soon… married, married… Oh, I have lived too long in a world of my own making and I have suffered by the destruction of it. Do I know the truth of things now? Do I know love, and wedded love? Am I true woman?”

“Sad-veiled bride please be happy, handsome groom give her room…”

(The Smiths, I Know It’s Over)

Something about Wegener’s paintings, about the way she paints female figures, makes me think about the paintings of Marie Laurencin and also Boris Grigoriev’s painting “The Model”, all of which were painted in the 1920s, so the same time as Wegener’s paintings. Considering to which extend Wegener devoted herself to painting women and the world through a feminine lense, something that the aforementioned painter Marie Laurencin said can be equally applied to Wegener’s art, Laurencin said: “Why should I paint dead fish, onions and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier.” I am sure Gerda Wegener would have agreed!

The world that she has created in her paintings is a very feminine one; very delicate, and sweet, and pink, and doll-like and spring-like and fragrant. The sweetness, rosyness and idealisation were, at times, a far cry from the actual life that Wegener was leading. After an exciting youth and a prolific career, she went through the ‘loss’, followed by divorce, of her first husband because he started living as a woman, a life in Marocco with her second husband, a second divorce, financial instability and alcoholism, and a death in relative obscurity. She died in in late July 1940 in Fredericksberg, Denmark, shortly after the Nazis invaded the country. Perhaps for the best that she did not see what was to come.