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.”

Konstantin Somov – Carnival Scenes: Pierrot Saw a World of Girls, And Pierrot Loved Each One

“For Pierrot saw a world of girls,

And Pierrot loved each one,

And Pierrot thought all maidens fair

As flowers in the sun.”

Konstantin Somov, Lady and Pierrot, 1910, gouache

These days I have had a particular interest for carnival scenes and in particular I have enjoyed many such paintings by the Russian painter Konstantin Somov. One of my favourites of these carnival scenes by Somov is the gouache painting above “Lady and Pierrot”, painted in 1910. In Somov’s paintings the usually meancholy, lovelorn and sad Pierrot seems to be very lucky with the ladies and he is nearly always seen smiling, laughing at times even. At last! More than a century Pierrot had waited for some happiness in love. Just remember the sad, misfit Pierrot in an oversize white attire from Watteau’s painting, ridiculed and unwanted, his affections unrequited, for all the ladies always want the cheerful, vibrant and colourful Harlequin.

What I love in all of these carnival scenes, as you will see bellow as well, is Somov’s repetitive composition. In all these paintings there is an amorous couple, usually a lady in a wide Rococo style dress and then it’s either the figure of Pierrot or Harlequin; the setting is a park or a forest at night; in the background there are other couples, usually occupied by their own romances or they are gazing at the fireworks up in the night sky. This dynamic between the foreground and the background is very exciting, like two different worlds. And there is a sense of danger, the question of: what if..? What if Pierrot and his Rococo lady are caught sharing a kiss? What if a lady already has a husband but she cannot resist the Harlequin’s advances? This secrecy adds to the excitement and in the painting above the Pierrot and his girl are seen hiding behind a bush. Pierrot has a wide smile on his face while the lady is embracing him and seemingly pulling him closer. Now I would like to share Langston Hughes’ poem on Pierrot:

“For Pierrot loved the long white road,
And Pierrot loved the moon,
And Pierrot loved a star-filled sky,
And the breath of a rose in June.
(…)
For Pierrot saw a world of girls,
And Pierrot loved each one,
And Pierrot thought all maidens fair
As flowers in the sun.
(…)
For Pierrot played on a slim guitar,
And Pierrot loved the moon,
And Pierrot ran down the long white road
With the burgher’s wife one June.“

Konstantin Somov, Lady and Harlequin (Fireworks ), 1912, watercolour

Here is perhaps something indicative, a fragment of Somov’s letter to his friend and 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!” Perhaps, in a way, Somov found that he could relate to the character of Pierrot and wanted, at least in the world of his canvases and drawings, to create a world of playfulness, cheerfulness, frivolity, flirtations and love-games, a world indeed made for easy-going, amorous daredevils.

We could also perhaps talk about a certain Rococo-revival that was going on at the time, in the early twentieth century, in particular the 1910s. In a lot of Somov’s paintings the ladies are seen wearing those huge dresses and the men are wearing wigs, a similar theme is found in Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings, in particular his “Rape of the Lock” series, Murice Ravel’s composition “Le tombeau de Couperin” in a hommage to the eighteenth century composer Couperin. It is as if those artists yearned to revive the exuberance, the frivolity and the eroticism of the eighteenth century. Wouldn’t it be lovely indeed to flee into the worlds of love in the canvases of Watteau and Fragonard, to sit on a swing all day long, to steal kisses in lush gardens by the rose bushes and the marble statues of Venuses, to live in a place where the fountain of love flows and never ceases? I also really enjoy the was Somov painted the nature, or park setting in all of these paintings. The trees seem alive and this only adds excitement.

I really also love these paintings where the Harlequin is seducing the Lady. As you will see from the dates, ranging from 1897 to 1921, just in these examples that I have chosen to present here, this is something that has interested Somov for two decades. In the 1912 watercolour “Lady and Harlequin (Fireworks)“, the couple is standing at the entrance of the garden party, it seems, both dressed in vibrant attires. I do love her emerald yellow gown. They seem happy, as if they are smiling and waving to us, as if on some old postcard, a remembrance of a bygone era. I do love Somov’s subtle details such as the mask that she is holding in her hand, or their hands joint at her waist. In the background, painted in more muted, blue-purplish tones are the other couples. In “Confidante” the Harlequin and his Rococo Lady are seen standing behind a statue, he is gently cupping her breast and inhaling the delicate scent of her neck, secrets are being shared, gossip is being told while in the background the party continues undisturbed.

Konstantin Somov, Confidante, 1897

Konstantin Somov, Lady and Harlequin, 1921