Francois Boucher – The Pasha in His Harem

Francois Boucher, The Pasha in His Harem, c. 1735-1739, watercolour, ink, pen, grey wash

Gazing at the gorgeous Rococo paintings is like getting your hand inside a box of chocolate candies; it’s thrilling and it’s sweet. The Rococo artwork I have chosen for this post is a fascinating watercolour by Francois Boucher painted around 1735-39. The watercolour shows a sumptuously dressed pasha in his harem, surrounded by his stunning set of concubines. Beside him are three young women, three concubines, and in the background there is another one, attentively pouring some drink. The girls next to the pasha are gazing at him adoringly; he is their master and their God, the centre of their universe. The pasha is living the dream of many libertine men of the eighteenth century. I bet that Louise XV would have had his harem had it been a custom at the French court at the time. In the pyramidal composition of this watercolour the head of the pasha with its turban is the top of the pyramid. Sitting cross-legged at the centre of everything, the pasha needs only to move his head and his gaze would fall on another girl; he is like a butterfly on a meadow, flying from one flower to another, soaking in its beauty and its delicate, sweet scent. The pasha’s hand is reaching for the charms of the concubine on his right and he is casting his warm, loving gaze on her whilst the woman in the foreground is lying stretched beneath his feet with her breats exposed, longing to feel the warmth of that gaze as well.

The pink and yellowish tones of the watercolour are the same colour as the powder-coated turkish delight. The sweet delicacy of the colour fits the mood of the watercolour very well. And notice just how beautifully the fabric on their clothes and in the background is draped, the folds are carefully accentuated with bold strokes of ink which really gives them that palpable dimension and also the black harshness of the ink creates a beautiful contrast with the soft delicacy of all the pinks and yellows. Behind the pink drapery there are contours of a flower vase perched on the top of the marble column. It almost feels as if the scene is staged in way, as if it is a design for the play. Boucher is known for his paintings permeated with an undeniable eroticism and he has painted a few rather beautiful behinds, but this is the first time I had seen his erotic imagination transport him to the world of Orient and it is very interesting to me.

At the same time that the Habsburg Empire and the Balkans were fighting the evils of the Ottoman Empire, the artists in the west of Europe were enjoying their delightful reveries about the hidden and clandestine wonders of the Orient. Everything mysterious and forbidden tastes sweeter and this trend continued well into the nineteenth century when artists such as Ingres, Delacroix and Jean-Leon Gerome and many others would capture the vibrancy and opulence of the Orient. Still, unlike Delacroix’s real life sketches of the life in Morroco, Boucher’s watercolour is a Rococo fantasy, an idealisation, a make-belief, a dream; it doesn’t strive for authenticity.

Đorđe Krstić – Skull Tower

“The mountain breeze, which was then blowing fresh, penetrated the innumerable cavities of the skulls, and sounded like mournful and plaintive sighs.….”

Đorđe Krstić, Ćele kula (Skull Tower), 1883

Serbian painter Đorđe Krstić’s painting “Skull Tower” is a mass of heavy, earthy brown shades. The tower portrayed is a vague looking building and without knowing the history behind it, we might not even sense the eeriness that is hidden behind a drab, brown facade. The Skull Tower portrayed here is a stone structure embedded with human skulls in the town of Niš, Serbia. It dates back to May 1809 when the First Serbian Uprising took place and the Serbian rebels fought the Ottoman Empire, and, sadly, lost, but not without heroism and bravery. The Serbian leader of the battle, Srđan Sinđelić, realising his side would lose, killed himself and his fellow soldiers by creating a massive gun powder explosion. After the battle, the Ottoman soldiers took the heads of the Serbian men, skinned them and sent them to the Ottoman Sultan who, after viewing them, sent them back to Niš and then the Ottoman side built this tower as a warning to all other Serbs who may be contemplating an uprising. This was a known method for the Ottoman Empire, but still, after some time had passed, they realised that the tower served only to create resentment and not fear with the locals.

This tower built of limestone and sand originally contained more than 900 skulls, but not all are there anymore. In 1878 the Ottomans left the area and a baldachin-type structur was made over the tower and eventually a chapel was made and the tower is now inside it. Đorđe Krstić’s painting doesn’t do justice to the truly eerie and disturbing sight that the tower full of skulls must have been in those days, and probably still is, but French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine left us a better, more vivid and haunting description of the tower. In 1833 the poet visited the wilderness that eastern Europe and the Balkans must have been in his eyes and he saw the Skull Tower. His impressions of it are more atmospheric and eerie than Krstić’s painting:

“I saw a large tower rising in the midst of the plain, as white as Parian marble … Raising my eyes to the monument, I discovered that the walls, which I supposed to be built of marble or white stone, were composed of regular rows of human skulls; these skulls bleached by the rain and sun, and cemented by a little sand and lime, formed entirely the triumphal arch which now sheltered me from the heat of the sun. In some places portions of hair were still hanging and waved, like lichen or moss, with every breath of wind. The mountain breeze, which was then blowing fresh, penetrated the innumerable cavities of the skulls, and sounded like mournful and plaintive sighs. My eyes and my heart greeted the remains of those brave men whose cut-off heads made the cornerstone of the independence of their homeland. May the Serbs keep this monument! It will always teach their children the value of the independence of a people, showing them the real price their fathers had to pay for it.”

Alphonse de Lamartine’s fascination with that area of Europe and with the tower shows the wild craving and yearning of the Romantic era for all things exotic, unexplored, dark and mysterious, and also touches on the Romantic love of heroism and fight for liberty.