Abhisarika Nayika (The One Who Goes Out to Meet her Lover) – Indian Love Painting

Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

Abhisarika Nayika, A Painting from a Nayika Series. c 1820

Some time ago I wrote about some really beautiful Indian miniature paintings one of which was the Kangra style painting of Utka Nayika or the heroine anxiously expecting her lover. The nature in those watercolours and the overall mood is dreamy, sensuous, and idyllic, the landscape is especially verdant, lush and fragrant, as if inviting all the love naughtiness to take place, but the paintings that I will be showing in this post have a completely different mood. While Utka Nayika is the one waiting for her lover, usually in a beautiful natural setting, the Abhisarika Nayika is the courageous and daring heroine who goes out into the deepest, darkest depths of the forest to meet her beloved there. Dressed in a splendid blue attire, adorned with all the possible jewellery, she is ready to meet her lover, but before she does, the path is long and thorny. The forest is dark and those clouds don’t look at all promising. They are dark and heavy with rain. There is thunder and lightning. And oh – if only the thunder were the worst thing that awaits the poor, but relentness and brave heroine! No, there are snakes coiling themselves around her foot, there are spooky creatures, forest witches, and who knows what else, in her way. Her light in the darkness, her candle of hope, is the love that she is feeling in her heart and this love is guiding her through all the trials and tribulations.

Abhisarika Nayika

In these paintings we see just how big of a role nature plays in conveying the mood. The heroines are dressed almost the same way in nearly all of these watercolours, usually with elaborate adornment, jewellery, perfume and veils. It is nature here which is changing her robes; from lush and sensuous in the Utka Nayika paintings, to the dark and spooky in the Abhisarika Nayika watercolours. The trees are no longer offering a warm, kind shelter but are instead creating eerie shadows in the moonlight and their long twisted branches are like the long arms of some demon about to grab the nayika around her waist and pull her into the deepest darkest depths of the underworld. The sky is not smiling and calm, but instead the clouds, heavy with rains, are gathering, wanting to spoil the lovers’ night of passion with rain and thunder. The wind is not cooling the heat of the summer, but rather it is swaying the branches of the trees in an unsettling way, and it seems to whisper to the nayika: go home, go home… But of course this nayika will not listen to or take anyone’s advice. She didn’t spent all day picking out that magical midnight blue attire and all that jewellery for nothing! Oh, she will see her man tonight, even if the sky fell down and all the witches and serpents leave their home that night to torment her! She is untouchable. I love the effect of thunder and rain in these paintings, especially in the 1840 one bellow, those rain drops, just marvellous. I have no words at how spooky the portrayal of those witches are. And I truly adore the midnight darkness of the last painting in this post; the dark colour palette with the touches of white in those flowers, and the nayika’s blue attire, truly stunning visually and captures the nocturnal atmosphere.

Abhisarika Nayika – The Heroine Going to Meet her Lover, India, Guler, circa 1810-1820

When the nayika does indeed meet her beloved, her hero or nayaka, this conversation occurs:

Nayaka: “You have enslaved me,dear, by coming here even though not called.”
Nayika: “But, Ghanasyama, clouds came and brought me here.”
Nayaka: “I can’t even see your body in this darkness. I wonder how you found the way.”
Nayika:“Lightning showed me the path.”
Nayaka: “But your feet must have been hurt on the uneven path covered with mud and thorns.”
Nayika: “The elephant of courage which I was riding was very comfortable indeed.”
Nayaka: “How did you dare come absolutely alone in this dark and horrible night?”
Nayika: “Your love was my companion.”

(taken from “Kangra Paintings on Love”, M.S.Randhawa)

Lady keeping tryst on stormy night, Abhisarika Nayika, Bilaspur, c. 1840

Abhisarika Nayika braves the forest at night to meet her lover, Early 19th century. Kangra

Season of the Witch – Frederick Sandys: Morgan-le-Fay

Frederick Sandys (1829–1904), Morgan-le-Fay, 1863-64

Morgan le Fay is a beautiful and seductive enchantress, a witch we might even say, from Arthurian legends whose only purpose in life is to destroy King Arthur and his wonderful castle of Camelot.

I really liked the portrayal of Morgana in the series “Merlin” where she is played by the Irish actress Katie McGrath. Not only is she gorgeous with her pale skin, black hair and grey eyes, dressed in long, flowing purple, blue and green gown, but I also like the development of her character throughout the series. At first she is this slightly naive young woman and King Uther’s ward who is disturbed by the appaling treatment of druids and other people who practice magic, but over time, as she discovers her own magical powers and as she experiences betrayals from people she trusted, she develops a deep hatred for Camelot and everybody there, including King Arthur of course. Her thorny path from innocence to evil is symbolically represented in her departure from the civilised and beautiful environment of the castle of Camelot to the lonely wilderness of the Isle of Avalon. There Morgana can devote herself to things that she is most passionate about; destroying Camelot, taking over power from King Arthur and hurting him in every way possible. And that is something she is doing in this painting.

Frederic Sandys’ depiction of Morgana is perhaps the most famous one from the Victorian era and it certainly struck the imagination of the Victorians because he portrays Morgana as a dangerous femme fatale. In the painting Morgana is seen in her chamber overlooking the lake, as we can see the glistening blue lake through the window in the upper right corner. She is holding a lamp and passing it over the robe and chanting her spells over the robe that she had just woven for King Arthur on her loom. The enchanted robe is suppose to set King Arthur’s body on fire as soon as he puts it on, but that doesn’t happen, of course, because a messanger had tried the robe before him. Sandys’ depiction of Morgana truly sets a tone for her image as a dangerous and alluring femme fatale; her loose auburn hair is seen cascading down her back, the jewel like colours of her robe certainly don’t speak of modesty, and that animal skin really adds a wild touch. The face expression and the gesture of her hands are both very expressive. She seems very caught in the moment, completely consumed with hatred for King Arthur. The robe she is wearing was actually a kimono and the model for Morgana was Sandys’ lover Keomi Gray. Gazing at the Lady Morgana here made me think of another witch I love; Elaine, also known as the Love Witch from the film “The Love Witch” (2016). Elaine is also an example of a wild and dangerous woman, but she is not consumed with hatred and jealousy but rather with a desire for love. Here are some pictures from the film bellow, along with a painting by another Pre-Rapahaelite inspired painter John William Waterhouse because it’s similar in style and pose.

John William Waterhouse, The Crystal Ball, 1902

Samantha Robinson as Elaine aka “The Love Witch” in the film “The Love Witch” (2016)

Marie Spartali Stillman – Brewing The Love Philtre

Marie Spartali Stillman, Pharmakeutria (Brewing The Love Philtre), 1870

Samhain may be over and we have entered the dark part of the year, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot find beauty, love and magic in the days of darkness; death of nature need not signify soul’s slumber. And do not assume that witches are on holiday now. Nay, they are as busy as ever, preparing the love potions, jotting down new magic spells, singing and selling their new books, flying on brooms, you know, the normal stuff. And here we have two witches-wanna be ladies who are brewing a love potion for some dashing haughty man out there who just refuses to return their affections. It is the dusk of the day; an owl is heard and November’s soft pinky fog is slowly descending. Tired forlorn sunflowers are blooming sweetly. The branches on the trees are bare, but there are some red leaves left, giving the tree trunk a soft autumnal embrace and shielding the bark from the cold winds of change.

Hidden behind the tree and the bushes, two ladies clad in long heavy purple and orange gowns are brewing the love potion in a little cauldron over some playful flames. Still and captured in the moment, the lady in orange had just opened the bottle of wine. The lady in purple seems to be asking “More wine? Are you sure we need more wine?” – “Why, yes, a few more drops”, the lady in orange replies. “Let me see what the book says.” An open book of magic spells lies open next to the lady in purple. The recipe says for a love potion one needs some sweet red wine, fresh basil leaves, red rose petals, cloves, apple seeds, three tears from the lovelorn maiden, a dried carnation, a dash of apple juice, some rosemary and thyme… So, why not, let us add more of this sweet red wine! Bur hurry, my dearest, for the night is approaching and soon the dusk’s pink veil will turn into the dark blue cloth of midnight and only our eyes, shining with yearning, and the flames of the fire will shine. The owl will tell us the time. The potion is brewing and the ladies are singing a soft song to pass by the time…

“Let the one who drinks this wine,
Shower me with love divine…” (*)

Marie Spartali Stillman as Memory (Mother of the Muses), by Julia Margaret Cameron, September 1868

Marie Spartali Stillman was one of the rare females in the Pre-Raphaelite circle who had established an art career for herself and who remained known as an artist in her own right, and not just a muse and a model, although she was a model as well. She was prolific and talented and, unlike Elizabeth Siddal whose art career was cut short by her laudanum overdose and we are left wondering what she could have accomplished, Marie left many beautiful vibrant and exuberant oil on canvases for posterity. This Grecian goddess in Victorian London quickly caught the eye of the writers and artists of the day, such as Swinburne, Whistler and Ford Maddox Brown, and she became Brown’s pupil in. In 1870, the year this painting was painted, Stillman exhibited in the Royal Academy in London for the first time. Becoming an artist or at least being in some way connected to the world of art almost seems like the most natural step to take for Marie because she grew up in an affluent family who praised the arts and was acquainted with people from the art world. Her father, Michael Spartali, was a wealthy merchant who moved from Greece to England in 1828, and her mother, Euphrosyne, known as Effie, was a daughter of a Greek merchant from Genoa. On one occasion, on a party of another Greek businessman, Marie met the poet and playwright Swinburne who was so overwhelmed with emotions upon meeting her, almost bewitched one might say, that he later said for Marie “She is so beautiful that I want to sit down and cry”.

Marie Spartali Stillman, by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1868

And of course, since this is the middle of the Victorian era, we are talking about the Pre-Raphaelite circles; if there is a beautiful young woman then Dante Gabriel Rossetti must also be involved in the story. And so he was. Very soon after Marie started taking drawing lessons from Ford Maddox Brown, Rossetti heard about this exotic Greek beauty and wrote to Brown on the 29th April 1867 saying: “I just hear Miss Spartali is to be your pupil. I hear too that she is one and the same with a marvellous beauty of whom I have heard much talk. So box her up and don’t let fellows see her, as I mean to have first shy at her in the way of sitting.” Marie indeed sat for Rossetti very soon but her head proved to be a hard one for portraying, as Dante had confessed later in a letter to Jane Morris. Still, the tall, melancholy, serious exotic Marie does seem to have the kind of beauty that Rossetti would appreciate; long necked, tall and regal, with a mass of long thick hair, pouting lips.

The Season of the Witch

The season of the witch is all year round as far as I am concerned, but still, since we are in the witchy time of the year, here are some gorgeous pics and I hope you enjoy them!

“When I look out my window,
many sights to see.
And when I look in my window,
so many different people to be.
That its strange.
So strange.

You got to pick up every stitch.

Must be the season of the witch,
must be the season of the witch, yeah,
must be the season of the witch…” (Donovan)

Pic found here.

Pic found here.

Pic found here.

Pic found here.

The Love Witch (2016): Psychedelia Meets Victoriana

Two autumns ago I watched this delicious eye-candy film called “The Love Witch” (2016) directed by Anna Biller and I loved it! Now, in these late October’s crimson leafy witchy days I find myself thinking about that film again and now I must tell you all to watch it too because it is just “wow”! It is fun, strange, sensual, vibrant, over the top and very aesthetically pleasing to watch.

I love him so much it just turns to hate
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache…

(Hole, Doll Parts)

The main character is a beautiful witch Elaine, played by Samantha Robinson, whose long silky smooth black hair, dazzling outfits and vibrant eyeshadows catch the eye of many men in town, which is unfortunate for them because she isn’t just a witch – she is a love witch. Simultaneously, she is every man’s fantasy and his doom. Her victims just fall too much in love, and yes, ironically they die of too much love. Looking at Elaine, the way she walks the way she talks, it is easy to see why no man can resist her, there is a something magnetic about her, her figure oozes confidence and sensuality. In the opening scene, she is driving her pretty red car and explaining to us how she had to move because her former husband died a mysterious death and now she is partly blamed. She starts a new life in a small and charming little town of Arcata, California and moves into a beautiful Victorian house decorated in vibrant colours and garish designs which perfectly fit this witch’s taste. There she spends her time making spells and love potions, woodoo dolls and candles, and she also enjoys painting, tea and cake like a refined Victorian lady. After suffering from love in the past, Elaine was reborn as a witch and now she is determined to use that power to get what she wants from men, and not the other way around.

The time period isn’t strictly defined, it is supposed to be set in modern times but the aesthetic definitely draws heavily from late 1960s vibrant psychedelia and early 1970s with the Victoriana influence and the Edwardian era revival; the interior design of Elaine’s house and her costumes reflect this rich exuberant mix of styles. This film is extremely aesthetically pleasing to watch and it is what draws me to the film the most; aesthetic, if it’s the kind of world that I can imagine myself living in, if the characters are wearing the kind of clothes that I would died for, then I will watch the film, regardless of its other qualities, or lack of thereof. The aesthetic is everything.

All in all, Elaine just wants to find a man to love, and who will love her in return, but her mad intense search for this man has made her too desperate, and her witchcraft skills have made her too powerful, and so what started with an innocent understandable desire to be loved turned into a wild murderous fantasy. An officer she dated tells her in one scene in the bar “What you call love is a borderline personality disorder.” And indeed, her dark hypnotising eyes with long lashes and blue eyeshadow do have a look of madness in them. Also, she has no problem with burying people such as her unfortunate lover, she has done it before, she admits… Though it was his fault, he suddenly got so clingy and emotional after they had made love. He wasn’t the strong courageous prince charming that she is waiting for.

I am doll parts, bad skin, doll heart
It stands for knife
For the rest of my life

(Hole, Doll Parts)

“The Love Witch” feels entirely like someone’s fantasy, like an acid dreams translated into the art medium of cinema, which is wonderful! It’s a world seen through rose-tinted glasses, and it has its own logic. You know it can’t be real and these things can’t be real, but somehow you want to be drawn in and just savour all its colours and vivacity. The reason for this unique, dreamy feel to the film is probably because Anna Biller was practically its main creator; she is the film’s writer, costume designer, director, producer, art director, and editor. She wanted the film to look like it belongs to the era it was set in, and therefore the vibrant colours were used on purpose, in setting and in costumes, to emulate the look of technicolor films. Anne Biller said “I like to make films with a kind of dream logic. My films are a mix of reality and fantasy, or a mix of what is happening and what people wish was happening, or what they fear will happen.”

In one scene, her poor victim Wayne, a college lecturer, takes her to his cabin in the woods, but little can he sense that she put hallucinogenic herbs in his drink and that she will destroy him. She starts undressing and he is almost blinded by the bright rainbow of her coat. Here is how the dialogue goes:

“What the hell! Your coat, it’s so bright.”

“I always line my clothing.

“You have two selves. Dark and quiet that you show the world… who do you give that to? the Rainbow?”

“I give the rainbow to you. Right now.“ And she throws the rainbow-lined coat to him and proceeds to take the rest of her clothes off.

Now let’s take a look at Elaine’s to-die-for gorgeous costumes! Here is what Anna Biller said about them:

“It’s all stuff that I fantasize about wearing, outfits I would wear if I was that put together. I used to put a lot of time into my own wardrobe, but since I’ve been making films I’ve put a lot of that energy into film wardrobes instead. I love vintage-inspired clothing, and I used vintage patterns to create her wardrobe. I wanted her to look really stylish, but also to be dressed how I imagine a 1960s witch would dress. I know some girls who dress like Elaine, and I love the way they dress and do their makeup.” She also says: “I wanted the costumes to come from Elaine’s romantic self-fantasies. I made a lot of them, and also a lot of them were vintage.”

I love the emphasis Biller put on the costumes and how they are symbolically connected to the story:

“I like for the costumes to match sets or to be harmonious with them, so in the scene when Elaine is driving her red car I put her in a red dress with red accessories. Her dress is short and casual, since she is driving and it’s daytime. She is wearing a moonstone pendant, since that’s an occult piece of jewelry. She changes costume for the next scene in the tearoom, since that’s a pink room and features ladies in hats, so for that scene she wears an appropriate Victorian-style peach dress with a hat trimmed with flowers. Trish for that scene also wears a peach outfit, but hers is a pantsuit because she is a businesswoman. In the last scene at the bar, I have Elaine in a long dress which is in a Victorian style but feels defiant and witchy because it’s in a theatrical red polyester. I put her in this dress because she is defying Griff in this scene, and I wanted her to wear something that shows her power.” (read the whole interview here.)

I love that Biller designed the costumes to correlate to the scenes, so the colour and cut of Elaine’s dress can tell us much more than we might assume at first. On two different occasions Elaine is having a tea party, first with her friend Trish in a Victorian-style tea room where she is seen wearing a dusty peach-pink dress and a pink hat, and the other time she is at home alone painting and she made tea and cake and is seen wearing this delicate yellow and white dress. In these scenes, she is not a groovy vixen out to get her net victim, no, she is a delicate princess waiting for her prince charming to show up at her doorstep with flowers and chocolates. These two dresses show the influence of late Victorian and Edwardian era on design and fashion of the late sixties and early 1970s, I already wrote about it here. Pink and yellow tea dresses, like a delicate rose and primrose, sweet and nonthreatening. Here is what Anne Biller says about these outfits:

“The tea outfits were all vintage finds, but I had to do a lot of alterations to make them right. I looked for vintage Gunne Sax dresses specifically, wanting to give Elaine the look of those vintage Bradley dolls with the big eyes, and of the prom girls, bridesmaids, and Wild West gals you’d see in movies from the ‘60s and early ‘70s. The scene itself was inspired by an actual tea room I visited once where all the ladies wore hats trimmed with flowers, and pastel colors. I really saw Elaine in that setting, with all of her princess fantasies.” (more here.)

Now, at the end, my question is: how can I steal her wardrobe, and where may I apply to live there, in such a pretty Victorian house in sunny California in some undefined era which looks a lot like sixties????

Witches Round the Cauldron by Daniel Gardner (1775)

‘When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, in lighting or in rain.‘ (Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, Scene I)

Daniel Gardner, The Three Witches from Macbeth, 1775

‘…something wicked this way comes.’

As the eighteenth century slowly approached its end, things were getting darker on the artistic scene. Ghosts, vampires and witches suddenly appeared on canvases of painters such as Henry Fuseli, Goya and William Blake. Dark side of the imagination began to shape works of art as well as literature, and the aesthetic of sublime slowly crept in. This was the answer to the excessive coldness, lightness and rationality of Classicism. In times when this was painted, public tastes were inclined towards the supernatural and Gothic, especially with theatre-goers who loved scenes from Macbeth. ‘Paint the witch!‘ replaced the more barbaric ‘Burn the witch!’.

Although the subject of this scene hints at the later developments of Romanticism, its execution is true to the styles of Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, two artists whose style Gardner emulated, and often borrowed ideas for composition and arrangement of figures. This is an utterly charming and dreamy portrayal of three witches from Macbeth. There’s nothing scary or disturbing about it, and these three ladies are certainly prettier than Shakespeare had intended his witches to be, but these are not just three witches, oh no, Gardner actually portrayed three friends, society hostesses, art lovers and supporters of Whig party in this portrait.

The figure on the left, with long brown hair, is Elizabeth Lamb (nee Milbanke), Viscountess Melbourne. Witch on the right, dressed in splendid, sparkly black robe with zodiac symbols on it and tiny golden details, is Anne Seymour Damer (nee Conway) who was also an amateur sculptor. She has a typical black ‘witch’ hat and holds a magic wand in her right hand. In the middle is the most extravagant and well remembered out of all three; Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, famous for her beauty, bold fashion statements, gambling and partying (much like Kate Moss today), her affair and an unhappy marriage. Along with a hat, her beautiful head is covered with gauze veil, and while she holds the sumptuous white silk fabric of her dress with one hand, she uses other to throw some herbs or blue flowers in the cauldron. Despite portraying a Shakespearean scene, which is a great task for the imagination, Gardner didn’t really use it, but rather chose to follow the fashion of the day; both in clothing the ‘witches’ wear and the style and composition of the painting itself.

High society lady, writer and diarist Lady Mary Coke (1727-1811) wrote in her diary of ‘the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Melburn, and Mrs Damer all being drawn in one picture in the Characters of the three Witches in Macbeth … They have chosen that Scene where they compose their Cauldron, but instead of “finger of Birth-strangled babe, etc” their Cauldron is composed of roses and carnations and I daresay they think their charmes more irresistible than all the magick of the Witches‘. (*)

Although I find the whole painting aesthetically pleasing, and very fitting for the mood of these post-Halloween days, I must say a thing or two about the brushstrokes and the play of light. Gardner beautifully portrayed their dresses, painting in soft, playful and refined strokes, using gouache and chalk. And the light; see how the bronze cauldron glistens, smoke arises like in a dream, and the reflections of the fire on the gorgeous silk dresses of the witches. I should also mention the possible allegorical meaning of the painting; since all three women were interested in politics and publicly supported the Whig party, it is possible that Gardner painted the cauldron as a symbol of ‘shadowy political machinations as leading members of the Devonshire House circle.’ (*)