April 2021

Apr 29

Salomé: the dance that will make you lose your head!

By Lynne Hanley Elevenses, Salome, Talking art

Oh yes! Salomé’s dance really did make someone lose their head. And definitely not in a good way.

First broadcast on International Dance Day, this looks like the ultimate Burlesque routine, I reckon. I mean, wow! Great back bend, elegant arms and head, the shoes completely match the outfit and she’s either brought along a leopard or is completely comfortable dancing with one in the room…

Armand Point, Dance of Salomé, 1898, private collection?

The couple she’s dancing for are pretty into it too. Clearly wealthy, he’s on a throne and they are both wearing a crown. Who are they? What’s with the peacock?

Well, if I say ‘dance of the seven veils’ does that give you a clue?

This is Herod – or actually Herod II, son of Herod who was King of Judea, and infamous for the massacre of the innocents. By his side is wife, Herodia. So of course the dancer is Salomé, the daughter of Herodia and Herod. But not this Herod, oh no. Nor Herod’s dad, but a different Herod altogether, Herod Philip, from whom Herodia was divorced. So many Herods! And the problem was that they were all related. Because both Herods were the sons of Herod… got it?

Let’s go back a few weeks, months, even years, before this dance took place.

Herodias and Herod Philip marry and have a daughter, Salomé. Then they fall out and get divorced. Herodias eyes up his half-brother Herod Antipas and, as she has a way of getting what she wants (as we’ll see), they end up marrying, much to the vehement condemnation of one John the Baptist which really upset Herodias. Herodias suggested quite strongly to her new husband that they could easily get rid of John the Baptist but as the saint was pretty popular, Herod refused and said he wasn’t interested.

What DID interest him, however, was the beautiful Salomé. So Herodias took her chance on his birthday and said if Salomé dances for you what will you give her? I imagine his eyes misting over here as he wrings his hands in anticipation and declares (greedily) that frankly give her anything she wants! Hmmm.

So here is Salomé, in a late 19^th century work by the French symbolist artist Armand Point, looking fabulous and working the room alongside a peacock and leopard.

Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Skirt, Illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, 1894, Print in V & A, London

Peacocks have been a symbol of wealth, beauty and rebirth (in a Christian context) since ancient times but they were hugely fashionable in the 1890s – they were used as a motif by the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley throughout his 1894 illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé. I suppose their extravagant, beautiful exoticism fit the bill perfectly. And, by the way, Oscar Wilde is the man that coined the phrase ‘the dance of the seven veils’ in his one act play.

The leopard is a hunting animal, sleek and elegant; perhaps a sign of things to come?

The trade-off is of course that Salomé, prompted by her vengeful mother, asks for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Against his better judgment, Herod reluctantly acceded to her request. Not that you’d get much of the horror of what’s to come from Point’s offering.

Fra Lippi, Herod’s Feast, between 1452 and 1465, Prato Cathedral

The fabulous early Renaissance artist Fra Lippi, on the other hand, tells us exactly what’s going on in his mid 15^th century fresco. No peacocks here, just good old fashioned story telling.

Centre left we can see Salomé dancing, not looking quite as happy and seductive as she does in the 19^th century version, but youthful and lovely nonetheless.

She is seen again to the left of the fresco receiving Saint John the Baptist’s head on the platter, and a third time to the right of the picture presenting it to Herodias who appears to be saying, ‘no, no, it’s for him’ whilst pointing at Herod. I’m not sure whether the couple to the far right are about to have a cheeky snog whilst everyone’s distracted, or whether they are reacting to the horror of having a head brought to the table!

Some artists just didn’t bother with the dancing and went straight for the head on a platter scenario.

I love this fashionable lady of the Wittenberg court as depicted by Lucas Cranach the Elder with her reddish necklaces that echo the horrible red blood of St John’s decapitated head. Cranach painted this theme a lot. Most of the works are quite small in size and would have been for private patrons. They share the common theme of depicting a haughty woman with a high forehead, the beauty ideal at the time, perfectly dressed in extremely fashionable clothes and calmly displaying a severed head. The thrill of the horror combined with the sensuality of Salomé proved a winning combination. Plus ça change!!!

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Salomé with the Head of John the Baptist, 1530s, Fine Art Museum, Budapest

The video of this episode can be viewed here. To view the entire ‘Elevenses with Lynne’ archive, head to the Free Art Videos page.

Apr 22

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Luncheon of the Boating Party

By Lynne Hanley Elevenses, Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, Talking art

This week is all about dining al fresco!

And here is one of the most famous and delicious luncheon scenes ever to be painted. Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

It dates to 1881 and I suppose would be classified as an Impressionist work – it prioritises colour, it’s of a modern, everyday scene, it was mostly painted outdoors – he spent 16 months painting individual portraits in situ but then finished the whole thing off in the studio which wasn’t so Impressionist. It has to be said, however, that the Impressionists actually didn’t have a manifesto that they worked to.

The scene depicts a group of young people enjoying the tail end of what looks to have been a rather fabulous lunch. The location is a restaurant called Maison Fournaise which was closed in 1906 but with a rising interest in the Impressionist artists throughout the 20^th century, there was a campaign to restore it. So you can go and dine there once again.

In the 1880s it was a popular hangout for rowers who would congregate there because you could access it via the river and artists, and actresses and bourgeois types; all of whom are represented here, in glorious 3D. Renoir wanted them all to be substantial, properly modelled and convincing, hence he spent time on them and he painted them in a different way to the background which is far more ‘impressionistic’, they are also almost life size.

Look at these figures; they’re so much sharper than the background because they’re painted with finer brushstrokes.

The objects on the table are less defined too – look at the way that the glasses are brilliantly depicted using light and shadow.

Luncheon of the Boating Party really was, and still is, considered Renoir’s masterpiece. It’s three genres rolled into one (still life, landscape and portraiture), and is full of interaction which gives it real dynamism. The interaction in terms of the composition was certainly staged as the composition works so well but it was also genuine as the people depicted where Renoir’s friends.

The guy leaning against the balcony is Alphonse Fournaise, Jr. and the lady is Alphonsine Fournaise; brother and sister and the children of parents with little imagination. They are also, of course, part of the family who own the restaurant.

The lady cooing at her terrier is Aline Charigot, Renoir’s future wife. You might notice that the dog is looking slightly surprised, and that’s because he’s not looking at the same person that he was originally! Aline replaces the original model who had her face scraped away when Renoir fell in love with the young seamstress and decided that she needed to be in the painting!

Opposite Aline is the artist Gustave Caillebotte and amidst other recognisable faces of the day is one that is in the centre but, unlike all of the other people depicted, not interacting at all. She’s completely in her own world. This is the actress Ellen Andrée who also modelled for Degas.

The painting became part of the collection of Durand-Ruel who was an art collector and the main patron of the impressionists but when he died in 1922 the work was bought by an American collector called Duncan Phillips who had founded Washington D.C.’s The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art. It’s still there. It went to a great home, Duncan Phillips LOVED the work. Legend has it that one bitchy fellow collector once commented to Phillips that ‘that’s ‘s the only Renoir you have, isn’t it?’ and Phillips replied, ‘It’s the only one I need.’

The video of this episode can be viewed here. To view the entire ‘Elevenses with Lynne’ archive, head to the Free Art Videos page.

Apr 16

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Hair Matters!

By Lynne Hanley Elevenses, Good hair / bad hair, Talking art

mock up of Lynne Hanley as Marie Antoinette

Hair matters. As I write this, half the nation have hair like Rembrandt. Well, if not actually the same, they are sporting a frizzy, unkempt look born of not being able to get to a hairdresser for six months or so. The other half are luxuriating in newly coiffed fabulousness.

I’m going to the hairdresser as soon as I’ve posted this. I’ll post an update.

Bad hair day

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, c.1628, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Good hair day

close up of Empress Elizabeth and her glorious hair

Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1864, Collection of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis (detail)

Back to Rembrandt. This is one of his very early self-portraits, possibly the earliest, created in 1628 when he was 22, before he moved to Amsterdam from Leiden.

What a selfie debut! It takes quite an artist to decide to basically hide their face in a portrait. You don’t see the eyes for a second or two when usually they are the focal point. And he’s used really loose brushwork by his ear, and probably the end of the brush to make squiggles in the wet paint to create highlights where the sun has caught his hair. So innovative. So modern!

But it’s still bad hair.

Perhaps during lockdown, you might have felt like turning to wigs, hairpieces and decorations? Cue the fashionable ladies of the late 1700’s. Here’s the most famous up-do wearer not just of her time, but, perhaps, of history. Marie Antoinette is rocking her ‘up do’ in this portrait of her by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. It’s the first of 30 portraits the artist painted of the French queen. Vigée Le Brun recalled, probably in the memoire that she wrote in her later years, that the queen ‘walked better than any other woman in France, holding her head very high with a majesty that singled her out in the midst of the entire court’.

Not surprising with that hairdo!

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Marie Antoinette, 1778, Met, New York

But how did she manage it? Well, I guess part of the point of having hair like that is that she didn’t manage it herself. Frames, padding and hair extensions all played a part. The hair was curled with hot tongs and then covered in lard which acted as 18^th century hairspray. Delicious. The piece de resistance, however, was created when the whole thing was dusted with lead powder. So smelly, toxic and altogether a bit of a nightmare because, of course, this kind of do was a bit of a mission to create and therefore you weren’t going to wash it for a while. Cue head lice at one end of the scale (there was such a thing as a scratching stick), and actual mice at the other end of the scale. It has been said that women wore cages to protect their hair at night. Sounds crazy but it might be true?

The men definitely got the easy end of the bargain as they were the ones wearing the wigs.

Vigée Le Brun, by the way, encouraged Marie Antoinette to go for a more relaxed look, which, it’s said, the queen actually favoured. This was exhibited at the artist’s first Salon in Paris very briefly because she was asked to remove it after a day or so as it was condemned as inappropriate for the public portrayal of royalty because Marie Antoinette looked ‘undressed’.

You can see that Vigée Le Brun herself went for the same look!

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, The Muslin Portrait, 1783, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, 1782, National Gallery, London

Now this is beautiful hair! This is Empress Elizabeth of Austria. Her hair was absolutely her pride and joy. It fell to her knees apparently – at least it did when she was 15 – and in later years she was completely paranoid about it falling out altogether. Which it may have done because she suffered from eating disorders. She used to have a light coloured silk cloth placed underneath her whilst her hair was brushed, after it had been washed with brandy and egg whites; presumably the egg whites first (?!), and then she’d count to see how many she’d lost. I imagine her maid was always worried about it being too many as life probably wasn’t nice for a while.

This is a completely mesmerising portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The stars in her hair! The shine! She’s absolutely stunning.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1864, Collection of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis

Stunning and very sadly absolutely miserable. Apart from her eating disorder, she suffered from very low self-esteem and bouts of depression, was exceedingly unhappy in her marriage, and, at one stage, had a nervous breakdown.

The thing that she wanted to hold on to was her beauty which became an obsession. According to her various biographers, she began to live on a diet of meat juice, fresh milk and egg whites mixed with salt. She travelled with her own cows, not sure about the hens or other animals…

To keep her waist tiny, she slept with hot towels around it and wore a silk mask with raw veal in it, presumably not to bed, but hopefully only when she was alone.

Her strange, troubled life was cut short when she was assassinated aged 60 by a crazy anarchist who just wanted a murder a royal. Sadly he crossed paths with her first when she was walking by Lake Geneva. I’m sure she still had great hair.

On that note I’m shortly off to get my hair washed in brandy.

The video of this episode can be viewed here. To view the entire ‘Elevenses with Lynne’ archive, head to the Free Art Videos page.

Apr 08

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Tom Selleck stars as Phrixus in ‘The Origin of Aries’

By Lynne Hanley Elevenses, Origin of Aries, Origin of Starsigns, Talking art

This week’s blog is all about the origin of Aries, the Ram, which is the first sign of the zodiac.

The pretty grim tale of the origin of Aries goes back, naturally, to Greek mythology and the ram that got separated from its golden fleece (hello, Jason!) to become a constellation.

It’s a tale of jealousy and resentment and frankly some extremely bad parenting on the part of King Athamus and his wife Ino. Here they are, erm, playing with their children. Or not so much!

Gaetano Gandolfi, Athamas Killing Ino’s Son, 1801, Villa Molinari Pradelli, Marano, Italy

Legend has it that when King Athamus took a second wife, Ino she was extremely jealous of his existing children, especially his son, Phrixus.

So instead of conspiring to send him away to boarding school or similar, she set about ensuring that the corn crop would fail. WHY? Because she knew that the failure of the crop would guarantee that her husband called on the Oracle for advice, and wily Ino (or I should say Ino the completely immoral psychopath?!) had somehow managed to convince the Oracle (how? blackmail? bribery?) to decree that the only way for the King to save his people from starvation was to sacrifice his son Phrixus. Guess what? He agreed!

This isn’t actually Phrixus in this image. If it were, there would be a magnificent ram with a golden fleece entering the scene to carry him off. His real mother, Nephele, prayed with such force for him to be saved that at the last minute Zeus intervened and the boy, along with his sister Helle, were scooped up by the ram and spirited away.

Here they are in this ancient Roman fresco from Pompeii, not looking terribly childlike. As you can see, however, Helle isn’t quite on the ram. Is she about to be pulled to safety by Phrixus? No! Unfortunately, as the ram crossed the straits between Europe and Asia, Helle fell off and died. The straits are still known today as Hellespont. Phrixus, on the other hand, was carried away to safety. He gave thanks for his deliverance by sacrificing the ram to Zeus and giving its golden fleece to King Aeetes from whom it was eventually nicked by Jason. Zeus, of course, cast the ram into the heavens in honour of its courage.

Phrixus and Helle, fresco, Pompeii

Here’s another image of Phrixus and Helle, taken as many others seem to have been, from the Roman original. It’s by a Greek folk artist called Theophilos Hatzimihail who painted numerous scenes of the Greek myths, this is probably early 20^th century.

Theophilos Hatzimihail, Phrixus and Helle, late 19^th/ early 20^th century, Theophilos Museum, Mytilene, Greece

By all accounts Theophilos was bit eccentric and liked to wear traditional Greek costume at all times. He seems to have been the butt of practical jokes wherever he went throughout his life, poor thing. I was wondering whether he’d modelled Phrixus on himself in this image, then I realised….

Theophilos Hatzimihail, Mytilene, Greece

Theophilos Hatzimihail, photograph, early 20th century, courtesy of Theophilos Museum

The one and only Tom Selleck, photo Donaldson Collection/Getty Images

Finally, back to the original image of Athamas and Ino. If the the kids aren’t Phrixus and Helle, who are they? There’s one hell of a postscript to this story. You will notice that Ino is holding Athamas’s hair as though to stop him hurting yet another child. I’d like to say that it’s because she’s become a nicer person, but really it’s because these are her children. In a whole other tale of woe, the couple have managed to upset Hera who exacts her revenge by making Athamas mad and he kills one child whilst the other dies when he plunges into the sea with his mother, Ino.

Good grief! All that for the origin of Aries.

The video of this episode can be viewed here. To view the entire ‘Elevenses with Lynne’ archive, head to the Free Art Videos page.

Apr 01

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April Fools!

By Lynne Hanley April Fool, Elevenses, Talking art

The exciting news in this week’s episode, should you have chosen to believe it, is that I announced that some of my work is going to exhibited by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. According to me, the foundation are preparing an exhibition around his work ‘Erased’ (the one where he took a drawing by William de Kooning and rubbed it out), which is going to raise money for artists affected by COVID-19. For those that have followed me for a while, you will know that I created a ‘Curated Canapés and Cocktails’ video on the subject along with a trailer that involved me drawing the most embarrassing self-portrait EVER to then, well, erase. I was delighted to be giving the foundation the rights to show the video and display my erased portrait.

If only. The date of the original broadcast was 01 April.

Here are my self-portraits(!!) and you can see the full video of ‘Erased’ here and the trailer here.

Lynne Hanley, Self Portrait, 2020

Self-portrait Lynne Hanley mercifully erased

Lynne Hanley, Self Portrait mercifully erased, 2020

The theme of this episode continues with the Council of Trent. Or at least with a painting of the council of Trent, which is in the Museo del Palazzo del Buonconsiglio (palace of good council) in Trent. At some point during the Council of Trent the ‘good council’ was to switch to the Gregorian calendar which meant that the start of the year switched to 01 Jan instead of 01 April, which the French did in 1582.

The Council of Trent, Museo del Palazzo del Buonconsiglio

Only some people missed the memo and continued to go crazy and party like mad during the last week of March and the first day of April. For their ignorance those poor folk became the butt of jokes and hoaxes; I guess it was quite easy for others to play tricks on them if they were in the party spirit anyway. I have to say that I would likely have joined them (the party-goers, rather than the pranksters!).

Saatchi collection, Thierry Bruet, April Fool

Thierry Bruet, Poisson D’avril, 2018, Saatchi collection

This painting by Thierry Bruet depicts an elegantly dressed lady who is clearly being made fun of as she has a fish attached to the back of her lovely ball gown. Possibly it’s nothing more than a child’s prank and we can see that this little girl on the sofa is happy to share the joke with the viewer, the paper and scissors are on the floor. However, the fish looks as though it’s swimming upstream right towards a certain part of her anatomy which marries with the slightly obsequious expression of the ‘groper’ which leaves me wondering whether something else is going on? The work is contemporary – it was created in 2018 – but it references one of the most common pranks of late 16^th century France which was to pin a paper fish on someone’s back. Why a fish? Because when they’re young and gullible they are easily hooked. So in France, an April fool is a poisson d’avril – an April fish!

The tradition found its way into Britain in the 18^th century and it was also taken up in the US where the theme was expanded.

This final image comes from an April edition of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943 and it’s a fun April Fool celebration full of inconsistencies and jokes.

There’s too much going on to mention here – there are apparently 45 ‘errors’ in this illustration. We might not count as many today as the fact that she is wearing trousers was classed as one of them! After its initial publication, Rockwell said that he’d received a letter from a guy who claimed to have counted 184!

But the thing that really got people talking was not so much that there are fish swimming up the staircase to the left of the image, but the position of the staircase itself! People raged that architecturally staircases don’t go behind chimneys, until someone from Ohio sent a photo of his staircase behind his chimney and shut everyone up.

How many errors can you see? I’d love you to list them in the comments – maybe we’ll get to 45. If we get to 184 we should all start to worry!

Norman Rockwell, April Fool: Checkers, 1943, private collection

The video of this episode can be viewed here. To view the entire ‘Elevenses with Lynne’ archive, head to the Free Art Videos page.

Salomé: the dance that will make you lose your head!

Luncheon of the Boating Party

Hair Matters!

Tom Selleck stars as Phrixus in ‘The Origin of Aries’

April Fools!

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