Category Archives: eroticism

Her arms and bosom leaning on a pillow

it is time for Icon of Erotic Art #30.

Painting of Marie-Louise O’Murphy by François Boucher c. 1751

Many of the IoEAs we have featured have been out of the mainstream, even obscure. Not for today’s icon. It is one of the first works one encounters when studying the history of eroticism in art. It celebrates the trope of the big and beautiful woman, an art later perfected by Rubens.

Casanova remarked on this painting and its model O’Murphy which he claims to have known:

The position in which he painted it was delightful. She was lying on her stomach, her arms and her bosom leaning on a pillow, and holding her head sideways as if she were partly on the back. The clever and tasteful artist had painted her legs and calves with so much skill and truth that the eye could not but wish to see more; I was delighted with that portrait; it was a speaking likeness, and I wrote under it, “O-Morphi,” not a Homeric word, but a Greek one after all, and meaning beautiful.”–Casanova, Histoire de ma vie

Marie-Louise O’Murphy de Boisfaily (21 October, 1737 – 11 December, 1814) was a child-courtesan, one of the several mistresses of King Louis XV of France.

She was the fifth daughter of an Irish officer who had taken up shoemaking in Rouen, France. After his death, her mother brought the family to Paris.

In 1752, at fourteen years of age, she posed nude for a memorable and provocative portrait by artist François Boucher. Her beauty caught the eye of Louis XV. He took her as one of his mistresses, and she quickly became a favourite, giving birth to the king’s illegitimate daughter, and possibly a second one.

After serving as a mistress to the king for just over two years, O’Murphy made a mistake that was common for many courtesans, that of trying to replace the official mistress. Around 1754, she unwisely tried to unseat the longtime royal favorite, Madame de Pompadour. This ill-judged move quickly resulted in O’Murphy’s downfall at court. After three marriages, she died in 1814 at the age of 77.

The Death of Cleopatra (IoEA#29)

It’s time for Icon of Erotic Art #29

Death of Cleopatra (1658) by Guido Cagnacci

“Her sole vestment was the linen shroud that had covered her upon her state bed, and the folds of which she drew over her bosom as if she were ashamed of being so little clothed, but her small hand could not manage it. It was so white that the colour of the drapery was confounded with that of the flesh under the pale light of the lamp. Enveloped in the delicate tissue which revealed all the contours of her body, she resembled an antique marble statue of a bather…Dead or living, statue or woman, shadow or body, her beauty was still the same; only the green gleam of her eyes was some what dulled, and her mouth, so purple of yore, had now only a pale, tender rose-tint almost like that of her cheeks.” –“One of Cleopatra’s Nights” by Théophile Gautier

More by Cagnacci, my first exposure to this celebrator of deviant tastes:

Another “Death of Cleopatra” by Cagnacci

“Magdalena Fainted” by Cagnacci

A lovely chiaroscuro by Cagnacci

To conclude another rendition, by French artist Jean-André Rixens

Death of Cleopatra (1874) by Jean-André Rixens

Tip of the hat to Edward Lucie-Smith‘s Sexuality in Western Art, 1991.

Daydreamt

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While reading Jenny Diski‘s Nothing Natural (1986) I daydreamt of publishing my own version of this 1980s version of the classic novel Gordon by Edith Templeton.

The Jahsonic edition had a cover photograph by American photographer Roy Stuart. It depicted either the “La Bonne” (the maid) scene — one of the most erotic scenes in contemporary erotica — or “The Wall” scenario, which is very similar (although with a reversal of gender) to a dream scene in Breillat‘s masterpiece Romance X.

My edition is rewritten to provide for more intelligent discourse and snappier metaphors, and the perspective is changed from Rachel to Joshua. Joshua being the voice of a post-war Sade.

The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin (IoEA#28)

It’s time for icon of erotic art #28.

“The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin”[1] is a photograph by Bettina Rheims published in her collection I.N.R.I.. The photo was taken in March 1997 and exhibited at the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont.

Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont [2] is a French art gallery located in Paris. Currently at the gallery is an exhibition by Bettina Rheims, Just like a woman[3], from May 30 – July 16 2008. The exhibition is illuminated by texts by Serge Bramly.

“The Miraculous Milk of the Virgin” is icon of erotic art number 28.

The photo is an obvious reference to the lactation miracles, also called Maria lactans (German page).

Unidentified “Maria lactans” painting depicting St. Bernard of Clairvaux?

From the blog “The hanged man” comes this comment:

Before they were suppressed by the decorous reforms of Trent, these images supported an astonishing range of piety. The medieval craving for physical contact with the divine took satisfaction in reports of lactation miracles.

While St. Bernard of Clairvaux knelt in prayer, a statue of Maria Lactans came to life and bestowed three drops of milk on his lips. St. Gertrude the Great nursed the Baby Jesus and Blessed Angela of Foligno nursed at Christ’s side. Lidwina of Schiedam saw Mary and her attendant virgins fill the sky with floods of their milk. In legend, suckling the Virgin or living saints brought healing and blessings.

Religious allegories celebrated lactation. Mary was the maiden in the garden who gave suck to the unicorn-Christ, the innocent victim hunted by men. Ecclesia, Sophia, Caritas, and sundry Virtues were shown as nursing mothers.[4]

Poking around on Google, I found the image above [5], can anyone ID?

A related IoEA was the Roman Charity one.

Erotická revue

The Erotická revue[1] was an arts journal launched by Czech surrealist Jindřich Štyrský in 1930. It is also the name of the blog of American author Evie Byrne [2].

From Evie Byrne’s blog come:

Pompeii bedroom fresco

Work by Sarah Goodridge

Emmanuel de Ghendt (1738-1815), Midday Heat, an engraving after Baudouin

Speaking of Czech surrealism, I just found some Svankmajer clips at YouTube. Some of his best work: Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), which shows Arcimboldo-like heads gradually reducing each other to bland copies (“exhaustive discussion”[3]); a clay man and woman who dissolve into one another sexually, then quarrel and reduce themselves to a frenzied, boiling pulp (“passionate discourse”[4]); and two elderly clay heads who extrude various objects on their tongues (toothbrush and toothpaste; shoe and shoelaces, etc.) and use them in every possible combination, sane or otherwise (“factual conversation”[5]). Follow the links to see more of Jahsonic fave Svankmajer.

Last minute, it’s Trevor Brown day[6] over at Dennis Cooper‘s blog.

Vallotton’s nudes + IoEA #27

Félix Vallotton (December 28 1865–December 29 1925) was a Swiss painter and graphic artist, an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut; his work was recently celebrated in the 2007-08 retrospective Félix Vallotton: An Idyll at the Edge held in Zürich and Hamburg.

Self portrait, 1885, oil on canvas, by Félix Vallotton

I’ve mentioned Swiss painter and woodcutter Félix Vallotton before here, he is one of the most interesting painters of the early 20th century. Tip of the hat to “Femme, femme, femme“, the blog, for bringing the crouching woman to my attention. The work of Vallotton is plentiful, varied and in the public domain and his edginess foreshadows the palatable work of art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka, and I have reason to imagine that Balthus was not averse to his work.

From my Flickr set:

vallotton_ballon_512x400

Felix

Vallotton_3_Women_1907

Felix Valloton Sitting woman with cat

Vallotton Femme nue regardant dans une psyche

Felix-Vallotton woman with one naked breast

vallotton moonlight

The “Crouching Woman with Cat” (4th painting from the left) reminded me of the opening “kitty milk” scene in Story of the Eye, the novel by Georges Bataille, which was analyzed by Roland Barthes in his essay, “Metaphor of the Eye”, published within Bataille’s own journal Critique, shortly after Bataille’s death in 1962. Barthes’s analysis centers on the centrality of the eye but also traces a second series of liquid metaphors within the text, which flow through tears, cat’s milk, egg yolks, frequent urination scenes, blood and semen, an analogy which might not be out of place in this painting.

Here are some of your favorites from other Flickr members.

The woman in red is quite strange, the corpse very macabre.

As a final encore, let me give you the work that introduced me to Vallotton:

Abduction of Europe (1908) by Félix Vallotton

Update 22/6/08

Two more of his paintings

Abandon

The “bottom” one represents Icon of erotic art #27 ( IoEA #27),

One of the more beautiful depictions of the female posterior.

Anecdotal nightlife histories and erotic dictionaries

Histoire anecdotique des Cafés & Cabarets de Paris (1862) Alfred Delvau

Histoire anecdotique des Cafés & Cabarets de Paris is a book on Parisian cafés by Alfred Delvau with illustrations by Gustave Courbet, Félicien Rops and Léopold Flameng.

Delvau also wrote Dictionnaire érotique moderne (1864):

This edition printed by Gay et Doucé in 1876 for the members of the “Biblio-Aphrodiphile Société” with an engraved frontispiece by Chauvet after Félicien Rops. With a “Glossaire érotique” by Louis de Landers (= August Scheler). The volume was also published by Editions 10/18.

Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl

FIRST, LET us not confuse the pin-up girl with the pornographic or erotic imagery that dates from the dark backward and abysm of time. The pinup girl is a specific erotic phenomenon, both as to form and function. –Bazin

A public domain photo of Ingrid Bergman

André Bazin‘s 1946 essay “Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl,” was first published as “Entomologie de la pin-up girl “, L’Écran français issue 77, September 1946.

It starts thus:

Definition and Morphology

A wartime product created for the benefit of the American soldiers swarming to a long exile at the four corners of the world, the pin-up girl soon became an industrial product, subject to well-fixed norms and as stable in quality as peanut butter or chewing gum. Rapidly perfected, like the jeep, among those things specifically stipulated for modern American military sociology, she is a perfectly harmonized product of given racial, geographic, social and religious influences.

“Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl” is featured in Qu’est-ce que le cinéma?

Go ask the physiognomists, phrenologists, pathognomists and characterologists

“I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds.” — Paul Verlaine, Les Poètes maudits (1884)

Heliogabalus or Elagabalus

“Heliogabalus was a remarkable example of psychopathia sexualis; but in his age there were no Krafft-Ebings to submit his case to scientific observation,” said John Stuart Hay in 1911 in The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus. Heliogabalus, or Elagabalus as he is also called, is indeed a prime example in the category of Roman decadence, along with other notorious emperors such as Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.

Keywords in the history of Roman decadence are inbreeding, bacchanalia, orgies, vomitoria, Great Fire of Rome, gladiators and pederasty.

The classic account of Roman decadence is Edward Gibbon‘s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, a book that was instantly put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The history of Roman decadence is a necessarily a hybrid mix of truth and fact, but is interesting to note that the view Europe had of Roman antiquity during the Renaissance was that of an highbrow ideal. It wasn’t perhaps — although the existence of Latin profanity was already known to Antiquity scholars – until the excavations of Pompeii and we found the erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum in the second half of the 18th century that our view of the Romans started to change. This gave rise to the very first secret museum, the Secret Museum of Naples.

Back to Heliogabalus.

Two years ago in Amsterdam, I saw a pleasant man who served us in a bar while we were having dinner. His face struck me as perverse. How can someone have a perverse face? Is the nature of your character readable on your face? Go ask the physiognomists, phrenologists, pathognomists and characterologists and they will answer “yes“. Their sciences are long out of fashion and definitely politically incorrect, but I concur, without of course, casting a judgment. You need only look at the face of Heliogabalus.

Henry Scott Tuke @150

Sunbathers by Tuke

Today would have been Henry Scott Tuke‘s 150th birthday. Tuke, (12 June 1858–13 March 1929), a British painter and photographer, is best remembered for his homoerotic paintings of naked boys and young men, which have earned him a status as a pioneer of gay male culture. His nude adolescent boys were depicted doing everyday activities; his images were not overtly erotic, nor did they usually show their genitals.