Finding a character in the darkness...

Without sounding too tossy, I am never not writing.  It's a common complaint among people who write, always looking for the next inspiration, for the next story, for the next muse.  I love art for that reason, especially narrative art because it is telling you a story that you can continue in your head, taking the characters off the canvas and into your own story.  This week I was struck by inspiration while looking at this painting...

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) Joseph Wright of Derby (National Gallery, London)

Maybe it's the chiaroscuro talking but this is such a dramatic painting just begging to be put in a book.  Our cast of characters is thus...

The Scientist!

The Scientist is suffocating the cockatoo in a glass bulb.  His fingers are on the top of the pump and he holds the birds life literally in his hands.  He has a wild and charismatic look about him with his long hair and romantic clothing. Look at him in his fancy dressing gown and floppy white shirt! He is a proper showman and he has the audience gripped.

The audience!

Poor girls, watching the bird being suffocated but the gesturing of the man (possibly their father?) leads me to believe the Scientist is about the fill the glass with air and revive the cockatoo.  The experiment was quite a common one, usually performed on more common birds or mice but the Scientist has used an exotic bird.  Is it the little girls' pet? Is it an exotic bird for an exotic audience?  The little girls are very beautifully dressed and completely involved with the show.

Drawing the curtain...

In the corner, a boy is pulling on a cord to the cockatoo's cage.  Is he looking at us to ask if we think the bird will ever be in his cage again or whether he will die?  The full, silvery moon is slowly being covered in clouds, possibly in response to the birds ebbing life. Goodness me, it's getting a bit tense...

The Lovers!

There are always one, isn't there?  Or in our case, two.  This pair aren't at all involved in the drama in front of them, they are more interested in exchanging glances in the glowing light of the experiment.  Never mind the poor cockatoo or the man with the flashy dressing gown and great hair, this pair are looking at each other longingly and the lady even has a heart in the fur on her collar.  

The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone (1771) Joseph Wright of Derby

There is a battle in the painting between the romantic and the scientific world and not a clear cut one either.  The Scientist is very romantic indeed, and the young questing minds of the Enlightenment are actually looking at each other with their minds on anything but science.  Well, maybe biology.  Joseph Wright of Derby was well known for his scenes reflecting the industrial revolution but within his works it's possible to see the mysteries of life, the romance, the magic and the very unscientific drama that undermines the certainty of industry and progress.  The dark and light contrasts in his works (the chiaroscuro) highlights the struggle of man against the mysteries of nature, as man-made light battles against the dark of night as if man can beat nature and become god.  The encroaching darkness at the edges of Wright's work says to me that we are never going to win that battle, just merely made a little, temporary impact.

So, back to characters - I am currently writing a novel and am scouting out characters.  The Scientist with his red gown pulled in with a sash and his grand gestures is marvellous.  I also love the idea of a darkened room on a moonlit night and the life and death struggle of a bird in a glass bulb while the audience look on.  How exciting...

Naughty Nibbles...

I was once in love with a young man who was recommended to me because he cried at the end of Amadeus.  When you are surrounded by smelly, oafish teenage boys, the notion that someone would be sensitive enough to weep for the snuffed-out candle of musical genius is rather attractive.  The fact that the young man in question was extremely easy on the eyes didn't hurt either.

Anyway, I grew older but my affection for Amadeus did not waver, even if the sensitive young man went his own way and married someone else, damn him.  Part of the allure of the movie was the utterly outstanding performances of everyone in it, especially the Puckish-devil, Tom Hulce.  Part of it was the lushness of the costume, the sets, the music.  However, one scene sums up the gorgeousness, the delicious, dizzying rush of love, lust, heaving bosoms squashed up in corsets and doing things you really shouldn't...

Me, on a good day, honest.

Spank me on the bottom and call me Constanza! I giggle and swoon when it comes to the scene with the capezzoli di venere.  Salieri, the arch nemesis of Mozart and second-best composer in town, is a devout man torn in his adoration of his art and his bitter rivalry with a man with whom he can't compete.  He has few pleasures in his life, but one is these chocolate truffles.  They are a heady blend of chestnuts, sugar, butter and chocolate, laced with brandy.  They are messy to make, delicious to eat and are so good that Constanza's frock falls off when she eats one (much to Salieri's horror).

Go on, try one, you'll love it...

I am currently immersing myself in all the pleasures of the eighteenth century as I prepare to write my first novel set in the period and so I made some of these to eat while flashing my stocking tops and fanning myself.  Here is my recipe so you can do likewise (or if you are a gentleman, you can ply susceptible ladies with them).

Capezzoli di Venere (or Nipples of Venus)

12oz (300g) dark-ish chocolate (this depends on your taste, so I used 200g dark and 100g milk, but suit yourself, because these are your seductive Nipples)
16oz (400g) chestnut puree
6 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup of caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar, which I make myself by putting vanilla pods in a jar of sugar and leaving for a week or so)
1/4 cup of brandy
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
12oz (300g) white chocolate
Some little chocolate chips for decoration on your Nipples.  There's a phrase you don't hear everyday.

You will need to line baking tins with non-stick paper and make sure they fit in the fridge/freezer because that's where they are heading.

1. Melt your dark chocolate mixture in the manner you feel comfortable with.  I blast mine in the microwave, but a bowl over boiling water is good too.

2. Whip up the sugar and butter until it is fluffy.  This needs to be very fluffy.  Whip, whip, whip!

3. Add the chestnuts, brandy and vanilla and whip some more. Pour in the chocolate and fold until smoothly blended.

4. Now you have a choice: if your mixture is stiff enough (steady!) make little balls out of teaspoons of mixture and place on the baking sheet.  Pop that sheet of balls into your fridge or freezer to stiffen up more.  In this, as in so much more, the stiffer, the better.  If your mixture isn't ball-able, pop it in the fridge for an hour before attempting the balling.

5. Once your balls are stiffening, start melting your white chocolate either by microwave or boiling water.  Retrieve your balls from the freezer or fridge and now the really messy bit starts.

6. Have your balls on a plate or something as you are going to put them on the non-stick paper after dunking them in white chocolate.  I use two teaspoons because using forks tends to damage the balls and make them crumble into the white chocolate.  One at a time, dunk them in the chocolate and make sure as much excess as possible is off before popping them onto the sheet.

7.  Pop a saucy little chocolate chip on top, pointy side down, like in the picture.  Pop back into the fridge to firm up again and then scoff or use as seduction bait.

These are fairly potent so it doesn't take many to render you unconscious, so enjoy!

Lives in a House, a Very Big House in the Country

When it comes to the British 18th Century in art, there is one picture that everyone knows...

Mr and Mrs Andrews (c.1749) Thomas Gainsborough (National Gallery, London)

The wedding portrait of Robert and Frances Andrews is one of the best loved paintings in the National Gallery in London, adorning notebooks, pillows and all manner of things.  The painting itself seems to attract differing readings of the figures and the landscape.  For a seemingly straightforward image of a couple of rich kids, there is a lot going on.  Firstly, the facts...

Mr and Mrs Carter of Bullingdon House, Bulmer, Essex (1847-8) Thomas Gainsborough

Robert Andrews (1725-1806) married Frances Mary Carter (1732-1780) at All Saints Church Sudbury in November 1748.  It is not believed to have been a romantic match, more of a business transactions between the two neighboring families. Frances Carter came from a wealthy family of drapers and her mother (pictured above in an earlier portrait by Gainsborough) was the daughter of a wealthy Huguenot cloth merchant. Her father had bought their estate in order to escape the financial ruin of the collapse of the textile industry, but had become property rich but not actually that wealthy. Robert Andrews' family, by contrast, were extremely wealthy but had no titles, just piles of money which they invested and lent to people including the Prince of Wales, who had borrowed around £30K.  

Self Portrait (1754) Thomas Gainsborough

When the couple were married, Robert Andrews called upon a young artist to paint their portrait.  It is believed that Andrews had been at school with Thomas Gainsborough, and Gainsborough had painted the portrait above of Frances' parents just prior to the children's wedding.  Gainsborough was barely into his 20s but already a talented painter, not to mention already a husband and father.  His passion was for landscape, but that did not pay the bills like portraiture. Why not start with your school friends and their incredibly rich families?

The Landscape half of Mr and Mrs Andrews

The picture is both a portrait of the couple and of their massive wealth in the shape of Auberies Farm, the estate that either Robert inherited or Frances brought with her at the time of marriage, as a dowry. Unlike the portrait of her parents, from the year before, Mr and Mrs Andrews makes a very definite point about the expanse of their lands, giving equal, if not greater, weight to them on the canvas. You can't actually see their home in the landscape, again hinting that the land is so vast you can't see everything.  In actual fact, the house is in front of them, it is what they are looking at, but Gainsborough has interestingly changed the landscape to draw prominence to certain things. Peeking through the trees you can see the church where they were married, and to one side are the roofs of the barns in Frances' parents' estate.  There are happy, fat sheep in the distance and stooks of corn gathered in the foreground. All is nature and her bounty.  On top of it all are Mr and Mrs Andrews.

Detail of Frances Andrews

Of the two of them, Frances Andrews is the figure most people comment on.  She seems stiff and doll-like and detached from her husband.  Some commentators think she looks smug and spoiled, but I think she looks like what she is, the teenage daughter of wealth.  She was sixteen years old in the painting, hence her slender appearance and she is the fashionable lady, with her curved skirts, echoed in the curve of the fancy Rococo bench.  I love her little feet poking out, casually crossed at the ankle. One explanation of why she is so stiff is that Gainsborough probably painted much of her figure from a mannequin, rather than have Frances sit for him.  The most debated point is the unfinished spot on her lap - what did the painter intend to place there - Some needlework?  A pheasant?  A child? Whatever Gainsborough intended to fill the spot with, it never appeared.

Detail of Robert Andrews

Not quite as enigmatic is Slouchy Bob, her husband, resplendent in his hunting / shooting / fishing clothes, complete with shotgun and dog.  He appears to be the sort of chap who doesn't feel the need to make an effort when it comes to dressing up and whilst his wife is glittery and blue in silk, he looks rumpled and casual, although you can't fault how white his stockings are.  I also get the feeling that Frances looks a little like the game he has recently bagged with his gun.  Do you think that's the point?  Do you think he is saying 'I've been out shooting and I've got me a wife!'

Stooks!

All the elements for a good marriage are present in the painting, from the strong oak tree representing longevity (it still stands on the same spot in the estate), the fecund countryside representing fertility, and the dog, loyalty.  Even the neat rows of the corn field have a meaning, showing the new technology of the seed drill by Jethro Tull.  The fact that the field has been brought much closer to the couple highlights the technology and progress that Robert has embraced on his land.  He is very much the man of the future, and so is his wife.  And probably his dog too.

Frances died in 1780 and Robert married again, dying in 1806.  The couple are buried together a St Andrew's Church in Bulmer.  The painting passed down in the family, only coming to public attention in the 1920s when it was exhibited for Gainsborough's bicentennial.  It toured extensively until it was sold at auction in the 1960s by the great-great-great grandson of the couple and purchased for the nation to hang in the National Gallery.

Mr and Mrs Andrews without their heads (1998) Yinka Shonibare

I am astonished that such a famous work of art does not have much in the way of an after-life.  It could be that although it is instantly recognisable in this country, the fame of Robert and Frances Andrews has not spread or stuck globally, unlike The Swing by Fragonard.  There are a few political cartoons using the conceit of a couple on a bench in front of the world they rule over but on the whole Yinka Shonibare has the only direct homage image I can find.

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy (1970-1) David Hockney

It could be argued that the painting has influenced art in other ways.  Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy is a portrait of the fashion designer Ozzie Clark and his wife Celia Birtwell, and their cat Percy in their stylish home in Notting Hill Gate.  Similar to Gainsborough and Robert Andrews, Clark and David Hockney studied together, at the Royal College of Art in London.  This could be seen as Ozzie and Celia's 'wedding portrait' as Hockney, who was the couple's best man, took photographs for it in the year they were married, completing the work two years later.  Ozzie Clark looks relaxed, his feet buried in the fur rug, but Celia Birtwell looks more formal and as upright as the lilies that are next to her on the canvas.  The animal in the image echoes Andrews' faithful dog, but in Clark's case it is Percy the cat, hinting at a more selfish and possibly libidinous, rule-breaking nature.  Hockney made the point that he reversed the normal positions for men and women in portraits, with Celia standing and Ozzie seated, but also the couple are not united in the portrait at all, an open window between them. The marriage did not last.

Sir George and Lady Strickland in the Park at Boynton Hall  (1751) Arthur Devis

At the time of painting, Gainsborough created something new in the portrait of Robert and Frances Andrews.  It is a triple portrait, of the couple and their estate, all elements given equal weight.  Whilst it's easy to joke that you can tell Gainsborough really wants to just paint landscapes and has to shove the figures in, he is also presenting the couple with the source of the power and position, the reason they are able to have the portrait painted.  If it was an experiment in 1749, it was successful as we can see by Arthur Devis' 1751 portrait of Sir George and Lady Strickland and their massive estate and dog.  Comparable to Gainsborough's original, Devis' work is more accomplished in style (due to age and experience) and the figures are more natural but the effect is the same.  This is the moment when a newly married couple had the world in their massive, silky laps.  

Mr and Mrs Andrews will eternally serve product and proof of this.

Swing!

One of the best known images of the 18th century, and one that seems to sum up the gaiety and erotic pull of the Rococo period is Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing...

The Swing (c.1767) Jean-Honoré Fragonard (Wallace Collection, London)

The Swing, or to give it the complete title, The Happy Accidents of the Swing shows a beautiful young woman in vibrant petal-pink being pushed on a swing by an elderly gentleman.  

The elderly husband, seated in the shadows, pulling ropes to swing his vigorous young wife...
I wonder if this is also a comment on their sex life?

Unknown to the old man, her young lover is hidden in the bushes and as she swings over him, she kicks off her shoe, parting her legs.  Presumably, the lover is getting a good eyeful of her underwear, or lack therein.

Amorous young lover in the foamy-flowered shrubbery...

The young buck appears to be overwhelmed by the white flowers which may be reminiscent of her petticoats, hinting that he often gets overwhelmed by them as well.

The tiny shoe...

The woman kicks off her shoe as she swings and it arcs towards a figure of Discretion, holding a finger to his lips. This gesture suggests that she is wildly abandoned in her lustful pursuits but also that she has an uncertain relationship with discretion.  By teasing one lover so brazenly in front of her husband the girl on the swing is playing a dangerous game.  She does not seem to care, but she should be mindful who is pulling the strings in the situation.

Tiny cherubs of love...

The two ting cherubs of love seem to invite a reading that she is in love with her shrub-bound suitor, but as she swings high above them, I think the truth is far more basic.  The woman out to provoke lust for which she is amply equipped.

The Swing (After Fragonard) (2001) Yinka Shonibare

When I first fell in love with 18th century art many years ago, Fragonard was my gateway drug.  The Swing especially is so overwhelmingly seductive that it continues to be referenced in popular culture, both appropriately and inappropriately.  The artist Yinka Shonibare created a life-size version of the scene with a headless mannequin in glorious African printed fabrics replacing the pastels. The focus of our attention is the kicking leg, the flirtation, pointing at the audience, enticing them to take a peek.

The Swing featuring Miss Piggy

Interestingly, the image has been removed from its erotic context and used in quite innocent ways by Disney.  First, we have Miss Piggy, swinging with gay abandon among a garden filled with little frogs.  Thankfully, Kermit is not hidden in the shrubbery, which I believe would be a little too debauched...

Stills from Disney's Frozen 

The whole of the Rapunzel-based Tangled looks like a Rococo dream without the sexual overtones. The palette is a sea of pinks, lavenders and blues, all rendered in pastel perfection as the heroine swings and skips through a rural idyll.  However, it was in Frozen that the picture was referenced most clearly as the Princess Anna leaped around the picture gallery mirroring the pictures (see top image with Anna, and bottom image of the painting as Disney envisages it).  Interesting the husband in Disney's version is a young man and the girl on the swing has no need of a shrubbery-based lover to satisfy her needs.

The Slipper and the Rose (1976)

Finally, my favourite reference is in the 1976 retelling of Cinderella, The Slipper and the Rose. Although the 2015 Disney live-action Cinderella showed Ella riding a swing in the secret garden, The Slipper and the Rose reproduced the costume to perfection but the scene is one of wistful yearning rather than lustful excess.

Valentino fashion shoot from Harper's Bazaar (2002)

The continuing allure of The Swing is a complex mix of female empowered sexuality, male enjoyment and illicit sex.  The woman holds the attention of the two men (not to mention all the men admiring the painting) but her position is as precarious as the swing.  In truth she does not control the swing, but she can control the enjoyment she has, the power of her beauty and the adoration of others.  Long may she swing!