Baudelaire, Rodin & the "Crouching Woman" (A Speculation)

Detail of Je suis belle (I am beautiful), a 1882 sculpture (plaster)
by Auguste Rodin housed in the Musée Rodin in Paris; it was
originally entitled L'Enlèvement (Rape and/or Abduction).

"Mystérieuse faculté que cette reine des facultés ! ...C’est l’imagination qui a enseigné à l’homme le sens moral de la couleur, du contour, du son et du parfum. Elle a créé, au commencement du monde, l’analogie et la métaphore. Elle décompose toute la création, et, avec les matériaux amassés et disposés suivant des règles dont on ne peut trouver l’origine que dans le plus profond de l’âme, elle crée un monde nouveau, elle produit la sensation du neuf. Comme elle a créé le monde (on peut bien dire cela, je crois, même dans un sens religieux), il est juste qu’elle le gouverne."

("How mysterious is Imagination, that queen of the faculties! ...It is Imagination that first taught man the moral meaning of colour, of contour, of sound and of scent. In the beginning of the world it created analogy and metaphor. It decomposes all creation, and with the raw materials accumulated and disposed in accordance with rules one cannot find save in the furthest depths of the soul, it creates a new world, it produces the sensation of newness. Since it has created the world, (so much can be said, I think, even in a religious sense) it is proper that it should govern it.")

- Excerpt from La Reine des Facultés, one of Baudelaire's critical essays from his Salon de 1859 (French only). Inset right is the cover page from an online illustrated edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, 1857, a .pdf in both French and English. (Note: downloads immediately.) For views of the many different covers of Baudelaire's masterpiece published over the years, see this page (click on the arrows).

"Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière."

("I am beautiful, O mortals! as a dream of stone,
And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself
Is made to inspire in the poet a love
As eternal and silent as matter.")

- The first 4 lines of Baudelaire's poem, "La Beauté," from Les Fleurs du mal inscribed at the base of Rodin's bronze sculpture Je suis belle (inset left). The original (1882) plaster was entitled L'Enlèvement (Rape, or Abduction), but when it was cast in bronze Rodin added the lines from Baudelaire's poem, and retitled the piece to Je suis belle. Mysteriously, he also altered the last line of Baudelaire's quatrain to read: "Etant alors muet ainsi que la matière," ("So being mute as matter"). (See here.)

"These lines might not seem fitting for a piece originally exhibited as The Rape in 1900. But this past title, the sculpture's current title and the poem inscribed on its base all speak to an ambiguity that characterizes much of the installation. I am Beautiful presents two figures—a more masculine standing figure and one that is more feminine grasped in the former’s arms. Are the two locked in an embrace, the female figure having leapt into her lover’s arms just moments before? Or is it darker, showing a scene of abduction?"

- Excerpt from Love and Lust at the Rodin Museum, a review of an 2017 exhibition at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).

"This two-figure group appeared in 1880 at the top of the righthand pilaster of The Gates of Hell. It is a combination of Crouching Woman  and Falling Man, whose back seems to arch under the strain of holding her in his outstretched arms. Also known as The Abduction, Carnal Love or The Cat, the group began its life as an independent sculpture circa 1882...

It illustrates Rodin’s use of assemblages, which became one of the characteristic features of his working method. The sculptor thus profoundly altered the meaning of Crouching Woman, a very open female figure whose posture may appear either obscene or erotic, by turning her over and folding her up into a closed ball, which the man lifts into the air like Atlas..."

- From the Musée Rodin page describing Je suis belle.  Inset right (above) is allegedly the first incarnation of the "Crouching Woman" Rodin created in 1880 for his Gates of Hell. (Note: I have also seen this same figure referred to as Andromeda.) There is also a second crouching female figure at the top of the left-hand pilaster (not shown). Lastly, there is a third figure: a separate piece Rodin created and actually entitled La Femme Accroupie (The Crouching Woman) in 1882 (inset right below), the same year he created L'Enlèvement (Je suis belle). Inset left is the "Falling Man," located directly beneath the female figure on the Gates of Hell. Rodin recycled the Falling Man again, as well, in 1882.

"Rodin had illustrated this poem with an image of a reclining woman encircled in the halo of her hair, presenting a much more serene interpretation of the poem. In the sculpture, however, the original title of The Rape as well as the opposition between masculine and feminine, vertical and horizontal, and round and erect shapes suggest a vision of the “rêve de pierre” as tainted by a certain violence and conveys a message that is more difficult to decipher."

- A reference to the poem "La Beauté," from the 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal Rodin illuminated with some of his own drawings in late 1887 and 1888.

"Have pity, cruel girl, I can’t go on, I can’t spend another day without seeing you. Otherwise the atrocious madness. It is over, I don’t work anymore, malevolent goddess, and yet I love furiously. My Camille be assured that I feel love for no other woman, and that my soul belongs to you. … Ah! Divine beauty, flower who speaks and loves, intelligent flower, my darling. My dear one, I am on my knees facing your beautiful body which I embrace."

- A reposted quote, taken from a 1886 letter Rodin wrote to Camille Claudell in the early days of their affair, currently at the Musée Rodin.

***

Well, my friends, It appears I'm continuing to embrace the inevitable online distractions I've (continuously) been presented with all month... while researching - and attempting to finish - the post-that-shall-not-be-named (again). But, I couldn't resist posting my latest "find" as it relates so deeply to my previous find.

Once again we are presented with a sculpture... this time a creation by Auguste Rodin (Fr) (inset left, as a dapper young dude), Camille Claudel's lover. I confess, when I first set eyes on the full version of Je suis belle (see photos above) I was appalled. Especially as the first example I discovered online was entitled "The Rape." In ways, I suppose, I'm still appalled, but, in trying to solve the mystery of Rodin's (possibly) most bizarre creation and, at the same time, coming across its connection to poète maudit, Charles Baudelaire, well, I am compelled to elucidate.

As it stands, it appears many critics find Je suis belle disturbing, but, none seem to grasp just exactly why. While they might admit the odd coupling seems "tainted by a certain violence" or, conveys "a message that is difficult to decipher," or, resort to adjectives like "darker," one gets the impression the critics are lost at sea. My favorite understatement: it "embodies a difficult notion of beauty."

I'll say it does! Because, if you look very closely at the women's face, she's obviously insensible. And, if you take into consideration the position of her body - her dangling limbs, and a compression unlikely to be achieved by a living body - she may, In fact, be a true homage to Baudelaire (and/or the Symbolists in general): that is, a fresh corpse...

Qualifying Feminism: Empowerment and the Arts (Part II)

A poster in a London bus station featuring an image by the artist Egon Schiele.
The banner, however - strategically plastered over the figure's pubic area -

was not of the artist's device. See here or here.
(All images in this post can be clicked-on to enlarge.)

_______________________________________________

The C-Word: Censorship

“Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.”

- Egon Schiele, Austrian painter (June 12, 1890 - October 31, 1918).

"The purging wave seems to know no bounds. The poster of an Egon Schiele nude is censored; calls are made for the removal of a Balthus painting from a museum on grounds that it’s an apology for pedophilia; unable to distinguish between the man and his work, Cinémathèque Française is told not to hold a Roman Polanski retrospective and another for Jean-Claude Brisseau is blocked. A university judges the film Blow-Up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, to be "misogynist" and "unacceptable." In light of this revisionism, even John Ford (The Searchers) and Nicolas Poussin (The Abduction of the Sabine Women) are at risk."

- Via an English translation of one of the more coherent passages from the notorious "#MeToo" backlash letter published in Le Monde earlier this year, written and signed by 100 French women-of-note, up to and including Catherine Deneuve. The original document (in French) can be found here and, in English, here. Inset left is the  painting under scrutiny at that time, Thérèse Dreaming.

"As with previous awareness raising campaigns, it is not unlikely that the backlash will snowball and that the deeply entrenched patriarchal mechanisms that have maintained sexism for centuries will reassert themselves. That is after all how the system has survived to date. It is also all too likely that we will all — men and women — soon grow weary of allegations of sexual harassment as we have done in the past, making #MeToo a distant memory, a bud that did not blossom into long-lasting structural change. As Jessa Crispin writes in her manifesto about why she is not a feminist, popular social movements must, by their very nature, be “banal… non-threatening, and ineffective.” This underscores the problem with movements propelled by hashtags and celebrities."

- Excerpted from the Public Seminar article The Many Faces of the #MeToo Backlash, written by Maryam Omidi.

"In an angry riposte, French feminists described the letter’s signatories as “apologists for rape” and “defenders of paedophiles”, a reference to Deneuve’s vigorous support of the French-Polish film director Roman Polanski, convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl.

'There’s nothing really new in the arguments they use; they’re like the embarrassing colleague or tired uncle who doesn’t understand what’s happening,' a group of feminists wrote in an open letter of their own to French radio."

- Regarding a backlash against the former backlash via this article. Inset left is a still from Repulsion, a Roman Polanski film starring Catherine Deneuve (pictured) as a woman who kills two men, one of whom sexually assaulted her. As one might expect, Deneuve's character is portrayed as psychologically deranged (i.e., violence of men is expected and often applauded in a patriarchal society, violence in women - even when justified - is pathological.)

As for Roman Polanski, in 2018: "in light of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to expel Polanski from its membership." As for Polanski's relationship with his "victim," Samantha Geimer, apparently they have become friendly... see Samantha Geimer on Roman Polanski: 'We email a little bit'.

"The problem of comprehending Lolita begins with this moral discrepancy and her literary position as a rape victim. It causes us to unravel with Humbert. We question the book, ourselves, our culture, and in the space between our disgust and Humbert’s desire, we obsess over and recreate the story. Spawning two films, several musical adaptions, ballets, plays, a Russian opera spin-off, fashion subcultures, and endless memorabilia, Lolita is a transcendent literary icon. Her ghost lingers in Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and many a pop icon seen cradling a teddy bear in skimpy lingerie. The hyper-sexualization of young women is Lolita’s legacy, a cast thrown sixty years into the future: a transition from rape victim to sex icon."

- From Emily Roese's 2016 (Huffington Post) article: The Problematic Idolization of Lolita. Inset right is a detail from a poster for Stanely Kubrick's 1962 film adaption Lolita.

"Violence against women is often against our voices and our stories. It is a refusal of our voices, and what a voice means: the right to self-determination, to participation, to consent or dissent, to live and participate, to interpret and narrate. A husband hits his wife to silence her; a date rapist or acquaintance rapist refuses to let the 'No' of his victim mean what it should, that she alone has jurisdiction over her body; rape culture asserts that a woman's testimony is worthless, untrustworthy... Having a voice is crucial. It's not all there is to human rights, but its central to them, and so you can consider the history of women's rights and lack of rights as a history of silence and breaking silence."

- From Rebecca Solnit's A Short History of Silence, an essay from her (highly recommended) collection: The Mother of All Questions, 2017, Haymarket Books.  Regarding the photo (inset left) - "STILL NOT ASKING FOR IT" - more info can be found here and here.

***

Apparently, the poster which introduces this section is one of several which appeared in London bus stations this year announcing an exhibit of artwork by Egon Schiele, a Viennese artist and painter, known for his oddly contorted human figures, both nude and otherwise (inset right and sourced here). I don't know that any feminists were involved in the censorship of his work - and, possibly, the exhibition of his nudes in a bus station wasn't the most brilliant of plans to begin with - but, in terms of censorship "100 years old and still too daring" makes a significant point. In terms of culture, are we as a species moving forwards, backwards, or remaining stationary? More importantly, will the censorship of art and/or the artist - either contemporary or from the distant past - solve anything? Lastly, is the sensual and/or sexual content of art - regardless of the variety explored or intimated - a feminist issue? And, if so, should art fall under the jurisdiction of any and/or all other political and societal movements as well?

While I can both sympathize with and applaud the #MeToo
(and subsequent Times Up) movements - which marked the historical moment when women finally broke their silence and dragged a few "rape culture" enthusiasts out from under their proverbial rocks (where they'd been congregating for a very long time) - the infamous backlash letter signed by 100 French female luminaries was correct in one respect: suppressing a work of art due to its sexual content or the sexual behavior of its makers - even when said content or behavior is presently considered taboo - is antithetical to the nature of art, human creativity and human expression. But, most importantly, for a feminist, fanning the flames of censorship can also backfire.

Then again, history tells us that in almost every case of censorship or prohibition - across the board - the eradication of the offending behavior was not achieved... neither in the short term and, most certainly, not in the long term. Case in point: Lolita, the 1955 novel written by Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). Basically, it's a feminist's nightmare - and a hebephile's wet dream - following the obsessional musings of a middle-aged man directed towards his manipulative, sexually precocious 12-year-old stepdaughter whom he eventually rapes. Banned in Great Britain and France for a period of two years, it was then banned in Australia from 1958 to 1965. Meanwhile, when it arrived in America, 100,000 copies were sold in its first three weeks. After all, nothing says "Must Read" like the word: "Banned"...

Writ on Paper, Wrought in Stone (with Addendum)

An interior photo of Cologne Cathedral in Westphalia, Germany.

"This is what linked all people, she wanted to say, in spite of time and space; this joined them in a timelessness, a spacelessness, in a collective mind that transcended all boundaries. This is what endured forever and ever, as long as the painting was preserved, as long as the written word endured. Sappho's few words, Plato's, Homer's... The works of a great artist entered that other kind of reality, the words of a great poet lived there; this is what human history is all about, our efforts to transcend our limitations, our petty wars, our fears. We build our cathedrals, paint pictures, write our poetry, our music, all in the same effort to transcend ourselves. They fill the history books with trash about conquests, wars, treaties, but, these are transitory. The human spirit sails above them, yearning for that other reality... finding it in moments of great art..."

- Excerpt from Welcome Chaos, a science fiction novel by Kate Wilhelm first published in 1983. Inset right is an interior photo of the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais in Beauvais, France, found here. (Click images for larger views.)

"At about the same time Hugo began experimenting with a new approach to prose, based on telling the story of less than ideal characters—a poor bohemian girl, a deformed bell-ringer and a lecherous archdeacon—the three pillars of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Few fans of the novel, which has inspired several successful films, know that Hugo wrote it to save the famous Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame from demolition. During the Revolution Notre Dame had been used as a saltpetre plant. By the nineteenth century it had suffered so much neglect that builders wanted to reuse its stones for bridge construction. Gothic art was then regarded as ugly and offensive; so Hugo’s choice of the location was deliberate: it linked the grotesque characters with the ugly art. The first three chapters of the novel are a plea to preserve Gothic architecture—in Hugo’s words, a “gigantic book of stone,” which he, as a Romantic, found beautiful."

- Excerpt from How Did Victor Hugo Save the Famous Cathedral of Notre Dame From Demolition?  The photos - inset above and below - are of the famous Notre Dame (de Paris) gargoyles which were found here.

“He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him – he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at. The saints were his friends and blessed him; the monsters were his friends and kept watch over him. He would sometimes spend whole hours crouched before one of the statues in solitary conversation with it. If anyone came upon him then he would run away like a lover surprised during a serenade.”

- Excerpt from Victor Hugo's 1831 gothic masterpiece The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

“Everything has been said about these great churches,” Rilke wrote. “Victor Hugo penned some memorable pages on Notre-Dame in Paris, and yet the action of these cathedrals continues to exert itself, uncannily alive, inviolate, mysterious, surpassing the power of words.… Notre-Dame grows each day, each time you see it again it seems even larger.” 

- Rainer Maria Rilke quote from a 2014 New Yorker article (7th in a series): Street of the Iron Po(e)t by Henri Cole.

"This time, Paris was just what I had expected: difficult. And I feel like a photographic plate that has been exposed too long, in that I remain forsaken to this powerful influence... Out of fright I went right off Sunday to Rouen. An entire cathedral is necessary to drown me out... Would you believe that the glance of a woman passing me in a quiet lane in Rouen so effected me that I could see almost nothing afterward, could not collect myself? Then gradually the beautiful cathedral was finally there, the legends of her densely filled windows, where earthly events shine through and one sees the blood of its colors."

- From a 1913 letter by Rainer Maria Rilke to Russian-born psychoanalyst - life-long friend and one-time lover - Lou Andreas-Salomé. Inset left is an interior shot of Rouen Cathedral found here. Inset right is one of series of paintings of Rouen by Claude Monet (and here). Inset left (below) is another.

"Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe, which is disposable. You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us, to accomplish."

- Orson Welles, from his 1975 docudrama Vérités et mensonges ("Truths and lies") which focuses on the career of an art forger. The "stone forest" in the quote was a reference to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres.

***

This is another of the 3 posts I had been working on - apart from the previous one - and it was a post I personally needed to create at the time. That is to say, like Rilke, I found myself (emotionally and spiritually) needing "an entire cathedral" to contain my high anxiety. Generally, I might have relied on the sight of Sandia Crest - mountains and cathedrals, after all, have a great deal in common in a symbolic sense... they both represent the union of the cosmos and earth - but there's an underlying order in the structure of a cathedral, an authentic Sacred Geometry evidenced by features like the (south) rose window (inset left) from the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris. What the mountain might intimate, the cathedral spells out in no uncertain terms. In this case, the source: the "dame," lady or mother, the infinite symmetry of the circular form from which the cathedral unfolded and inevitably returned.

(Appropriately) I'd been reading Kate Wilhelm's apocalyptic "Welcome Chaos"... and came across the first paragraph (quoted above) which ultimately inspired this interlude post. The quote resonated with me because it occurred to me recently that what is generally considered the history of the world is, for the most part, the history of war and the acquisition of territory. For the rest of humanity's long saga one ultimately has to turn elsewhere...