In profile
I’ve always liked this portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent:
Here’s the story of the painting, thought quite scandalous at the time. The original was even more scandalous, because it featured the lady with a strap falling off her shoulder (quelle horreur!). Only a photo of that version survives, because Sargent decided to be safe and paint over it:
Madame X’s (real name: Mde. Gautreau) long body lines and graceful neck are justly famous, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t been mesmerized by her profile. No little button nose for Madame! The following comparison of the portrait to an actual photo of the model shows how Sargent exagerrated the sharpness of nose and chin, almost to caricature but stopping short of it and somehow creating a pleasingly dramatic intensity. This is a woman who knows her worth and will not be trifled with.
For me, the profile immediately conjures up another graceful person, the NYC Ballet dancer Tanaquil Le Clerc. I’ve written briefly about her dancing and her life before, here (her career was tragically cut short by contracting polio and becoming paralyzed from the waist down), but now I want to draw attention to her nose:
The above photo was taken by a man who loved Le Clerc, Jerome Robbins, during her hospitalization and recuperation from polio. You may know Robbins as the choreographer and director of “West Side Story,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and many other greats of the American musical theater, but he was also a ballet dancer and choreographer of equal greatness, and a fascinating person in his own right.
It is often said that Robbins was homosexual, but if there is such a thing as bisexuality he certainly exhibited it. He must have been an exceptionally compelling human being, because the list of men and women with whom he had affairs—and many of them were real love affairs, not shallow dalliances—reads like a list of the most creative people of the 20th century. What’s more, his lovers usually continued to love him as friends long after the affair had ended; Le Clerc was definitely one of the people in the world who was closest to him. You can see the love he felt for her in the photos he took while visiting her during her time of great physical travail.
[NOTE: This is an excellent biography for anyone interested in Robbins’ life and times. A large portion of the book is dedicated to his musical theater efforts; you will be amazed at how influential he was in shaping a huge number of our most beloved musicals.]
You didn’t say so, Neo, but did you think of the painting because of Kate Middleton’s elegant dress? There was a conversation in the comments about whether Kate needed a necklace (I say not) that seems just as apropos to the bare elegance of Madame X’s decolletage.
I grew up outside D.C., and my elementary school took annual field trips to the National Gallery of Art. Madame X was one of several paintings that I would revisit every year, and carry home unsatisfactory postcards from the gift shop to gaze at in between. The painting’s beauty was mesmerizing enough, but even more, there was the mystery of it, the promise it seemed to offer to a little girl wondering what womanhood was all about.
I didn’t know that the shoulder strap was repainted for modesty. What a shame: the painting is far more angular and asymmetrical and lovely in its original position.
I was always captivated by that startling white skin and thought it was due to Sargent’s artistry alone, but it seems he may have captured how she actually looked — from David McCullough’s book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris:
In the painting, perhaps as a result of the nose, the upper lip seems to be raised, implying scorn. I suspect a woman looking like the woman in the paintinng would be approached only by the most confident.
In the World Currently Turned Upside Down where shame is no longer in the mix, instead of gasping at Madame X’s slipped strap, the pinheads now see Kim K’s thatch and go immediately back to Selfing Breezy on their i-Thingy.
It makes this Old School gent very tired.
the dog is missing…
whats great about the first painting is her arm. its bent in such a way that shows the anatomy of a woman. that is, only women can crook their arms a certain way.
to see it illustrated. put your palms out hands upwards and put your hands together pinky to pinky. take that and put them on an edge of a table still touching. the difference between a man and a woman doing it? the woman can touch her elbows, the man cant.
its similar to the more well known center of gravity difference.
such differences, if known what they mean, are why women can never go up against men and thats besides the air difference, upper strength difference, speed difference, etc…
besides all those things, are very subtle differences
but not that that matters to the FDNY which just lowered standards.. not to mention the military which is lowering standards. then again if you were the enemy of the US wouldnt you want to get your opposition to believe stuff that ultimately would lead to bad outcomes? welcome to america.
though with the bill of rights on the verge of being dissolved i thought that neo would realize that and discuss that rather than a painting. after all, obama and holder are making the claim that the UN controls the US and so on… once kerry ratified without the congress, etc.
with Victor david hanson predicting war, neo not wanting to discuss that… and Supreme Court to Decide If UN Trumps the Constitution in Bond v. U.S… neo avoids that…
the US is about to not be the US anymore..
then neo wont be able to discuss anything, as she is not a real journalist, and not licensed to discuss things.
but i guess its a matter of priorities…
which if one things, was the thing about WWII that we dont discuss or even care to think of. that not having the right priorities of what comes first, we miss the opportunity to influence an outcome when a tiny tap of a diamond cutters anvil would work.
If Bond loses, Congress will be able to override any state or local law as long as it is part of an international treaty. There are many reasons to believe that such a precedent would have incredibly damaging consequences for constitutional liberties, law, and what’s left of our theoretically decentralized republican government.
First of all, Congress has a long history of violating constitutional restraints without using international law or treaties as pretexts. One of the first acts ever implemented by Congress forbade any American from criticizing or speaking ill of President John Adams or the U.S. government; this, while the ink was still drying on the First Amendment. Since then, Congress has given us the income tax, the Federal Reserve, overseas wars of aggression, and a general expansion of government power at the expense of constitutional rights. With very few exceptions, whenever Congress convenes, our liberties tend to be in danger.
Goodbye America…
hello new world order…
next we view the work of titian…
Is it not interesting that Jerome Robbins is described as, bisexual? And he captures Le Clerc in such raw sensuality in this photo.
It evokes the memory of a very sensual scene in the movie, “As Good As It Gets”.
That very one where Greg Kinnear’s character (homosexual) resurrects his inspired artistry in drawing a scantily-toweled body of Helen Hunt. Particularly poignant is just how spontaneous the moment is—grasped from the very mundane act of drawing a bath as this woman attempts to recover from an otherwise miserable evening with Jack Nicholson’s awkward character.
The lighting, the angle, the voyeuristic perspective of exploring this woman’s back was a feast for the eye.
God affirmed His perfection when he created the body of woman.
Always loved that painting, too, especially that she was turning away.
My own art obsession is Gerhard Richter’s neo-Vermeer “Girl Reading.” I have a poster of it on my wall.
From one of those musicals: “One Hand, One Heart”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWnsm5HVdXU
Almost s stunning is Whistler’s portrait of Dr Pozzi, rumored to have been her lover http://www.doctorpozzi.com/
A few years ago, the Frick had both portraits in the same room
Fausta:
What an interesting portrait. I wonder what the red robe signifies (easy to generate a few theories).
Pathetically the Dr Pozzi website says in the segment about French Gynecology that (paraphrasing here)
*the church & the state have as much interest in female body parts as any “red state”today!
Once again Neo an example of the LEFT & their never passing up an opportunity, to further their dis ingenious narrative !