Proust tomorrow, I'm feeling a little burnt out this morning.
Not just an image but a bunch of images by Władysław Czachórski. Czachórski's name is spelled in a number of different ways depending on who you ask. He was a Polish artist from the little discussed but fascinating period between Romanticism and Modernism sometimes called "late romanticism".
Czachórski painted all sorts of stuff but his work divides into two categories:
He is helped more than a little by women's fashion. Czachórski didn't invent that V-shaped panel on the front of women's dresses. It was a popular style at the time. And it is easy to see why. Depending on what the dressmaker chose to emphasize, it could make the neck seem to open wider (image 1), it could could make it seem like the dress was opening up from the bottom (image 2) or it could point rather bluntly at a woman's "rose" (Image 3).
To see what Czachórski's contribution was, put yourself in the position of a connoisseur admiring his art and technique. Take, for example, his masterful "rendering of fabrics". Look at image 3 for example and allow your gaze to float over the fabric of her dress and then let it rest at the spot the V-shaped panel points at. Take the time to deeply appreciate the pattern the folds make in the fabric. Remember, you're a man. So here is the question, "Are you getting any payoff for your efforts?" To put it more bluntly, are you getting the sense that the rendering of the fabric is encouraging you to imagine what is underneath?
This third example is called "The Rose" by the way. Roses, like a lot of flowers, smell and are shaped the way they are because their smell and shape fools insects into trying to have sex with the flower thereby accomplishing the plants sexual purposes for it. Okay, but here is an interesting question: Who is trying to entice us in the above picture? Meaning, do you credit the artist or the woman with the seduction. Look at the way she meets your gaze?
Speaking of "gazes", check these ones out.
The classic feminist analysis, and in this case the feminists are absolutely right, is that the woman looks at us inviting our gaze and the other woman, whose sexuality is, at first glance, ambiguous, validates our gaze by also looking at the first woman in a frankly sexual manner. (The classic feminist mistake is to imagine that this is all the male artist's fault; to forget that women don't do all these tricks in real life too.)
Again, follow the V-shaped panel down and take a moment to appreciate the rendering of the fabric. There is a rather lot of texture right at the spot where there would be pubic hair underneath isn't there. Anyone think that is an accident?
(Oh, by the way, the composition of that painting. Does it look familiar? It should.)
Let's carry on with this homoerotic theme shall we?
I'll grant you that pearls are wonderful things and even that that is a rather long string of pearls but you cannot explain the facial expressions of the women in this picture in terms of their enjoyment of fine jewellery. And, go head, follow these Jewels of the Nile back to their source. How interesting that she would dangle them just there? And notice how the arm of the chair blocks the actual magic spot so we have to connect the pearls in our imagination.
And what exactly is happening here? It's hard not to suspect that this woman is taking advantage of the absence of men to tell her friends about a rather neat trick that a girl can do with pearls and they are staring at the pearls agape because they never guessed pearls had such powers before.
Then again, pearls could be used as distraction. Imagine they aren't there or, more suggestively that they are standing on for something else. Now ask yourself what is happening. Look at the facial expressions. The woman handling the pearls definitively has power over the other two.
Continuing with pearls, do watch a woman put her pearls on if you ever get the chance. She'll lean forward to do it, just as she does when she puts her bra on. And for the same reason: to take advantage of gravity to make sure everything falls into the most advantageous place.
I mention all that just to make it clear that no woman leans back to put her pearls on and she certainly won't do it like this.
You could easily forget that there even is a string of pearls in that painting. Well, it's easy to do because that is what you are supposed to do. And, once you get them out of the picture, well, what do you think is going on here? What do you think she is thinking?
I like particularly the way Czachórski has exploited the opening of the overskirt here. To get at what he has done, here is a thought experiment: close your eyes for a moment and imagine the image. Do it and then come back and look at the image again and continue reading.
When you opened them and looked at the image again, were her legs as wide apart as you imagined them? The trick is accomplished with the strips of embroidery. Look at the two strips edging the V-shaped panel and then two more edging the opening of the overskirt. Then look how the table is placed so as to break up the pattern made by her actual legs (it's difficult to figure out exactly how she has them placed). Between these two effects we tend to be made unaware of her actual legs and to replace them in our imagination with two that run parallel to the two strips of embroidery that open up along with her overskirt.
Don't sneer at this stuff. Don't think this legs-spread illusion or other effects are easy to achieve because they weren't. Very few of the artists of Czachórski's era and virtually none of the artists of our era could do what he did. And remember that you could not paint a picture of a girl with her legs actually apart in that era or culture. Women didn't ride horses side saddle for exactly that reason. That is, people didn't worry about a woman getting sexually stimulated by pushing herself up against the saddle. No, women rode with their legs together because the image of a woman with her legs apart was so sexually powerful it couldn't be allowed in polite company.
This wasn't because women didn't know what it felt like to spread their legs for someone or that men (and other women) didn't know what it was like to watch a woman spread her legs. No, it should be obvious to us that they cherished such moments much more than we do because they treated them as something special. Compared to them, we are like someone who claims to value dark chocolate while shoveling it into our mouths by the pound. (I've created something of an artificial effect by putting all these Czachórski paintings in one group. At the time, you would have to be lucky enough to visit a different house to see each one.)
And one huge advantage of the implied sexuality was that you didn't have to notice it if you didn't want to or you just weren't in the mood that day. And you can see, looking at the collection above, that some of Czachórski's customers liked the effect to be more obscure while others liked it to be more easily discovered. But no matter which one it was, there would be some days when a young woman or man visiting the house where one of paintings hung would look at it for a while and then decide they might go back to their room and "rest" or "write some letters" or some such thing.
Not just an image but a bunch of images by Władysław Czachórski. Czachórski's name is spelled in a number of different ways depending on who you ask. He was a Polish artist from the little discussed but fascinating period between Romanticism and Modernism sometimes called "late romanticism".
Czachórski painted all sorts of stuff but his work divides into two categories:
- the stuff that the critics loved.
- the stuff that paid his bills.
The hallmark of Czachorski's style, however, and the basis of his fame, are his images of beautiful young women in rich interiors, painted with great realism. He has long been regarded a master of rendering fabrics, jewelry and other details to create the atmosphere of luxury and elegance.Every word of that is true but there is also a rather important aspect of his art that is being left out. I think you can do your own image analysis on this one. Just scan the following and I think you'll be able to figure it out pretty easily.
He is helped more than a little by women's fashion. Czachórski didn't invent that V-shaped panel on the front of women's dresses. It was a popular style at the time. And it is easy to see why. Depending on what the dressmaker chose to emphasize, it could make the neck seem to open wider (image 1), it could could make it seem like the dress was opening up from the bottom (image 2) or it could point rather bluntly at a woman's "rose" (Image 3).
To see what Czachórski's contribution was, put yourself in the position of a connoisseur admiring his art and technique. Take, for example, his masterful "rendering of fabrics". Look at image 3 for example and allow your gaze to float over the fabric of her dress and then let it rest at the spot the V-shaped panel points at. Take the time to deeply appreciate the pattern the folds make in the fabric. Remember, you're a man. So here is the question, "Are you getting any payoff for your efforts?" To put it more bluntly, are you getting the sense that the rendering of the fabric is encouraging you to imagine what is underneath?
This third example is called "The Rose" by the way. Roses, like a lot of flowers, smell and are shaped the way they are because their smell and shape fools insects into trying to have sex with the flower thereby accomplishing the plants sexual purposes for it. Okay, but here is an interesting question: Who is trying to entice us in the above picture? Meaning, do you credit the artist or the woman with the seduction. Look at the way she meets your gaze?
Speaking of "gazes", check these ones out.
The classic feminist analysis, and in this case the feminists are absolutely right, is that the woman looks at us inviting our gaze and the other woman, whose sexuality is, at first glance, ambiguous, validates our gaze by also looking at the first woman in a frankly sexual manner. (The classic feminist mistake is to imagine that this is all the male artist's fault; to forget that women don't do all these tricks in real life too.)
Again, follow the V-shaped panel down and take a moment to appreciate the rendering of the fabric. There is a rather lot of texture right at the spot where there would be pubic hair underneath isn't there. Anyone think that is an accident?
(Oh, by the way, the composition of that painting. Does it look familiar? It should.)
Let's carry on with this homoerotic theme shall we?
I'll grant you that pearls are wonderful things and even that that is a rather long string of pearls but you cannot explain the facial expressions of the women in this picture in terms of their enjoyment of fine jewellery. And, go head, follow these Jewels of the Nile back to their source. How interesting that she would dangle them just there? And notice how the arm of the chair blocks the actual magic spot so we have to connect the pearls in our imagination.
And what exactly is happening here? It's hard not to suspect that this woman is taking advantage of the absence of men to tell her friends about a rather neat trick that a girl can do with pearls and they are staring at the pearls agape because they never guessed pearls had such powers before.
Then again, pearls could be used as distraction. Imagine they aren't there or, more suggestively that they are standing on for something else. Now ask yourself what is happening. Look at the facial expressions. The woman handling the pearls definitively has power over the other two.
Continuing with pearls, do watch a woman put her pearls on if you ever get the chance. She'll lean forward to do it, just as she does when she puts her bra on. And for the same reason: to take advantage of gravity to make sure everything falls into the most advantageous place.
I mention all that just to make it clear that no woman leans back to put her pearls on and she certainly won't do it like this.
You could easily forget that there even is a string of pearls in that painting. Well, it's easy to do because that is what you are supposed to do. And, once you get them out of the picture, well, what do you think is going on here? What do you think she is thinking?
I like particularly the way Czachórski has exploited the opening of the overskirt here. To get at what he has done, here is a thought experiment: close your eyes for a moment and imagine the image. Do it and then come back and look at the image again and continue reading.
When you opened them and looked at the image again, were her legs as wide apart as you imagined them? The trick is accomplished with the strips of embroidery. Look at the two strips edging the V-shaped panel and then two more edging the opening of the overskirt. Then look how the table is placed so as to break up the pattern made by her actual legs (it's difficult to figure out exactly how she has them placed). Between these two effects we tend to be made unaware of her actual legs and to replace them in our imagination with two that run parallel to the two strips of embroidery that open up along with her overskirt.
Don't sneer at this stuff. Don't think this legs-spread illusion or other effects are easy to achieve because they weren't. Very few of the artists of Czachórski's era and virtually none of the artists of our era could do what he did. And remember that you could not paint a picture of a girl with her legs actually apart in that era or culture. Women didn't ride horses side saddle for exactly that reason. That is, people didn't worry about a woman getting sexually stimulated by pushing herself up against the saddle. No, women rode with their legs together because the image of a woman with her legs apart was so sexually powerful it couldn't be allowed in polite company.
This wasn't because women didn't know what it felt like to spread their legs for someone or that men (and other women) didn't know what it was like to watch a woman spread her legs. No, it should be obvious to us that they cherished such moments much more than we do because they treated them as something special. Compared to them, we are like someone who claims to value dark chocolate while shoveling it into our mouths by the pound. (I've created something of an artificial effect by putting all these Czachórski paintings in one group. At the time, you would have to be lucky enough to visit a different house to see each one.)
And one huge advantage of the implied sexuality was that you didn't have to notice it if you didn't want to or you just weren't in the mood that day. And you can see, looking at the collection above, that some of Czachórski's customers liked the effect to be more obscure while others liked it to be more easily discovered. But no matter which one it was, there would be some days when a young woman or man visiting the house where one of paintings hung would look at it for a while and then decide they might go back to their room and "rest" or "write some letters" or some such thing.
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