The Kissed Mouth

I don't only obsess about Pre-Raphaelitism you know, although admittedly it takes up obscene amounts of my time. Currently I am revisiting a very long-held love due to a bit of party planning. In November, Mr Walker and I will have been married 10 years (I was a child bride, honest) and we are having a party, the theme of which is los Dias de los Muertos (the Days of the Dead), a Mexican celebration which falls on our wedding anniversary. Put simply it's a bit like Halloween but far jollier and full of fun and a time to remember ancestors who, it is believed, return from the grave once a year to be fed. It's a long story as to how this became a thing for the Walker family, but some of it is to do with lady...

I am a huge fan of Frida Kahlo, have been since I did a year of modern art as part of one of my degrees. While planning the Walker Wedding shin-dig I have been drawing on her imagery and life for inspiration. An artist, confined by illness, married to a fellow artist who led her a bit of a merry dance, the issues over children... hang on, I thought, this is all a bit familiar... Did my love of Frida come from my love of Elizabeth Siddal? How far is Frida Kahlo a secret Pre-Raphaelite?

Self Portrait (1926) Frida Kahlo

When you think of the art of Frida Kahlo, the chances are that you are thinking of the same qualities as the art of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: a half or three-quarter length portraits of unconventionally beautiful women. I would like to ask Ms Kahlo if she had ever seen any of Rossetti's portraits of Jane Morris as it strikes me how much her work draws on the same vision.

Pandora D G Rossetti

In many ways, Kahlo is as easy to homage as Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal. If you want to portray Frida in a photo shoot, all you need are some heavy eyebrows and a plait, held up with flowers. Look...

Anyway, it's not just the passing iconic resemblance to Jane Morris that got me thinking, it was more the spiritual sisterhood she seemed to hold with Elizabeth Siddal. More specifically, it was that both women seem to have built a self-image from their confinement due to illness. Kahlo's illness was from a horrific accident, which compounded damage done to her by polio (and possible spina bifida). This meant that great parts of her life were not only spent housebound, but flat-out in a bed with nothing to do but paint. Through these extraordinary portraits you get a vision of 'separateness' which goes beyond loneliness.

Self Portrait Frida Kahlo

Self Portrait Elizabeth Siddal

Both women were harsh with their self-projection, Kahlo emphasising her brows and facial hair, Siddal pinching her face and hooding her eyes. Both women also drew painful inspiration from the betrayal of their lovers. Think of Siddal's poems Worn Out or A Silent Wood, and the destruction that has been done to her by her inconstant man. In Worn Out her love seems to physically turn on her, hurting her 'I cannot give to thee the love / I gave so long ago, / The love that turned and struck me down / Amid the blinding snow.' Likewise, in Self Portrait with Cropped Hair, Kahlo's loss of her love is expressed through her rage and cropped hair (the verse speaks of how she believed he loved her for her long hair and now her hair is short he does not love her).

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

It is easy to see similarity in the relationship of Siddal and Rossetti and Kahlo and Rivera. Possibly it's tempting to generalise about artists and their temperaments, living together disastrously. Arguably, Kahlo gave Rivera as much hell as he gave her, but that is possibly reflective of the times in which they lived. There are artistic couples who fought and couples who were happy, but still couples where both are artists are still relatively rare, which may be an indication to things like ego and vision.

Henry Ford Hospital (1932)

I think one aspect of life they both tragically shared was their devastation over childbirth. Kahlo's accident and Siddal's illness and laudanum-use rendered both their bodies unable to carry children which caused both of them horrific distress. Kahlo's found vent in some of her most visceral works (the one above is relatively tame), but Siddal's internalising contributed to her early death. It is symptomatic of her time that Siddal could not express the loss of her child fully, although there may be shadows of it in her poetry. Kahlo found some recognition, if not comfort, of her loss through her work and moved beyond these moments, as if by trapping them on canvas they could not damage her further.

Ophelia J E Millais

The Dream Frida Kahlo

What is certainly true is that for many people both Kahlo and Siddal mean one thing: death. Both are seen as women engaged in a drawn-out suicide, the architypal feminine implosion associated with artistic genius. Just as Siddal never fully escapes her Ophelia roots, then Kahlo is very often reduced to a Day of the Dead Catrina, sometimes literally.

I have to admit this is a bit of an object of desire for me, and I really think Frida would have approved as she was a big fan of the Day of the Dead. It strikes me that both Siddal and Kahlo are used by their audiences to express their own fears over mortality. 'Ophelia' Siddal is the doomed muse, drowning for the art of the men, a common summary of Siddal herself but one that in no way expresses the complexity and strength of her life. Similarly, the Kahlo who embraced death in art managed to live on into her 40s, young but considering her many health issues, testament to her strength of spirit.

Lady of Shalott Elizabeth Siddal

Self Portrait (1940) Frida Kahlo

I think it is more accurate to consider the individuality of both women, the 'separateness' that they portrayed and inhabited. Just as Siddal drew upon The Lady of Shalott, imprisoned alone, Kahlo endlessly presented herself alone in a landscape of her own fears. Both women found expression for their own centre and within themselves they found beauty in a nightmare they had to be strong enough to paint and write.

Kahlo at her easel

Siddal at her easel

Possibly this is why they both inspire me so much. As Frida would say Viva la Vida because it is short and art is forever.

Happy Birthday, Edward Burne-Jones! He's 180 today, and due to my preference for older gentlemen, I think he's rather swoony.

As some of you may know, I went up to the exhibition on Burne-Jones' drawings at the Lady Lever Art Gallery at the weekend.

It was very beautiful, unsurprisingly so, the highlight of which was the enormous watercolour of Sponsa di Libano (The Bride of Lebanon)...

Gosh, it's enormous and beautiful! Mr Walker was especially keen to see it as the Russell-Cotes has a pencil sketch of it. The rest of the exhibition is splendid, the drawings and the chalks were outstanding as you would expect. It wasn't as big as Birmingham's recent Pre-Raphaelite Drawing show, but then it was free to go in and so I wasn't disappointed at all.

However, I have to make a bit of a confession.

I'd already fallen utterly in love with a painting before I got into the exhibit. In fact, it was all I could think of all the way round. Sorry Ned, I was distracted. But then, this is what distracted me...

*Not heard: the sound of Mrs Walker whimpering with pleasure

I suppose it's not so bad if my head is turned by another of Ned's pictures, and what a picture! Almost two metres high and over a metre wide, it dominated a wall of Burne-Jones' beauties. I had seen this picture lots of times in books but I couldn't remember the last time I saw it in person and it hit me like a smack when I turned the corner and found it. The above image is my photograph (the Lady Lever, unusually, allow photography in the gallery. I would love to have seen my expression when I found that out. I think my eyes grew large and heart-shaped and I thanked them profusely before skipping back in to the hall with my camera in my hand). Here is a better image of the painting:

Tree of Forgiveness (1882) Edward Burne-Jones

This is one of the better reproductions you can get and even this cannot do justice to the burnished copper of the woman's hair, the fact her skin looks like ice-cream, and the sheer, muscled gorgeousness of the chap. All is vibrant, scented heaven, pressed against you like the sigh of a lover. Swoon! Sorry, I'll pull myself together.

Anyway, I came home and immediately wanted to know more about the picture. My tired brain knew that it was Phyllis and Demophoön, but that was it (I had just driven for six hours, even I have an off-day), although Phyllis was obviously that saucy minx, Maria Zambaco.

Avert your eyes Gentlemen, she will ruin you! Apparently.

You will already know that The Tree of Forgiveness is a 'copy' of an earlier work by Ned, painted over a decade earlier...

Phyllis and Demophoön (1870)

The faces for this version were both based on Maria Zambaco, Ned's lover until 1869. They had broken from each other and Maria's attempted suicide had caused a great scandal. Ned had tried to stop his erstwhile mistress from drowning herself and by the time the police arrived, the couple were wrestling on the ground. Maria had furnished herself enough laudanum to kill herself that way as well. It is likely that Ned's panic was not only to stop her hurling herself into the Thames, but also to stop her harming herself in any other manner. The police were nearby, which was lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint), due to the number of suicides on that stretch of water, and collared Ned. The whole scene was both sensational and extremely distressing for all involved, but it is interesting that Ned broke the relationship off when Maria asked him to leave his wife. I get the impression he was attracted to her beauty, her 'otherness', but when it came to it, he wasn't about to be told what to do by anyone.

The painting he produced in 1870 was Phyllis and Demophoön. Demophoön was a king of Athens who fell in love with the beautiful Phyllis on his way back from the Trojan War (he was in the actual horse and everything). He married her, but had to return to Attica for six months, promising to come back to his wife. Every day Phyllis went to the shore, awaiting the sight of sails but her feckless hunk of a husband had ended up in Cyprus and had forgotten all about her. When six months came and went, Phyllis was filled with despair and hung herself from a tree. The Gods took pity on her and transformed her into an almond tree.

Demophoön (far too high maintenance in my opinion) suddenly remembered he had a wife (I've met a few men like that) and hot-footed it back to Thrace, to his wife. There he was informed that his uselessness had turned his wife into a tree. Consumed by guilt (Today on Jeremy Kyle: 'All very well to feel guilty now, but I'm a tree because of you!') Demophoön embraced the tree which began to bloom. Suddenly, awakened by her husband's remorse, Phyllis burst forth from the tree to forgive him.

Isn't that lovely? In the original tales, Phyllis remained a tree and Demophoön fell on his sword and the suchlike, but Ned gave them a happy ending. Or did he?

The 1870 original was very controversial. For starters, Demophoön is a bit starkers. I read a very interesting bit recently about male nudity. Apparently it's fine as long as ladies can't see it (spoil sports) and Phyllis is quite up-close and personal with nude-y Demophoön. Not even the fact that her feet are still a bit wooden defuses the fact that she is within groping distance of a chap's naughty bits. Good Lord!

Also, Maria Zambaco was all over the picture; she was Phyllis, lunging towards her lover. She was Demophoön, filled with guilt, asking for forgiveness. She was the situation, the lovers, the neglect and the passion. Her soft features shine from the couple, so close, so intimate. When Ned painted the picture, their affair was over, but obviously his imagination still held her, still regretted, still wanted to make the whole sorry mess right. The picture is often read to be about regret, but look at Demophoön's face. I think it is also about fear.

When he returned to the subject a decade later, the resultant image was The Tree of Forgiveness.

Although the focus of the image, the title, is about forgiveness, the fear remained. Demophoön doesn't look happy to see his beloved, or relieved that his lost love has returned. He doesn't even look surprised that she has appeared. He looks terrified. This is especially strong in the 1882 version, as the figure of Demophoön has been 'beefed up', a greater contrast to the slight, creamy form of Phyllis. He looks like he is trying to get away from her, but why?

Look at it this way - Demophoön had forgotten her, had neglected her and through his thoughtlessness caused her to kill herself. Phyllis is a woman of action, she makes things happen. Demophoön makes things happen through his inaction. He returns to his wife and finds he has lost her, but then through her strength of love, she not only comes back to life, but transforms back from a tree. He awakens a superhuman passion in her that makes the impossible happen. He inspires but she achieves. The strength is hers, he is simply the focus.

In 1879, Maria Zambaco returned to London. For a decade, Ned had not seen her. He had slowly pieced his life together after his affair that had almost cost him his wife, family and reputation. In 1869, he had tried to end the relationship, but she had tried to kill herself, a rather more dynamic action towards ending things. Ned had stopped her from ending her life, but as they had roughly embraced on the pavement outside Browning's house, the police thundering to their aid, he must have known the power in the relationship was not his. By 1879, Burne-Jones had grown in reputation, but none of that mattered because the woman who had ruled him could have destroyed him again as quickly.

Heaven knows what Georgie Burne-Jones thought when she saw Maria's face, large as life, on the intense canvas. I expect she had long since turned a weary blind eye to Ned's fancies, but the timing of the revisit makes me wonder if she drew the same conclusion: Ned was frightened of Maria. To be the focus of another's love when you love them back is beautiful, but when you don't return their love, it's terrifying. It is suggested that Ned changed the story to give it a happy ending, the couple reunited, but what if Demophoön had been too weak to say no to Phyllis face to face? If by going and staying away, he was getting rid of a wife he didn't want. To his credit, he was sad when he found she had killed herself but then, all of a sudden, she comes back to life. You can run, you can hide, you can even kill her, but she will just keep coming for you.

You know you're in trouble
when you smell almond blossom in your hair....

Hands!

Phyllis' hands are clasped around him and she presses to him like she wants to become one with him. Their bodies echo each other and despite his muscles, he is definitely looking in the weaker position, not least because his hands seem to scrabble away, unaware that the almond blossom has surrounded him. There is no escape.

It is said that Burne-Jones learnt his lesson from the original work and draped Demophoön to preserve his modesty.

Ah, yes, that is far less inflammatory...

Another way of looking at it is that the pale drape comes from Phyllis, curling around his vitals. Arguably, what Burne-Jones had sought and received from Maria was not essentially love, but head-turning, heart-racing lust. He didn't love her enough (or Georgiana too little) to run away to Greece with Maria, so his heart wasn't hers. An entirely different part of his anatomy had ruled him, Maria had grasped him by it, and possibly that is what he is saying with the mystic swirl. Also, it could be a reference again to the power difference between them. She had unmanned him, literally, left him without the signs of his masculine strength. All of a sudden he is physically as featureless as her, but he's not the one exploding out of a tree.

I have to admit, my past reticence to embrace Burne-Jones to my bosom has been due to his affairs, his wandering eye and the utterly rubbish way in which he handled it all. The Tree of Forgiveness says that maybe Burne-Jones was as horrified by his actions as I am. We all make mistakes, some of them disastrous both for us and others, but often the wreckage we make is unintentional (if not in action, then in outcome). I think that this painting is Burne-Jones' admission that he got it horrible wrong. I get the impression that he had entered the relationship completely blind to the needs of his lover, but that he had been punished by foolishly underestimating her power. The repetition of the image on Maria's return to London shows that maybe that lesson had not been forgotten and was still greatly feared.

I now feel comfortable to sit next to Ned and nod sympathetically at admissions of human folly. Ever the master of understatement, the original work in 1870 was exhibited with a quote from Ovid: 'Tell me what I have done? I have loved unwisely.' You have to wonder, out of the two figures, who exactly is speaking the words.

Happy birthday, Ned. We love you. Wisely, I hope.

If you live somewhere polite and classy, not bothering to take much notice of the rum goings-on by starlets, you may well have missed this performance which occurred at the MTV Awards last weekend...

No, sorry, I'm at a loss to explain this...

Right then, the 'gentleman' on the left (apparently wearing Beetlejuice's suit) is Robin Thicke and the young lady entreating him to play leapfrog is Miley Cyrus. The focus of the moral outrage the morning after was the erstwhile Miss Cyrus, who managed to break the fabric of civilisation with a routine involving teddy bears, cultural appropriation, a lot of tongue poking and something called 'twerking'. I naturally thought of Rossetti.

Miley and her Bears. Before she pulled her swimsuit off. And twerked Mr Thicke.

I'm not kidding when I said I thought of Rossetti (not least because we all know he would have loved a good twerk). When it came down to it, within the hubbub that surrounded Miley's performance there seemed to be two main charges against her. Firstly, she was guilty of super-sexualising her presentation and secondly, that she greedily misappropriated aspects of another culture.

Oh, before I go on, 'Twerking' is a sort of dancing where you bend about. The word is possibly a portmanteau of 'twist' and 'jerk'. It has cultural significance which are lost by the time it reaches the masses, I must admit, because really in this context, it seems to merely signify extrovert libidinal urges. You heard me. Anyway, talking of urges...

Bocca Baciata (1859) D G Rossetti

During the 1850s, Rossetti produced watercoloured maidens, chaste kisses and honour. His Medieval ladies tied pennants onto spears and everyone attempted to keep themselves under control. Then he found oil and Fanny Cornforth and look what happened. Suddenly, it's a cavalcade of snogging and more and the woman comes out fresh as the moon. It's a very convenient mantra for Rossetti to chant, but this is revolutionary, even by today's standards. Apparently the phrase used for the disapproval of a woman who displays her sexuality a little more freely than we're comfortable is 'slut-shaming'. One thing I read over and over after Miley's performance was the mourning wail for Miley's lost youth. Miss Cyrus rose to stardom as the pop-starlet Hannah Montana in a Disney series. She was fresh-faced, virginal and wholesome. Yes, she may have gotten into some scrapes, but she emerged with a song in her heart and her clothing on. What her reinvention has done is to completely reverse that. Her video for 'We Can't Stop' shows an orgy of partying and free sexuality in which Miley participates and emerges defiant. She wants to show that she is grown up, and what do grown ups do? They don't obey rules and they take their pants off. A lot.

Miley twerks a lady, because that's what grown-ups do.
Just out of shot is Mrs Walker having a sit down with a book,
which is also what grown-ups do.

Maybe there is a cross-over between publicly shedding a youthful persona and using sex as a method of expression. As a child, sexuality is the most baffling part of adulthood, something readily seen but not understood. As soon as we are old enough we rush to embrace that part of life, maybe as a public statement that we have indeed grown up. With all that allure to be adult and autonomous, comes the chance for others to make money. Hence the monotonous regularity that child stars get sexy. Miley isn't the first, she won't be the last and to be honest, she wasn't doing anything that we haven't seen before. While people may all be horrified, outraged and disgusted by a 20 year old woman pretending to fondle herself with a giant foam finger, she certainly got publicity and probably sold a lot of records. Sex sells. Queue Rossetti in 1860s...

Venus Verticordia (1865) D G Rossetti

Ruskin found this picture as vulgar and disturbing as many critics found Miss Cyrus. One commentator described it as the lust of the flesh that never perishes. Not love, not beauty, but raw, naked sexy-sex and as Miley say, we can't stop. It's compelling, it's all too human, and it sells. Look at it this way, you don't have to buy it. Vote with your money, that would stop it. It's done for your amusement, so if you aren't amused, don't buy it. Enough painters in the past had to cover up nudey bits in order to make their money. If we really find Miley dancing around in a fur swimsuit to be too much then switch over and don't buy her record. She probably wouldn't do it then.

To be honest, the sexy-sex bit of the performance was not as shocking as a few people seemed to declare it. No-one was struck dead by God, really, let's not forget it was a lady pretending to do stuff whilst wearing a gianty foam finger. Rather more disturbing was the fact that Miley 'borrowed' rather heavily from another culture, or rather paraded a lot of nasty cultural stereotypes about to declare something 'cool' about her.

Miley and a friend. Oh dear.

Part of the song refers to her 'home girl with the big butt'. In her performance, Miley pretended to lick, bite and smack one of the dancers on the behind. I think that was the point when people wished she would stop. Part of Miley's 'growing up' has been to become what is euphemistically referred to as Urban, as displayed on this charming garment...

Miley does a 'selfie' in the mirror

By Urban we mean stereotypical Black American, let's not pretend. That entails, according to Miley's tshirt, sex, drugs and rap. She smacked the ladies arse because that lady is all about sex. She refers to waiting in line for the toilet in order to do 'a line'. She struts and apes the stance of Rappers. She is all about the sex and who is more about the sex than Black Americans? Apparently. (This was news to me as I grew up with the Cosby Show and therefore my tshirt would say 'Jumpers, Nice Parents, & Trying Hard at School.') Is she alone in her assumption that other cultures are all about sex? Rossetti, anything to say?

The Blue Bower (1865) D G Rossetti

How tame it all looks, but if you think about it by appropriating Japonism and placing a woman in the context you are playing with notions of Geisha. Although the role of a Geisha is far more complex than sex (as is 'twerking'), that is what it gets boiled down to. The excitement of a woman who is sexual ready, willing and able is a powerful thing because it goes against the other extreme, that women are none of those things. Both are nonsense and women have written copious amounts on our frustration of being told we are one and should be the other.

The Beloved D G Rossetti

The addition of other cultures implies that as Caucasians we are devoid of sexuality, which is insulting, and so we have to drag in some people of a darker hue because they are all about sex, also really insulting. It also speaks of an insecurity, a boredom with the culture you have been born into. When Rossetti painted the black boy at the front of the picture, in addition to the black and the gypsy bridesmaids, he was short-handing the eroticism of the passage from Song of Solomon that the painting is based on. He shared the racial stereotyping of his contemporaries but supported the North in the American Civil War, for which he was mocked by his friends. His use of the figures is to do with a cultural currency which translates into actual currency without looking any deeper.

Gwen Stefani and Love, Angel, Music and Baby, her Harajuku Girls

It's hard to talk about cultural appropriation as a vaguely middle-class, white, first-world woman because I'm guessing I do it. It's culturally ingrained for us to borrow from others and it comes from a good and bad place. On one hand, we are genuinely interested in other cultures. Other people are fascinating. It emanates from the same place as our love of the past and is just part of being human. We are interested in other humans because we are all the same, even when we seem completely different. When Gwen Stefani based her 2004 album Love, Angel, Music, Baby on her fascination with Harajuku (street fashion and culture in Tokyo), she no doubt made a lot of money (no pun intended). She received a lot of criticism for cultural theft but I was left with the feeling that she truly did love the culture. Her appropriation, although fiscally rewarding, came from a place of interest, not just cynical money-picking. Also, she reflected Japanese street fashion that evolved from borrowing fashion from the West and changing it to reflect their own tastes. Maybe that feels different because it comes from a place of sharing.

On the other hand, Culture-picking is used for amusement, to say how funny others are, belittling and patronising and using cultural objects and attitudes deeply inappropriately. We also misuse things to reaffirm our prejudice. Some of us use other cultures for monetary gain. Then it gets really offensive. A tshirt that sums up even a tiny aspect of another culture as 'Sex, Drugs and Rap' is disturbing because it glamorizes something that harms whilst book-ending it with two big stereotypes.

But then how about this...?

Yes, you know this one.

As a woman with a history of mental health issues, how do I feel about Millais' Ophelia? It could be argued that it utterly glamorizes something that is not pretty and makes it look cool. This is a picture of a woman killing herself because she has a mental illness. Isn't it beautiful?

Sorry for the rambling, but the more I think about cultural appropriation, the bigger the problem is. I have been told that my style of dress and behaviour is deeply offensive. Whilst I do not waggle my bottom against random men while playing at being 'Gangsta', I do wear a circle skirt, net petticoats and am known for my enthusiasm for baking. I was informed I was playing at being oppressed, and could not possibly appreciate how much I would hate actually being a 1950s housewife. Now that may be true but I did not for a moment consider how borrowing from the past could be the same as borrowing from a modern culture (albeit a stereotype of one). When the Pre-Raphaelites reached back to embrace Medievalism did they really know what they were doing, or was it because it suited an aesthetic? William Morris wished to recreate the handcrafting of belongings, just like the good old days, but for our ancestors work tended to be hard and cut short by limb-loss and death.

I have no answers for all of this. I would be interested to hear what you have to say and if you would like to see some of the modern things I refer to, here are some links:

If you want to see Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke's performance at the VMA Awards, here it is. Have a sit down and a stiff drink, you'll be fine.

If you want to see Miley's We Can't Stop video, here it is. Again, a stiff drink will sort it out.

For Gwen Stefani's Alice in Wonderland inspired, Harajuku anthem What You Waiting For? look here.

If I didn't spend so much time thinking up new double entendre or perfecting my 'twerk' then I suspect I could write an entire book on today's subject. Indeed, there may well be one but I haven't come across one yet. Plenty has been written on the meaning of flowers, the delicate art of sending secret messages through floral agencies. Paintings in the Victorian period are strewn with blossoms adding to the meaning of the work - ivy for patience, clinging steadfastness, lilies for purity, passion flowers for religion and sauciness (interesting combo). The smallest daisy can instill a subtle meaning to a picture if you know what you're looking for, but is there anything else that can do this? What about birds?

Girl with Lovebirds (1876) Henry Guillaume Schlesinger

It's easy to read meaning into Lovebirds. The clue is in the title; they represent the ripeness and willingness of the lady with them. She loves her birds and will love you too, given half a chance.

The Courtship Fred Hall

Similarly, turtle doves (or posh pigeons) are known to bill and coo like lovers. Or is it the other way round? I wonder if pigeons are used to represent people on a regular basis as they are ordinary, common-place, like us. Among the fancy and exotic, the strange and magical, the pigeon is just like us, getting on with its life. It finds food, finds a mate, finds a nest, makes a nice pie. Just like people. Except the last one. Moving on.

Robins of Modern Times John Roddam Spencer Stanhope

As regular readers will know, I have a weakness for this very disturbing picture. The little robin in the corner plays a deeply allegorical part, signifying death, if not of the child then of her innocence, of her childhood. The robin is a fascinating bird, in most gardens in Britain and on the front of countless Christmas cards but they have an association with sacrifice and death that is not overly cosy. Legend has it that its red breast came from singing in the ear of Jesus as he died on the cross and being dipped in his blood. The Babes in the Wood are covered by robins when they die. A little robin appears in possibly the best known Pre-Raphaelite picture about death...

Ophelia, obviously...

Do you see the little robin? Look towards the upper left-hand corner...

There he is!

How many times have I looked at that picture in books? It was when I was seeing the Pre-Raphaelite Avant-Garde exhibition with Miss Holman that she pointed him out as we were squashed against the left-hand side. Remarkable. Darling little bird, a tiny glimmer of red among the green of the overhanging foliage, looking down as Ophelia drifts to her death.

All Pass Away as the Glimmer of Day While Others as Fleet are Born
(1888) Lance Calkin

The snappily titled All Pass Away... shows a very obvious little robin looking down at an old man and a little girl. The title refers to passing of lives, of people, of eras. They are looking at what is left of a tree, the giant old trunk being hauled away. The robin sings from a sapling which in time will also be cut down. The old man may well die at any moment, but don't worry, his granddaughter will snuff it too. Cheery thoughts, everyone.

Arguably, the robin isn't the only bird that speaks of demise. The swallow appears regularly in images of death, like this rather well-known example.

The Lady of Shalott, again, obviously

The swallow seems to be a common symbol of 'ending', especially of something beautiful. Maybe it's the connection between swallows and summer that makes it a bird of pathos, something glorious that will inevitably end.

O Swallow, Swallow John Melhuish Strudwick

Swallow Swallow John Everett Millais

The Swallow also seems to symbolise love. In the two paintings above the young woman awaits a love letter from the poet (illustrating a passage of Tennyson's The Princess). The bittersweetness of the poem speaks of how 'brief is life but love is long' and death is alluded to. No matter how the poet assures the bird that he will follow, I don't think she should hold her breath.

Since Last We Met (1902) Arthur Langley Vernon

Darting under the bridge goes what may well be a swift or swallow in this painting which reminds me of Jane Austen for some reason. I think it's because the couple are considering their changed circumstances since they last saw each other - maybe they couldn't marry because her father forbade it? Maybe the young man wasn't rich enough? From the way they are eyeing each other up, there is some unfinished business. The bird in rapid flight may speak of the passing of time, the fact that their time may be running out so they really should get on with it.

The Twa Corbies (1901) Campbell Lindsay Smith

If the coyness of swallows isn't enough for you, how about the certainty of crows? In the Scottish ballad, 'Twa Corbies' or two crows/ravens are heard to discuss where they will dine that night. They decide upon the fallen knight behind the old turf wall who has no-one to miss him. His dog has gone hunting, his hawk has flown home and his lady-love has gone off with someone else. The man is beautiful, golden of hair and blue of eye but his only use now is food and bedding for the crows. Cheery.

The Guarded Bower Arthur Hughes

If you want another bittersweet love bird, then you can't do much better than a dove. Doves speak of the fragility of life but the longevity of love. In Hughes' painting, the young lady seems to be much beloved but her lover holds a ruddy big sword and a jealous glint in his eye. His problem is displayed in bird form - he is the peacock, all pride and show, while his lady-love is the innocent white dove. Oh, I don't fancy her chances...

Return of the Dove to the Ark John Everett Millais

Everyone's favourite dove must be the one that came back with good news to the ark. To be fair, his gig was a pretty easy win. Everyone loves the 'Best News Ever Dove' and so it's all kisses and hugs for him.

Beata Beatrix D G Rossetti

The pusher-dove, Rossetti's bird of deliverance, signifies Dante's love and the passing of Beatrice into spirit. The opium poppy in its beak is a sly nod to Noah's ark, as this dove is not exactly delivering hope, but a message of finality. Beatrice is sailing away from Dante and he cannot follow. Sometimes it's hard to remember that doves are just pigeons with a make-over, they border regularly on the celestial edge, God's messenger, the holy ghost in flight.

Roses of Youth Henrietta Rae

It's not all serious business of course. Saucy Nudey Doves get a look in too. They are a bit of an odd choice here. We get collared doves in our garden and I've never thought 'Gosh, wouldn't it be lovely to sit out there starkers and feel all decadent?' Surely something snazzier, like a peacock or a parrot would have looked more luxurious than some second-cousin pigeons?

Jezebel John Byam Liston Shaw

Peacocks say pride, luxury, decadence and a faint whiff of immorality or certainly amorality. If you visit a lady with a peacock do not expect to leave her company with your clothing or morals intact. Gentlemen, pray take that as a warning. Or a recommendation.

Lady with a Parrot Valentine Prinsep

Yes, there you go. A parrot doesn't get you nudey, but does get a flash of boob. There is something marvellously rich and exotic about parrots, yet familiar, as there are plenty in this country, in parlors of the eccentric aesthete and lovers of the foreign.

The Tempest Lucy Madox Brown

Parrots are the bird to have if you want to have a bit of mystery. I should have a parrot instead of chickens. Chickens lend you no mystery whatever.

Princess Leia and Hen Solo

I rest my case. Anyway, parrots are owned by sorceresses, concubines, women with mystic knowledge and naughty knowledge. That woman knows your future, she knows your past, she knows what it is you seek. She doesn't have free access to eggs, though. I'm winning on that score.

Il Barbagianni Val Prinsep

Now, if you want to look like a smart lady, go with an owl. An owl beats everything. You know she is smart, well-read, keeps her own counsel and her wisdom is equal to her beauty. I've held an owl before and it is a spectacularly beautiful bird and there is something about the moon-face and smooth curve of the beak that is magical.

After Marriage (1881) Arthur Howes Weigall

Bird-ownership is a vexed matter though. As soon as a bird is caught in a cage it seems to be an ever-present metaphor for a beautiful woman in a rich but loveless marriage. However golden that cage is, it still has bars and the woman above seems bored with her creepy man. At least the bird gets a view out the window, the poor woman has to face her ill-favoured panto-husband. Deary me.

The Caged Bird John Byam Liston Shaw

I like this image as it is rather rebellious. That woman does not look sure about her actions at all, but the fact that she has freed the bird makes you think that she has freed herself too. The garden behind her is a maze of hedging, each making a small space. I wonder is Byam Shaw is saying that those sorts of marriages are each a little self-contained world, a tiny hedged bed from which there was no escape. They are neat, they are well tended, and they are so very very limited.

Woman with Pigeons Ernst Phillipe Zacharie

I love layers of meaning in paintings, and the language of flowers is a romantic way of sending a secret message to the viewer. Likewise, using birds to hint at further story, nuance of feeling and unspoken emotion forms a bond with the audience. We can see outcomes as yet hidden from the players in the picture, we are involved and yet removed.

Each feather is a door for us to open, a bridge for us to cross, a story for us to read.

Happy Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Day (or #PRBDay) to you all! Back at the end of July I asked you to nominate your favourite images of Fanny Cornforth in oil, pencil and pastel. The results are in...

Your favourite pencil, pen and ink image is.....

Sketch for The Blue Bower (1863-5)

I must agree that this is a gorgeous sketch for a stunning picture. There is a power in her face and the tall pillar of her neck which always makes me feel that Fanny was never a passive victim of Rossetti's whims. He may of messed her about, Lord knows he did, but she gave as good as she could and the amount of trouble she caused is testament to how well she did at pushing herself forward.

Your favourite pastel is actually a tie! How exciting! It is a very difficult choice because Rossetti's pastels are all special, so I can see how so many of you liked the same two...

Fair Rosamund (1861)

Woman with a Fan (1870)

People liked the sexuality of Fair Rosamund, that blushed skin and look of longing. She gazes out with the dejection of absence until her lover arrives. Naked shoulders enhance the rawness of the image, less fussy than the finished oil but loaded with the sexual promise of illicit love.

Woman with a Fan was mentioned as a favourite because Fanny looks like she means business. She had been put aside by her lover, but he could not entirely let her go. This is one of the final set of pictures Rossetti drew of Fanny, during his endless oils of Jane Morris and Alexa Wilding. They are a surprise: Fanny's days of modelling for him were over by this point, but looking at her face, you know she wasn't going to go quietly.

So finally, what oil did you choose?

Bocca Baciata (1859)

I was delighted to find that you voted for 'the kissed mouth' because it is my favourite too, obviously. Right back at the beginning, when things were going so well, a saucy girl posed for a painting that would define not only her but a powerful period in her lover's career. Rossetti's oils of women grew from this painting, his imagery of beautiful, powerful women as icons of desirability sprung from Fanny and her kissed lips that renewed themselves like the moon. Did Boyce kiss the image like it was suggested he did? Did Fanny refer to the flowers behind her as 'merry-goes'? Whatever the truth, this remains a keynote image for Fanny, a life changing painting for Rossetti and a riot of golden promise.

So my friends, thank you for your comments and votes! Today should be fun, don't forget to go to Twitter to vote for your favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting using the #PRBDay on the Twitter feed @PreRaphSoc (last year Ophelia won, let's see if we can mix it up a bit this year...)

This is a very special year for the Pre-Raphaelite Society, it's their 25th anniversary and I've been a member for far longer than is decent, having joined right back in around 1999 (I was a mere child at the time, honest). They have always been the most lovely bunch of supportive stars and I would not be here, writing this blog, without their endless enthusiasm and encouragement. It costs £14 a year (or £10 concessions) for which you get their journal 3 times a year, the PRSUS newsletter all about American news concerning Pre-Raphaelite art, a fabulous list of lectures and trips and information on exhibitions and publications. I'm giving a talk for them in Birmingham next year so if you want to come and see me, join up!

You can join here and I look forward to see you in October at the AGM!

Happy Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Day to you all. I'm off to rest my aching feet after the Pre-Raphaelite pilgrimage yesterday - if you want to see my photos, they are on The Stunner's Boudoir page on Facebook. I'll post up pictures of a few other bits later on.

Anyone who saw my Wombat Friday picture last week will know that I ordered a rather special comic last week...

I met the author, Ulrik, through Facebook recently and learned of his brilliant artwork. A Muse's Burden was published a couple of weeks ago and is described by Ulrik as 'a graphic poem'. It concerns Jane Morris and weight of being an icon. She crosses time to inspire artists, and she exists to provide a living idea, a spark of brilliance for the men who need her, who love her.

Ulrik's comic is funny, beautiful, and incredibly touching. It makes you wonder about which Jane you think of, how much of her you take into yourself and what she must have thought about all the attention and adoration.

I also enjoyed the pages written by Margje Bijl, who you may remember from my post about her work. She explains how Jane is eternal, how through Jane, Margje expresses a specific art of mirrored consciousness, which also emphasises how contemporary Jane the Muse is.

The comic concludes with some of Ulrik's sketches and he explains his art and how he interprets the Pre-Raphaelite story, that famous love triangle, through his art. My favourite of all his pictures has to be of Jane leading a miniature Rossetti and William Morris on leads, it is brilliant. The touch where the tiny Rossetti is holding back Morris is glorious. Having read Jane's letters I think Ulrik catches that little glint in her eye, the self-depreciation coupled with an unknowable depth that is both the woman and the muse.

Jane Morris has become a multiple person; she is the girl from Oxford who swopped the stable for a red brick palace of love, she is the object of adoration with a tilted chin and the giant goddess with a direct stare. She is both herself and the reflection in her admirers eyes, and Ulrik has gone some way to explain and enjoy all of this.

I love his work and I'm sure you will too. To order 'A Muse's Burden' visit Windmill Comics if you live in Europe or the UK. Otherwise, contact either the Publishers (via the website) or Ulrik(via Facebook).

For quite a while now I have been tracing my family history. There should be a warning on the website before you start saying:

'Look, you probably won't like some of what you find out.

We're not judging you, just be aware that people in the past were messed up.

Not you, you're lovely. Well done.'

So far I've found married cousins (small village, was it?), hilarious surnames (Cocking-Champion. No really) and other very complicated shenanigans. Oh, and some lace makers. I was somewhat surprised to find out that Great Great Grandmother's family was a little bit criminal. My 4th Great Grand Uncles Solomon and Simeon Parslow were both convicted of crimes and transported to Australia for 7 years. Solomon was done for sheep stealing and Simeon was convicted for larceny and receiving stolen goods. In their defence, once they came back they never broke the law again. Or at least, they never got caught.

All this got me thinking about criminals in Victorian times. Oh, and this...

Mugshot courtesy of the wonderful site, My Daguerreotype Boyfriend

Naughty Daniel Lohill was convicted of stealing ferrets and a fur necklet. He was also found guilty of stealing my heart, the scamp! Shame on me.

Moving on swiftly, I wondered what images of criminals were around in Victorian art.

The Railway Station (1862) William Powell Frith

Far Right: 'You're Nicked, Son!'

If you study Victorian art or society, you will no doubt see this picture a great deal. Frith provided archetypal panoramas of Victorian society and this is no exception. We have no notion of what the shifty looking chap has done, but he is respectably dressed. I wonder if the Victorians had a fear that the criminal class could pass among them unnoticed, looking all middle-class and everything. Things were much easier in the past; you could spot a criminal - he was the one of the horse with the mask and the pistols...

Travelling Past 1760 'Your Money or Your Life Thomas Joy

I was surprised at how glamorous a lot of crime appeared in paintings. You'd think it was a modern problem, making the terrible situations of criminal activity look all cool, but actually the Victorians found a sort of nasty attraction to things they really shouldn't.

Hello, Ladies !

Prostitution must be the most well known and 'studied' (ahem!) aspect of Victorian crime because it is so double-sided. On one side you get images like Found Drowned by G F Watts, Found by D G Rossetti and Thomas Hood's Bridge of Sighs, where the picture is miserable, punishing and bleak. Prostitution was regarded as possibly the most unforgivable crime, something utterly abhorrent. In the same breath, prostitutes were known to do well, to make something of their lives. Some 'ruined women' did rather well for themselves, as highlighted in Thomas Hardy's poem The Ruined Maid. Maybe the Victorian's needed to be reassured that their criminals were grubby and awful...

The Vagrant J Young

Wow. That is a disturbing undergrowth lurker. He is obviously is waiting to do you some sort of appalling misdeed. Moving on.

Working and Shirking (1864) Marcus Stone

It's good to know that if you are an Undergrowth-Lurker, a nice soldier will come and take you away before you startle the ladies and bespoil the ferrets.

The Poacher's Daughter (1884) Archie Stuart-Wortley

At first glimpse, this is a lovely image of a poacher and his cute daughter after a hard night of nabbing wildlife. However, the daughter places a comforting hand on her father's leg as the door begins to open. Uh-oh, it's the police...

Newgate - Committed for Trial (1878) Frank Holl

Once you were in prison, things looked very bleak and rightly so. Much is said about conditions in prisons even now, but the picture of Victorian incarceration is one of suffering and punishment in a very literal sense. These women look on at the prisoner with despair. They are without support, possibly for a long time and prison was most likely to return their loved one to them much altered.

Retribution (1878) William Powell Frith

It's unsurprising that the Victorian's felt the need to get retribution not just justice. The balance between humanity and revenge was an uneasy one, and may explain why they preferred to think of Prostitutes killing themselves rather than pass through any sort of judicial system. It's interesting to notice, when you watch as much murder mystery as I do on telly, how often the murder meets a sticky end rather than simply go to prison. I wonder if we have never quite lost the sense of an eye for an eye.

Departure of Prisoners Remy Cogghe

So, poor old sheep-stealing Uncles Simeon and Solomon were sent off to Australia for seven years. They were both in their late 30s when they went so were husbands and fathers. It's not just the men who were punished; arguably the wives and children were greater victims of the sentence their men received. Simeon and Solomon were lucky. They returned and lived fairly long lives with their wives and children and never were in trouble again. I wonder how true that was for the others who were transported or made their way through the punishing justice system here at home? In pictures of the wives who were left behind, they are often pictured in black as if 'widowed' by their husband's crime and punishment. I'm guessing that often was literally true.

Interestingly, there are many pictures that make crime cute. I present Exhibit A:

Stolen Apples Hugo Oehmichen

The number of child criminals seems disproportionate and extremely worrying. Was no apple safe?!

Scrumping Apples Caroline Paterson

We all know that today's cute apple-pincher is tomorrow's hedge-lurker. It's all childish-pranks now but he'll be off to Australia before you know it. It's interesting to think of the dual nature of our relationship with the Antipodes in the Victorian period. While my Uncles were doing time down under, the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner was off to Oz to seek new opportunities.

Last of England Ford Madox Brown, inspired by Woolner's emigration

I think the most worrying trend in the Victorian period was animal criminals. Seriously, it was like an epidemic...

Petty Larceny Briton Riviere

Petty Larceny? My Uncle got transported for that! What does this dog get? A humorous portrait. Justice? I think not. Possibly the greatest travesty is this: last year Liberty celebrated an image of animal theft all over a pair of Doc Martens. Disgusting.

Strawberry Thief William Morris

Just because you portray it in a clever repeating pattern, it still boils down to theft. It's even in the title! Shocking.

I will leave you with this image of a love token made by a man transported to Australia. The question of appropriate punishment will always bother us because it touches on a break in faith between people. As a non-criminal, we often feel vengeful and righteous, but that does not take into account why people commit crimes and what the impact of their choice has on their families.

See you at the end of the week, and keep away from hedges. You never know if a lurker is in there....

Put the popcorn on and get comfy because tonight is film night here at The Kissed Mouth! I asked you good people (well, those on The Stunner's Boudoir on Facebook) to suggest films that have the feel of Pre-Raphaelite art or are wonderfully, romantically Victorian. Here is a list (in no particular order) suggested by you, together with a few suggestions of my own...

1. Possession (2002)

Loved and loathed in equal measure, this film is worth a watch if only for the historic side of the movie. I love the idea that you can chase down a Victorian mystery while researching (come on, obviously a fantasy of mine) but I find the modern side of the film a bit awful (apart from Tom Hollander, he's wonderful). The sections with Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle are utterly delicious, and feature a nice bit of mock-Pre-Raphaelite art on the part of Jennifer's girlfriend.

Not Christina Rossetti and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Honest.

I loved the book and find the film eminently watchable. The costumes are beautiful and the end is heartbreaking but oddly uplifting. The section when they go to Whitby is just beautiful. Romance in Whitby. That's the Victorians for you.

2. Topsy Turvy (1999)

This is splendid! You can hear me singing along with gusto every time I watch it. It tells the story of how Gilbert and Sullivan came to write The Mikado, their 1885 operetta. It is also about the difficulty in working in a collaboration with someone who is the absolute opposite of you. It's about ego, inspiration, addiction, why hotels have bathrooms (even though frogs don't stay there), the rudest name for a prostitute (snigger) and genius. It is filled with stars who act their socks off. It is stuffed with magnificent costumes both on and off stage.

Chinese, Japanese, Everybody Wash Your Knees!

The genius of the film is that you not only want to know about The Mikado but you are left wanting to know more about the actors and actresses. I want to know more about Leonora Braham, Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey (left) who played the original three little maids because the little hints of their lives make you curious and sympathetic.

It's a beautiful film and very funny. I miss my kimono from when I was on stage with this back in 1991. It was lovely, one of the nicest G&S costumes I ever wore. The wig was very itchy, but one must suffer for art, darling.

3. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

I preferred the book but the film has the brilliancy of Meryl Streep bringing the character of Sarah to life. She is a sort of mingle of Pre-Raphaelite women, silent, tragic, wronged and sexually charged. Again, like with Possession, I'm not fussed about the modern bits, although they do have some relevance to the morality imposed on Sarah in the 19th century.

Jez Irons and Meryl get swoony in giant night attire

Meryl is quite the Pre-Raphaelite stunner in this and is a modern, unconventional woman, which would have appealed to Rossetti (in whose house she ends up, it is implied). Mind you, most women appealed to Rossetti. Talking of unconventional women....

4. Howard's End (1992)

It's easy to pick all the Merchant Ivory films as they are all beautiful, but Howard's End has a very special place in my heart. Not only does it give you two very unconventional sisters, Helen and Margaret Schlegel, but a wonderful Fanny Cornforth character, Mrs Jacky Bast (although it seems somewhat unlikely that she is married to Mr Bast). Margaret attempts to find respectability with a husband whom she tries to love but cannot ultimately connect with, but Helen tries to find freedom in love and life only to come a bit of a cropper with a baby on the way. The end is both tragic and optimistic (again!) and every time I watch it I find something new in it.

Lovely Jacky Bast

Poor old Jacky. She is 'Mrs Bast' but who knows exactly what her status is and she does love the erstwhile Leonard, despite his social climbing and bad luck. Her endless, voluptuous loveliness is his comfort in a rather cruel world, and she gets rather drunk at the posh wedding, which is a marvellously cringe-worthy scene. Good on you, Fanny would be proud.

5. An Ideal Husband (1999)

There are a few versions of this, but this is my favourite, not least because Rupert Everett is perfect in it and I want every dress Minnie Driver wears. There were a few votes for 'Wilde' to go on the list, and again I do love it, but this gets my final vote because it is funny and sad, plus gives you a lovely glimpse of the artistic scene in the 1890s.

Nice frocks ahoy! Plus lovely Rupert.

If you told me I had to watch a film on political scandal I might not be enthused but that is what this is essentially. It contrasts the triviality of Arthur Goring's playboy lifestyle with the rather nasty background of his otherwise steadfast and splendid friend, Robert Chiltern's rise to political brilliance. Three women hold the fate of the men in their gloved hands and they swan about in gorgeous frocks tipping the balance back and forth. Will Robert survive the hideous political machinations of Mrs Cheveley? Will Mabel ever get a date to an art gallery? Will Arthur actually have to get married? You'll have to watch and see.

6. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Swoon! Possibly the most beautiful 'white' film ever, this mysterious piece is as puzzling as it is seductive. The white dressed girls languidly vanish one Valentine's Day leaving people devastated and guilty. Definitely not based on any real event (despite countless web pages dedicated to how true it is), it is about sex, growing up, discovery, curiosity, alienation and possibly anything else you care to mention. That is the beauty of Picnic, it is all things to all people.

You can take it as a literal tale of a party of school girls who disappear on a school trip to Hanging Rock, or you can take it as a tale of girls vanishing and women taking their place, of burgeoning sexuality and the moral strictures of Victorian society. Or something. Anyway, it's possibly the only film I have a Pinterest board for due to it's stunning visuals which bring to mind Whistler, Klimt and all things aesthetic and symbolic. Enjoy.

7. Tess (1979)

Again, it would be easy to pick any number of Thomas Hardy adaptations for my list. Before settling on Tennyson as the subject of my Master's thesis, I studied Hardy with great pleasure and much love. I adore his novels and I am torn between three books as my favourite: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude. When it comes to this list, I had to pick Tess because of a rather odd Pre-Raphaelite connection...

When Tess meets her dastardly cousin, Alec, he begins his caddish seduction of her by feeding her strawberries. This act is a foreshadowing of him 'seducing' her in the forest later (I have no truck with the statement that he simply rapes her, it's not that clear cut, as the strawberry scene shows) and is very disturbing. I once used a slide of it at a lecture I gave on Hardy and film, and it got more comment than the naked Kate Winslet slide. Allegedly, the scene in the book had its inspiration in the story of how Rossetti fed Jane Morris strawberries at a party and what a strange spectacle it was. Sometimes it is hard to envisage how weird and rude something is until you see it. After seeing the strawberry bit in Tess, you are left with no illusions.

8. Gentleman's Relish (2001)

Gosh, here I go, descending into sauciness! This is a hilarious tale of a painter who is forced to abandon his paintbrush after his rather traditional, figurative way of painting becomes unfashionable. On the persuasion of his housekeeper, Violet, he takes up the camera to pursue his muse with rather naughty results.

Kingdom Swann and Cromwell Marsh get some rather surprising requests

It's jolly, very rude and has some hilarious dialogue. I particularly love the character of the model whose behind is 'the biggest thing Germany has seen in years'. It is sweet and optimistic and filthy. Who could ask for more? Plus it features Sarah Lancashire who should play Fanny Cornforth, especially after seeing her in The Paradise.

9. Mrs Brown (1997) and The Young Victoria (2009)

A double whammy of Queen Victoria goodness and I couldn't choose between them so here they both are.

At either end of her reign, Queen Victoria is a fascinating woman. Placed on an uncertain throne with an untrustworthy mother and frankly appalling father-figure, it's a miracle she became Queen at all. The weirdness of the over-protective environment from which she frees herself, coupled with the pressure to marry the right man is such a rollercoaster of a story, filled with happiness and grim misery. Natasha Richardson makes a fabulous baddy, as always.

My second Billy Connolly choice of the evening is one of the most gorgeous love-stories I've ever seen. I've a real soft spot for romantic drama where the protagonists aren't exactly in their first flush of youth, especially when it is filled with so much gentle humour and feeling. His unswaying belief in her and her realisation that she needs someone in her life that will tell her the truth is a joy to watch. He loves her so much and knows that he will never get more than moments of her time in which to share her life. The scene where they dance gets me every time.

10. The Village (2004)

I'll finish on a possibly controversial choice. The Village is one of my favourite films, not least because of its astonishing visuals and use of colour. The beauty of the women's clothes and the simple exquisiteness of the houses is an absolute treat.

'I saw something nasty in the woodshed...'

For those people who have seen it, no spoilers in the comments please, but I shall try and give a sense of the story. A small village lives peacefully in the middle of a forest. The people of the village know that they should never enter the forest or wear 'the bad colour' (red) or else they will anger the things that live in the forest. All trundles on peacefully until the child-like son of a Village elder unwittingly breaks the rules and all hell breaks loose. Add to that one of the funniest romantic declarations I have ever seen and the most touching moment of love between two awkward young adults and it adds up to a corking couple of hours. The moment that Lucius takes Ivy's hand in the darkness still makes me squeal, no matter how many times I see it. Brilliant, terrifying, moving and funny.

If you get through all that lot, I also recommend: The Mirror Crack'd (Agatha Christie with Lady of Shalott references), From Hell (atrocious acting but oh! the colour of Heather Graham's hair!), The Prestige (I still go cold at the end, no matter how many times I watch it), Sleepy Hollow (The dress!), Hysteria (rude and gigglesome), Wilde (Stephen Fry was obviously meant to play Wilde), Dorian Grey (dear me! What a naughty boy!) and Albert Nobbs (brilliant and touching).

Coincidentally, M'Lady Stephanie Pina over at the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood website reposted her brilliant page of Pre-Raphaelite sightings in film and television as I was writing this. You can find it here.

Actually, I will just recommend one more film before I leave you. This one has no relevance to Pre-Raphaelitism or Victorian Society but I believe it should be compulsory viewing for all people who spend time online. If you use Facebook, or write a blog or live any part of your life on the web, please watch the documentary Catfish (2010). It is a sobering tale of how your relationships online may not be all you think they are and how you should never assume you know a person from how they present themselves via the internet.

Stay safe online, my lovelies and enjoy the films!

This week my husband discovered I had an otherwise hidden talent which impressed him greatly. Now before you start sniggering I should explain. I can catch butterflies in my hands without harming them. I admit it’s not exactly something for the cv, but it was a talent developed in childhood and called into action this week when a red admiral blundered into our front room. Before our dog had a chance to leap into the air and eat it (they taste like colours apparently) I caught it in one hand in mid-air and escorted it safely from the premises. My husband was the most impressed I’ve seen him for years. This all led me to consider the part our little winged friends play in Victorian art…

The Blind Girl (1856) J E Millais

The first picture I thought of was obviously The Blind Girl by Millais but I have to admit it took me ages to get my brain to back up from concentrating on that precious little butterfly on the girl’s shawl. It is a thing of beauty indeed and everything about the beauty of nature is summed up in that small tortoiseshell. It is an interesting addition to the picture which already contains a stunning spectacle of nature, the double rainbow, but I wonder if it is about the unutterable scale of the wonder missed by the girl who cannot see? Maybe to Millais, obviously a visual person, loss of sight is a tragedy of epic proportion and he expresses that by showing the spectrum of wonders. The girl can experience things by touch but it is unclear from the image how far Millais feels that would compensate. The clarity of his vision, the joyous spectacle of every inch of his canvas seems to me to be a declaration of his love of image.

The Hireling Shepherd (1856) W Holman Hunt

Okay, so this is cheating a bit, but I love a death's head hawk moth. Really, I would be easily seduced by a shepherd with a moth. They are astonishing in real life and I have been lucky enough to encounter many a hawk moth in my time. I especially love elephant hawk moths, they are so endearing. This moth obvious has deathly connotations, it is a warning, a momento mori, how negligence will lead to corruption, but I’d be too busy looking at the moth. This is why I shouldn't be left in charge of sheep.

My father, the beekeeper, has a love of insect-kind which probably coloured my childhood. I remember one encounter with a moth which will scar me for life. Dad left what he thought was an empty chrysalis on the kitchen shelf only for it to hatch and secret itself under the sofa. When I went to fetch my shoes I found myself right up against an Atlas moth. We had to trap it under a washing basket until Dad came home from work so it wouldn’t hurt itself. Google it, it’s enormous.

My Dad also used to stuff dead birds that flew into our bay windows. He’d put them in our freezer until he was ready to stuff them. One day I went to get an ice lolly and pulled out a blackbird. Moving on swiftly…

Venus Verticordia (1865) D G Rossetti

Another famous array of butterflies are the ones that flit around Venus’ head in this famous oil by Rossetti. The butterflies here speak of temporary glory, something utterly astonishing but gone in a blink of an eye. I wonder if that is a reflection on how we perceive a butterfly? One moment the wings are open and we see all the majesty of their colours, a perfection of nature, then the wings close and they are gone. Isn't it strange that the wings are only decorated on the ‘inside’? There must be a perfectly sensible reason for that, something about warning/display and camouflage. I like to think that the fairies only have time to paint one side. Oh, talking of fairies…

The Butterfly (1893) Luis Falero

Nude-y butterfly ahoy! In various Victorian paintings butteries were fairies in disguise. Well, I say 'disguise', I mean 'nudey splendor'. The Victorian fairy painting genre has a delicate blending of the figure of a fairy and the rich painted wings of butterflies, as in Falero's cutie above.

Midsummer Fairies (1856) John Naish

There definitely seems to be a relationship between the two, possibly the fairies use butterflies as cover for their nudey scampering around the garden. Well, really! There is a magic to butterflies (and some of the brighter patterned moths) that seems to be unlike other creatures, as if they are a little piece of magic in our hum-drum worlds.

Primrose Day Ralph Todd

Girl with a Butterfly William Webb

Much like myself and my butterfly-catching antics, there is a relationship in art between little girls and butterflies that needs examining. It could be a comment on the fleeting nature of youth, but then why are there not more boys in the images? Maybe there is a connection between the temporary life of the insect and the innocence of girls, as if it is a comment on how glorious and beautiful a woman in innocence is. There is something very special about where the butterflies land - they aren't just fluttering past, they are choosing to settle on these 'flowers' of womanhood before it all goes downhill. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Spring (1911) Edward Frampton

May Daniel Maclise

It's not just little girls who get the butterflies, but it does seem to be young virgins, skipping through the spring of their lives, wearing frankly ludicrous hats (Frampton, what were you thinking?). You see, if you don't have anything to do with beastly men you remain as fresh as a daisy and attract insects. I think we can all learn a lesson from that.

Death of a Butterfly (1905-10) Evelyn de Morgan

De Morgan's butterfly looks more serious than the flighty little wisps of fun-shine we have seen so far, and there seems to be something rather serious going on. The pastel maiden is down on the rocky landscape as a dark-winged figure seemingly falls towards her. Is the butterfly about to be squashed to death by some woman who insists on flying with her eyes shut? Is the winged figure hurtling at the rainbow-touting girl-sect Time, about to crush her with the horror of not being young and pretty anymore? The horror.

Sibylla Palmifera D G Rossetti

I feel a very feminine commentary to the role of butterflies in paintings. There is a split feeling that they are silly and shallow and so very, very temporary but oh, the glory of those wings! The butterfly is something to be utterly adored above all other things because it is so fleeting, gone in moments but then where does that leave women? The butterfly seems inexorably linked to young womanhood, those precious moments before all is spoiled by time, child birth, knowledge, having thoughts of your own. You know, all the bad stuff. If only women were more like butterflies then the world would be a happier place.

Well, for the lepidopterist it would be. Some of us are starting to get a bit chilly...

Now and then, Mr Walker will suggest I try something which I don't think I'll enjoy and I end up loving it. I think one of the most notable examples of this was when he made me watch the film 'Master and Commander' which I loyally accompanied him to (such wifely duty!) and ended up adoring it. A similar moment happened at the weekend on the way to Brownsea Island with Mr Walker, Lily-Rose, Miss Katy and Pirate Pete.

We caught the Brownsea ferry from Poole harbour, and while we were in Poole we stopped off in Poole's museum to see an exhibition of a maritime artist called Bernard Finegan Gribble. I wasn't really that bothered because when I thought of Gribble, I pictured this kind of thing...

A Smokescreen, Naval Engagement (1914-18)

Very nicely executed, very good rendering of the sea and all that but not really my bag. However, what I didn't expect was to spend so much time with my jaw on the floor at such glorious sights as this...

The Ark of Promise (1909)

The Ark of Promise was enormous, dominating a wall at the end of one of the rooms. Poole Museum have an exhibition on until 16th February next year entitled 'Painting Drama at Sea: Bernard Gribble 1872-1962' and although it contains a great deal of material outside our usual time-frame here on The Kissed Mouth, there was a great deal of gorgeous art that dealt with the human aspect of sea-faring at the end of the nineteenth century, and their view of the maritime past. One of my favourite moments has to be when Miss Katy and I stood in front of this painting...

The Whelp of the Black Rover

We stood there in silence, admiring the massive canvas, before we looked at each other.

'The pirate in the front of the boat...'

'Yes, do you think he looks a bit..?'

'What, like a girl?'

'I think he's wearing lipstick...'

By laying on the floor, Miss Katy managed to read the plaque on the frame which told us that the fine young pirate in the front of the little boat, wearing the headscarf, was indeed a lady pirate. An alternative title for the work therefore could be 'The Captain had always wondered about Bob since he saw him flying his bra from the mast while drunk...'

Mr Gribble in his studio

Bernard Finegan Gribble (1872-1962) should be far better known than he is. He is one of the most prolific maritime artists and illustrators of the early twentieth century, together with a regular illustrator for the Illustrated London News and The Graphic. He painted more than just ships, he also did portraits as you can see by the everso natural picture above. Loving the plus fours.

Morgan's Prize (1901)

Well, goodness me, boobs ahoy! Looking at some of his more 'human interest' canvases, it's unsurprising to learn that Gribble mixed with London's theatrical community and was part of a rather bohemian gentlemen's club called the Savage Club (members over the years have included Wilkie Collins, Magnus Pyke and most of the Crazy Gang). I do hope that the gentlemen that read this blog (yes, all four of you) hold true to such bohemian and wanton values.

Attack on the Spanish Treasure Ship 1620

What sets Gribble apart is his use of light to create atmosphere. The way that the light plays on the water gives you a real feeling of depth and action. You feel the boats are moving, that the people are riding the waves and everything is moving, which is the delight of the sea. It never seems still, it always seems to have momentum, be moving towards something. Possibly that is our relationship as humans with such a massive, unpredictable force of nature: how ever many times we cross it, we do not tend to linger. We cross an ocean, we sail across a sea. We do not presume to stay. The sea is a force for change for us. We will change our surroundings, we will change our fortune, we will change our lives.

The Captain's Last Landing

Much of the delight of Gribble's work is in the scale of his canvases - they are huge - and the detail he puts into not only the ships but also the people. He made a study of the boats, working from photographs if he couldn't find the actual ship he needed and filled sketch books with rigging, masts and all sorts of details which found their way into his pictures. Likewise, he studied costume to add authenticity to his extremely theatrical scenes. This aspect of his work for me gives him a broader appeal that simply a painter of boats. The people in these watery landscapes have a presence that rivals the enormous ships.

The Plague Ship

He had many fans and collectors: President Roosevelt was said to have had Gribble's works hanging in the Oval Office and other famous collectors included such diverse people as the Kaiser and Jackie Onassis. When he died, Gribble's widow donated a large collection to the Borough of Poole, where they had lived for the second part of their lives. It is time for a Gribble revival because his work is extraordinary.

Who doesn't love extraordinary?

Self Portrait in Oriental Cap

'Painting Drama at Sea: Bernard Gribble 1872-1962' is on at Poole Museum until 16th February 2014 and further information can be found here.

Due to my magnificent planning skills I found out it's National Poetry Day this morning. I can't decide between the two poems I have written so here they both are. They share the common theme of the uncertain position models find themselves in at the hands of an artist.

We'll kick off with a bit of Fanny...

This is, of course, Woman with a Fan from 1870, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. At the time this was drawn, Rossetti had stopped using Fanny as his regular model, and his affections had been very much transferred to Jane Morris. His health had suffered, and in 1869 Elizabeth Siddal's coffin had been dug up for the poems that the half-blind, half-mad Rossetti felt he needed in order to survive. Fanny had been cast out and pulled back by her lover repeatedly over the previous ten years and would suffer more of the same until Rossetti's death. One thing that remained was her love.

Fan

I have no side,

I clutch the chair,

Your eyes, so absent, simply stare,

And I am so afraid that you

Can’t see beyond a love that’s new.

My heart is still the same.

In my hand

I clutch a fan,

And Oh Sweet Lord I love this man.

The feathers, spread out into death,

Soft-ripple with your slightest breath

And yet remain the same.

Now years have passed,

I clutch at straws,

And sink in with my feeble claws.

Your lover fills this room alone,

And I am brushed, a feather blown,

Am I the one to blame?

I’m punished,

slowing,

tame,

Yet love you all the same.

The second poem is about Alexa Wilding in 1865. Can you imagine how precarious her situation was when Rossetti asked her to be his model? She had steady if difficult work as a seamstress and a frankly unstable man offers her the promise of more money. I wonder how she felt at the end of the first painting - would he keep her? How did the painter deal with the woman when she wasn't being his muse?

Venus Verticordia

Turn, turn, my heart is broke,

I felt you turn before you spoke and I am now deceived.

The brush is down, you are relieved, the heat has thus receded.

I am no longer needed.

My coins are cool, our fingers brush,

But I’m left empty by your rush and I am posted back,

The goddess filled the woman’s lack, I’ve nothing more to offer,

I am an empty coffer.

Your worship turned my heart, my head,

Your worship brought you to my bed, and helped you in your task,

The model wore the lover’s mask, the ribbon’s pulled to fraying.

I know you won’t be staying.

Happy National Poetry Day, m'darlings!

You will know I have great pleasure in reviewing books. Apart from the obvious perk (I get free books), I also get to see some utterly astonishing publications and bring them to your attention. Sometimes I get to see such things that defy description because they are a catalogue of such beauty. This is one such example.

I say it defies description, but I’ll obviously have a go. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is The Arts and Craft Movement in Scotlandby Annette Carruthers.

The sharp eyed among you will notice I have a bit of a Scottish name. I was named for my great-grandmother whose family was from Glasgow and that side of my family was always proud of its Scottish ancestry (we have a ‘proper’ tartan and everything. It’s predictably red). Mind you, I’ve heard enough stern talk on cultural misappropriation this week (ah, Halloween, you complicated holiday) and so would never dream of expressing views on Scottish Independence or anything like that and promise never to wear a kilt. I will however gladly say that this is one of the most glorious books I have ever had the pleasure to read. It’s an expensive book certainly (£60 preorder on Amazon) but you get your money’s worth of colour illustrations and brilliant, accessible text.

It’s sometimes tempting to think that the Arts and Crafts Movement did not get any further north than Cheltenham, but that patently isn't true. With its roots in the 1860s, Scottish Arts and Crafts rose to its zenith from 1890 and continued on until the First World War. It seems that the country got behind the ethos, with the art school promoting the approach and the Scottish Home Industries Association trying to revive traditional rural crafts. If all you know of ‘Arts and Crafty-ness’ in Scotland is Rennie Mackintosh, then this is definitely the book for you. I have to admit to now being utterly in love with Phoebe Traquair.

Phoebe Traquair at work on a mural

Oh Phoebe, you must be the most accomplished artists who I've never heard of. An Irish artist who moved to Scotland after her marriage to Dr Ramsay Traquair, Keeper of Natural History at the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art (now the National Museum). A champion of the ‘career break’, Traquair returned to her craft after raising their children and gained a reputation as an embroiderer, jeweller and muralist. She painted celebrated murals in churches, including this in the Catholic Apostolic Church in Edinburgh…

It’s easy to see why this building (now known as Mansfield Traquair Centre) has the nickname ‘Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel’.

Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, William Blake and her travels in Italy, Traquair's work is astonishing and this book is the perfect medium to see it if you cannot visit the works themselves. Listed in the book is a church local to me that has some of her work which now goes on my list for a visit.

Traquair’s enamel work is amazing to behold. She not only made small plaques in the medium for jewelry and caskets, but also created whole works, such as this casket.

Cupid and Psyche Casket (1906)

Wowser. Traquair was the first well-known female artist working in Scotland and the first woman to be made a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Her son, Ramsay Traquair, became an architect, which seems to sum up a theme in the book about how the arts were all connected, how one reflected in the other with perfect symmetry which we just don’t seem to manage anymore.

If learning about the Scottish artists is not enough, you also see what works by familiar artists had influence north of the border. There are beautiful illustrations of Burne-Jones' stained glass from Kirkcaldy, Morris and Co glass from Dundee and William Morris tapestry made in Ayrshire. What the book has left with me is that the development of what we see as 'The Arts and Craft Movement' is far more widespread and organic (no pun intended) than is usually thought. In some ways it's a celebration of what is everywhere, the craft of everyday people. In the hands of artists such as Phoebe Traquair the everyday becomes divine and that is why Arts and Crafts objects, from the smallest locket to entire buildings, are so eternally beguiling.

Silver and Enamel Quaich (1904) Dorothy Carleton, De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar
and William Armstrong Davidson

The book is out at the end of the month and is available from all good bookshops and online.

Many of you will know by now that I am married to the Collections Officer at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth (not the reason I married him but it doesn't hinder). Their current exhibition will be of interest to the readers of this fair blog and so I sallied forth to have a butchers...

The Victorians loved their supernatural, and the female element of it featured heavily in popular art of the time. Mermaids, fairies, witches, nymphs and angels all carry the female characteristics telling the viewer how much that society saw the Other World to be a girls-only club. I mean, have a look at this...

Nudey Star Ladies by Luis Falero

Tee hee! Looking at an awful lot of the works on display in this exhibition, there is a great amount of giggly fun to be had with the images. They are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face while also being incredibly beautiful. This is probably why they make such perfect bedfellows with the work of Paul Kidby who you will know from the front covers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

Cupid meets Rob Anybody

Kidby works in more than one media, with some of the most charming three-dimensional pieces I've ever seen, including little Rob Anybody and a stunning mermaid...

Subtitled 'From Dadd to Discworld', this exhibition shows how the same things interest us, tickle us and strike us as beautiful. There is a chance to see Richard Dadd's insane micro-world of The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke in a massive modern work which fills a wall with its warped and gilded glory and it seems inspired to link the complexity of the Victorian fairy subculture to the modern world of Pratchett's imagination.

Miss Tick and Tiffany Aching with Feegles by Paul Kidby

Mr Walker is a fan of Pratchett and so was familiar with Kidby's work before meeting the man himself. I have read all the Witches' novels and so was delighted to see Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat in front of me.

Do I suspect I will turn into Nanny Ogg at some point in the not too distant future? No comment.

At the very least this exhibition gives you the chance to see some beautiful pieces from the Russell-Cotes glorious collection together with Kidby's work, not to mention some rather saucy ladies like this...

An Incantation John Collier

Hello Mrs Saucy Pants! It is easy to overlook the soft-porn prettiness of the Victorian obsession with wicked nude-y ladies when addressing the serious questions of art, but when they are packed into a small space you begin to see that there was a thread running through the iconography of Other that was shared by the nineteenth century subconscious. The women, the demons, water nymphs and angels are fair of face but uncertain of morals. The angels are above all but if you think about what they do it doesn't always make sense in human terms. Take this image for example...

The Annunciation Simeon Solomon

One of the most famous angel moments in history has to be Gabriel dropping in on Mary. Mr Jesus is obviously a very good thing for humankind (well, from the Christian end of things) but look at the moment in isolation. A young, unmarried woman is made pregnant by the visitation of an angel and the will of God it doesn't really fit into our human moral code. You could argue it's rather a cruel thing to do to her, leaving her open to ridicule at the very least and all manner of punishment and ostracization. The angel doesn't consider that, its vision is far wider than the immediate fate of one woman. Likewise a lot of Victorian supernatural art shows conflict between types of creature, concepts, and destinies.

Love Betrayed John Roddam Spencer Stanhope

The Habit Does Not Make The Monk 1888-1889 G F Watts

Love, the most positive of human emotions is revealed as a tricksy little git, hiding or else tumbling through some machination of our own against the greatest joy in the world. We seemingly are at war with the one thing that should enhance our lives. What's that all about?

The bust of Granny Weatherwax.
Both lovely and terrifying in equal measure, as good grannies should be.

Likewise in Kidby's work there is the play of uncertainty, unreality, things beyond our control and beyond our modern world of rational and science. You will fall in love because of a potion, an arrow, a spell. You will be visited by Death, an actual figure in black with whom you have a pre-arranged date. There are dragons, mermaids, fairies all challenging our modern consciousness in their clarity and perfection. That's the point, as much now as in the nineteenth century. We are a species at war with itself. Half the human race faces the future with science as the answer to all, the other half keeps an eye on the old ways creeping up on us, tripping us, making us fall in love, killing us, saving us. Maybe we still worry that science does not answer everything, or at least does not provide the most entertaining answers, and so why not believe that mermaids plunge throw the waves or that naked ladies flutter on the petals of flowers with the wings of butterflies?

Upstairs there is a section selling Paul Kidby's works and prints and so you get the chance to take one home with you. There is a dragon that has to be seen to be believed, he is adorable.

The exhibition runs until 9th March next year and is free entry (as is the museum during the off-season months). Enjoy - I guarantee it will put a smile on your face.

This is the first part of a fun weekend of myth and magic in honour of the fact that it is the magical month of October. Today I'm looking at possibly the most popular costume worn at Halloween...

Now, as most of you will be aware, we're just over a week away from 31st October or Halloween, All Hallow's Eve and 'Turn the lights out and pretend we're not home!' night. In Britain there have been some fairly awful controversies over bad taste halloween costumes available in supermarkets and on-line, for example this one, Lord save us all...

Nice. Most worrying is that I actually dress a bit like that normally, so we better move on. Yes, you can buy all manner of 'mental patient' outfits and my personal favourite 'Anna Rexia' the skeleton girl. For goodness sake. Best stick with something nice and traditional. Something inoffensive. Like a witch...

Me on my way to the Harry Potter Studio Tour.

Yes, I loved my cheeky witch outfit, but giving it more thought, should we be dressing up as witches? I mean, what does it all mean?

The Magic Circle (1886) John William Waterhouse

It's unsurprising to learn that the Victorian's loved the image of a witch. One of the most archaic of archetype, the witch, wise woman, cunning woman or whatever else you want to call her, found a safe place among the supernatural elements of Victorian culture. I find it incredible that the last 'witch' tried in England was Helen Duncan during the Second World War, but reading Agatha Christie tells you that even well into the twentieth century, witches were acknowledged members of society. Waterhouse, above, shows the more glamorous side of witchery. Possibly drawn from magic women of antiquity, his witch is a beautiful sorceress, much in the style of Medea...

Medea Frederick Sandys

Would you class these women as witches? Or are they merely women who do magic? Is there a difference? Well there is definitely a difference in costume, no black and pointy hats for these glam girls. Maybe because they seem to exist in a split-second where their magic is respected, is attractive to the viewer. What they are doing is as potent and fascinating as their beautiful faces and our admiration of them means we will not be harmed. Possibly some attraction was in the fact that you wouldn't mind getting harmed by these girls. Maybe your average Victorian gentleman would have fancied getting hexed-up by these wicked women.

It seems almost rude to call these girls 'witches', maybe 'sorceress' is a more elegant word for their graceful conjuring? It maybe semantics but we are in the domain of words and images and what they mean. A sorceress will charm you, conjure with your feelings and you will be helpless to resist but something tells me you'll quite enjoy it. Witches however are another matter...

Visit to the Witch (1882) Edward Brewtnall

This lady is probably a little more like what most people would think of when you say the word 'witch'- a wizened, black-clothed crone with a cauldron, a cat and a broomstick with no doubt a bit of spirited cackling thrown in for good measure. I find it interesting that although your average, traditional, Home-Counties witch is quite a solitary figure, she doesn't have any trouble in bringing other women to her as customers...

Girl and a Witch Beatrice Offor

Young women seem to be drawn irresistibly to the company of the witch, possibly for something they lack. They come for love potions, spells to make themselves more beautiful, possibly conceive a baby, but really what they seek is knowledge. The witch has the benefit of experience, that is where the magic comes from. The irony that this old, often ugly, woman has the secret to turn men's hearts, win their love them over a possibly more 'worthy' subject is not lost and is possibly where the danger lies. If a man's desire is caught by a beautiful young woman, that's one thing. If the one who makes you fall in love against your will is a wrinkled old crone, well, that's entirely another matter.

An Arrest for Witchcraft in Olden Times (1886) John Pettie

It's no wonder that people lynched witches. No hang on, let me get one thing straight. I would bet money that no witch has ever been arrested, tried, hung, drowned, burnt or any of the other things. Not one. I shall tell you why and my answer is two-fold. Firstly, I don't actually think witches exist, but I like to keep an open mind so I shall go on to my perfectly reasonable second argument. If witches exist and have the power of magic behind them why on earth would they allow themselves to be caught, let alone killed by the frightened mob? Not a chance. Okay, I'll allow that possibly a couple got caught unawares, maybe while asleep or drunk or knitting. On the whole I think you'll find that the women burnt, hung or dunked in a pond until they were dead could be summed up in two words: Inconvenient women. Has some old woman got property you want? Witch! Want someone to blame for your failure and know an old woman? Witch! Want to get rid of your wife or the wife of a chap you quite fancy? Witch! Gain, hatred, fear, ergot poisoning, any number of religions looking for a bit of affirmation, all jolly fine reasons for shouting witch!

The Witches (1897) Lovis Corinth

I love this picture as it has a lovely ambiguity which I think the subject requires. Who are the witches? Are they all witches? The young woman has taken off her sumptuous ball gown and mask and is apparently washing. Why are the older women laughing? I think there is a hint that the young woman is an old woman in disguise, hence the mask, and the bath at the front of the picture stands for a cauldron and magic. The old women are gleeful as their turn may come to be young again and find a young man to have jolly fun with. Saucy baggages...

The Witches in Macbeth (1842) Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps

When witches come in plurals then more often than not they come in threes. Thank you Shakespeare for that. The Virgin, the Mother and the Crone (or Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat as discussed in the last post, turning the order around) are the three stages of womanhood, and are reflected in number of witches. It's always struck me that the witches stand for Lady Macbeth in the play - they are a supernatural manifestation of her evil, an excuse to soften the blow that she is the powerhouse of ruthless and relentless ambition. They are her very bad qualities made flesh. They are like the dark mirror images of Faith, Hope and Charity. Lady Macbeth rang true to the Victorians in a very dangerous way. A woman in charge was familiar but the lesson in Macbeth was worrying: let women control and subversion results. The witches and the wife make a murderous traitor of Macbeth. Sure, it is an acknowledgement, possibly realistic, that evil lurks in every man's heart, but let a woman in there and you lose control.

The Witch (1913) John Currie

Maybe a little subversion of the world of men is not a bad thing. We should embrace the witch if she shakes up the status quo, right? What if you consider that the 'world of men' seemingly consists of science, reason, learning, knowledge? Still want to rebel? It seems to me that the world of women is pigeonholed as being that of nature, feeling, intuition as opposed to those qualities of the 'man's world'. Our embrace of the witch therefore is just further reinforcing the misogynistic equilibrium. Damn.

As a side note, actually the most terrifying image of witches in my humble opinion is not of female witches, but of men...

Witches in Flight (Witches' Sabbath) (1798) Goya

I think it is the silence in this picture that unnerves me. Horrible. Anyway back to women and covens. Although three is a magic number, when the girls get together then anything is possible. And by anything, I obviously mean nudity...

The Witches Luis Falero

I'm not sure where to start. Well, there is all sorts going on here, starting with an old crone grabbing some luscious lovelies fleshy bits as she rides her broomstick. The more you look, the dodgier it becomes. There's a goat, a lizard, a cat, a bat and any amount of bottoms you care to mention. Heavens, witchcraft seems to be awfully energetic.

The Witch Luis Falero

I couldn't resist giving you this one too. God, I love Falero. It is macaroon-pastel filth and I want more. The fire in this witch's hair against that midnight blue is delicious. Moving on.

Walpurgis Sabbath Adolf Munzer

The role of witches in what amounts to arty soft porn is fairly extablished. They famously get their kit off on a regular basis and must have been young at some point and so it's perfectly legitimate to show these nubile, broom-riding lasses. Am I allowed to question the wisdom of naked broom-riding? Moving on...

Maybe my point is this: Seemingly we never question the role of the witch as woman, in fact we embrace her as a positive female archetype. She is disruption, destabilising in a world when men rule. The least powerful women in society have a secret source of power that is unavailable to those in charge and that is a thing of terror to those who rain terror down on us. So far so good, the witch is an icon of subversion.

Before you clutch her to you too tightly, bare in mind that she is also a poster-girl for why women were held back, she is the excuse used to put so many innocent, inconvenient women to death, she is the embodiment for all those attributes that mark us as less intelligent, less rational, less reasonable, heavens, less clothed. The witch who provides charms to women is just one fool peddling mischief to others while men sit back and mock. A witch can give you spells to make something you are not entitled to yours, probably at the expense of another woman. Right on, Sisters.

In the end, it's only fun, only costume on a dark autumn night. Which of us ladies hasn't donned a pointy hat and longed to fly on a broom? Plus, there is that promise of eternal youth by magical means. I already wear a lot of black, I think I feel a future career calling. See you tomorrow for the mind reader in my own home...

Not to be too sensational about things but there is a mind-reading fairy living in my house. Not a Cottingley Fairy (t'uh, big fakers) but a real, proper, actual fairy. Who can read your mind. Honest. Look...

Okay, so she doesn't look that impressive in a pack-a-mac but if this was 1850 we'd make a fortune. What a horrible thought. For those of you who don't know, the above fairy is my daughter Lily-Rose and she has ocular-cutaneous albinism, or put simply she is an albino with a lack of pigment in her skin, hair and eyes. For the Victorians that would be enough to condemn and revere her. What's that all about?

Ettie Reynolds the Madagascar Lady

I've wanted to do this post for a while as the subject is obviously very dear to my heart. Here comes the science bit to start with: as a genetic condition, each parent has to pass on half of an albinism-related gene so you have a one in four chance of inheriting both parts from your parents. Even if you get both bits, albinism itself is quite a wide spectrum. Lily-Rose is somewhere in the middle: she has very little pigment in her skin and hair, her eyes are blue and her eyesight is atrocious. However, she is in a mainstream school, in a 'normal' class and she is doing very well. When she was diagnosed at 10 weeks the various prognosis we were given for her ranged from 'she'll be just like everyone else, just blonder' to 'she's blind, possibly deaf, won't talk, might not walk, possibly retarded'. If you think that's bad we were also told one other thing: She's unlucky.

Ponder that, my friends. The person who said that didn't mean that Lily was unlucky to have inherited albinism, they meant she was the bringer of misfortune. Because Albinos and Dwarves are unlucky. You heard me right.

Now I had never heard that particular belief before and so would be fascinated to hear if anyone else had come across it as I believe it stems from a particular area of the country. After picking myself off the floor and checking the calendar to make sure we were still in the twenty-first century I decided I wanted to find out more about the cultural beliefs surrounding albinism. Enter Miss Millie Lamar...

Oh Miss Millie Lamar, you genius. In a time when being different was definitely hazardous to your health, many men, women and children with albinism found relative safety and employment in circus' and freak shows. Millie established herself as a mind reader and found great success and I'm guessing an aid in fooling people was working on their prejudice. And she wasn't the only one...

Little Ida, the Fairy Queen of Peerless Beauty. Well, that's quite a mouthful and quite a claim. Mind you, an adjective that has been applied to Lily on more occasions than she's had hot dinners is 'fairy'. It's not only her appearance that causes this but also the tendency for children with albinism to play on their own due to difficulties in recognising their friends in a busy playground. She also has difficulty with judging personal space as she often doesn't realise how close she is to people she is talking to and often doesn't look at people's faces when they talk to her or she replies. She cannot see them clearly so turns her head to hear them better. None of that is 'normal' apparently. It's 'quirky', which is currently our favourite euphemism for 'your child is weird, do something about that please'. To her kinder teachers, it was something fascinating, something charming, something magical. As a parent, I much preferred to hear my daughter was magic, but neither speak of any great understanding of Lily's 'disability' (I don't think albinism is a disability in itself, but her eyesight definitely is and has a knock on effect in her behaviour and habits). To Victorian audience, that 'magic' was worth an entrance fee. Best not tell Lily's school that.

Little Ida and Millie made the best of the hand genetics gave them, at least for a while, but what of other Victorians with albinism? What did texts of the day say about the fairest among them?

We're going to need a bigger boat...

I knew that Moby Dick was 'the white whale' but I hadn't realised the connection with albinism and the amount of symbolism and prejudice in the novel. Based partly on the killing of an albino sperm whale in the 1830s named 'Mocha Dick', the whale in Moby Dick is described as actively malevolent and this is linked to his albinism, a common theme which I'll come to in a bit. Many passages talk about the horror of his appearance in such ways as this: 'What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye..?' The 'wrongness' of albinism is alluded to repeatedly, how albinos must be as different inside as they are outside. Possibly Moby Dick is the birth of the 'evil albino' myth, so prevalent in books and movies today. The Da Vinci Code, Cold Mountain, The Matrix, even the damn peacock in Kung Fu Panda 2, it is lazy shorthand for evil.

Mind you, in nineteenth century society, evil wasn't the prevalent prejudice. Summed up by Karl Pearson in his early twentieth century works on heredity and eugenics, 'albinism is very often associated with lowered physique and lessened mentality.' Charming. While one rare strain of albinism does have a health implication, ocular and ocular cutaneous albinism has no impact on physical development or health at all. More puzzling was the claim that albinism was a strictly men-only club. European albinos were always male as the female siblings of albinos were 'destitute of the Albino degeneracy...' Again, charming.

A chap with albinism who doesn't look very degenerate. Nice braiding.

I wonder if the apparent belief that albinism was a male condition is why women with it were fetishized and the mythology grew up around them. If you consider that the average response to the physical appearance of those with albinism is reflected in The Art of Preserving the Hair on Philosophical Principles (1825) : 'The whiteness of the skin is not the clear and glossy tint of the uncoloured parts of the European frame in the healthy state, but of a dead or pallid cast, something like that of leprous scales.' Once more, charming. It's astonishing how that contrasts with the fascination with the appearance of women with albinism, possibly because in general belief they shouldn't exist. Maybe that's where the magical element comes in...

Little Ida is described here as 'the beautiful Albino', completely at odds with the apparent revulsion felt about the condition. In many of the images of women with albinism their hair is loose and a feature of the portrait, like our lady on the right. Mind you, Lily-Rose has a fairly spectacular head of hair and causes a stir when she is out and about. I have had women accuse me of dying her hair (that was a very aggresive encounter) and as neither me or Mr Walker have blonde hair, a kind old lady in a supermaket informed Mr Walker that his daughter obviously wasn't his. People randomly stroke her hair, mostly in lifts, and the only place where we passed unnoticed was Stockholm where everyone is blonde and so no-one felt the need to comment on how blonde Lily was.

Rudolph Lacasie and family

Unknown Ladies

The Lacasie family was 'acquired' by P T Barnum during a visit to Amsterdam in 1857 and became a feature of his travelling circus. While it can assumed that Rudolph Lacasie actually did something entertaining (judging by the costume) I suspect people just came to see them and their genetic difference. If that sounds weird to us with our modern sensibilities then bare in mind while looking for the historical images for this blog I found many webpages devoted to the 'wonderful weirdness of albinos'. They were very nice sites, saying how beautiful people with albinism are, but all the same they are concentrating on how different they are. Do you think that is a good thing? I really don't know.

Thank you Aardman Animation for making the Albino Pirate
just as daft and funny as the other pirates.

I think the point of this post is to question if our manner of seeing things has really changed since Victorian times. We are now more aware of the offense idiotic notions of 'difference' can cause and hopefully we have made progress in accepting and ignoring difference where it just doesn't matter, but there remains something primal in our fear and fascination with 'Other'. Like with the witch, when we celebrate and embrace the cunning woman is it the innocent victim of hysteria we celebrate or the fictional stereotype of a misogynistic society? Neither seems worth splashing out on stripey tights for. Likewise, a lack of pigment in eyes, skin and hair seemed enough to make you magic in the olden days. How ridiculous. Still in certain areas of the world it is enough to get you killed for your valuable magical body parts because you are a 'ghost', not human at all. How terrifying.

Me and Lils last winter in our matching hats. That I made. I know.

Lily knows she has albinism and has a vague idea of how it makes her different, physically. Only time will tell what she will make of all the other nonsense that seems to go along with it. Mind you, judging from the photograph above I think Lily-Rose has bigger problems than some absent pigment. She has us as parents. Lawks.

When considering an artist’s life, sometimes the volume of their creative output can be overwhelming. Even for a painter like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who notoriously had difficulty in finishing works and died at a relatively early age, seeing everything spread out before you can be dazzling. I adore the Rossetti Archive site because it enables you to flick around his works: one moment you by his side as he sketches in 1850, the next moment viewing a work from the last months of his life. It also offers hints of interpretation as to a development of ‘muse’, a possible hidden trail to the secrets of the painter/poet’s mind. That is what this post is about.

The Girlhood of Mary Virgin

Astarte Syriaca

No-one would argue that the vision of a young man and one of an older man are necessarily different. The young man may be filled with bravado, optimism, untried confidence, the older man may have experienced loss, had dreams shattered, had time wear him down. Conversely, the older self may have had confidence built on experience, wisdom built on years of success, and the younger one may be a scatter-shot idiot. Placing a piece like The Girlhood of Mary Virgin from 1848 next to Astarte Syriaica of almost 30 years later I think you can tell it’s by the same painter but the difference in feeling is marked, painfully so. Rossetti is just beginning in one image and drawing to a close in the other and I would like to propose that you can read the most about his state of mind not in the figures, but in the backgrounds.

The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice

Taking something like Mary Virgin or The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice, it is possible to see both inside and outside the room. The moments exist within a framework of a world, a greater context. The reality of them will be part of the whole picture of life. Their actions may impact on people in the street outside, in the world in which our protagonists dwell.

The young Rossetti’s muse is a scatter-shot affair. All seems colourful, even where the muse of the piece is the shade of white. All is instilled with sunshine and light that naturally speak of a world outside that contains his vision. Elizabeth Siddal, his muse, is firmly within that vision, sometimes dominates it, but she exists for him within the world, she is part of his everything.

Elizabeth Siddal

Algernon Swinburne

The only time during this early period where the focus is very exact is in portraits. His green-backgrounded, single figure works of the 1850s are about that person and need no other decoration. I would even suggest this suited his rather ‘lazy’, for want of a better word, work ethic of these years. Rossetti was to busy hurling himself into the world (and the beds of other people’s girlfriends) to spend a lot of time living in separation of it, focusing on one muse, one detail.

Fair Rosamund

A change came with Bocca Baciata. The boxed-in female portraits of the second phase of his life don’t tend to reference an outside world exactly but do have a rich interior. It’s as if his focus has drawn in a little, to the beauty of woman, of place, of home. Fair Rosamund is a good example of the boxed-in woman. She is leaning on the outer side of her box, separating her from the viewer and the interior of her room is rich and decorative. It would be easy to argue that the women are just another object d’art in the room. Possibly all that hurling around and blissful uncertainty of youth had shown Rossetti that things when not held tightly can be lost. He had relieved at least one of his friends of a potential wife and had almost lost Elizabeth. It could be argued that the second phase of muses were kept safely in a beautiful cage where they could not be released, could not be stolen and could come to no harm. While there are windows for us to view them, there are no doors for them to leave. What Rossetti missed was that he was still out in the world and his actions, his neglect, would rob him of his pretty caged pets.

Sibylla Palmifera

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the focus changed again after Elizabeth’s death in 1862. For all intents and purposes he continued to paint pretty meaningless women, but the wall had dropped away. We draw back and see more of them in such pieces as Sibylla Palmifera and Lady Lilith. Alexa Wilding personifies this shift, portraying a richly decorated woman in a richly decorated room, viewing us passively. Her passive, unfocused gaze is typical and negates any threat we may feel from inhabiting the same space as her. Is she vacuous? Does Rossetti intend us to suspect that she has no more brains than the vases or the furniture? Is she merely a decorative piece, or is the silence companionable, comforting? He may be entering a prison but look at the decoration, the security of the walls. We are no longer outside looking at the bird in the cage, we are safely inside with her.

The Blue Dress

It would be tempting to say that is all the shifts he made, but I feel there is a final one. Jane Morris dominates the role of muse from around 1868, and it could be said that in the first works, such as The Blue Dress, she is just a beautiful woman in a beautiful room. Subtly however, I feel there is a shift towards a focus solely on her.

Reverie

Looking at Reveriein 1868, the background begins not to matter. It could be argued that it is a portrait so the person is the whole matter, but very few, if any of Rossetti’s major works involving Jane are straight portraits, so in theory there should be a ‘setting’. His focus however narrows in, the rooms becoming devoid of interest, the only thing that matters is her.

Mnemosyne

A Vision of Fiammetta

Is it his overwhelming passion that makes him blind to all but her? Was it his eyesight that stripped his vision down to the essentials? Looking at the work he did around Alexa in these later years there is still the old staging, but in many if not most images of Jane she dominates to the point of entirety. Comparing something like A Vision of Fiammettato Pandora or Mnemosyne you can see how the woman is just part of the scenery in one but the whole of his universe in the other. I often feel with his images involving Jane that there is no compromise which may be why people either love or hate them. It is perhaps a more honest representation of his artistic spark at the moment to have the woman as his whole, his reason to paint, his all-encompassing reason to be. If you don’t feel the same, the images can alienate, but if you can glimpse, even in a small way how this woman can captivate, the images make sense.

The Bower Meadow

Obviously my arguments aren’t foolproof. Rossetti pulled his muses to and fro artistically speaking. Elizabeth was locked in the box in Regina Cordium and Fanny was the focus in Woman with a Fan but it is during the transition phases where he tries to bring the old love through to his next vision and often the images jar a little or at least are obvious in their shift. The Bower Meadow of 1872 gives you all the open air that his contemporary works lacked, but a pandering to commercial tastes could explain that, or even moments of reflection on what used to excite, what used to inspire. Who doesn’t like to indulge in pleasures from times past: a book you liked as a child, a food that reminds you of a past love, a past place? There is a comfort in the old safe places and increasingly as that dark, silent focus fixed on Jane, Alexa appears in images of decorative damsels. Are they a grasp at a less confined scope or simply a commercial play? We see Rossetti’s fixation on Jane after the initial flurry of passion as unhealthy, morbid and consuming (in all senses of the word), was he aware of that too?

So many questions, and no answers that explain him. Maybe that is why Rossetti continues to fascinate as an artist and as a man.

Once upon a time there lived a little girl called Mrs Walker and she longed to be a princess, living in a fairy tale castle. One day, she travelled in a pretty coach all the way to the top of a mountain and there she walked through the doors of the most magical castle she had ever seen...

Hello again, my dear chums! I have returned to you from the magical fairy-tale land of Bavaria. My big brother lives over there and so while on a visit I was determined to travel to possibly the best-known castle in the world, Neuschwanstein Castle, which sits on a mountain by the Alps. If you don't know the name, the shape of it will certainly be familiar. It was the castle that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang swooped over and it was an inspiration for the appearance of Hogwarts and Disney's Sleeping Beauty's castle on screen. It is about as fairytale as castles get, but that, my friends, is the point...

Mmmm, 'turret-y'....

First, a little history. In the mid nineteenth century, King Ludwig II decided he needed a retreat from the pressures of life. He built such a fortress of solitude in the little village called Hohenschwangau, near Füssen in southwest Bavaria. The notoriously odd young man became King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death just over 20 years later at the age of 40 (which is awfully young in the opinion of this 40 year old). He was an ardent fan of the composer Richard Wagner and his music lent inspiration to the 'Swan King''s dreams of a home fit for a romantic hero. The swan is the symbol of the area and the 'schwan' in the name of the castle and the village refers to that. Neuschwanstein Castle and its sister castle below it, Hohenschwangau Castle, were built on the ruins of older structures. The King wanted an escape from reality, and in the music of Wagner, most notably Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, he found such an escape. His plans for his castles were to make this dream a reality...

Christian Jank's 1869 project drawing for the castle

When he had the idea to build it, it was conceived with the idea of building somewhere worthy of Wagner to visit. In a marvellous insight into his home life, Ludwig wrote to Wagner that the castle would be '...more beautiful and habitable than Hohenschwangau [castle] further down, which is desecrated every year by the prose of my mother; they will take revenge, the desecrated gods, and come to live with Us on the lofty heights, breathing the air of heaven.' The lofty heights is no exaggeration as Neuschwanstein is at an elevation of 800m, nestling in the soaring Alps. You can walk up to it, but most of us tourists seem to opt for the overcrowded buses that swings you back and forth up a winding path until you reach an equally winding, steep footpath. After a lot of pausing to admire the view (while wishing you were fitter) you arrive at what can only be described as 'the stage door'...

Just out of shot, Mrs Walker attempting to breathe after the climb...

When visiting the castle, you have to purchase a ticket at the foot of the mountain. You really don't want to forget that, because can you imagine having to go all the way back down again. The only way to see the inside is by a tour, and there are only so many of these per hour. They have a couple in English, a couple in German and then 'Other' which involves an audio tour in your chosen language. It is heaving with tourists from all over the world and in the summer they have around 6000 visitors a day through the doors. As you can imagine that has a very definite effect on the experience. I was feeling a little 'regimented' by the time our tour number was asked to queue for admittance as I don't like being marshalled about in my artistic experiences and thought it would end up being a rather brisk, soulless affair, being herded from room to room. Then I went in...

Waiting the start the tour with a couple of other tourists...

You immediately feel that you are in the presence of something insanely special. The ceilings of the corridor are richly patterned with Gothic curls and they lead you up to the first of the halls that utterly took my breath away.

Entrance Hall. Just out of shot, Mrs Walker has swooned...

The walls have the most amazing murals, painted on plaster-of-Paris to resemble fresco painting, depicting Sigurd's saga. These were Germanic tales that served as a model for Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'. Painted by Wilhelm Hauschild, a Munich professor, they reminded me of the art of Dicksee or Paton. The images have a sort of impersonal nature of early Victorian art, but the passion and romance of the narrative instantly brings to mind the Pre-Raphaelites. The stories and images are rich with potions, lost love, fire and dragons. The women have long sweeps of hair and the men are magnificent and shiny of armour. They are often resplendent with weaponry too. Goodness. I thought it was the most impressive thing I had ever seen. Then we went into the Throne Room...

Wow. Just wow.

Bearing in mind that I was with Miss Walker who is 7, I was not allowed to swear, but to be honest if you were to exclaim the entirely justified expletives every time you were astonished by the beauty of the place, you would be hoarse within minutes. I do believe I overused the words 'Goodness me...' while gazing entirely enraptured at the Throne Room. First of all, as you can see in the above picture, there is no throne as the King died before it was made. He had envisaged something canopied and golden but it was not to be. Again Hauchild did the paintings which involve such things as sanctified kings, apostles, St George and a dragon, Lucifer's fall and Jesus riding a rainbow. Awesome. The floor is equally as decorative covered in millions of little mosaic pieces showing the animals and plants on earth. If I had my way I would have just reclined there for the rest of the week gazing at it all, however the next tour party was hard on our heels so on we went...

The Dining Room. Where's a footman when you need one?

On to the Dining Room, which has a smashing statue of Siegfried fighting a dragon in gold-plated bronze. The idea of fighting a dragon, the personification of the battle of good and evil is everywhere in the castle and tells you something of Ludwig's ideas. This room is on the third floor of the castle, which seems a bit of a tall order for the staff but there is a hand operated dumb-waiter that services all floors so the food could be quickly and efficiently served to the King from the kitchen far below.

The bedroom...

Redefining Gothic, the bedroom is a cavalcade of heavy wood carving and romantic art. The bed was surprisingly large, but Ludwig was six foot four in height (she says, raising an eyebrow). His bedroom is decorated with murals of love and faithfulness but never paid host to a Queen because the King remained unmarried. I'll come to that in a bit...

The Living Room

I loved the big swan on the table. The living room had the murals on all walls but they were painted to look like tapestries, with a ripple effect at the top (just like the newly uncovered one at The Red House). Again the room is wood, gold and crystal clear scenes of romance, which all rather contrasted with the next room we visited...

The grotto. A cave in the middle of a castle. No, really.

Now, I've been in a grotto or two in my time, but never have I walked out of a living room into what seems to be an underground cavern, complete with stalactites. Built with plaster-of-Paris over a steel frame, it was meant to represent the cave in Mount Hoesel from the Tannhaeuser saga. It even has a waterfall. Bonkers.

The Singers' Hall

Illustrated with scenes from the Parsifal saga, the Singers' Hall must be the most consciously theatrical room, complete with a little stage up one end. The King had imagined that Wagner's opera's would be sung there, grand concerts befitting the splendid scenery but sadly he never saw any. He continued his building plans and applied for loans to fund it, but they were turned down. In 1886, he applied for a futher 6 million marks but by then the Government had decided enough was enough. A report was written that he was unsound of mind and he was taken unwillingly into custody. The next day, the King and the man who had written the report, Dr Gudden, were found drowned in Lake Starnberg.

'Mad' King Ludwig. I don't care how mad he is, look at his home!

It is a prevailing 'truth' that Ludwig was as mad as a bag of frogs and to cement this, a specialist had declared him insane. However, you know me, I question everything. It strikes me that the evidence is a bit flimsy. Yes, his vision of life was extremely theatrical and romantic. The castle is astonishing, the stuff of magic and breathtaking beauty but that doesn't mean he was mad. Well, I hope not, because that probably means we're all equally as crazy. I'd live there, in fact had I not been acting like a responsible parent I think I would probably pulled the toddler trick of going limp onto the floor and refused to move. I know I'm prone to hyperbole but my goodness, it is wondrous. He did not use public money to build it, he used his own funds and borrowed hideous amounts, but did not act in a reckless manner with his people's purse.

I suspect that part of the stories of his madness grew out of his alleged sexual preference. Engaged to his cousin, he eventually pulled out of the actual marriage (although he blamed his potential father in law for keeping them apart). He maintained close friendships with men and wrote adoring letters to his hero, Wagner. All of this is often given as proof that he was homosexual, but I think this is a rather insulting conclusion to come to. There is no proof that he ever had a gay relationship and I have a horrible feeling that his mad/gay label are flipsides of the same coin. He was gay therefore he must have been mad, or he was mad therefore gay. Neither thing are provable and both say more about the times he lived in rather than him. I rather suspect he was inconvenient to those in charge, all bound up with his castle and fantasies rather than the real, modern world. As Ludwig asked the doctor who had declared him insane, 'How can you declare me insane? After all, you have never seen or examined me before.' In reply, Dr Gudden said that that was unnecessary as he had the servant's gossip. Consider that, my friends, and shiver.

Back down the mountain, with the castle in the background.
The painting on the restaurant is to remind you that you're in Bavaria.

Despite the King's reputation, it's heartwarming that he is remembered so fondly by the people of Bavaria. Obviously, a big part of that has to be the tourist attraction that brings millions to such a tiny area to spend their Euros with gay abandon, but part of it has to be a recognition of what he was trying to achieve. Ludwig dreamed of 'this paradise on earth, where I can live out my ideals and thus find happiness.' I see nothing crazy in that.

Sadly I don't think my twentieth century terraced house can cope in that much Wagner...

My problem is that I have a treacherous part of my brain that undermines me in the most alarming ways. It not only mutters doom upon all my plans but also tirelessly explains all the doom that the actions of others will reign down on me, either consciously or otherwise. It gets to a point that inaction on my point is not enough because it is not only my own actions that will curse me, so I struggle to silence that little traitor in my head, but how can I? Now, I am assuming that a fair number, maybe even all of you, are nodding at this point because I am in no way alone with this problem, a fact that was brought home to me whilst in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich last week. I finally got to see this painting in person…

I Lock the Door Upon Myself (1891) Fernand Khnopff

I’ve always loved the mournful, pale beauty of Khnopff’s works and this has been a favourite for years. Khnopff was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and I think the direct influence of Burne-Jones is obvious in his palette and tone. The title of the picture comes from Christina Rossetti’s poem Who Shall Deliver Me? taking for its subject the three lines that seem to sum up the whole:

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

The poem considers two aspects of hiding – one from the world and one from yourself. The woman in the image is inside a room, lock and barred against the outside world. There is a doorway behind her, but it seems to be impassable, and there are windows, or are they mirrors? This uncertainty, this impossibility makes the woman appear trapped in the space, but she seems detached, preoccupied. Well, not quite detached, on her lefthand she wears a ring, suggesting she is married.

Rossetti’s poem speaks of an inability to overcome the greatest enemy, herself. Hers is not specifically a voice of doubt, but of one that craves an easy life, a ‘coward’ ‘who craves for ease and rest and joys’. Rossetti’s rage against this inner ‘traitor’ can be seen as her unwillingness to sit and be peaceful like women were expected to be. There is a definite tension between her desire to start on ‘the race that all must run’ and to lock herself away from the world. However, I think she actually means that to lock the doors upon herself, to lock others out is the easiest thing, but then it leaves the greatest foe in there with her.

In Rossetti’s poem there is hope in the shape of God, but as the poem takes the form of a plea, it can be assumed she feels unanswered. In the painting a chain dangles unnoticed by the woman with a tiny silver crown, glinting. It seems to be entagled with the central iris. The iris themselves pose another mystery. In the language of flowers they have a very feminine meaning, referring to the goddess Iris, and speak of wisdom and passion. These seem to have dried out, preserved in a faded state, possibly referring to the woman who will burn herself out while she frets and struggles with her own intellect. I don’t think this is a criticism from Khnopff as the flowers are magnificent in their decay.

The woman’s eyes seem so pale as to almost be sightless. The blue is echoed in the fabric that seems to brush her on the surface in front of her, and the wings on the bust of Hypnos on the shelves behind. Hypnos is the Greek personification of sleep, as hinted at by the poppy beside the bust. Hypnos lived in a cave with no doors or windows, and the river of forgetfulness, Lethe, flowed through. I think the fabric in front of her references the river, as if the woman longs for the peace of a blank mind, but she is not drawn into it as she drifts.

"I am half-sick of shadows" Said the Lady of Shalott (1913) Sidney Harold Meteyard

The painting reminded me first and foremost of illustrations of The Lady of Shalott. The Lady wishes to be part of the world, to leave her prison, where as Rossetti wishes to lock herself away, but both are dissatisfied with the manner of their existence and the peril they find themselves. For the Lady, the conflict is with an unseen force, a curse that she cannot fight, that comes upon her when she is drawn into action. For Rossetti, her participation in life causes her inner conflict that ultimately make her flee. Look beside the woman – there is an arrow. Is it love she is thinking of, or trying not to think of? It was love that doomed the Lady of Shalott, will it prove to be the undoing of this woman's peace of mind too?

Who Shall Deliver Me? (1898)

Khnopff's finished image is not the only time he used the poem as inspiration. This fire-haired beauty is yet another woman in conflict with herself. The pool of blue on her chest may reference the previous image, and she seems completely locked up in her clothing. The background is a confusing mash of grates, crevices, floors all leading nowhere. Again, her colourless eyes gaze to us, beyond us, back deep inside herself.

Ultimately, there are lots of 'individual women in closed rooms' pictures in Pre-Raphaelite and associated art. Think of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's women of the 1860s and 70s: there are scores of women in their own little prisons. Did he recognise what his sister had vocalised? It seems rare to see such a picture of a man, in fact there are few, if any, images of men separated from the world in such a purposeful way. Maybe what Rossetti identified and admitted to was a weakness of high intellect - with great thought comes unlimited, unstoppable threads of woe from the person who knows you and your weaknesses the best. No matter how much you hide from the world it takes the ultimate strength to silence the clammer inside.

You will probably be aware by now that there will be a play on in London from the end of this month all about the tragic life of Elizabeth Siddal. The life of the 'Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel' has been shown on screen before, but this is apparently the first time she has appeared on stage. Maybe they have found a theatre with a door big enough to fit a bath through.

Emma West as Lizzie and Tom Bateman as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in rehearsals for Lizzie Siddal

I wish them well and hope this will encourage more interest in Pre-Raphaelite art but it reminded me of an old niggle I have. Elizabeth Siddal's name is synonymous with two things: baths and tragedy. Is it fair or are we participating in her tragedy by reducing her to this?

You know me, I loathe assumption. Most of the ten years it took me to write Stunner was spent saying 'No, she wasn't a cockney,' and 'No, she wasn't an illiterate prostitute! She could read!' However, when you are reading about someone for the first time you have to wade through the conclusions of others before you can afford to make your own. For example, think about a short summary of Siddal's life. It's bound to involve a bath-tub and an early death, these are unavoidable points in her life. Possibly your summary involves painting, poetry, possibly infidelity and sadness. Does it involve her laughing and chasing around the Red House? Does it involve being sponsored by the leading art critic of the day? Does it involve her finding out her artworks will appear in America? How many of those later points appear in the 'fictional' depictions of her?

Gug in a Tub from Desperate Romantics

So, we have poor Gug, as Rossetti called her, packing quite a bit into her 32 years. She loved poetry, after apparently discovering a poem by Tennyson wrapped around a pat of butter as a child. See, less young 'uns these days would long to go on X-Factor if we printed poems on butter wrappers. They would all want to be Pam Ayres, and rightly so. She longed to paint, possibly a by-product of being thrust into the art world by her stint of modelling. Her engagements before Ophelia seem inconsequential, even though they were for Deverell, who discovered her. Ophelia is the moment she begins to exist for us as an icon.

Yes, yes, very nice...

I have just been reading about the many and varied theories about what followed. Standard story is that the candles went out, she got cold, got ill and that affected her for the rest of her life. Add to this that she may have already been taking laudanum, she may have been anorexic, she may have been a hypochondriac, she may have been taking other preparations that were slowly poisoning her, her parents may have been on the make. Goodness, how complicated. I wonder if the whole palaver around her near-drowning makes Ophelia remain such a prominent image of the age. Certainly the popularity of the painting seems to have sealed Siddal's fate to be ever the dying dame, much in the same way as certain actors can never be seen as other than their most popular role. It is much to Millais' credit that it is almost impossible to imagine the fictional character of Ophelia as being anything other than the perishing Elizabeth Siddal.

Elizabeth Siddal Painting at an Easel (1850s) D G Rossetti

Why do we not think of her like this, at an easel? She painted for around a decade and wrote for possibly longer. Her poems explored melancholic themes but her art works were as varied as others in her circle. In his drawings of her at work, Rossetti shows a woman who is busy and well. I do not look at the above image and think 'Poor Lizzie' because there is no need. I pity her no more than any other woman artist of the age, and she achieved a great deal.

Elizabeth Siddal D G Rossetti

Something I have talked about before is the shortening of names. I know I have discussed this with people in various contexts but I am always intrigued by the way that we shorten or change the names of famous people, notably women. Elizabeth Rossetti becomes Lizzie Siddal but does this tell us anything else? People shorten the names of others for many reasons; a sense of familiarity with a person, a sense of possession, an empathy or identification. Undoubtedly Elizabeth was known as 'Lizzie' by her friends but is that a good enough reason for us to call her that? I am variously known as 'Kiz', 'Moo', 'Nelly' and far worse, but none of those should be used by my future and no doubt plentiful biographers. Why not use my full name under which I work? I would think it a terrible presumption if someone I did not know referred to me as 'Kirst' (lawks, it sounds like 'cursed'). By shortening a name you are assuming the role of acquaintance of the person, but also it stops the person being at a distance, up on a pedestal, which they might be if you admired them. It's hard to think of Alfred Lord Tennyson as being 'Alfie' or 'Fred' but presumably he must have had a nickname. A nickname humanizes a subject, but is that helpful? I would add that it seems common in newspapers to shorten names of victims to involve the reader with their plight, for sad example would you think of Madeleine McCann or Maddie?

Regina Cordium D G Rossetti

Now, there is nothing wrong with seeing a person in the past as a human being, if fact I would like more such understanding shown to Rossetti who seemingly is either held on a pedestal or seen as a devil devoid of feeling. However, a byproduct of seeing a person as 'human' is that naturally we see their all-too-human foibles and failings. It was alright for me; writing about Fanny could only reveal better things than were already said about her, but when the woman is revered then the revelations can only be detrimental in order to be 'revelations'. Also it seems to me that we don't like uncertainty, we don't like the unexplained in life stories. Therefore, more often than not Elizabeth Siddal 'killed herself' rather than 'took an accidental overdose' because it has a definite point rather than raise more questions.

To say Rossetti painted this from her corpse is
far more interesting than saying he used existing sketches

So where is all my rambling leading? Well, firstly to make a general point: Sometimes I fear that biography of successful women reinforces prejudice in a perverse way. Speaking as a biographer, it's a hard balancing act, showing a woman in all her glory without backing up the views of the society they lived in because they lived in that society and were subject to it. Elizabeth undoubtedly found life as an artist far more difficult than her erstwhile lover because any woman attempting to achieve success in such an elitist world is bound to find it difficult. Goodness, there are scores of men who found it damn near impossible too, but we don't find them so pitiful as poor, tragic Lizzie. Not even Walter Deverell gets labelled as 'tragic' as often as Mrs Rossetti. It somehow seems a little improper to bring up the private life of men, or to lend it equal weight, when writing biography as if we are trying to excuse them or lessen their impact. Many men of Elizabeth's circle could be labelled as tragic - look at Swinburne! Maybe we linger on women's private lives because they played such a huge part in their lives, their 'proper sphere' was the domestic, the private, and so obviously that would have a massive impact in who they were and what they did. It held women back, it filled their time, it even killed a few of them (in childbirth), it was seen by society as being their 'job' so any attempts on their part to participate in a 'male' occupation has to be seen in the context of what they weren't doing or trying to balance.

Rossetti discovers his perfect model, as seen in Look and Learn

So why is Lizzie special? A combination of things seem to affect Miss Siddal. Firstly, she's a woman, therefore biography tells us about her private life. We know she was led a merry dance by Rossetti, but then Georgiana Burne-Jones had a hard marriage and Jane Morris' was troubled. There has to be more to the relationship than unending misery, and there are tales of laughter and joy. She didn't almost die during every modelling assignment, but then possibly none of the other pictures were as astonishing as Ophelia. Mind you, we don't assume Millais had a tragic life because he created the image. It is a brilliant image of death but all the credit, emphasis, and blame is placed on the model. That's ridiculous. That's like saying the tiny robin in the corner had a tragic life because he appeared in Ophelia. Yes, she had an accident while modelling but I wonder if she had been posing for a more positive subject when she had the accident, would we see her in a different light?

Elizabeth Siddal (photo)

I don't think it helps that a great deal of Pre-Raphaelite-ness is the melancholic, the tragic, the doomed, the sinister. As a person in a movement, of course Elizabeth would look the part. I love the photo of her in her 'melancholic swoon' but I don't think she was like that any more than any of the various pictures of me give you a full idea of what I am like as a person. I would be very interested to find out what someone who has met me after following the blog thought I would be like. Lawks, can you imagine...?

Anyway, back to Lizzie. For some reason we are stuck with the epithet 'tragic' when describing her life but that lessens her because it makes her appear helpless. The majority of her life was not tinged with tragedy, in fact proportionately more of her life was spent in victory than in sorrow. She spent one afternoon in a bath tub but this dominates our vision of her. I wonder if the tragedy of Elizabeth Siddal is that we can't let her be happy.

Lizzie Siddal is at the Arcola Theatre, London E8, from 20 November - 21 December 2013.

I studied a lot of poetry as a young 'un, but it is to my eternal sadness that I never got to study Christina Rossetti. I have a suspicion that Victorian verse was seen as unfashionable when I was at school, so I did all manner of modern poems instead and had to wait until I was in my 20s before I read Goblin Market.

Christina Rossetti

Now, when I first read the poem it was presented to me as being highly sexualised and possibly evidence that Rossetti was a lesbian. Good heavens. In its time, it has been interpreted as being about temptation, addiction, sex, death and religion and possibly even goblins. Rossetti regarded it as a poem for children, but then if she had just written a text about the joys of lesbian relationships she was hardly likely to write that in the forward. So what is it about? Who knows, but is there a clue to be found in her brother's contemporary illustrations?

Christina wrote the poem in April 1859 and it was finally published in a collection published by Macmillan and Co in 1862. When it was published, two of its most defining illustrations appeared with it by the poet's brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A number of Christina's poems seem to be interpreted as being biographical of her brother Gabriel, including 'In an Artist's Studio', but 'Goblin Market' seems to have special significance. Time and again I have read how the poem is about addiction and most notably the spiral of addiction of her sister-in-law, Lizzie Siddal.

I've always thought that the figure on the left of Golden Head by Golden Head
was based in the same sketches as Beata Beatrix, such as The Return of Tibullus to Delia

It doesn't help or harm that the figure of one of the sisters seems to resemble Elizabeth Siddal when interpreted by Rossetti and (if I read his illustration correctly) the sister on the left, the weaker sister who succumbs to the Goblin fruit, is the one who looks like Elizabeth the most (although they look fairly similar). Mind you, inconveniently Christina called the errant sister 'Laura' and the stronger sister 'Lizzie'. The use of the name is why I think people are so eager to read the 'addiction' interpretation into Goblin Market, but it is the least compelling explanation of the poem I have heard. If you want a compelling metaphor for addiction in literature, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings is far better. I'm not convinced that Christina would have felt strongly enough about the plight of addicts to write it as a damning indictment of addictions, however close to home.

How about lesbianism then?

She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth (1933) George Gershinowitz

It's a very popular reading of 'Goblin Market' to say that it is about the rejection of male society (as presented by the Goblins and their poisonous fruit). The paragraph most quoted in this argument is when Lizzie returns to her sister covered in the fruit to cure Laura:

“Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,

Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me;"

I find it interesting that Gabriel Rossetti did not chose this moment for illustration as it is the one of the most dramatic and shows the salvation of one sister by the other after an act of bravery.

White and Golden Lizzie Stood (1973) Kinuko Craft

The above illustration came from, believe it or not, Playboy when they featured the poem and concentrated on the more, shall we say, sexual aspects of the text. Those Goblin Fruit look a bit suspect if you ask me, and the Goblin Men are a little more insistent than I imagined, but Craft shows the pivotal moment of bravery on the part of Lizzie. The moment of Lizzie's humiliation by the men which she survives triumphant is described in the most terrible detail and shows the Goblin Men in their true, animalistic, evil light. Craft shows this as a metaphoric rape, but I think Christina Rossetti intended something more spiritual in the reading.

Her brother chose the earlier encounter by Laura with the Men, when their countenances were more pleasing:

Looking like slightly unsettling extras from Wind in the Willow, the Goblin Men 'smile' at Laura as she hacks off her hair to get a taste of the fruit. I don't think it is a coincidence that at the time he was drawing these illustrations, Rossetti was also working on religious pictures like The Parable of the Vineyard.

The Parable of the Vineyard: The Feast of the Vintage

It is easy to see the figure of Lizzie as Christ as she offers salvation to her sister via her own suffering. Because of the sins of her sister, Lizzie has to suffer humiliations that include being crowned with the fruit that runs into her eyes like blood. She then vanishes from them and reappears (it's tempting to say three days later) to her sister. The sinful fruit that tasted good tastes foul to her when placed in the context of suffering and she is cured of her hunger for it. Lizzie is offered up as a sacrifice, then as communion. As Christina wrote the poem in April of 1859, around Easter, it's tempting to read this in the subtext of the fairytale.

I think where the subversion comes is that Christina Rossetti, a religious writer, envisages Jesus as a woman, as her sister:

“For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.”

The description of Lizzie is very messianic in the traditional Christian sense: 'white and golden', 'a lily in a flood', 'a rock', 'a fire', as she approaches the Goblin Men for her moment of sacrifice.

I've always thought Golden Head by Golden Head to be less sensual and more protective, the idea that someone will watch for us and be with us always. In her description of the pair it is almost as if Christina is describing a mirror image: 'Like two blossoms on one stem', 'Like two wands of ivory' and 'Cheek to cheek and breast to breast'. I wonder if Christina was hinting that Laura and Lizzie are essential two sides of the same person, one of whom is weak in the face of dangerous temptation and one who is Divine. Laura reflects Eve, warned not to eat the fruit yet still too weak to say no, in fact actively seeks out that forbidden deliciousness. Lizzie is God, Jesus, the saviour, our eternally better self. Her brother reflected this duality in his mirror-image sisters, a precursor to his reflection-images of Jane and May Morris in his works of the 1870s. The sisters are both human and Divine which is a bold claim. It is usual for woman to be seen as the weaker party, so the character of Laura plays to the trope of the weaker sex, but her twin-self is the crusading strength with not a flinch at her suffering. The elegant subversion of the traditional Christian message of a male protector hidden within a fairytale for children is what makes Christina Rossetti a dangerous and exciting poet.

Goblin Market (modern) Katie MacDowell

No wonder they didn't teach her to children...

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