‘Three daughters and their mother’- scandal and complexity from Pierre Louys

Teresa & family by Edouard Chimot

During the last decade and a half of his career, Pierre Louys completed three major works- the Handbook of Manners for Young Ladies, which was a parody of deportment manuals; the novel Trois Filles de leur mere, and the poetry collection Pybrac. It is arguable, in fact, Pybrac was never actually completed, in the sense that Louys added continually to the quatrains that comprise it and the published versions of the book only include a fraction of the total known number of verses. There were, in addition, several unfinished works: the novels Toinon and L’Histoire du Roi Gonzalve and the mock-travelogue/ novel L’Ile aux dames. These texts all have a number of themes in common: Louys’ encyclopaedic literary knowledge coupled with a tendency to mock those books; his filthy sense of humour; the utopian strand to his writing, and his liking for erotica.

Here, I focus on Trois Filles de leur mere (Three Daughters of Their Mother), arguably one of the most difficult books by Louys. This considerable difficulty for readers arises from the tension between the surface content of the text- some of his obscenest erotica- and the deeper purposes of his writing.

Louys had a number of aims and targets in writing Trois Filles. He felt a deep antipathy for the stifling morals and conventions of the Catholic church within which he’d been raised (hence his regular recreations of the pagan faith of classical Greek and Roman seen in several of his works) and it’s clear that the book is, in part, an assault upon many of the sacraments and concepts of the faith: the story features sex in a church, a vicious parody of communion, and a perverse immaculate conception, for example. One of the three daughters, Charlotte, is something of a martyr-figure, and it’s even arguable, I think, that the mother, Teresa, stands as a satanic temptress figure for her trinity of girls. Amongst the other targets for Louys’ derision, alongside casual piety, were French wine snobbery and the general bourgeois mood of propriety.

In addition, the book is deeply literary. There are repeated references to classical and Renaissance and later French authors, such as Clement Marot (1496-1544) or La Fontaine, which readers are expected, implicitly, to know. Some of these sources are quoted, some are parodied and mocked. An obscene passage is attributed to the Humanist scholar Erasmus, which I’m sure he never wrote (although I’ll confess I’ve not checked all 86 volumes of his collected works). One contemporary French writer is condemned as merely deadly dull (just as was the case with the moralist Guy du Faur in Pybrac): after a rather overstimulating session with the mother, Teresa, the student narrator concludes “I took from my library a ‘heady’ novel by Henri Bourdeaux that I had purchased especially for the purpose of calming myself down when I was in a worked-up state.” Bourdeaux (1870-1963) was a lawyer and author known for his traditional Catholic morality and his very correct French style.

Besides citing classical authors, Louys borrowed themes from them just as he modelled parts of his plot on the Bible. Hence, we find traces of Leda, Pasiphae and Europa in some of the incidents described.

René Ranson’s title page

The book is also ‘metatextual’ before that term was invented. It is repeatedly aware that it is a story, pretending to be a memoire. For example, the student narrator addresses us, as readers, explaining “I would have taken much more pleasure in inventing a story where I could give myself (so easily) a more sympathetic role” or “That’s the trouble with memoires: they get monotonous. In a novel, this kind of repetition can never be excused, but in life it has to be accepted.” When a play is acted out in the final chapters of the book, the artificiality of that make-believe within the wider pretence of the story-telling is continually highlighted, the use of dramatic jargon constantly reminding us that it is all invented and staged: for example “Teresa probably did not know that she had introduced a prosopopoeia into her speech, but there is no need to know the figures of rhetoric to put them… at the service of persuasion. Was it the apostrophe, the hypothesis, the exhortation or the prosopopoeia that won? I do not know…” Very evidently, this sort of passage is not part of standard work of pornography.

The text can be understood at several levels simultaneously, I would argue. The basic plot concerns a student who moves into a new flat next door to Teresa and her three daughters and discovers that all four are sex workers. A few weeks of uninhibited sensual indulgence with the entire family follows, before they suddenly disappear. The novel may be interpreted as a condemnation of the sex trade and its malign impact upon the women trapped within it. At the same time, though, there are elements of the narrative which celebrate female sexual autonomy and women’s right to control over their bodies and their pleasures. Teresa is proud of her physical prowess; she comes over as a powerful and determined woman- except that the downside of her assertiveness is the fact that she dominates her family and is involved in damaging incestuous relationships with all of them. Then again- as he often did- Louys seems to suggest that self-sufficient lesbian households may represent some sort of social utopia– an ideal of independence and happiness. Yet he also interrogates lesbian or bisexual identity, perhaps ultimately tending towards a position that sexual fluidity is a more accurate way of understanding individuals.

On its face, Trois Filles may appear outrageously, shockingly pornographic, but I think it’s plain that any text that casually mentions Jesuit preacher Louis Bourdaloue, Roman poet Tibullus, the Greek playwright Aeschylus, Alexander the Great, Melisandre, and the painter Ingres, has depths and intentions that are not instantly obvious. The complex and multi-faceted nature of Trois Filles means that we are constantly left unbalanced by it, not quite sure of Louys’ meaning, uncertain whether he is playing a game and always returning to the text to uncover new layers of significance.

As ever, I find the novel’s bibliology as fascinating as the book itself. Illustrated editions proved extremely popular with publishers and several artists whom we’ve already encountered before, because of their work on texts by Louys, were commissioned to provide imagery. The first edition of Trois Filles was released by Pascal Pia in 1926, with twenty plates by Louis Berthomme Saint-Andre. Further illustrated editions followed in due course: in 1930, with plates by Andre Collot; in 1935, illustrated with sixteen etchings by Marcel Vertes and in 1936, with 34 watercolours by René Ranson (1891-1977). Ranson was one of the most important designers at work during the interwar heyday of the Parisian music hall, working for the Folies Bergère between 1924 and 1932. Renowned for his draughtsmanship, he was a painter, illustrator and costume designer as well. Ranson also supplied designs to the Paris Opera, and for several film studios, including Fox, Pathé and Paramount. Over and above his theatrical work, Ranson painted glamour or pin-up nudes and provided plates for works such as Baudelaire’s Fleur du mal. In past posts I’ve remarked on the frequency with which cartoonists and caricaturists found work as illustrators- and, for that matter, how often the skills acquired in illustrating children’s books might be transferred to the distinctly adult content of the works of Pierre Louys. René Ranson demonstrates how theatrical and costume designers might find additional work in book illustration; other examples I’ve noted previously include George Barbier, Louis Touchagues and Andre Dignimont. All of them surely deserve our respect for their multi-talented ability to turn their hands to almost any artistic commission offered to them.

After the end of the Second World War, further editions of Trois Filles followed: Jean Berque provided sixteen plates for an issue in 1955 and, late that same year, Edouard Chimot also illustrated an edition with a dozen plates (see head of page for the family in their best ‘New Look’ dresses). Then, in 1960, an edition illustrated by Rojan was published. Finally, as I have mentioned several times, a version illustrated by graphic novel artist Georges Pichard appeared in 1980. In all these cases, the illustrators were faithful after their own style to the text they were commissioned to work upon, meaning that in most cases the plates are not really suitable for publication on WordPress. This explicitness can- as I’ve suggested- have its own implications for the text that the images accompany. Pichard, used to multiple frames in cartoon strips, designed an impressive fifty-three plates to go with Louys’ book. The sheer number of these, coupled with his graphic style of strongly drawn images, has the effect of underlining the more bleak and depraved aspects of the book. His monochrome plates emphasise the elements of tragedy and desperation in the narrative- something that Chimot’s and Ranson’s very pretty coloured illustrations definitely do not do.

This post is a simplified version of a longer, fully annotated essay on the novel that can be downloaded from my Academia page. I have also written there in detail on Louys’ attitudes towards religion. For readers who are interested, several translations of the book are readily available, the most recent being Her Three Daughters, available from Black Scat books (published December 2022). See as well my Louys bibliography and details of my other writing on the author.

The cover of Pichard’s edition

Richard Müller- German symbolist

Liebesbotschaft (Love Message), 1921

Richard Müller (1874-1954) is an artist whose work has already been mentioned. He was a German painter and graphic designer whose imagery is characterised by a strange combination of symbolism and surrealism. Given his nationality and the era through which he lived, there are also controversial aspects to his career.

Müller was a weaver’s son. His artistic talent and his skills in draughtsmanship became apparent at early an age and, in 1888, he applied to the painting school of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Factory in Meissen, encouraged by the porcelain painter Hans Theil; Müller was immediately accepted. In 1890, he moved to Dresden on his own and without financial support, in order to study at the city’s art academy. Again, he was accepted, even though he was below the required entry age. In 1893 he started his career as a painter in Dresden, staging his first exhibition only a year later. The next year, Müller met the symbolist painter Max Klinger , who taught him how to etch. In 1896 the young artist’s etching of ‘Adam and Eve’ won the Prix de Rome of the Prussian Academy of Arts, worth 6,000 gold marks.

Der dreiste Freier (The Bold Suitor), 1923

Müller undertook military service, apparently shortened to only a year through the intervention of influential friends in the art establishment, and was then able to visit Italy. Another exhibition prize in 1899 established him as a leading artist in Dresden and he became a professor at the academy; amongst the students he was to teach were George Grosz and Otto Dix. Müller abandoned etching after 1924 in favour of realistic, often erotic drawings and paintings. He was a prominent professor for thirty-five years at the Dresden Academy, where he steadfastly resisted the new artistic movements of expressionism and modernism.

Auf Freiersfüßen (On suitors’ feet), 1914

In 1933 Müller was appointed rector of the Dresden Art Academy, a recognition of his artistic and professional standing. However, only two years later he was dismissed by the Saxon Minister of Education, Wilhelm Hartnacke, who was at the time trying to demonstrate his Nazi credentials. Like Hartnacke, Müller had joined the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1933 and soon after was involved in the dismissal from the academy’s staff of his former pupil and colleague Otto Dix, an early target of the new regime. Dix’s art was regarded as ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis- his Venus in Black Gloves of 1932 may be the sort of challenging image that disturbed the regime. Even so, and despite his later actions, Müller was not actively involved in the Dresden exhibition so-called Degenerate Art in 1933 and, in fact, in March 1935 he was expelled from the Nazi party as well as losing his teaching position because of “subversive tendencies in his art.” What they might have been will soon become clear.

In hellster Begeisterung (With the Greatest Enthusiasm), 1915

In spite of these problems, Müller’s art continued to be highly regarded during the Nazi period. His work was included in the ‘Great German Art Exhibitions’ in Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich in 1937, ’38, ’39 and ’41. Amongst these was a drawing of Adolf Hitler’s birthplace (shown in 1937 and ’39) and, in 1938, Hitler himself bought two of Müller’s drawings from the exhibition. In August 1944, Hitler included Müller in a list of ‘God-Given’ (Gottbegnadeten) German painters that was compiled by Goebbels and which recognised the importance of these individuals and gave them protection from military service. These signs of approval and respect make it clear there is a major contradiction at the heart of Müller’s art: the fact that he could both appeal to the Nazis and yet seem suspect and potentially ‘degenerate.’ A glance at any online collection of his work indicates how this could be. He produced lots of pictures of the German countryside and townscapes, peopled with honest burgers and peasants, just the sort of healthy Aryan material the regime promoted- and then there was his weird stuff…

Rural Idyll, 1933

Like his mentor Klinger, Müller emphasised symbol and metaphor in his works, which are notable for their fantastic, sometimes macabre, imagery. At the same time, though, there’s evidence of an ironic sense of humour and playful lack of seriousness. Müller’s nudes are courted by grotesque animals and birds, while a bear-artist performs for a monkey public; the women often wear masks or are seen in some kind of bondage. The Aryan Aphrodite of Rural Idyll above is just the sort of Bäuerliche Venus (Peasant Venus) that Goebbels lauded; then there’s the equally buxom dancer (in the same red headscarf) seen below, inexplicably prancing with a bear. More ambiguous still are those pictures which combine elements of normal rural life with nudes to produce ambiguous and disturbing results. The figure below evokes the myths of Europa or Pasiphaë and evidently represented a significant symbol for Müller, as it is one of several such pictures.

Die Stärkere, Nackte auf dem Rücken eines Stiers (The Stronger- A naked woman on the back of a bull)

Muller’s mysterious imagery could be unsettling and irreverent. It suggests a complex philosophy or mythology lying behind it which we can only partially grasp; it hints at an odd sexuality, with suggestions of bestiality, about which we must conjecture. It seems a surprise to me that he didn’t get into more trouble.

Tänzerin mit Tamburin und Bär (Dancer with a Tambourine & Bear)

On Leda, Pasiphaë and Little Red Riding Hood- modern uses of ancient myth

Valentin Serov, The Rape of Europa, 1910

In a recent posting I examined the late nineteenth century fascination with Gustave Flaubert’s story of Salammbô– and the wider contemporary interest in representations of sinful women involved with serpents. These images were just one facet of a larger theme in western art. 

In truth, depictions of cross-species relationships are nothing new in the history of human imagination. They have an ancient and classical pedigree. We need only think of the myths of Leda and the Swan, or of Europa and the Bull, in both of which Zeus took animal form in order to get close to women. Most memorable is the case of Pasiphaë, the queen of Crete, who had a wooden cow constructed for her by Daedalus so that she could couple with a bull, a union which gave rise to the hybrid Minotaur. Classical literature was just as outrageous, as, for example, in Apuleius’ Golden Ass (Book 10, c.22). Ancient art too unashamedly depicted such scenes, as in the famous Greek sculpture of Pan and a She Goat. In more recent British folklore, sexual relationships between humans and selkies (seal-folk), leading to part-seal/ part-human offspring, are quite common. This is a theme which has plainly engaged our imaginations for millennia.

Masson, Pasiphae, 1942

These myths have long contributed subjects and themes to fine art. Pasiphaë and the bull have been painted by Symbolist Gustave Moreau, John Buckland-Wright and, most notably, by the French Surrealist Andre Masson who, from 1932 onwards, produced a series of studies of the myth and, in turn, inspired Jackson Pollock to do so. We should also note Matisse’s lino-cuts of the Pasiphaë story that he designed to accompany an edition of de Montherlant’s play of the same name in 1944. Felix Labisse’s Strange Leda of 1950 is a late Surrealist exploration of the myth of nymph and swan, but in this case, Leda herself partly metamorphoses into the animal that molests her.

Jackson Pollock, Pasiphaë, 1943

Labisse, Strange Leda, 1950

Other artists have appropriated the classical story lines but relocated them to more familiar stories and settings. For example, in 1930 the Paris-based Russian artist Rojan (Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky-1891-1970) produced a series of illustrations of an adult re-imagining of Le Petit chaperone rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) in which the interaction between the girl and the wolf becomes more a matter of Greek myth than familiar fairy-tale. Subsequently, in 1935, the artist revert to classical precedent when he produced a portfolio based on Apuleius’ L’ane d’or (The Golden Ass) that depicted the episode in the book involving a taboo relationship with a man metamorphosed into the titular quadruped (see too Rojan’s Zoo (1937)). Most surprisingly perhaps, Rojan then moved to the United States and established himself as a leading illustrators of children’s books, leaving far behind this rather troubling period in his early career.

Rojan

Rojan was far from being alone in producing such material at the time. Whilst these themes have clear classical precedents, we might trace them most directly in French literature from the famed and scandalous Gamiani of 1833, a book generally ascribed to Alfred de Musset. The novel concerns the Comtesse Gamiani and her unbridled sexuality; the text features a lot of straight and lesbian sex, but also, disturbingly, scenes that reference and develop Apuleius. Gamiani‘s particular shock value seems to have lain in the way that it used the classical myths and classical storylines. Ancient models help to justify or make familiar and respectable what otherwise would seem wholly unacceptable. It appears that de Musset’s book helped to have establish something of a malign precedent in French literature; it was soon followed by Théophile Gautier’s Le petit chien de la marquise (The Marchioness’ Lap-Dog, 1836). These themes didn’t go away, but persisted into the next century. This was, I suspect, a reflection of new attitudes to human nature that emerged from the middle of the Victorian era onwards: Darwin’s work started to demolish the idea that humans were created distinct from other animals and that we were somehow superior to them; rather, our common descent meant that we shared many characteristics with ‘wild beasts.’ Secondly, Freud’s investigations into the human psyche revealed how much we are driven by subconscious and instinctual desires. This less separate- and less noble- view of human nature appears to have fed back from science into art; perhaps this is part of the message of Labisse’s Leda: that she is not at some levels so different from the bird.

In the writing of Pierre Louys- notably in his novel Trois filles de leur mere, which was written- but not published- in about 1914, the author indulged in a few scandalous scenes, albeit- as I’ve indicated previously– in such an exaggerated manner that I think they should be understood as hyperbolic parodies of Gamiani and the classical myths that Louys knew so well- and of Pasiphaë in particular. The purpose of the scenes was also to highlight the abuse and exploitation- even ‘martyrdom’- of the one of the book’s characters. Similar incidents are also to be found in some of Louys’ poetry collections, such as Pybrac and, in his Twilight of the Nymphs, Louys presented his own reworkings of various classical myths- including that of Leda. These scenes were, in turn, illustrated by the artists who worked on editions of his books- for instance, Paul-Albert Laurens, Leda & the Swan, 1898, Louis Berthomme-Saint Andre, Jean Berque, Marcel Vertes and Georges Pichard for Trois filles, by Rojan for an edition of Louys’ Poésies érotiques in 1937, and by Vertes for Pybrac in 1928.

Paul-Albert Laurens, Leda & the Swan, from Pierre Louys, The Twilight of the Nymphs, 1898

Hard to understand as it is, this sort of material would seem to have had a market- both texts and, more problematically still, images. Various other artists included scenes which were reminiscent of the myths of Leda and Pasiphaë, but which did not illustrate or draw upon them- in collections they published: examples include several of the portfolios by von Bayros, André Collot’s Jeunesse from 1933, a plate in Rojan’s illustrations for Renée Dunan’s novel Dévergondages (‘Wantonness’ or ‘Immoral Behaviours’) of 1948 or Jean Dulac’s 1952 plates for Trente et quelques attitudes. I personally struggle to understand the demand for such material that led to such a flow of books and art work from the presses (although the editions were very likely to have been quite limited), but they must be seen as depressing evidence of a high degree of very unpleasant misogyny. This probably tells us a lot about extremely regrettable male attitudes towards women during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These books and illustrations may seem more outrageous to us because they do not seek to depict the mythology or to imitate classical settings, but this should probably not distract us from the very deep-rooted misogyny and gynophobia for which the Greek myths may also be evidence. 

The ancient myths remain powerful and fascinating. They are valuable vehicles that enable us to discuss many difficult aspects of human nature and, as such, they continue to provide inspiration even into the twenty-first century. Contemporary South African artist Diane Victor frequently references Greek mythology in her work, including Leda and the White-Backed Vulture, Endangered Liaisons- The Lady and the Rhino (2004) and Pasiphae (2001/2, reworked 2003). I am also a great admirer of the work American graphic artist and painter Stu Mead, who has long confronted issues of masculinity in his work. He clearly has a broad knowledge of themes and precedents in art history and borrows subtly but cleverly from the Greek and Roman canon, from classically inspired works of the Renaissance, and from more contemporary images such as film and musical. Accordingly, Mead has adopted the narrative traditions and the iconographical lineage of ancient mythology, but has relocated these ancient themes within a modern context- as we see in his allusion to Leda below.

For more information, see my recommended reading page.

Stu Mead: a modern version of the myth of Leda?