Two Less Well Known Illustrators of Pierre Louys

Vertès, Blond Girl

Marcel Vertès (1895-1961) was a costume designer and illustrator of Hungarian-Jewish origins. He was born in Budapest and his first commercially successful works of art were sketches of corpses, criminals and prostitutes he made for a sensationalist magazine in Budapest (he subsequently published a portfolio of this work as Prostitution in 1925). Vertès later provided illustrations for many of the clandestinely printed publications opposed the continuation of the Hapsburg monarchy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the aftermath of the First World War.

After the Great War, Vertès moved first to Vienna and thence, in 1925, to Paris, where he became a student of fine art at the prestigious Academie Julian. He quickly established himself on the Paris art scene, concentrating on illustration, painting and printmaking, especially lithography. He became a close friend and disciple of fellow émigré Jules Pascin, with whom he shared many tastes and interests.

Amongst the work Vertès undertook were forgeries of Toulouse-Lautrec’s works, which helped him earn his art tuition fees. His illustration commissions included working on various erotic books, which included several works by Pierre Louys. Amongst the titles Vertès illustrated were La Semaine Secrete de Venus, 1926, which was written by Pierre Mac Orlan, a leading author of erotic and spanking fiction during the interwar period in Paris (and another friend of Pascin’s); also Collette’s Cheri in 1929 and the collection of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poems, Ombre de mon Amour, in 1956. These may all have led to his commissions to work on several books by Louys, but it may also have helped that Vertès (like Toulouse Lautrec and Jules Pascin before him) seemed to have a good knowledge of the world of Parisian brothels, as demonstrated by his album of colour lithographs, Dancings (Dancing Halls) which he produced soon after his arrival in Paris in 1925. This showed gay as well as straight bars and clubs. It was followed up, in 1932, by a portfolio titled Dames seules (Women Alone), which comprised fifteen lithographs by Vertès illustrating aspects of lesbian life in the capital: couples together in their homes, women’s bars, women cruising for sex in the Bois de Boulogne and, in one case, a woman catching her girlfriend with some else.

Harper’s Bazaar, October 1940

The artist first tackled Pierre Louys’ novel Trois Filles de leur mere in 1927. His seventeen dry-point prints were graphically faithful to the text; Vertès depicted all the perversities of the family at the heart of the novella. Next, Vertès illustrated Pybrac in 1928, unflinchingly recording the highly varied sex and sexuality that features in the hundreds of short poems that make up the collection. The artist also contributed plates to an edition of Les Aventures du Roi Pausole in 1932, which faithfully detailed the incidents of the story in thirty-eight pen and ink drawings. Six years later, he tackled Pierre Louys’ Poésies érotiques. Much like Rojan’s version of the previous year, Vertès provided thirty-two pencil and watercolour plates that fully portrayed all the lesbian and other incidents narrated in the verses.

Vertès, Three Girls

In 1935 Vertès made his first trip to New York in search of business contacts. Two years later he staged his first one-man exhibition in New York. That same year, in Paris, he provided the fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, with advertisements for her new perfume called Shocking, work that was considered rather suggestive and a little shocking by some in the industry, with their hints of dryads and discrete nakedness. Schiaparelli herself obviously liked the artist’s work, for the campaign ran for seven years.

Harper’s Bazaar, October 1944

At the start of Second World War, Vertès returned to New York with his wife, escaping the Nazi invasion of France by just two days. Ten years later, he returned to live in Paris but still maintained his lucrative professional contacts in the USA. These led his work on the 1952 film Moulin Rouge about the life and times of artist Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, for which Vertès won two Academy Awards; in addition, he painted the murals in the Café Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel and in the Peacock Alley at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.  Furthermore, he designed the sets for Ringling Brothers’ Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1956, contributed illustrations to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and was a jury member at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival. In France, his work was recognised when he was made an officer of the Legion d’Honneur in 1955, after designing sets for ballets at the Paris Opera. Vertès also published a number of books himself, including The Stronger Sex, Art & Fashion in collaboration with Bryan Holme, It’s All Mental, a satire on psychoanalysis, and Amandes Vert, an illustrated biography.

As his enormously eclectic output will indicate, Vertès was able to work in a variety of styles and media, turning his hand to almost any commission he received.  In this, he resembled many of the illustrators I have described in my postings: whilst they may have regard themselves as painters or engravers, earning an income demanded that they were constantly flexible over subject matter and materials.

Reynard the Fox

Kris de Roover (born 1946) was an artist from Antwerp, Belgium. He studied architecture before becoming an illustrator and, during his career, worked on illustrating a wide range of subjects, including erotica, with his designs being published across Europe and in the USA. De Roover employs revived the ligne claire style of comic art, which was pioneered in Belgium by Herge and other artists at Tintin magazine.

De Roover illustrated a comic strip version of Marcel Russen’s retelling of the medieval tale of Rynaert de Vos (Reynard the Fox, 1999), Die verhalen uit het kasteel der lusten- het verboden boek (1984- which was translated later as ‘The Chateau of Delights,’ 1990) and Pierre Louys’ L’Histoire du Roi Gonzalve et des douze princesses (1990). He also created the children’s comic De Tocht der Petieterkees (The Tour of the Petieterkees, 1989).

My interest here is de Roover’s work on Roi Gonzalve. His previous work on Het kasteel der lusten, had indicated a talent for erotica, but the uncompleted novel by Louys represented a challenge to his representational skills. The origins of the story itself are unclear; the king seems to be an invention of Louys, taking his name from the eleventh century king Gonsalvo of the counties of Sobrabe and Ribagorza in the Pyrenees (and, as such, being a neighbouring realm to the imaginary kingdom of Trypheme in Louys’ Les Aventures du Roi Pausole). The twelve princesses of the full title, and their unnatural relationship with their father, may be an echo of the twelve children that the god Uranus had with his sister Gaia in the Greek myth of the Titans. Moreover, one of these offspring, Cronus, had six children with his sister Rhea and two of these, Zeus and Hera, became husband and wife, although Zeus previously was married to his aunt, Themis, sister of Cronus and Rhea. Rather like cartoonist Georges Pichard in his earlier work illustrating Louys’ Trois filles de leur mere, it seems that the Spanish publisher of Roi Gonzalve considered that a graphic novel style would be the best way of tackling the adult content of the story, thereby creating some distance and unreality. De Roover accordingly seems to have depicted the king as a louche, Lothario-like figure in a dinner jacket with a large seventies moustache, a slightly dodgy looking monarch whose character was well suited to the plot of the unfinished text, such as it is. 

De Roover’s choice of style for the book involved emphasising elements in his previous work: his plates feature strong outlines and very brightly coloured designs, using blocks of colour for each figure or item and depicted in a very simple manner (a style that might be very suitable for a children’s book- although primary tones are distinctly stronger than those he used for Reynaert de Vos in 1999). De Roover surrounded these with a pen and ink border design of female nudes which closely resemble his delicate work in the Kasteel der lusten. These elements further help to reduce the challenging nature of the content and to lighten the mood, by making the novella seem more like an action comic. It’s notable too that de Roover, like Paul-Emile Becat before him, chose to depart from the text of the book and overall raised the ages of the princesses he drew, lessening some of the potentially controversial impact of Louys’ narrative, although his plates are still explicit and are clearly tied to the text with quotations of the passages depicted.

We may well wish to reflect upon the fact that the two most recent illustrators to work upon the posthumously published works of Pierre Louys felt that such a style was more suitable or acceptable. For more discussion of these issues, see my Pierre Louys bibliography. For more discussion of work of Vertes and de Roover and of the illustrated editions of the works of Pierre Louys in their wider context, see my book In the Garden of Eros, available as a paperback and Kindle e-book from Amazon.

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?

Clara Tice- bohemian illustrator of Pierre Louys

Clara Tice (1888-1973) was an American avant-garde illustrator and artist whose bohemian lifestyle and daring artwork often caused scandal during her life-time.  She was the first woman in Greenwich Village to bob her hair (in 1908), and her generally decadent look and conduct led to her being known in New York as the ‘queen of Greenwich Village.’ Her reputation only increased when, in 1915, the Society for the Suppression of Vice tried to confiscate some of her art from a display at the well-known bohemian restaurant Polly’s.

‘Nudes in a bath’

Tice was briefly married, but much of her output depicted naked women, meaning that she’s widely regarded as a lesbian artist today. Certainly, one of her watercolour sketches shows two women embracing in bed and readers may judge for themselves from other examples of her work.

Women Bathing

Tice, an untitled drypoint etching

During the 1920s, she received some seven commissions to illustrate erotic books, which included La Fontaine’s Tales and Boccaccio‘s Decameron. Amongst the illustration work Tice undertook were plates for editions of Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite, an edition of The Adventures of King Pausole in 1926 and for Twilight of the Nymphs (1927). In these colour plates, she repeatedly celebrated youthful female bodies; her ideal appears to have been the athletic and young woman, for she drew slim, curvaceous and pretty girls like this, with long ringleted hair, repeatedly.  One plate for Twilight of the Nymphs, for example, shows a bevy of naked girls, gathered in a line with their arms interlinked (see below).  At the same time, though, Tice’s style was innocent- colourful and almost childish- with her figures’ eyes reduced to round black dots. To a considerable degree these simple, bright images, playful and almost cartoonish as they are, leaven the sexuality she was being asked to reflect in the texts.

Plate from Roi Pausole

from ‘Twilight of the Nymphs’

Twilight of the Nymphs was a collection of retellings of classical myths, published by Louys between 1893 and 1898. Their theme reflects his deep interest in and familiarity with classical culture and literature- to the extent that he chose to produce his own versions, which are based upon- but depart quite noticeably- from the originals that inspired them. The stories are framed as if they are being told to each other by a group of travellers as they rest at night.

Despite the title of the collection, the stories are by no means all about nymphs. Ariadne concerns the princess abandoned by Theseus on Naxos and rescued by Dionysos- although in Louys’ version, the outcome is actually rather violent. Danae is told as a continuation of the story of the mother of Perseus, impregnated by Zeus in a shower of gold, and The House Upon the Nile- or the Semblance of Virtue in Women actually has no basis in Greek myth at all; it is entirely a story invented by Louys, and as such betrays some of his typical interests- with the more relaxed sexual attitudes and customs of the ancient past coupled with his not always admirable treatment of race or of women.

Two stories do deal with nymphs. Byblis is the bitter tale of the two children of the nymph, Cynas, who are called Byblis and Caunos. The brother and sister fall in love with each other and their mother resolves to separate them for their own good. The boy is taken away by a centauress, leaving Byblis bereft. She tries to follow him, but becomes lost and dies of despair. In its bleakness, the story is pure Greek myth; in its incest theme, it’s pure Louys.

Lastly, we have the story of Leda, the nymph made pregnant by Zeus- this time in the form of a swan. Leda is a naiad and is definitely not human:

“She really was most blue for, in her veins, ran the blood of the iris and not, as in yours, the blood of roses. Her nails were bluer than her hands, her nipples bluer than her breasts; her elbows and her knees were wholly azure. Her lips shone with the colour of her eyes, which were blue as the deep water. As for her flowing hair, it was sombre and blue as the nocturnal sky and quickened so along her arms that she seemed to have wings.”

from ‘Twilight of the Nymphs’

Louys tells the story of this innocent’s seduction by the god very tenderly, whilst Tice’s illustrations are rich and charming, although they may not capture the otherworldly beauty of Leda in the same way as the plates designed by Paul-Albert Laurens for an edition of 1898.

For details of my essays on the French interwar illustrators, and other areas of art history, see my books page. For further information on all of Pierre Louys’ books, see my bibliography page for the author. For more discussion of the work of Tice and of illustrated editions of the works of Pierre Louys in their wider context, see my book In the Garden of Eros, available as a paperback and Kindle e-book from Amazon.

Portly Pan: Silenus and the Silenoi

Anthony van Dyck, Silenus Drunk

I have discussed many times before the fact that Pan seldom roams alone through the woods and groves; he is almost always accompanied by satyrs and fauns and, particularly, the god Silenus. Silenus was seen as the father or grandfather and leader of the various tribes of satyrs and nymphs; his occasional name, Papposilenos, reflects his seniority. Sometimes, in fact, rather than being a single named individual, he is regarded as a triad or his name is simply applied generically to the more elderly satyrs (the sileni or silenoi) just as Pan is one of the aegipans or (much closer to home, Robin Goodfellow is one of the pucks). In addition, Silenus was closely linked with a number of other minor rustic divinities, which include Hekateros, another grandfather of the satyrs and oreads; Aristaios, god of shepherds; Oreios, the father of the Hamadryads, and Marsyas, a flute-playing satyr.

Silenus was the old rustic Greek god of wine-making and inebriation (hence the poet Nonnus called him the “tippler never satisfied”); his name derives from the verb associated with the treading of wine in the press. Accordingly, he was depicted as a jovial old man, hairy on his body but with balding and grey haired, flabby and pot-bellied, like the wine skin he always carries, snub-nosed, and with the ears and tail of an ass. Because of his age, he is sometimes said to walk leaning on a wine stem. Nonetheless, like all satyrs, he loves music, wine- and sleep. He’s often seen playing a flute and, sometimes, dancing in a surprisingly athletic and energetic fashion.

Philostratus the Elder (in Imagines 1, 22) described the Silenus and the satyrs in these terms: “Charming is the vehemence of satyrs when they dance, and charming their ribaldry when they laugh; they are given to live, noble creatures that they are, and they subdue the Lydian women to their will by their artful flatteries. And this,too, is true of them: they are represented in paintings as hardy, hot-blooded beings, with prominent ears, lean about the loins, altogether mischievous, and having the tails of horses.” Ovid, in the Metamorphoses, described the god as “that old rake, Silvanus [Silenus], ever younger than his years…” It is in these respects that the habits of Silenus and his band of elderly satyrs conflict with their inclinations. Just like Pan and other fauns, their nature provokes them to chase females, but their age and lifestyle militate against their success in this: they’re too drunk to be able to catch them or, if they do, to perform.

Rupert Bunny, Silenius with Some Perfect Ladies of Phrygia Gave a Cocktail Party, c. 1938

What seems clear is that comparing someone to Silenus wasn’t especially complementary or positive. A good illustration of this is found in Plautus’ play Rudens, where Labrax, a treacherous pimp, is likened to “a pot-bellied old Silenus- bald head, beefy, bushy eyebrows, scowling, twister, god-forsaken criminal”.

These negative aspects aside, Silenus is linked to two gods: to Pan, as stated, who in some accounts fathered him with a nymph (though in another story Hermes is identified as his parent) and to Dionysos, from whom he is virtually inseparable. He was the foster-father of Dionysos after the boy was entrusted to his care by Hermes, following the baby’s his birth from the thigh of Zeus (where he was hidden after the boy’s mother, Semele, had died). The young god was nursed by the Nysiad nymphs in a cave on Mount Nysa and was then advised and educated by Silenus. It was due to this wise instruction that the boy became so successful in his enterprises. When Dionysos reached adulthood, Silenus rode in his entourage seated on the back of a donkey (because he is always a bit too tipsy to walk straight or upright). Often he will be seen about to topple off the donkey, or is supported by satyrs to stop this happening.

Pomponio Amidano, Silenus Drunk on a Donkey (c.1600)

Travelling with the young god, various adventures came the way of Silenus. He participated in many of Dionysos’ campaigns and battles. One time, though, in Phrygia, Silenus got lost and became separated from the entourage. Wandering alone, he was captured by King Midas, who tempted him with wine. The king sought knowledge of the future from the deity because he was renowned as an inspired prophet- who knows all of the past as well as the most distant future- and as a sage who despises all the beneficial accidents of fortune. This prophetic nature seems to derive from the effects of wine, because it was said that, when he was drunk and asleep, Silenus was in the power of mortals who, by surrounding him with chains of flowers, might then compel him to prophesy and sing . King Midas treated his captive hospitably and, in return, demanded to know what was the most desirable thing for humans. Silenus at first refused to answer, and remained obstinately silent. At length, when Midas would not stop plaguing him, he unwillingly told the king this:

“You, seed of an evil genius and precarious offspring of hard fortune, whose life is but for a day, why do you compel me to tell you those things of which it is better you should remain ignorant? For he lives with the least worry who knows not his misfortune; but for humans, the best for them is not to be born at all, not to partake of nature’s excellence; not to be is best, for both sexes. This should be our choice, if choice we have; and the next to this is, when we are born, to die as soon as we can.”

Aristotle, ‘Eudemus’ (354 BCE), surviving fragment as quoted by Plutarch in ‘Moralia.’

An alternative version of the incident relates how Midas found Silenus straying and alone and entertained him for five days with feasting. In return, the old god told him stories of far-off lands. As a reward for this hospitality, Dionysos granted the king whatever he wished for. He had apparently not thought seriously about what Silenus had told him, because what he asked for was his famous golden touch, a request he quickly came to regret. He had to ask the god to take the power away again (although in some versions of the incident, the king dies of starvation).

Bearing in mind Silenus’ rebuke to Midas, we might speculate that he found knowledge of the future- and of the fates of short-lived mortals- too much of a burden, hence his attempts to blank them out with wine and with the thrill of chasing nymphs. Perhaps, too, he symbolises some of the mixed benefits of age: there is wisdom and experience, but this is coupled with an awareness of the simultaneous limitations that maturity imposes: loss of health and vitality and an impaired libido. As a perpetually aged deity, Silenus is, sadly, stuck with this. Perhaps that’s why he drinks so much…

Willem Panneels, Silenus with Nymphs & Satyrs

Dangerous Liaisons- Mortals and Gods

William Blake Richmond, Aphrodite & Anchises

I have written numerous times about the gods and their lovers, but in this posting I want to focus on the perils for mortals of getting mixed up with divine partners. My starting text will be that ever-quotable scholarly work, the film Notting Hill (1999). Towards the end discussing the return of ‘The American’ to London, this exchange takes place:

“Max: Let’s face facts, this was always a no-win situation. Anna’s a goddess: you know what happens to mortals who get involved with gods.
William: Buggered, is it?
Max: Every time.”

Facts are, indeed, facts, and the record of human-deity romances is a sobering one. Aphrodite had several mortal lovers, including Anchises and Adonis. Neither were consensual partners- the goddess simply took them because she wanted to and she could. Their ends are almost always tragic too: the red rose is the flower most emblematic of the goddess because, according to one story, roses sprang from the blood of Aphrodite’s lover, Adonis, when he was gored by a boar and bled to death in the goddess’ arms. In other versions of the story, the boar was either sent by Ares, who was jealous that Aphrodite was spending so much time with Adonis, by Artemis, because she wanted revenge against Aphrodite for having killed her devoted follower Hippolytus, or by Apollo, to punish Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus.

As for Anchises, Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess so as to be able to seduce him, only to later reveal herself and inform him that they would have a son named Aeneas. At the same time, though, the goddess warned Anchises that if he told anyone about her being the mother of his child, Zeus would strike him down with his thunderbolt. He failed to heed her warning and was duly struck down, either dying or being blinded.

The same applies to Dionysos/ Bacchus. One of his most famous partners is Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos after they slay the minotaur. In most accounts, Dionysos saves her and they have a happy marriage, although Ariadne dies young. However, the Belgian author Pierre Louys approached the relationship in a far darker manner. In his short story Ariadne, published during the 1890s and later included in his collection The Twilight of the Nymphs, he presented a unique interpretation of the interaction between the Minoan princess and the god.

Having been abandoned by Theseus on Naxos, Ariadne awakes to sound of bacchantes, satyrs and pans approaching. The maenads are described vividly: “Their hands waved branches of trees and shook garlands of ivy. Their hair was so laden with flowers that their necks bent backward; the folds of their breasts were rivulets of sweat, their thighs glowed like setting suns and their shrieks were spotted with flying foam.” They cry out to Iacchos- “Beautiful God! Mighty God! Living God! Leader of the Orgy!” imploring him to “Incite the multitude! Drive the rout and the rapid feet! We are yours! We are your swelling breath! We are your turbulent desires!”

As soon as the frenzied women see Ariadne, they tear her limb from limb and scatter her remains. Dionysos then appears, dismisses them, and resurrects their victim, intoning over her dismembered corpse “Arise! I am Awakening. I am Life. This is the road of Eternal Peace.”

Then, rather than marrying Ariadne, as the traditional story tells, this Dionysos makes her his queen, of a place “where you shall never again see the sun too glittering not the night too shadowy… you shall never again feel hunger nor thirst nor love nor fatigue…” He is the “Ruler of Shades, the Master of the Infernal Water” and she shall sit beside him on his throne presiding over a land where “the anguish of death is miraculously transfigured in the intoxication of resurrection,” where pain and trouble become ecstatic and where a great eternal peace reigns. Ariadne is overjoyed with this prospect- and then he annihilates her completely. Louys chose to explore the strand of the ancient myth that made Dionysos an equivalent of Hades/ Pluto and lord of the underworld; hence, his uniquely bleak and savage conception of the god is not without classical authority.

Dionysos in fact had multiple partners, mortal and divine, female and male. His affair with the Thracian boy Ampelos also ends in tragedy:

“It’s said that the beardless Ampelos, son of a nymph and a satyr, was loved by Bacchus on the Ismarian hills. Upon him the god bestowed a vine that trailed from an elm’s leafy boughs, and still the vine takes from the boy its name. While he rashly picked the ripe grapes upon a branch, he tumbled down from the tree and was killed. Bacchus bore the dead youth to the stars.”

In another version, Ampelos was killed while riding a bull maddened by the sting of a gadfly sent by Atë, the goddess of folly- the beast threw the boy and then gored him to death. Another doomed male lover is also recorded: according to several writers, Dionysos was guided during his journey to the underworld to rescue his mother Semele by a man called (variously) Hyplipnus, Prosymnus or Polymnus, who shamelessly requested, as his reward, to be Dionysos’ lover. Sadly, he died before he got his reward and the relationship was consummated.

The mention of Semele highlights another tragic divine-human love affair. Dionysos was conceived when Zeus had sex with the mortal woman Semele (whose name in fact means ‘Earth’ in Phrygian- hence Dionysos is again born of a union of sky and earth). In one version of this story, she asked to see her lover in his true, divine form. Zeus appeared to her as a bolt of lightning, which struck and killed the pregnant woman. Zeus was able to save his son, though, sowing the baby up in his own thigh until he could be born. This episode underlines what Max said to Will about the perils of divine partners. Either they will prove fatal for you- or other gods will be jealous or vindictive and take their revenge upon the vulnerable mortal.

Aleister Crowley & the Book of Thoth- Dionysos, sexuality and the tarot

The Fool

The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians is the title of an edition of British magician Aleister Crowley’s esoteric journal The Equinox (volume III, number 5, 1944). The issue is entirely given over to a description the philosophy and practical use of Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, a deck of tarot cards formulated by him and co-designed and painted by the artist Lady Frieda Harris. The Thoth Tarot has become one of the best-selling and most popular tarot decks in the world and The Book has now been reprinted as a freestanding publication.

The Equinox analysis of the Thoth Tarot is divided into four parts, which deal successively with the theory of the tarot and then, successively, the different classes of card. Crowley worked on the project for several years towards the end of his life and made several significant alterations, compared to other existing tarot decks, based upon his Book of the Law (1904) and later writings. The mage also provided an appendix on the use of the tarot in divination and another demonstrating the links with the kabbala and the I Ching. This reflects the fact that the deck features images and ideas incorporated by Crowley from many disparate sources, including various other occult systems and philosophies. I’m absolutely no tarot expert, so I’ll terminate my discussion of of the deck at this point and turn to another aspect of Crowley’s book. There’s plenty of very detailed analysis of the tarot deck to be found online if you want to pursue that side.

I’ve already discussed Crowley and the Greek gods, so my particular interest here is the importance of Dionysos/Bacchus in his scheme. Crowley treated him as the primary deity, as he sets out in the Book of Thoth. What also comes out strongly from Crowley’s writings is his deep concern with the dual sexual nature (diphues) of Dionysos. This reflects Crowley’s own highly sensual and bisexual character. He was also fascinated by the nature of Dionysos’ father, Zeus, in that god’s cross-dressing and hermaphrodite forms (called Zeus Arrhenothelus) whilst Crowley’s very early poem, The Tale of Archais (1898), features a young man who prays to Aphrodite to be turned into a beautiful girl so that he can lure Zeus’ attention away from his lover, the girl called Archais. Crowley adopted the ‘female role’ in his sex magic operations and had a female alter ego called Alys. He wanted his epitaph to be “half a woman made with half a god.”

Crowley elaborated on all these ideas in the Book of Thoth, when describing the Fool card of the tarot. Such an androgyne figure seems to have symbolised a primordial perfection, the synthesis of opposites and the union of heaven and earth. Crowley, however, took this idea much further. He wrote:

“In dealing with Zeus [Arrhenothelus], one is immediately confronted with this deliberate confusion of the masculine and the feminine… It is only in Zeus Arrhenothelus that one gets the true hermaphroditic nature of the symbol in unified form. This is a very important fact… because images of this god recur again and again in alchemy. It is hardly possible to describe this lucidly… [but] the ultimate sense seems to be that the original god is both male and female, which is, of course, the essential doctrine of the Qabalah; and the thing most difficult to understand about the later, debased, Old Testament tradition is that it represents Tetragrammaton as masculine, in spite of the two feminine components…”

Crowley then moved on to examine several of Zeus’ divine sons, bringing out the hermaphrodite or bisexual nature of those gods:

“Dionysus Zagreus/ Bacchus Diphues: It is convenient to treat the two gods as one… [Concerning] Bacchus Diphues… the ecstasy characteristic of the god is more magical than mystical… The legend of Bacchus is, first of all, that he was Diphues, double-natured, and this appears to mean more bisexual than hermaphroditic. His madness is also a phase of his intoxication, for he is pre-eminently the god of the vine [note the bunch of grapes in the tarot card illustrated]. He goes dancing through Asia, surrounded by various companions, all insane with enthusiasm; they carry staffs headed with pine cones and entwined with ivy; they also clash cymbals, and in some legends are furnished with swords, or twined about with serpents. All the half-gods of the forest are the male companions of the Maenad women… In the legend of his journey through Asia, he is said to have ridden on an ass, which connects him with Priapus, who is said to have been his son by Aphrodite… In the worship of Bacchus there was a representative of the god, and he was chosen for his quality as a young and virile, but effeminate man.”

The Book of Thoth, written during the last years of Crowley’s life, is a dense distillation of his considerable occult and mythological learning. The text is densely packed with allusions and references and it can stray far from the immediate subject in making links with other areas of arcane knowledge. For now, though, it’s enough to note how Crowley’s wide ranging analysis encompassed queer sexuality, sensuality, intoxication and mystical experience, all within the compass of the Dionysian rites.

Dionysos- an ode to joy

Bacchante by Jean Simon Berthelemy (1743-1811)

Growing up, and reading children’s versions of the Greek myths, I was always surprised, but strangely reassured, by the fallibility of the Olympian gods. As I grew older and read the more adult originals, this response was only confirmed. Witness Zeus, a god plainly suffering from a severe mid-life crisis. He was a mature married man, but he was unable to restrain himself from chasing much younger nymphs- Europa, Leda, Danae and others. Vengefulness, bad tempers, moodiness and sexual incontinence are the norm on Mount Olympus; a stark contrast to the intimidatingly austere moral rectitude of some saints.

Central to the cult of Dionysos-Bacchus is wine and intoxication. The young god’s rites involved drinking, and this was sometimes enhanced with opium or cannabis infused in the wine. The English poet Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, also suggested that the ecstatic experience of the Bacchae was further heightened by chewing ivy leaves- I read this when I was about 25 and tried it: they taste horribly bitter and had no effect for me (perhaps the ivy growing on the Downs in Surrey aren’t the same as those in Greece…)

As many readers will have learned from their own painful experience, wine (and alcohol more widely) can be a double edged sword- raising the indulger up, but then casting them down into sickness and misery if they indulge too much. The Dionysian cult seems to me to reflect this polarity: the bacchantes were known for their ecstasies of drinking and sex, but they also had a reputation for working themselves up into such a frenzy that they could tear animals (and people) limb from limb. They would only appreciate what they’d done some time afterwards, once the manic state had worn off (as mentioned before, the bacchantes are also called maenads- a word which is related to ‘manic’).

Dionysos brought the grape, viticulture, wine making and wine drinking to the world, but he also reminds us that there are good and bad sides to this gift. It can expand our consciousness and change our perceptions, but it can also make us horribly aware of the frailties of our own bodies.

Bacchante by Cesare Maccari

Enjoy the gorgeous Ode to Drink by Sidi Bou Said from 1995 (“To rock about in dizzy glee/ To run amok and laugh at me/ To fall over in company”) and- for much more detail- see my recent book on Dionysos.

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Diana & Callisto- the goddess and her nymph lover

Frans Hals, Jupiter Sees Callisto

As I mentioned in a posting on the painter Henry Draper, one myth that has had an abiding attraction for many artists (for fairly obvious reasons) is that of Jupiter and Callisto.

Jupiter/ Zeus was a typical Olympian god, in that he couldn’t keep his thunderbolt in his toga, and when he spotted the nymph Callisto one day, he determined to have her. As Frans Hals pictured her (see above), she was clearly a highly desirable young woman but as one of the followers of Diana/ Artemis, she had sworn an oath of virginity and was strictly out of bounds. This didn’t dissuade the god, though; he simply took the form of her mistress and seduced her that way. This scenario has provided plenty of titillating material for painters since the Renaissance, and it’s interesting to see how different artists have handled the seduction.

after Caspar Netscher (1613)

Karoly Marko

A few painters, such Netscher and Marko, have painted the nymph as surprised or reluctant at the goddess’ entreaties. This may seem surprising: Diana had a reputation for taking girls as lovers- her other conquests included the goddess Britomaris, the princesses Cyrene, Anticleia and Atalanta and the nymphs Daphne, Amethystos and Taygete. There are said to have been gay and lesbian cults linked to the worship of her in her forms as Artemis Orthia, and Artemis Pergaea. On this basis, the hesitant or shrinking vision of Callisto seems surprising; in choosing to become one of Diana’s gang she had, consciously, chosen (to paraphrase Village People) to “hang out with all the girls.” The suspicion or reluctance may be more a matter of the sudden and urgent nature of Diana’s demands, which seemed uncharacteristic. In this, Callisto was, of course, perfectly right, as it was Zeus pressurising her into quick sex.

Peter Paul Rubens, 1613

Jean-Simone Berthelemy, 1743

Fragonard

Berthelemy’s Callisto seems simply meek and shy, though, rather than unwilling- as does Fragonard’s. The nymph in this version is distinctly younger than Diana, and she seems flattered, awed and overwhelmed by the goddess’ attention rather than being dismayed.

The anonymous French version of the scene from the eighteenth century, that is shown below, combines a physically insistent Diana with a slightly doubtful Callisto; the sight of the nearby eagle (symbol of Zeus) makes her begin to suspect that the woman caressing her so persistently isn’t all she seems. Berthe Morisot’s impressionist version of the seduction seems to capture the same moment; something has caught Callisto’s attention, despite Diana’s passionate embrace.

Anon, French, 18th century

Berthe Morisot

Other versions of the seduction are quite happy to present it at face value; they accept the lesbian nature of Diana and her retinue and simply concentrate on the two lovers’ interaction, without any subtext or distraction from the central story of a blossoming love. In Jacopo Amigoni’s rendition, Callisto is already perched on Diana’s lap, her arm around the goddess’ shoulders in easy familiarity. Likewise, a canvas produced by the workshop or circle of Antonis van Dyck shows the two women reaching out to each other whilst they gaze into each other’s eyes. Diana’s confident hand on the nymph’s thigh indicates that this is merely the culmination of an attraction that had already existed. The importuning Olympian god is quite forgotten in these images- they are concerned solely with the two women and their mutual affection and passion.

Jacopo Amigoni

from the school of Antonis van Dyck

Francois Boucher painted the pair several times; in the version below Diana is removing her lover’s clothes, but the nymph’s protesting hand fails to resist as their eyes meet. Zeus’ eagle is in the background, but it is the intervention of Cupid with his darts and torch that is more significant: the couple are falling in love- or are realising that they have already been in love for some time. As is typical of Boucher’s work, the females are depicted as rosy cheeked and chubby- in their teens perhaps- and nearly as plump, pink and beguiling as the tumble of cupids behind them.

Francois Boucher

Federico Cervelli

In Cervelli’s scene, Callisto very plainly welcomes Diana’s approaches, which are notably tender and erotic. There is also visible love shown in the second of Boucher’s canvases, where the couple are so rapt with each other that the four gambolling cupids in the tree above don’t manage to distract them at all. Gerrit van Honthorst’s depiction of the goddess and nymph is a truly beautiful moment of consummated love. It is sensitive, a masterwork and, of course, truly radical for its early seventeenth century date. In fact, even today, it might be hard to identify a painting to equal it.

Francois Boucher

Gerrit van Honthorst

Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre, 1745

French painter Pierre, meanwhile, went for a moment slightly later in the incident as passion starts to seize the couple. Callisto by no means need be seen as a passive victim of seduction- she can be as keen as the goddess, as in Spierincks’ depiction as well.

Karel Philips Spierincks

The upshot of the seduction by Zeus is tragedy, however. Diana’s entourage are sworn to virginity, which we may understand as meaning that they have forsworn sex with men. For example, in Pierre Louys’ Songs of Bilitis, a friend visits Bilitis and Mnasidika asking to borrow an olisbos (a leather dildo) before she visits her own girlfriend, Myrrhina (it seems the visitor does not wish to purchase one of her own in case her husband finds out). The exchange with Bilitis is as follows: “What do you wish of me? – That you lend me… – Speak. – I dare not name the object. – We have none. – Truly? – Mnasidika is a virgin…” (Bilitis, Part 2, ‘The Object’). William-Alphonse Bouguereau‘s 1878 Nymphaeum may capture some of the mood of this sapphic sodality, although Julius Leblanc Stewart’s ‘Hunting Nymphs’ may better portray the more active and independent nature of Diana’s troop.

Bouguereau, Nymphaeum

Julius Leblanc Stewart, Nymphes Chasseresses, 1898

In having sex with Zeus, Callisto breached the injunction of her mistress and the spirit of her sisterhood. In Callisto’s case, not only had she coupled with a man, she became pregnant. Even though her contact with Zeus was unwitting, she was banished from Diana’s court when her condition was (inevitably) revealed. This is a very harsh judgment, but anyone familiar with the justice of the Greek myths will know that the treatment of offenders was frequently excessive. For more on nymphs, see my dedicated Nymphology blog.