Pliny the Elder tells of a young maid in ancient Corinth, the daughter of Butades the potter. The woman loved a young man who had to leave on a long trip. The night before he left, she was so distraught that she traced his shadow on the wall by lamplight so that she could keep him with her.
Some say this was the origin of all painting: a desperate attempt to hang onto as much as we can of something destined to end.
Over the years, I've been touched by sketches by artists who wanted to preserve a particular moment of their loved one. The sketches aren't always perfect, but I give them points for their genuine emotion.
For example, here is William Taylor's sketch of his wife Audrey combing her hair at the wash basin during World War II England;
The room was small and spare, and I'm sure the war weighed heavily on their minds, but that didn't prevent Taylor from noticing and admiring his wife's long hair.
I've previously shown (and admired) Ivor Hele's sketch of his wife pulling on her stockings in Australia during the 1950s.
And Raymond Sheppard sketching his wife nodding off by the fire in their small flat:
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Sometimes the artist just wanted to preserve a fleeting glance over the shoulder:
Mary Adshead, the wife of artist Stephen Bone (1904 - 1958) gifted him with a slightly risqué pose on a remote beach in England.
The wife of Maxfield Parrish used to pose for him at the beginning of his career, but as he became successful and the couple became well to do, she became less interested in posing and found better things to do with her time. Gradually, the couple's nanny, Sue Lewin, filled in as his model. Then, while Mrs Parrish went on long cruises, Lewin
filled in for her in other respects as well.
Stanley Meltzoff was able to preserve the day he met his future wife in August 1947, because she showed up as a model for an assignment:
He later wrote in his autobiography, "Alice walked into my loft as a model and three days later we were married." After they were married, he painted (with apparent delight) a study of every one of his bride's orifices. I'm only reproducing the mouth painting here:
In their own way, these artists are the children of Butades, preserving the shadow of their loved ones.
2 comments:
I like Taylor's piece the most, by a long stretch. It transmits that the artist was perceiving something that can not be transmitted. An experience absolutely unique to him at that moment and place. We all have had similar experiences, but just not that one, because none of us is him nor were there.
I agree, the Taylor piece is more intimate, with a stronger sense of mood than the others. With some of the other artists, such as Sheppard and Hele, they did multiple sketches over the years, and you get a stronger impression from their cumulative effect than from these individual samples.
I also think the beach picture by Bone transmits an important experience, it's just not as melancholy as the Taylor sketch.
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