Going Gaga for Go-Go Boots

Young woman in white go-go boots 
and red hot pants: it's a good look

I've been told - and I don't know if it stands up to serious etymological scrutiny - that the term go-go is not simply what linguists term a reduplication.

That it derives, rather, from the French expression à gogo (in joyful abundance); an expression which is in turn derived from the ancient French word for happiness, la gogue. This sounds plausible to me, and I love the idea that go-go boots are a form of footwear born of gaiety and plenitude; just as go-go dancers embody the Dionysian spirit of ecstasy and excess. 

Introduced into the world of women's fashion in the mid-1960s, go-go boots as originally conceived by French designer André Courrèges, were mid-calf in length, low-heeled, and distinctively white in colour. Since then, the term has also come to include knee-high boots with block heels in a multitude of colours.

Purists might moan about this development, but, personally, I think it a good thing. Indeed, if I'm honest, I prefer the later designs that come higher up the leg and have chunkier heels. I also prefer the boots to be made of PVC, rather than leather, thus giving them a younger, poppier, more futuristic feel (as intended by Courrèges) than footwear made from more traditional materials.

Ultimately, despite Nancy Sinatra's insistence to the contrary, these boots are made for dancing and for space travel, not walking - and certainly not walking all over another person as if one were wearing a pair of black jackboots! Sinatra may have helped popularise the go-go boot, but in also establishing it as an aggressive symbol of empowerment, she robs it of its seductive appeal which is based on the subversion of phallocratic forms through playfulness (understanding seduction as a differential concept in the manner of Baudrillard, not as a sexual term).              


Notes

To see an original boot design by Courrèges, click here. 

The song, These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (1966), written by Lee Hazlewood, recorded and performed by Nancy Sinatra, can be found on YouTube by clicking here. 

To read posts related to this one on futuristic 60s and 70s fashion, click here (mini-skirts) and here (hot pants). 

Fragments from a Dark History of Black Fashion (V-VII)

V.

The colour is black ... the seduction is beauty ... the aim is ecstasy ... the fantasy is death - or how fascism exerted its sartorial fascination ...

Initially, Mussolini seemed to have a better eye for fashion than Hitler; for clearly black shirts look so much better than brown! But the paramilitary thugs of the Sturmabteilung only wore brown shirts because a large number were available on the cheap following the end of the First World War and the fledgling Nazi Party had to watch the pfennigs. However, once in government and receiving the backing of big business - and once Röhm had been dealt with and the SA superseded by the SS - the Führer ensured that his Nazi elite were dressed to kill in a close-fitting, all-black uniform designed to make its wearer not only feel superior, but look supremely stylish.

Manufactured by Hugo Boss, the uniform was tailored to project malevolent authority and perpetuate the fascist aesthetization and eroticization of power. If many people felt sick with fear when they saw it, a significant number felt sexually aroused and the SS uniform has secured its place not only within the annals of terror, but the pornographic imagination.


VI.

In the post-War world of 50s youth culture, however, black - particularly the black leather jacket - became a symbol of individuality and rebellion; the colour of beatniks and bikers who didn't accept the established norms and values of society. In Paris, meanwhile, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals; painters, philosophers, writers, and über-cool performers such as Juliette Gréco, muse to Jean-Paul Sartre and lover of genius jazz musician Miles Davis.

The hippies who followed in the 1960s, with their love of psychedelic colours, tie-dyed clothing, paisley prints and floral patterns, subscribed to an almost anti-black rainbow aesthetic - one of the reasons that Malcolm McLaren despised them. But those within the punk movement of the mid-late 70s, shaped by McLaren in his own image, would again make black an emblematic colour. Finally, mention must be made of the post-punk goths and devotees of kink within the world of fetish fashion taking black outfits to a whole new level of perverse dark beauty.

VII.

According to Coco Chanel, a woman only needs three things to look elegant - and one of these three things is what has become known as the little black dress, a vision of which she published in Vogue in October 1926, radically changing women's fashion forever. After this date, a full-length gown might still be required for formal occasions, but, apart from these ceremonial social events, the LBD could be worn anywhere, anytime with the assurance that one would not be committing a faux pas and never not looking anything but chic, stylish, and sophisticated.

As Karl Lagerfeld has explained, black is the colour that goes with everything; if you're wearing black, you can't go wrong. Ultimately, black is fashion and fashion is black. And all those designers who suggest other colours upon which to build a wardrobe by declaring them to be the new black are basically fraudsters looking to push the latest trend and sell a few more frocks while they can. Hemlines rise and fall, accessories come and go, but the LBD is the essential must have item.           


Notes 

The image of the good-looking SS officer is by CainIsNotMyEnemy and can be found on Deviant Art by clicking here.

The photo of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly is a publicity shot for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961); she is wearing a sheath little black dress, designed by Givenchy in Italian satin. 

Those interested in reading fragments I-IV of this dark history of black fashion should click here. 

Fragments from a Dark History of Black Fashion (I-IV)

Portrait of a Lady in Black (c.1580)

I.

In much the same way that black absorbs all forms of visible light, thereby collapsing any distinctions of colour, so too does it seem to enchant all sorts of people and wrap them equally in its dark splendour. Paradoxically sexy and subversive at the same time as it is austere and authoritarian, black appeals to priests, puritans and policemen, as well as poets, punks and perverts; aristocrats and anarchists; fascists and fashionistas ...     


II.

By the Christian Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with the three great D-words: death, darkness and the devil. It's a little odd, therefore, that members of the clergy then as now had such a penchant for wearing black. Some argued that it was a sign of humility. But other priests knew that black robes and gowns symbolised their authority, as it did that of magistrates, government officials, and wealthy bankers and merchants. It's almost as if the Church secretly wished to acknowledge that their power too was rooted in the world, in fashion and in evil. 

III.

Eventually, members of the European nobility - such as the stylish Duke of Milan - also began to be seduced by the simple (yet sophisicated) elegance of black. From Italy, the look spread to France, then England, followed by Spain. By the end of the 16th century, black was worn in all the courts of Europe, whatever their religious persuasion. Indeed, even the best-dressed Puritans, for whom dress codes were very important, had a thing for black. It was red - as worn by the Pope and the Whore of Babylon - that they regarded with horror, even though, as a matter of fact, black clothing was very expensive due to the dyes used and a sign not of sober moderation, but privilege and status. For ordinary folk, it would have been socially unacceptable to be seen wearing the latest black fashions, even if they were able to afford them. They were thus obliged to stick with their workaday blues and browns, etc.   

IV.

For a while, during the 18th century, black lost some of its lustre as the fashion colour of choice, as members of the French nobility rediscovered their gaiety. However, 1789 soon put an end to that. As the Jacobins asserted their power, black again became the dominant colour and there was a moral revolt not only against the aristocracy, but against the extravagance of haute couture. Further, with the invention of new, inexpensive dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry, good quality black clothing became widely available for the first time. By the end of the Victorian era, it was the accepted colour of business dress, evening wear, and mourning in Britain, Europe and the United States - as well, ironically, the colour of choice for Romantic poets and anarchists alike.

Note: those interested in reading fragments V-VII of this dark history of black fashion should click here.  

Back to Black: Reflections on the Darkness of Being

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

I.

Black isn't merely the darkest colour. It's also the sexiest colour; the most dangerous colour.

In fact, it's more a state of mind or way of being than just an achromatic shade, as understood by artists, fashionistas, fascists and by all those for whom sensible blues and browns just don't cut it on the canvas or on the catwalk, anymore than they excite on the battlefield or in the bedroom.

The only other colour that comes close to having the erotic and evil allure of black is red and the two are often used in powerful combination. The ancient Greeks, for example, made their famous black-figure pottery by using an ingenious technique in which the figures, painted with a glossy clay slip, were set against a vivid red background.
 
However, whilst not wishing to denigrate erythrophiles for whom red is the king of colours, personally, like Amy - and as a thanatologist and nihilist - when the odds are stacked, I always go back to black ...

II.

The sculptor Anish Kapoor, who often works with ideas of negative space and the void of non-being, has said that black is the most emotive colour - particularly that darkest form of black that is carried within each of us; not as original sin, but as what we might think of as a black hole of the self, sitting at the centre of the soul and into which we might fall and disappear at any moment.

I think this is the disconcerting truth that Kurtz discovers, to his horror, in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899). And, arguably, it's what Heidegger is referring to when he suggests that Dasein can only grasp its own wholeness by facing up to its emptiness - i.e., to the fact that being floats upon a sea of oblivion and the ever-present possibility of no-longer-being-there [sein Nicht-mehr-dasein].

Perhaps because of this - because we are creatures not merely threatened by but born of the darkness - black is crucial within the cave paintings of early man and has remained the fundamental reality upon which so much great art continues to build, making all other colours seem dirty and inferior.   

Note: 

As most readers will know, the title to this post, Back to Black, is taken from the fantastic song written and performed by Amy Winehouse, produced by Mark Ronson (Island Records, 2007). The accompanying video, dir. Phil Griffin, can be watched on YouTube by clicking here.

Vantablack: Notes on the Science of an Uncanny Colour and a Skirmish in the Art World

A technician holds up a sample of Vantablack against 
a silver foil background - et voilà! an instant black hole

Image: Surrey Nanosystems

I: Manufacturing the Void: On the Science of an Uncanny Colour

Despite Spanish songsters Los Bravos tautologically insisting that black is black, actually there are degrees of darkness to be considered. In other words, there's black, there's super black, and then there's Vantablack ... 

Vantablack is an uncanny substance composed of a forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays which are grown on a substrate using a modified chemical vapour deposition. It is the darkest material ever made, absorbing almost 100% of radiation in the visible spectrum and creating the illusion of a black hole whenever it's applied to the surface of an object.

When light strikes an object covered in Vantablack, instead of reflecting as it normally would, thereby allowing the eye to see the object, it becomes trapped and continually deflected among the tubes, flattening out all appearance of depth. Eventually the light is absorbed and dissipated as heat.

There have, of course, been similar substances developed in the past; NASA, for example, had previously developed their own super black. But Vantablack is the baddest and the blackest of them all - the veritable prince of darkness.

Indeed, had I been the one naming it, I'd have called it Satanic black, rather than Vantablack (VANTA being an acronym derived from vertically aligned nanotube arrays); a name given by the British company Surrey NanoSystems who invented it, and who have identified a wide range of potential applications for the substance thanks to its emissivity and scalability. These include improving the performance of telescopes and materials used in solar power technology.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the military are also interested in how Vantablack might be used as thermal camouflage and increase the invisibility and all-round stealthiness of stealth aircraft.       


II: Brushes at Dawn: On a Skirmish in the Art World

Artists too have expressed an interest in this new (anti-)colour, which offers so many fascinating opportunities for deception and design. Unfortunately, however, they're not going to get the chance to use it after the sculptor Anish Kapoor proved to be (a) quick off the mark and (b) something of an arsehole; obtaining as he did an exclusive license for artistic use of Vantablack, causing outrage amongst others in the art world, including Jason Chase, Christian Furr, and Stuart Semple.

The latter, for example, retaliated by developing a strong shade of ultra-fluorescent pink - as well as a cherry-scented deep black colour - to which he attached (non-binding) clauses to the effect that Kapoor was not allowed to purchase them. The sculptor responded in December 2016 by posting a picture on Instagram of his raised middle finger dipped in Semple's pink paint.     

Jason Chase, meanwhile, teamed up with a company called NanoLab to create his own super dark colour which he named Singularity Black. Unlike Kapoor, he made his new black fully available to others artists should they wish to experiment with it in their work.
   

There are several ways to view this tiff between artists; one might see it as an example of the petty stupidity and rivalry that is, unfortunately, all too common in the creative industries. On the other hand, one could argue that it demonstrates the supreme importance of black within the art world, described by Renoir as la reine des couleurs and by Matisse as more than a mere colour - Black, he said, is a force that simplifies everything.   

Indeed, as Kapoor himself recognised, much of the fuss over his exclusive rights to Vantablack is due to the profoundly emotive nature of the colour: "I don’t think the same response would occur if it was white".

Notes

To find out more about Vantablack, visit the Surrey Nanosystems website by clicking here. 

For more details of the colourful skirmish between Kapoor and Semple, see the article by Adam Rogers, 'Art Fight! The Pinkest Pink Versus the Blackest Black' in Wired (22 June, 2017): click here. 

The line quoted from Kapoor at the end of this post is from an article by Brigid Delaney, '"You could disappear into it": Anish Kapoor on his exclusive rights to the 'blackest black', The Guardian (26 Sept., 2016): click here.  

Paint It Black: Notes on a Song

Pure Evil: Anita Pallenberg's Nightmare - 
Paint It Black (2016) 

Stencil spray paint on canvas (100 cm x 100 cm)

Whilst in 1977 there was no Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones - or, more precisely, no positive assessment of these performers and their work was allowed within punk circles, I think it's safe to now admit that, actually, all three recorded some fantastic tracks, including the song that I wish to speak of here written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: Paint It Black ...

Released as a single in May 1966, Paint It Black is a classic piece of psychedelic pop nihilism that has remained on that great playlist of the cultural imagination ever since, charting in the UK on several occasions and inspiring multiple cover versions. If it's not number one in my all-time top forty, it's certainly in there somewhere and is a steady climber. 

Although musically it sounds great - with Keith's brilliant opening guitar riff, Bill Wyman's heavy duty bass, Charlie Watts's double-time drums, and its raga elements (i.e. Brian Jones on sitar) adding interesting complexity to what is otherwise a fairly standard and ironically upbeat arrangement - what amuses and interests me the most, however, is the violent, unrelenting bleakness of the lyrics.

It's often claimed that Jagger took inspiration from Joyce's Ulysses. I don't know if that's true, although he does paraphrase a line from the book and there are certainly common themes, such as desperation, death and a sense of rage in the face not only of life's absurd cruelty, but also its cruel absurdity - and, indeed, its equally empty pleasures; from pretty colours, to pretty girls dressed in their summer clothes.

Crucially, however, both song and novel also share something else; an affirmative joy and dark humour that is born from the blackness itself. The former may describe a psychotic episode of depression brought on by the loss of a loved one, a bad acid trip, or a tour of duty in Vietnam (who knows?), but there's nothing depressing about it.

In fact, it makes you want to sing and dance. And, ultimately, it makes you want to destroy those things that cause sorrow and weigh us down; that is to say, it encourages an active negation of the negative and is thus as Nietzschean in its nihilism as anything released by the Sex Pistols.


Click here to play Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones (with lyrics) on YouTube.

In Praise of The Persuaders!

Tony Curtis and Roger Moore 

as Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair: a fine bromance

I'm very grateful to True Entertainment for currently re-running all 24 episodes of The Persuaders! that were originally broadcast on ITV between September 1971 and February '72.

For in so doing, they afford viewers such as myself the opportunity not only to enjoy once more the unique acting abilities of Mssrs. Curtis and Moore and the fascinating on-screen chemistry between them, but also to relish the fabulous fashions of the period, the sensational theme tune by John Barry, and take nostalgic delight in memories of childhood and this golden age of British television, which is tarnished only by the politically correct retro-analysis of critics keen to suck the fun out of everything and denigrate the past (such as those insufferable bores on Channel 4's It Was Alright in the 70s).       

Played mostly for laughs, The Persuaders! is an action-adventure series starring a post-Boston Strangler Tony Curtis and a post-Saint but pre-Bond Roger Moore, as two rich, good-looking, but ever-so-slightly over the hill playboys - Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair - who have a taste for danger and a talent for solving crime, as well as a penchant for living the high life in the company of a succession of beautiful women.  

The series, devised and produced by Robert S. Baker, was filmed on the Continent, as well as in the UK, at a time when Europe was still regarded as a sophisticated, glamorous, rather exotic location and not as - well, how do we see Europe today in the age of Easy Jet, the migrant crisis, and Brexit ...?

Perhaps because of its French and Italian locations and Ferrero Rocher aspects, the show was extremely popular in these countries, as well as in Germany, Spain, and Sweden. Indeed, The Persuaders! persists to this day in the cultural imagination of film-makers and audiences across Europe. Only the Americans seemed unimpressed, even though it was made with the profitable US market in mind. ABC, who aired the show on Saturday nights against Mission: Impossible over on CBS, were so disappointed with its ratings that they pulled the series before it completed its 24 episode run. 

The relationship between the two characters is meant to be in the odd-couple vein; Wilde is the brash New Yorker who escaped the violence and deprivation of his upbringing to become a self-made millionaire; Sinclair the polished Englishman, well-educated and from a privileged background. This is made clear in the opening title sequence, which consists of a visual biography using a clever split-screen technique that was designed so that neither actor would appear to have top billing; something that both men stipulated when they agreed to co-star.

Despite instantly disliking one another when they first meet, Danny and Brett soon develop an affectionate - if highly competitive - relationship that borders on being what we today like to term a bromance. Thus, although red-blooded heterosexuals, they seem only to have eyes for one another (unless there's a mirror around) and are often in close and playful physical contact.

Sadly, according to Lew Grade and other insiders on the show, Curtis and Moore didn't get along so gaily as their characters, either on or off set - although it should be noted that both actors denied there was any animosity between them and each maintained that, whilst very different people, they had an amicable working relationship.     

Thankfully, a big-screen remake announced in 2007, starring George Clooney and Hugh Grant in the roles of Wilde and Sinclair, seems to have come to nothing.   


Click here to enjoy the opening credits and theme to The Persuaders!

Shit Bow: Larry David and Roland Barthes on the Art of Japanese Etiquette

Larry David and a Japanese restaurant manager discuss 

bow techniques in Curb Your Enthusiasm [S8/E7]

When is a bow not a bow? Or, more precisely, when is a bow a disguised insult, rather than a sincere form of apology? The answer, according to Curb Your Enthusiasm, is when it's a shit bow ...

Having had his takeaway order messed up by his favourite Japanese restaurant due to insecure packaging, Larry seeks an apology from the manager (brilliantly played by Andrew Pang) - something which he duly receives, along with an accompanying bow much to his great delight: "We could learn a lot of things from Japan."  

However, although initially excited by the bow and expressly stating that it was not something with which he could possibly quibble, he later starts to worry that it was perfunctory, rather than invested with genuine feeling. Seeking to confirm his suspicions, Larry accosts a group of Japanese tourists in the park and asks to be enlightened on the finer points of bowing.

He is told that a sincere apology requires a deep bow and that the bow he received - which was not much more than an exaggerated nod in his direction - not only fails to express sorrow or regret, but is insulting and dismissive. In fact, Larry is told he has been given a shit bow and that no bow would be better than that bow. 

Armed with this new information, Larry returns to the restaurant in order to confront the manager. The latter, however, is uninterested in either apologising further, or discussing Japanese etiquette. Hoping that he might be able to quickly resolve the issue and get on with his job, he repeatedly tells Larry that a bow is a bow.

Of course, Larry being Larry, he's not going to let it go: "Is it possible", he asks, "you don't know the bow rules?" This naturally irritates the manager, who insists that he understands the bow rules perfectly and has done so since a young age: "I was raised by bow rules.'"

He's understandably not too pleased either to hear his bow described as a shit bow. But, if only to get Mr David to go away, he finally gives him the deep bow that the latter felt entitled to. A satisfied Larry finally leaves, but not without declaring his intention to research the matter further online.

It's a great series of scenes and one can't help wondering what it is that Larry thinks we might learn from Japan - or, rather, what he calls Japan. For like Barthes's Japan in Empire of Signs, Larry's Japan is essentially an imaginative space; somewhere faraway providing a reserve of features whose manipulation and invented interplay affords amusement and allows for the fantasy of a symbolic system that is entirely alien to that found in the West.

Indeed, as with most other things, people and places, Larry is essentially indifferent to the real Japan, living, as he does, almost exclusively in a comedic world of his own invention. What excites him is not so much "another metaphysics, another wisdom (though the latter might appear thoroughly desirable); it is the possibility of a difference, of a mutation, of a revolution in the propriety of symbolic systems".

In other words, Larry is excited by the possibility of previously unheard of rules and new forms of social minutiae. Unlike most Westerners, Larry doesn't regard formal displays of politeness, for example, as suspicious or as signs of hypocrisy. He genuinely loves the bow as he does all forms of coded behaviour - it's modern informality and inconsiderate behaviour (such as wearing shorts on an airplane, or pig-parking) that drive him nuts.

Larry doesn't buy into what Barthes terms the Occidental mythology of the person that allows for - and encourages - the free expression of one's natural feelings or authentic inner self. For this ultimately results in impolite and selfish behaviour. Larry wants society with all its complexity and artifice; for it's these things that provide him with his comic material. And, indeed, his ethics ...

See: 

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 8, Episode 7: 'The Bi-Sexual', dir. David Mandel, written by Larry David, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer (2011). Click here to watch a clip on YouTube of the scene in the park; or here to watch the later scene in the restaurant.     

Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, trans. Richard Howard, (Hill and Wang / Noonday Press, 1989), pp. 3-4. 

Phallic Pictures 2: L'Origine de la Guerre by Orlan

ORLAN: L'Origine de la Guerre (1989) 

Aluminium backed cibachrome 88 x 105 cm 
orlan.eu

For all his phallic bravado, I wonder what D. H. Lawrence would have made of Orlan's reimagining of Courbet's obscene masterpiece, The Origin of the World (1866), now retitled The Origin of War (1989) and featuring a close-up of the indecently exposed lower-body of a naked male - including an erect penis - rather than centring on the hairy, gaping cunt of a woman ...?

I suspect he wouldn't like it; that he would condemn it as a pornographic example of sex in the head, even though, arguably, it's a work that invites comparison with his own canvas, Boccaccio Story (1926), featuring the exhibitionist Masetto caught snoozing with his cock out before some passing nuns.

I suspect also he would be troubled by the fact that the work is by a woman and thus subjects the male body to an ambiguous female gaze that just might be derisive more than desirous; scornful, rather than reverential. For whilst Lawrence wants women to worship the male body in all its phallic beauty and potency (as Connie worships the body of her lover Mellors), he seems full of anxiety that they should find the male sex organ foolish and imperfect; a little disgusting in its unfinished clumsiness.

And then there's the title chosen by Orlan for her work; a title which implies the phallus is a symbol of violent masculinity and lies at the root of armed conflict. Lawrence would absolutely deny this. For him, whilst the penis as a physiological organ obviously belongs to an individual male agent, the phallus is something that rises into being between lovers, forming a bridge that brings people into touch and enables the post-coital bliss that he terms the peace that comes of fucking.

Thus hatred of the phallus - seen here rising darkish and hot-looking from the little cloud of vivid gold-red hair - is uncalled for and betrays perhaps the great modern horror of being in touch; what Lawrence insists is the root-fear of all mankind.

And so, without suggesting readers get on their knees before the phallus and subscribe to Lawrence's phallocentric mystery religion, I do think an attitude of queer wonder that mixes a little awe and excitement is preferable to any lazy attempt to denigrate, belittle and nullify the erect cock, or, indeed, the small soft penis, which is really just another little bud of life as Connie says, rather than a potential source of evil.

When, as it must, the phallus inexorably penetrates the body of another, it might indeed come with the thrust of a sword and bring suffering and death. But, more often than not, it comes with "a strange slow thrust of peace, the dark thrust of peace and a ponderous, primordial tenderness, such as made the world in the beginning" ...


Notes

Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte is a French artist, born in 1947. She adopted the name Orlan (which she always writes in capitals) in 1961, aged fifteen. She's primarily an artist who works with and on the flesh (usually her own); more of a carnal artist, as she says, than just an artist concerned with the body.

Her 1989 work, L'Origine de la Guerre, which uses a photograph of the actor Jean-Christophe Bouvet taken by Georges Merguerditchian, is surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly) little-known. For an interesting discussion of her work, see Cerise Joelle Myers; 'Between the Folly and the Impossibility of Seeing: Orlan, Reclaiming the Gaze' (2006) - click here.

The lines quoted from D. H. Lawrence (including those that I have recalled from memory and put in italics) are taken from chapters 12 and 14 of Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983).   

Those interested in reading a related post to this one on D. H. Lawrence's painting Boccaccio Story, should click here.

Phallic Pictures 1: Boccaccio Story by D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence: Boccaccio Story (1926)

Oil on canvas (72 x 118.5 cm)

Boccaccio Story (1926) is one of Lawrence's most charming and amusing canvases. It depicts a scene from Boccaccio's tale of a horny Italian peasant named Masetto, who feigns mutism in order to obtain a gardener's job at a local convent so that he might be afforded the opportunity to fuck the young women therein.  

In the painting, Lawrence shows Masetto asleep - or possibly pretending to be asleep - under a large almond tree on a hot afternoon with his clothes in a state of dramatic disarray, exposing his lower body to the view of some passing nuns who, it might be noted, stare intently at his genitalia, rather than averting their eyes in embarrassment as one might have expected.

For Lawrence, it was great fun discovering that he could paint his ideas and feelings and not just articulate them in his poetry and prose. Keith Sagar insists that the picture is not designed to shock and that it's a perfectly wholesome portrayal of the sexual impulse. But this is rather disingenuous.

For Sagar knows perfectly well that Lawrence's paintings from this period are part and parcel of his provocative project of phallic tenderness, via which, like Nietzsche, he hoped to trigger a revaluation of all values, enabling man to storm the angel-guarded gates and return victorious to Eden.   

In a letter to his American friend Earl Brewster - which Sagar himself refers us to when discussing the late paintings - Lawrence confides:

"I put a phallus ... in each one of my pictures somewhere. And I paint no picture that won't shock people's castrated social spirituality. I do this out of positive belief that the phallus is a great sacred image: it represents a deep, deep life which has been denied in us, and is still denied."

So, Lawrence knew very well what he was about and it's puzzling that Sagar should wish to play down the scandalous aspect of Lawrence's paintings. Puzzling also that Lawrence should react with such (seemingly genuine) distress when Boccaccio Story, along with a dozen other works, was seized by the police after being exhibited at the Warren Gallery in London in the summer of 1929.     

Boccaccio Story may very well be a painting of real beauty and great vitality, as one critic (Gwen John) wrote at the time. But so too is it quite obviously obscene in its subject matter of sexual exhibitionism and the carnal desire of nuns; what would be the point of it - and of Boccaccio's tale - were it otherwise? 


See: 

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. G. H. McWilliam, (Penguin Books, 2003). Note that the story of Masetto and the nuns is the first tale told on the third day. 

D. H. Lawrence, D. H. Lawrence's Paintings, with an Introduction by Keith Sagar, (Chaucer Press, 2003). The letter by Lawrence to Earl Brewster is quoted by Sagar on p. 43 of this work. It can be found in full in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), where it is numbered 3967.

Note that Boccaccio Story is part of the D. H. Lawrence Collection at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin (Accession Number 65.242). 

Those interested in reading a related post on Orlan's The Origin of War, should click here.