A Reflection on the Jean Cocteau Murals at the Church of Notre Dame de France

Jean Cocteau: detail from his Crucifxion scene mural
Notre Dame de France (London, 1960)

ndfchurch.org

 

I. 

 

I am not what you would call a Jean Cocteau specialist: I haven't read of any his poetry, fiction, or criticism; nor seen any of his works for stage and screen, with the exception of La Belle et la Bête (1946), which I watched as a child at school; nor am I familiar with his work as a visual artist, again with a single exception to this, namely, the murals he executed for the Church of Notre Dame de France ...

 

 

II. 

 

 

I'm not French, nor am I Catholic or a Christian of any description, but I do love to enter the church of Notre Dame de France, based in Soho, London - just off Leicester Square - which was consecrated in 1868 (although the original building prior to its redevelopment into a place of worship is somewhat older). 

 

Badly damaged by German bombs during the Blitz, the church had to have extensive structural repairs that were not completed until several years after the War ended.

 

The French Ambassador, Jean Chauval, promoted the idea of creating a sacred space with a uniquely French feel and so, during the 1950s, the French Cultural Attaché René Varin was tasked with commisioning eminent artists of the time to work on the decoration of the rebuilt church.

 

One of these artists was Jean Cocteau who, in November 1959 [1], completed three murals in the Lady Chapel depicting the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Assumption ... 

 

 

III. 

 

In the first of these, located on the wall to the left of the altar, Cocteau shows the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she is to conceive the Son of God - with or without her consent [2]. 

 

The second mural, depicting the Crucifixion of Christ beneath a black sun and adorning the central wall, is arguably the most powerful, even though only Jesus's lower legs and feet - complete with bloody puncture wounds - are visible. Mary is shown alongside, united in grief with two other female figures; Marys Magdalene and Clopas [3]. 

 

There is also another small group of figures, amidst which Cocteau has placed himself and he turns to gaze at the viewer with a look upon his face of an unbeliever who nevertheless possesses a spirit that is deeply religious in nature (see image above).

 

Finally, we see the Assumption of Mary - regarded by Cocteau as the most beautiful of all God's creatures - as she is taken up into heaven, accompanied by an angelic fanfare; something which, to my way of thinking - as a Lawrentian - is literally a fate worse than death [4]. 

 

IV. 

 

Having been restored in 2012, these lovely works can still be freely viewed in the church today (although now placed behind glass for security reasons) and I would encourage readers who may find themselves passing through central London with time on their hands to go and do so.  

For even if you don't much like Cocteau or care for his art - and even if you are a passionate anti-theist - Notre Dame de France is a genuine place of sanctuary from the noise, ugliness, and vulgarity of the world outside its walls.   

Jean Cocteau looking dapper as he sets to work at the 

church of Notre Dame de France (London, 1959)

Photo by Gary Heiss

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although painted between November 3rd and 11th, Cocteau signs and dates the work 1960.

 

[2] Some readers may recall that I have discussed the Annunciation and spectral rape of Mary in a post published on Torpedo the Ark back in March 2014: click here. 

      I still find the story of how a 13-year-old girl was selected by God as a broodmare (and doubtless groomed by him and his angelic servants throughout her childhood) somewhat shocking.

 

[3] The presence of a group of female disciples at the Crucifixion is confirmed in all four Gospels of the New Testament. However, parallel accounts have led to uncertainty as to their number and identity. I'm following the Gospel of John and sticking with the idea that the Three Marys are the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas.

 

[4] Regardless of what I might think, the Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church - albeit one that leaves open the question of whether Mary died first, or whether she was raised to eternal life without bodily death (theologians refer to a mortalistic versus an immortalistic interpretation). The Feast of the Assumption is held on 15 August, though it's not something that all Protestants choose to celebrate.  

Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's an Angel! It's Barbette!

Vander Clyde (c.1899-1973) aka Barbette

Photo by Man Ray (1925) / Poster by Charles Gesmar (1926)

Where there is loveliness of appearance, then there is no fraudulence ...

  

I.

 

Once upon a time, a young boy in Texas, named Vander, made a fateful visit to the circus and instantly decided that he wanted the life of a performer. Thinking he might make a good high-wire walker, Vander spent many hours practicing at home on his mother's steel clothes line. 

 

After graduating high school, aged 14, Vander began his circus career as one-half of a famous aerialist team called The Alfaretta Sisters. The fact that he was male wasn't deemed a problem, as he was happy to dress as a girl, agreeing with his new female partner that audiences preferred to watch women in colourful and elaborate costumes perform dangerous acrobatic stunts, rather than men in plain leotards [1].    

 

After he had devised a solo act, however, Vander decided to go it alone and exchange the world of circus for vaudeville, working under the mononym Barbette, which he thought had a mysterious French ring and certain neutrality to it. 

 

 

II. 

 

Barbette made her debut at the Harlem Opera House in 1919. After performing in full drag and maintaining the illusion of femininity until the end of the act, Vander would then pull off his wig and strike exaggerated masculine poses (as if only playing the part of a man) to the (shocked) amusement of the crowd [2]. 

 

After several years on the vaudeville circuit, Barbette made her European debut in 1923. Initially performing in London, it was Paris where, like many American artists belonging to the so-called lost generation [3], Barbette was truly to find herself, appearing at venues including the Casino de Paris, the Moulin Rouge, and the Folies Bergère. She was soon the talk of the town.   

Unfortunately, on a return visit to London, Vander was caught in flagrante delicto with another man. This resulted in the Palladium cancelling his contract and in Barbette being unable to work in England ever again. However, her adoring fans and famous admirers across the Channel simply shrugged in a typically Gallic manner when hearing of the incident.   

 

 

III. 

 

One of these admirers was the avant garde artist Jean Cocteau, who, by his own admission, was completely captivated by Barbette, whom he described as a queer combination of actor, angel, and bird: No mere acrobat, but one of the most beautiful theatrical performers alive today, whose artistry is comparable with that of Nijinsky. 

 

In fact, so impressed was Cocteau with Barbette's astonishing ability to slide back and forth between man and woman - thereby revealing the fluid and performative aspect of gender - that he wrote a seminal essay on her in 1926, in which he beseeched his fellow artists to learn from Barbette if they wished to understand the true nature of artifice [4].

 

To illustrate the essay, Cocteau commissioned a series of photographs by Man Ray - another American in Paris - which captured not only aspects of Barbette's performance, but also the pre-show process of gender transformation. Cocteau also cast Barbette in his experimental first film Le sang d'un poète (1930), where she appears dressed in Chanel. [5]

 

 

IV.

 

Sadly, all glittering careers must come to an end and a combination of age, injury, and illness obliged Barbette to bring down the curtain on her life as a performer at the close of the 1930s. 

 

Happily, however, a new life opened up as an artistic director at various circuses and Vander also worked as a consultant on a number of Hollywood films, including Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959), where he coached Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon on the art of drag [6]. 

 

In his final months, Vander ended up living back in Texas, with his sister. Having been in often severe pain for many years, he committed suicide (by overdose) in 1973. In an interview with Francis Steegmuller four years prior to his death, Vander explained his thinking behind the character of Barbette:

 

"I’d always read a lot of Shakespeare […] and thinking that those marvelous heroines of his were played by men and boys made me feel that I could turn my specialty into something unique. I wanted an act that would be a thing of beauty - of course it would have to be a strange beauty." [7]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although Barbette entered the circus ring or, later the theatre stage, dressed like a showgirl, she would obviously remove her headdress, cape and gown, before taking to the high wire and trapeze. 

 

[2] As Chase Dimock notes:

      

"Barbette does not simply reveal his male identity and return to his true self, instead, he pantomimes and performs the masculinity supposedly revealed by removing his wig. His male sexed body and its expected postures and actions are revealed to be as much a product of artifice and performance as the female persona he adopts on stage."

 

The thing that is most interesting is that even after the big reveal and Barbette rebecomes Vander, s/he still retains their allure as an object of desire. Dimock interprets this in Kantian terms:

 

"While Barbette initially lures the desire of those drawn in by his pleasing make up and costuming, he is still able to retain the beauty of femininity after removing these items. Therefore, the attraction of Barbette is deeper than the pleasing veneer of femininity that he wears; it comes from an attraction to the pure form of beauty that he realizes through his acrobatic stunts and graceful movements. If Barbette could sustain his feminine form after all of the socially constructed signifiers of femininity had been stripped from his body, then it stands that Barbette had discovered some universally attractive structure of beauty that kindles desire irrespective of gender constructs." 

 

See Dimock's excellent essay; 'The Surreal Sex of Beauty: Jean Cocteau and Man Ray’s "Le Numéro Barbette"' (2 June 2011), in the As It Ought to Be archive: click here.   

 

[3] Gertrude Stein is usually credited with coining the term Lost Generation to refer to a group of American expatriate writers and artists drifting round the capitals of Europe during the 1920s. It was popularised by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. 

 

[4] Jean Cocteau's 1926 essay on the nature and artifice of the theatre was originally published in Nouvelle Revue Française. It can be found alongside Man Ray's photographs and a New Yorker profile of Barbette written by Francis Steegmuller (see note 6 below), in the book Le Numéro Barbette, (Jacques Damase, 1989).

 

[5] Barbette also inspired the characterization of "Death" in Cocteau's later film Orphée (1950). Clearly, Cocteau was in love with Barbette, though whether they consummated their brief affair I don't know.   

    

[6] For a recent post on Some Like It Hot - in which I compare the drag performance of Curtis and Lemmon with that of Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey in Carry on Constable (1960), click here.

 

[7] Vander Barbette, quoted by Francis Steegmuller in 'An Angel, A Flower, A Bird', The New Yorker (20 Sept 1969): click here to read online.

 

 

Carry on Cross Dressing

 

Top: Tony Curtis as Josephine and Jack Lemmon as Daphne in Some Like It Hot (1959)

Bottom: Kenneth Williams as Ethel and Charles Hawtrey as Agatha in Carry on Constable (1960)

 

 

I. 

 

For lovers of film and for lovers of drag, Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, is perhaps as good as it gets.

 

And indeed, there's certainly a lot to admire about it, including the performances of Curtis and Lemmon as the two jazz musicians, Joe and Jerry, who go on the run - disguised as women - after witnessing a gangland murder. They could have played the roles of Josephine and Daphne simply for laughs, but instead they invest their acting talent in creating an illusion of womanhood that is convincing as well as comic [1]. 

 

Perhaps that's why although the Curtis and Lemmon characters of Joe and Jerry are portrayed as red-blooded (heterosexual) males, whose decision to wear female clothing is a sign of their desperation rather than perversity, Some Like It Hot was produced without approval from the censor-morons who enforced the Hays Code and feared the slightest hint of queerness. 

 

Or perhaps they just found Marilyn Monroe's character of Sugar Kane too hot to handle ... [2]

 

 

II.

As good as Curtis and Lemmon are in Some Like It Hot - and as loveable as we may find Josephine and Daphne - they are not, in my view, as good (or as loveable) as Ethel and Agatha, as played by Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey in Carry On Constable (1960) ...

Directed by Gerald Thomas, Carry On Constable is the fourth in the series of Carry On films and contains many of my favourite actors, scenes, and lines of dialogue - including the scene in which Charles Hawtrey as Special Constable Timothy Gorse and Kenneth Williams as PC Stanley Benson, decide to go undercover - dressed as women - in order to catch a gang of shoplifters.

The Carry On films would, over a 20-year, 30-film span, often include scenes of drag; one thinks of Peter Butterworth, for example, as DC Slobotham disguised as female bait in Carry On Screaming (1966), or Kenneth Cope, as Cyril, pretending to be a student nurse in Carry On Matron (1972). 

But whilst heterosexual actors playing straight characters dressed as women may be mildly amusing, it lacks the camp frisson and sheer joyfulness of two homosexual actors openly playing queer characters dressed as women. And thus nothing tops the scene with Hawtrey and Williams dragged up in Carry On Constable, which readers can enjoy by clicking here.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Curtis and Lemon were helped to play Josephine and Daphne by the legendary female impersonator (and trapeze artist) Barbette, who was hired by the studio to coach them in the art of drag. 

      Much admired by Jean Cocteau, Barbette was described by the French poet and playwright as a combination of angel, flower and bird who transforms effortlessly back and forth between man and woman, revealing the performative aspect of gender. In a seminal 1926 essay, Cocteau instructed his fellow artists to learn from Barbette if they wished to understand the nature of artifice. Cocteau also commissioned a series of photographs by Man Ray of Barbette and cast her in his experimental first film Le Sang d'un Poete (1930).

 

[2] Peter Majda makes the important point that it's not just Curtis and Lemmon who are performing exaggerated forms of femininity in Some Like It Hot - that their co-star Marilyn Monroe is also "essaying another aspect of her comedic persona, which is a cis female-form of drag"; one that is, in fact, "more complicated and layered because she's a woman, playing on the expectations of femininity".

      For Monroe's hyper-feminine (and almost cartoonish) character of Sugar Kane is also carefully constructed with clothes and cosmetics and also relies upon a certain ways of walking and talking, etc. As Judith Butler once said: We are all transvestites.

      See Peter Majda's post entitled 'Performative Femininity and the Absurd: Drag and Comedy in "Some Like It Hot"' (17 April 2019), on his excellent blog A Seat in the Aisle: click here. 

 

 

Genki: Reflections on the Work of Daikichi Amano

Photo from Human Nature (2012) by Daikichi Amano

daikichiamano.com

Torpedophiles with a good memory might recall that I have previously written about a form of pornography known as tentacle erotica which originated with a famous design by Hokusai called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (1814): click here. 

Two-centuries on and this dream has been obscenely realised in the work of the photographer and video artist Daikichi Amano - described wittily (if not entirely accurately) by Marilyn Manson as a combination of Jean Cocteau and Jacques Cousteau. 

Other fans of Amano's imagery include the recently appointed chief creative officer at Burberry, Riccardo Tisci, who previously spent a dozen years at Givenchy, unfolding his sensual, romantic, sometimes rather gothic vision, and, perhaps less surprisingly, the filmmaker Gaspar Noé, whose work is often associated with the New French Extremity and analysed in terms of a particularly visceral and sexually violent cinéma du corps.

It might be noted that Michel Houellebecq also refers to Amano in his latest novel, Serotonin (2019). However, as the narrator-protagonist, Labrouste, describes one video of a Japanese girl holding the tentacles of an octopus coming out of a toilet bowl with her teeth as the most disgusting thing he's ever seen, it's uncertain as to whether Houellebecq's a fan of naked girls covered in eels, worms, and insects, or fucking the denizens of the deep. 

Personally, I'm more than happy for Amano to explore his own dark fears and fantasies, fusing the human body with the natural world and finding new grotesque forms of beauty rooted in the mythology of traditional Japanese culture and the iconography of contemporary Japanese eroticism.

The problem is, thanks to I'm a Celebrity ... I find it difficult to take the work very seriously (the thought of Ant and Dec sniggering in the background is fatal to one's amorous interest).  

Rocking the Lobster Look with Elsa Schiaparelli, Salvador Dalí and Cosmo Kramer

Lobster evening dress by Elsa Schiaparelli in collaboration with Salvador Dalí

Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld wearing his lobster shirt 

I.

The surreal genius of Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld is not to everyone's taste. In fact, of the four central characters I find Kramer the least interesting and sympathetic. But I do like his comic hipster dress sense, including the short-sleeved white lobster shirt with red print.   

I don't know from where the character drew his sartorial inspiration, but it's nice to think that this particular item is an hommage to the work of the great Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, who had a penchant for marine crustaceans with their hard protective shells and soft insides, particularly lobsters, which appear in several of his iconic works, including a dress made in collaboration with the Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli ...       

II.

If Coco Chanel ever had a serious rival, it was Elsa Schiaparelli - one of the most fabulous figures in fashion between the wars, whose designs displayed the influence of several prominent artists, including Dalí and Jean Cocteau, though it should be noted that her great inspiration and teacher was master couturier Paul Poiret.

Punk rockers may be amused to discover, for example, that it was Schiaparelli - and not McLaren and Westwood - who first made clothes with visible zips as a key element of the design. She also loved to experiment with synthetic materials, unusual buttons and outrageous decorative features. It was her designs produced in collaboration with Dalí, however, that remain amongst her best known, including the so-called Lobster Dress of 1937.*

As can be seen from the above photo, the dress was a relatively simple white silk evening dress with a crimson waistband and featuring a large lobster - painted by Dalí - on the skirt. Whilst not as amusing as his Lobster Telephone created the year before, the dress - famously worn by Wallis Simpson - is just as provocative I think, bringing surrealist elements of eroticism and cruelty into haute couture (for Dalí, lobsters invariably symbolised sex and suffering). ** 

Notes

* The three other works that came out of the Schiaparelli-Dalí collaboration are the Tears Dress (1938), a pale blue evening gown printed with rips and tears and worn with a long veil; the Skeleton Dress (1938), a black crêpe number which used trapunto quilting to create ribs, spine, and leg bones; and the Shoe Hat (1937-38), which, as one might guess, is a hat shaped like a high heeled shoe.

** Two years later, at the New York World's Fair (1939), Dalí unveiled a multi-media experience entitled Dream of Venus, which featured semi-naked female models dressed in outfits made of fresh seafood, including lobsters used to cover their genitalia. See the photo below taken by German-American fashion photographer Horst P. Horst.

Surprise musical bonus: click here.