by Bailey Dolenc

Murasaki Shikibu was one of the world’s finest early novelists who inspired artists to paint the lifestyles of the Japanese aristocracy. Some argue that Murasaki wrote the world’s first modern novel. One could even say that she ignited the creation of our modern series of soap operas.

In her early twenties, Lady Murasaki married a distant relative. Her husband tragically died two years following the birth of their child. After hearing of her unfortunate circumstances and learning of her brilliant mind and exceptional writing skills, the Imperial family brought Lady Murasaki to court. During her time in Empress Shoshi’s court, Lady Murasaki kept a diary for two years. While giving a vivid account of court life in Japan’s literary pinnacle Heian period, it also gives insights into Lady Murasaki’s personal thoughts. In part, she did not agree with the frivolous aspects of court life. From the Imperial Palace in twelfth century Japan emerged her psychological novel, The Tale of Genji (Genji-monogatari).

Lady Murasaki wrote The Tale of Genji in chapter installments which were later recorded on a scroll and illustrated delicately. The main character Genji, his love affairs, and those of his offspring are the main focus of the storyline. Interestingly, the illustrations in each chapter were created by different groups of skilled painters and monks. Psychological intensity is present in each painting with the painters’ elevated techniques of adding vertical and diagonal lines that coincide to portray heightened emotions and an underlying framework. Aristocrats found interest in the artistic psychological presence, delicately painted brush strokes, gold and silver flakes, and precise calligraphy that some of the aristocrats created themselves. Other characteristics portrayed in the scroll which are associated with the Japanese aristocracy of this time include elaborate silk robes, soft and sympathetic faces, and lifted roofs to reveal the inner-workings of an aristocratic home as it was in twelfth century Japan.

Similar to today’s soap operas, The Tale of Genji allows us to glimpse into the private world of romantic relationships. However, the art form has miraculously evolved from written and illustrated scrolls into film comprising a cast and crew. Now easily accessible, enthusiasts can watch their favorite soap operas via television, online, DVD, and DVR.

The scroll of the Tale of Genji is now preserved at the Tokigawa Art Museum and the Gotoh museum.

The works produced by artist Michelangelo suggests he was nowhere near the beauty he created. Discovery News – Rossella Lorenzi, in Florence, Italy, unmasks his new face.

Paintings That Evoked A Social Turning Point In the 1800’s

by Bailey Dolenc

 The Grande Odalisque by Ingres and Olympia by Manet, are of the same subject, a nude woman. The paintings are modeled after Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538).
Although the subjects are similar, they depart from the painting Madame Récamier (1800) created by Jacques-Louis David that followed Neoclassicism and social etiquette.

The Grande Odalisque and Olympia were created 49 years apart and express different attitudes.

Ingres’s The Grande Odalisque created in 1814 is a painting which portrays a young prostitute laying nude on a bed with ruffled sheets and wearing only a head wrap and gold bracelets. The feather duster in her right hand adds a sense of softness and compliments her calm countenance. The body proportions are ambiguous; she has too many vertebrae, her legs have different lengths, and her bones and muscles are seemingly rubbery. She looks towards the viewer with a soft gaze and expresses sensuous and alluring body language.

 In 1863, Manet created his female nude Olympia as a harshly painted stiff figure with a callous gaze towards the viewer. As opposed to Ingres’s painting, Manet placed Olympia in a quite unwelcoming pose, with her genitals covered, legs tightly crossed, and an unashamed body language.

 The uses of color in each painting evoke contrasting moods. Olympia’s flesh tone is a stark white that blinds the eye, whereas the Odalisque’s flesh is of a much warmer tone and thus creates a more inviting environment. The backgrounds, sheets, pillows, and jewelry either invite the viewer into the painting with warm colors and soft, silky fabrics such as in The Grande Odalisque, or dismiss the viewer with flat surfaces and harsh bright colors as in Olympia.

Both Manet and Ingres used techniques that outraged scholars and audiences of their time because of their deviation from the norm, breaking away from Neoclassicism and indicating a shift towards exotic Romanticism. Manet’s painting style was realistic and natural in terms of physical form and environment. In the same way, Ingres was diverging from his contemporaries by over-idealizing his female nude instead of using the revered classical forms learned from antiquity.

The paintings were considered as shocking statements towards their society whether it was through idealized beauty, or to educate viewers on the insensitive world of prostitution. They show how artists’ portrayals of prostitutes were drastically changing throughout the nineteenth century.

Sources
National Archives and Records Administration: Public Domain.