Massacre of the Innocents by Léon Cogniet

Today we look at a powerful and affecting picture painted by Léon Cogniet (1794 – 1880) in 1824; The Massacre of the Innocents now hangs in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes.

The fact that the Biblical story of the Massacre of the Innocents is of doubtful historicity does not detract from the intensity of this picture.   According to myth, Herod the Great, the Roman appointed King of the Jews, ordered the execution of all young male children in and around the city of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.  This event is not recorded in then-contemporary records, and can only be found in the Book of Matthew.  (In fact, the first non-Biblical allusion to the tragedy was written more than 300 years after the supposed event.)  Matthew also alluded to the massacre as a the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more."

In the Biblical story, the Magi (or Wise Men) travel from the east go to Judea in search of the newborn king of the Jews, having "seen his star in the east." Herod directs them to Bethlehem, telling them to let him know who this king is when they find him. After the Magi find Jesus and shower the infant with gifts, an angel tells them not to alert Herod, leading them home another way. 

After the Magi had gone, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

Herod was livid when he realized that the Magi pulled a fast one, ordering his soldiers to kill all the male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding area who were two years old and under, in accordance with the calculations of the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.  (All of this is even more confusing when one considers the popular image of the Magi worshipping Christ in the manger … the chronology necessary to account for the possibility of a two-year old Jesus is a challenge.)

Contemporary estimates are that some 1000 people were in the area at the time, which would, statistically, mean some 20 infants.  If the event happened at all, then these children are the first Christian martyrs.  To some, Christ voluntarily allowed himself to be crucified to expiate his own escape from this, the first attempt on His life.

Because of its integral part in the Christian myth, the Massacre of the Innocents was an incredibly popular theme with painters from the Middle Ages on.  Today’s picture is perhaps Cogniet’s greatest achievement.  Most artists attack the story in a broad view, with many women screaming in lamentation as Roman soldiers mercilessly attack their children.  But rather than take a broad view, Cogniet paints an extremely intimate picture – this is no tableaux out of a Biblical spectacle, but the stark depiction of a terrified mother about to lose her child.

The mother is wonderfully rendered.  Her bare head and bare feet make her more vulnerable, and the fact that she protects her infant with her body in no way mitigates the fact that she is cornered.  The muted colors of the mother and her bit of ruined stairway also underscore the solemnity of the picture.  (The only real hint of color is the pink of the baby’s cheeks.)  Wisely, Cogniet suggests rather than depicts the massacre in the background, a bit of artistic restraint absent in most renderings. 

What is perhaps most striking to my eye is the contemporary feel of Cogniet’s picture.  Though depicting a Biblical story, this painting could well illustrate the insanity of religious violence still occurring in that part of the world.

The Egyptian Expedition Under the Command of Bonaparte, by Léon Cogniet

This wonderful picture, from 1835, can be found on the ceiling at the Louvre.  It was painted by Léon Cogniet (1794 – 1880), a French historical and portrait painter.  Cogniet was born in Paris. In 1812, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin alongside such heady company as Delacroix and Géricault.

Cogniet won the Prix de Rome in 1817 and was a resident at the Villa Medici from then until 1822.  He became famous for the painting Marius Among the Ruins of Carthage (1824), and later decorated several ceilings in the Louvre and the Halle de Godiaque in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, and a chapel in the church of Madeleine.  At first he painted in classical style, but later adopted the more spirited free-flowing brushwork of the Romanticists.

While looking at this picture, it’s important to remember that Napoleon also created a beachhead in the Middle East.  The Emperor had decided that France’s navel power was not up to the task of defeating the Royal Navy in the English Channel, and proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt, undermining Britain’s access to its trade interests in India.  Napoleon’s plan was to form an alliance with the Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tipu Sultan.   (Clearly, forging agreements with Third World madmen is not a 20^th Century phenomenon.) 

Napoleon was elected a member of the French Academy of Science in May 1798.  For his Egyptian expedition, he brought with him 167 scientists: mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and geodesists among them; their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809.  This work was a treasure trove for aesthetes, Orientalists and scientists – and is still consulted today for its candor and fresh approach to the region.

Napoleon invaded Malta en route to Egypt in 1798, losing only three men in the process.  The Emperor’s luck held once in Egypt – in the battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks (Egypt’s military caste), only 29 French were killed while 2,000 Egyptians were lost.  However, Horatio Nelson and the British fleet captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the Battle of the Nile, and Bonaparte's goal of a strengthened French position in the Mediterranean was frustrated.

Napoleon moved his army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee) in 1799, with 13,000 French soldiers he conquered the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa.  There, he ordered 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets.  The massacre would last three days.  Never a sentimentalist, when his own men were stricken with bubonic plague, Napoleon ordered them to be poisoned as they returned to Egypt. 

Napoleon had to abandon his dreams of Eastern conquest to return to Europe in 1801 to ward off further defeats for the French Army.  Not taking into account the extraordinary loss of life and cavalier attitude towards human suffering, Napoleon’s expedition was a scientific and artistic bonanza.  French Orientalist painting was transformed by this ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Egypt and Syria, which stimulated great public interest in Egyptology.

This wonderfully complex picture is almost allegorical in its attempt to comprise the Egyptian adventure.  The Emperor, of course, is upon a platform, the canopy overhead both protecting him from the sun and preventing him from overwhelming the picture.  On one hand, an officer, his back to us, reports on worldly affairs while an artist, on the other hand, sketches the mammoth statues in the distance.  (Look to the extreme right of the frame.)

Extreme left of the frame, a scholar pore over his notes while, before him, antiquarians collect and catalog treasures.  In the center foreground, a soldier gazes rapturously at a sarcophagus carried by two workmen (one, clearly disgusted).  Beside the soldier looking on, a white-clad Egyptian takes in the scene with a look of disdain.

The most interesting figure is to the far right of the frame talking to the chained slave: Jean-François Champollion (1790 – 1832).  Cogniet would do a larger, more formal portrait of Champollion, but here he shows the scholar holding the Rosetta Stone, from which he would decipher the hieroglyphs of the Ancient Egyptians.

More Cogniet tomorrow!

The White Slave, by Ernest Normand (1894)

So, we close our look at Orientalist painter Ernest Normand (1857 - 1923) with one of his most prurient pictures, The White Slave from 1894.

It is astonishing how many of Normand’s paintings concern slave girls, or brown and black men ogling white women.  Normand wore his cultural fears and prejudices on his sleeve, and they leaked into his work with a happy regularity.  These concerns were almost always couched in the tropes of history or Orientalist paintings, settings that would give free reign to his rather colorful imagination.  (He must have been a delight at dinner parties.)

Happily, there are some instructive things in this picture.  First off, the magnificent carved lion in the background was also in Bondage, his picture from three years earlier.  Also, notice the circular motif of the tiled floor – this was present also in Bondage and Esther Denouncing Haman.  Also briefly glimpsed in the hands of the seated slave is the dulcimer from Bondage.  Finally, see the ubiquitous palm tree in the background, which for Normand means all things foreign.

The story of the picture is clear enough.  A slave dealer brings his latest prize to an Eastern or North African potentate, who already has two slaves in attendance.  The poor woman (obviously a captive of some kind) disrobes, her gaze turned away in shame.

While making japes and wheezes about Normand’s taste (or lack of it), it’s too easy to overlook the man’s real skill at drawing and compositional sense.  First off, we see again Normand’s mastery of drapery as we look at the robe around her lower body and spread upon the floor.  Also impressive are the “Eastern” rugs and pillows beneath the king, along with the tiger rug (another holdover from Bondage). 

Also true is his command of anatomy.  Not only is the central woman beautifully rendered, but the other two female slaves are depicted with a sure hand.

The look of desire on the king’s face is quite telling, as is that of calculation on the slave trader.  Though not subtle, Normand once again channels his obsessions into a dramatic picture.

Esther Denouncing Haman, by Ernest Normand (1888)

Here is another scene that looks for all the world like a widescreen 1950s Biblical epic, courtesy of artist Ernest Normand (1857 - 1923).  

Whatever Normand’s lapses of taste, his sense of the dramatic is undeniable.  Many of his pictures are staged as if they were elaborate tableaux constructed for the ornate theatrical experiences of the time.  (Stage production in the Victorian era was of an order so lavish as to put even the most contemporary Broadway extravaganza to shame.)

This dramatic scene illustrates a moment in the Old Testament.  Esther, wife of King Ahasuerus, King of Persia, is pointing accusingly at Haman, a treacherous friend of the King. King Ahasuerus is sitting in the shadows behind Esther.

Haman is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to Old Testament tradition, was a 5th Century BC noble and vizier of the Persian Empire under King Ahasuerus.  In the story, Haman and his wife Zeresh instigate a plot to kill all of the Jews of ancient Persia by persuading Ahasuerus to provide an executive order to do so.  Included in the edict would be the killing of Mordecai and all the Jews of the lands he ruled. The plot was foiled by Queen Esther, the king's recent wife, who is herself a Jew. Haman would be hanged from the gallows that had originally been built to hang Mordechai.

The reason for all of this bloodshed was, as is often the case, wounded pride.  Mordecahi would not bow before Haman at a state function.  According to myth, Esther makes her case against Haman to King Ahasuerus personally.  The King asks Esther, "Who is he? Where is the man who has dared to do such a thing?" Esther replies, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman."

Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, says, "A gallows 50 feet high stands by Haman's house. He had it made for Mordecai." And the king replies, "Hang him on it!"  The dead bodies of his ten sons Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha (or Vajezatha), are also hanged there after they die in battle trying to kill the Jews.

As is often the case when researching religious myths, I’m delighted to be alive in the more secular 21^st Century…

Normand showed this picture at the Royal Academy, London in 1888; and its intensity is marked.  Esther stands stage right, kneeling before her husband the king while her body twists to point an accusing finger a Haman.  Note the drapery of her robes as they fall upon the stairs, and the detailing of her sleeves as they droop about her arms. 

Equally impressive is the cowering figure of Haman.  He regards his accuser from beneath beetle brows, hands up as if warding off an attack.  I find the gold highlights of his robe particularly impressive, but they are nothing compared to the loving detail Normand puts into Haman’s chair.  Feathers in the onyx sphinx armrests reflect the light, and the matching golden paws that make the chair and table legs are inventive touches.

As befits a king, Ahasuerus sits above the fray in his robes of red and gold.  (In an appreciated and witty touch, Normand also depicts the king as statue to the right and left of the door.)  At the king’s feet is Harbona, watching Esther make her accusation.  You can almost see the wheels turning in the eunuch’s head; any moment now he will speak.

If a contemporary film adaptation of the story were to include the histrionics depicted here, it would be hooted off of the screen.  However, as a pictorial spectacle, Normand does manage to milk the drama to considerable effect.  Normand was, by no stretch of the imagination, a tasteful painter, but he did have dramatic flair.

More Normand tomorrow!

Bondage, by Ernest Normand (1890)

Though perhaps not the ideal picture to hang over your breakfast nook, I must confess that I have a sneaking admiration for the artist’s bravura sensuality and over-the-top sensibility.

Not much is known about artist Ernest Normand (1857 - 1923).   He was born in London, educated in Germany and returned to England in 1876.  Like many artists, he had some trouble finding his own way in the world – he started by working in his father’s office; but art was his true calling and Normand attended evening classes in art at St. Martin's and spent his spare time drawing antiques in the British Museum.

Normand entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1880 when he was 23, studying there for three years.  He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881, where he continued to exhibit till 1904.  In 1884 he married the painter Henrietta Rae (1859-1928).  Rae is perhaps better remembered now, largely a result of our consuming post-feminist search for significant women painters. 

Ernest and Henrietta traveled to Paris in 1890 to study at the Académie Julian with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant. The couple would later live in Holland Park, where they became something like the darlings of the older artistic community (Leighton and Millais, for example), who visited them frequently. 

Normand was clearly influenced by the Orientalism that swept the 19th Century – a focus on the remote and exotic fostered by adventurer-artists who traveled the world in search of the foreign, the picturesque and the beautiful.  Though not nearly as adventurous (or as tasteful) as other Orientalists, Normand does have a certain Cecil B. DeMille sensibility that is a great deal of fun.

Bondage, painted in 1890, is so wonderfully prurient that I find it irresistible.  An enthroned and rather bored looking potentate consults with one of his many slaves, as the slave trader literally unwraps his new sale item.  The undraped slave stands not only proud in her nudity, but brazen.  A seated slave with a dulcimer looks on, and, to the far left, other slaves and court lackeys gaze with approval or interest.  All of the slaves are of a darkish hue except for the two on the lower right-hand corner, which are the real focus of the picture.  The blonde female slave shares none of the new slave’s carnality, and strives to conceal and protect her body.  Her daughter is beside her, hiding in her mother’s back and hair.  Despair is written upon their faces, and their sense of peril is palpable.

Of course, Normand creates a storybook sense of the Orient.  Buildings reminiscent of the Ancient World are palely depicted in the background, as are exotic trees.  The scene-of-action is wonderfully ‘foreign,’ complete with fountain, tiger rug, carved thrones and elaborately draped Oriental clothes, all taking place under a golden canopy.  Most wonderful of all is the magnificent carved lion, something of a Normand signature piece which we will see in another picture.

The subtext here is not all the sub – in fact, the message is clear: various barbarians of the East are worst than decadent, and they want our women.

More Normand tomorrow!

Dahesh Museum Forms Innovative Partnership with Christie’s to Open Orientalist Exhibition at Rockefeller Center

Tangerian Beauty by José Tapiró y Baró

Regular Jade Sphinx readers know of my devotion to the Dahesh Museum – once an oasis of representational and Orientalist art in the heart of Midtown Manhattan.  Since closing their doors, the museum’s stunning collection of works have been on view in various locations around the world.  This year, the Dahesh has opened a gift shop in Hudson Square, hopefully the first step in reopening the museum and making its treasure regularly available once again.

The Dahesh continues its spirit of innovation with an exhibition of 30 major Orientalist masterworks open to the public at Christie’s, at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, from March 27 to April 15.  The exhibition celebrates the 19th Century rediscovery of the East by Western artists, and offers a fresh approach to Orientalism as a complex, cross-cultural encounter.

The show, Encountering the Orient: Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art, will be the first time the museum is partnering with an auction house to present an exhibition.  Encountering the Orient explores how artists from both Europe and America interpreted the culture and people of the Middle East and North Africa during the 19th century.  To the 19^th Century mind, the East was anything East of Istanbul, and during that time, Western encounters flourished following the industrial revolution, increased political interest, and the emergence of easier world travel.  Drawn by the exotic, romantic artists wanted to escape the urban rigors back home, realists sought to record the “real” Orient, and others looked for unusual subject matter to satisfy the new demands of a changing art market.  Yet some who did not make the journey rendered an “imaginary” Orient inspired by both Arabic texts -- such as One Thousand and One Nights --and many popular Western literary and travel accounts. After 1839, photographers provided plentiful documentation.

Drawn from the Dahesh Museum of Art’s collection, the exhibition features 30 paintings, sculptures, and illustrated books by such celebrated artists, such as Rudolf Ernst, Ludwig Deutsch, Gustav Bauernfeind and Frederick Arthur Bridgman, as well as evocative works by less familiar names, such as José Tapiró y Baró.  It addresses a broad variety of themes, ranging from Western fascination with ancient Egypt, Islamic architecture and design, ethnography, and biblical history to the exotic genre and harem scenes, and provides a fuller understanding of Orientalism and the artists who practiced it. 

Encountering the Orient: Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art will be on view at Christie’s, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 1 to 5 pm.  For more information and a schedule of gallery talks and related programs, visit daheshmuseum.org or christies.com. 

Expect a more in-depth review once the show has opened.

Esther Pasztory Will Discuss Artist Jean-Frédéric Waldeck at The Dahesh Museum Gift Shop

This week readers can return to the Dahesh Museum of Art Gift Shop, located at 145 Sixth Avenue in New York for another edition of the Salon Thursdays series.  Salon Thursdays is a free program where leading arts scholars provide illustrated lectures, and on November 1st at 6:30 P.M. the Dahesh presents Jean-Frederic Waldeck: A Nineteenth-Century Artist Painting Exotic Mexico, courtesy of Esther Pasztory, Professor of Pre-Columbian Art History at Columbia University.  She will discuss the life and work of this quirky Orientalist who went to Mexico and made the ancient Mayans and Aztecs vivid in an entirely modern way.  Professor Pasztory is the author of Jean-Frédéric Waldeck: Artist of Exotic Mexico, a fascinating look at this controversial figure.  For further details, call the Dahesh at 212.759.0606.

The life of Jean-Frédéric Waldeck (1766-1875) is shrouded in mystery.  He gave his birthplace as Paris, and Prague and Vienna, and alternated between claiming that he was English, Austrian or German.  Depending on circumstances, he also claimed to be a Baron, a Duke or a Count.

What is certain is that he went to Mexico when he was 60 years old to copy the newly discovered Maya ruins of Palenque and other Mesoamerican centers.  His representations of Mayan and Aztec art were the first produced by a European artist, and as such, were seen through a Neoclassic lens.  Waldeck eventually went native, painting his Mayan mistress and scenes of everyday life.

Because of the many half-truths and sometimes outright falsehoods he told over his lifetime (including that he participated in major exploratory expeditions that have no record of his involvement), Waldeck’s reputation has now been of interest mainly to scholars and archivists.  Professor Pasztory took some time from her busy schedule to talk about Waldeck and her upcoming lecture with The Jade Sphinx:

Can you please tell us a little about your talk at the Dahesh this Thursday?

I’m going to talk about Waldeck’s life and work; first about the inaccuracies people have perceived in the work and why they do not value him, and, also about my discovery that there are inaccuracies in his work because he was mainly more interested in art than he was in illustration.  I will also provide insight on various paintings he made while he was in Mexico.

Waldeck tried to approach Mayan and Aztec art through a European artistic tradition – what were the values or pitfalls of such an approach?

Let’s put it this way: Waldeck tried to be everything.  He tried to be an illustrator, he tried to be an artist, and he tried for anything in his era he could probably be in order to make fame and fortune.  And by being a Neoclassic artist, he was able to see the naturalistic and beautiful aspects of Mayan art that his contemporaries would not see.

Waldeck has not been taken seriously by scholars, and his work, mostly hidden in archives, is unknown to most art historians.  Is it time for a reassessment?

I definitely think so.  I think he is an artist like the Orientalists of the 19th Century, but rather than go East, he went West.  And he was interested in the exotic, and he gave us some fascinating images of the exotic in the Americas.

In my cursory look at Waldeck’s biography, I see that he sometimes said he was various different European nationalities.  He often claimed royal titles.  How were you able to get your arms around such an elusive figure?

It was not that difficult.  We don’t know where he was born, but it’s probable that it was in Prague or Vienna.  When he was a child (and we don’t know how old), he went to Paris, France, where he operated as a French artist.  All of his journals are in French, there are no German or foreign language words in his notes.  So though he was not of French birth, he was French by his upbringing.

He didn’t go into Mexico until his late middle age.  The great mystery of Waldeck is that we don’t know a great deal about his early life.  He made a lot of grand statements about the expeditions he was on, but they can’t be proven.  The only part of his life that we can prove is that period in Mexico.  He went to Mexico specifically to paint the Mayan ruins that he came across in a lithographer’s studio in England.  (He was working in England at the time.)

Please tell us about your book, Jean-Frédéric Waldeck: Artist of Exotic Mexico.

What I tried to do was situate Waldeck in his time, and within the aesthetic ideas of his time.  What would his background and training bring to the Mayan ruins?  Actually, he brought a great many books with him, as he was an intelligent and learned person.  So I was mainly interested in the context through which he saw these things.  I also thought he was an interesting 19th Century artist – not a major one, but certainly an important minor one.

Do you have other books in the works?

Yes – Aliens and Fakes, which is about the crazy theories people have about the origins of Native Americans; things like extraterrestrials, and Lost Tribes of Israel and trans-Pacific travel.  All of these strange theories people come up with to explain the existence and heritage of an entire people.

I’ve always found that pseudoscience both fascinating and a little ridiculous.

I think I don’t want to poke fun at it – that’s all too easy.  I want to explain why people believe in these ideas, why it made sense to them, and why it still does, to some extent.  It’s a phenomenon that does not want to go away.