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Psyche Before the Throne of Venus

The first point that struck me, on walking round the exhibition, was that I had no idea that these were paintings by women artists. Obviously their inclusion was a giveaway, as was the wall plaque beside each painting with its attribution and details. But if I had seen the paintings elsewhere with no context, I would not have known the gender of the artist. They looked exactly the same in style as so many other paintings by the many male artists I know about. Some of these female artists were famous in their own time. For example the 17th century Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi had an international clientele and was considered one of the most accomplished artists of the day. But who remembers her now?

So I look forward to reading a highly relevant book that I found in the Tate Britain shop: Linda Nochlin’s essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, published in 1971 and republished 30 years later with her own reappraisal of the subject. On first inspection this dismantles not only the assumption that there are no great female artists, but also the male-centric bias that underlies the question itself. So this is a feminist critique of art history. I can hardly wait.

The exhibition also shows how women artists were downplayed and subjugated by society over a long period. Women were thought incapable of creative artistic work (can you believe it?) and were channelled towards imitative projects such as paintings of flower arrangements. The exhibition has a whole room of such paintings.

Women were also discouraged from painting nudes. Somehow this was thought inappropriate for women, though not for men. See for example Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Gérôme’s Venus Rising, and Collier’s Lady Godiva. So I was interested to see Henrietta Rae’s large-scale work Psyche Before the Throne of Venus (1894), in which Venus is naked, Psyche is mostly naked, and several of the handmaidens of Venus are partially naked. And yet the painting is not at all erotic, but feminine in its portrayal and sympathetic to its all-female cast. How did Henrietta Rae manage to paint this scene? What is the story in the picture anyway?

Henrietta Rae ‘specialised in classical, allegorical and literary subjects’ (Wikipedia). The scene in the painting is allegorical and forms part of the story of Cupid and Psyche. This is a tale from classical mythology, its earliest surviving narration in the Metamorphoses by the 2nd century Roman author Apuleius. The story is long and complicated, but the main protagonists are the goddess Venus, her son Cupid, and the incredibly beautiful but non-divine woman Psyche. Cupid and Psyche get it together but things don’t work out for them. Venus becomes very cross with Psyche. Eventually Psyche is captured and brought to Venus who forces her into slavery for a time. Psyche wins through in the end, in a Jane Austen kind of way, and I would like to say that this is a feminist victory, but I’m not sure that’s really how Apuleius and other male authors would see it.

I don’t know whether Henrietta Rae was acquainted with the Metamorphoses, but she did know of the modern retelling of the story in The Earthly Paradise, an epic poem by William Morris covering many of the myths and legends of classical antiquity and also Scandinavia. The story of Cupid and Psyche is one of these. lt’s very long – nearly 21,000 words – so I am going to quote only a very small part of it. This is from the section where Psyche is in despair and asks Venus to put her out of her misery. But the goddess is having none of it:

But Venus rising with a dreadful cry
Said, "O thou fool, I will not let thee die!
But thou shalt reap the harvest thou hast sown
And many a day thy wretched lot bemoan.
Thou art my slave, and not a day shall be
But I will find some fitting task for thee,
Nor will I slay thee till thou hop'st again.

As soon as I read this, I latched on to the idea that you reap the harvest you have sown. This is such a familiar saying: where had I seen this before, and what does it mean?

At first I thought it must be a biblical reference. The lands and times of the Bible denote a predominantly agricultural society. In fact the New International Version contains 111 references to harvest. The actual phrase doesn’t appear in the Bible itself, but the underlying idea certainly does:

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
– Galatians 6.7–10.

The idea is simply that our actions have consequences, and we cannot escape the consequences. I don’t accept the logical extension that what you do now determines your status in a future life (the Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and the law of karma). But I do believe that our actions not only generate consequences but also help to form our character. Niceness is addictive – the more you do, the more you want. Unfortunately it works in the opposite direction too. For example, small acts of unkindness will accumulate and will eventually turn you into a very unkind person indeed. This insight is found not only in Christianity but in psychology and in the writings of classical philosophy.

In fact I know why I know this phrase so well. It refers to the ultimate downfall of capitalist greed, as allegorised by Pink Floyd in Dogs on the album Animals:

And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone
Dragged down by the stone.

I’m not sure I should be admitting that Ariane is more familiar with the themes and contents of 1970s rock music than the words of the Bible. From Ariane the Culture Vulture, to Ariane the Bible Scholar, to Ariane the Rock Chick. Oh well.

To return to Henrietta Rae: she was ‘a supporter of feminism and women’s suffrage.’ Truly a woman ahead of her time – and a heroine for me to discover.

And to return to the Tate Britain exhibition: I was a feminist in my teenage years, I was a feminist before I saw this exhibition, and I am even more of a feminist now. My internal landscape has fallen captive to Ariane’s invade and conquer strategy. The girl has won and her victory is complete.

Tags: LGBT+, Tate Britain, Art