Power and Seduction, Marilyn and Juliette, Muse and Model, Artemis and Aphrodite...

 ....Atalanta and Daphne....a post brought on by too much Christmas Pudding and Stilton?

The Three Graces, empowered or exploited, by Canova, c.1799. Image: Web Gallery of Art
THE DANGERS AND DELIGHTS OF BEING DECORATIVE
part six of The Laurel Trophy

Immortalized as the dark-haired model in white chemise, peeping under her lashes at onlookers in Gérard's  meltingly sexy portrait, and forever associated with the sofa on which she reclines in the painting by David, in her lifetime Juliette Récamier was a discerning patron of literature and the arts. Her personal taste influenced fashion and interior design in western Europe, and she helped promote philosophical and political ideas in post-revolutionary French society. She was also famous for her virginity, that she is alleged to have given up, willingly, at the age of forty. The long wait is usually perceived as odd, a disorder, rather than a trumphant assertion of individuality through sexual discernment.  

The greatest loves of her life, consummated or not, were always worldly intellectuals, people addicted to using and defining power, whose inclusion of her in their observations gave her validation. Down this road lies the danger, fun but facile, of comparison to Marilyn Monroe and her symbiotic relationships with professional writers, teachers and analysts, all besotted with the ambivalent sweetness of her sex appeal, a vicarious affair that persists in the dozens of publications about her exploited or empowered femininity.....for more dangers, read on

Daughter of The Tragic Muse

Sarah Martha Siddons, c.1795, portrayed and betrayed by the Romantic painter, Thomas Lawrence.

Private Collection. Image source: Wikipedia

"Whenever I meet his eyes...it is like an electric shock to me"

Dutiful daughter and casualty of Romantic egotism
part of
 NEOCLASSICAL GODDESSES AND ROMANTIC HEROINES

SALLY SIDDONS

Sally (1775-1803) and her sister Maria (1779 -1798) were both in love with the gifted young portrait painter, Thomas Lawrence. He was a friend of their mother, Sarah Siddons, and the whole family had known him well for several years. In his mid-twenties, he appeared to fit the description of a romantic hero. He was graceful, dark and delicately featured, with soul-piercing eyes and a charming manner. He behaved with the destructive emotional immaturity found in many former child prodigies. 

He courted both girls in turn, initially forming an attachment to Sally, then deciding that he was in love with the younger girl, Maria, who was already showing symptoms of consumption. Months later, he confessed that it was really Sally he had loved all along, and his engagement to Maria was broken off. He seems to have been genuinely confused about his feelings - Mrs Siddons, always indulgent of him, thought he was being quixotic - but that wasn't really the point. The sisters had only a two dimensional existence for him. Their feelings were as far removed from him as those of supporting characters in a play, in which he was watching Mrs Siddons and himself in the leading parts...CONTINUED