Nigel Bruce

Voices and Saints

Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage, Millais and others

Jules Bastien-Lepage was from Lorraine and he painted Joan of Arc in the fall-out years after the Prussian invasion of 1870-71. He had fought in the French army and like many others thought of Joan as a symbol of French freedom. Nearby Alsace and northern Lorraine by then had become

Voices and Saints

Joan of Arc in the Movies

To recreate the settings for a Joan of Arc movie, where do you shoot? The Czech Republic is always popular - that's where Joan of Arc, the TV miniseries of 1999 starring Leelee Sobieski, was shot - like in the photo above. If you need a French location,

Voices and Saints

Joan of Arc Tower in Rouen

This tower in Rouen - shown below - is one of the last remains of the castle in which Joan of Arc was imprisoned. It is unlikely her cell was inside but she may have been threatened or even tortured there, although this tower is a restoration effort by Viollet-le-Duc.

Voices and Saints

Joan of Arc's Birthplace in Domrémy

Domrémy, or as it's known these days, Domrémy-la-Pucelle, is still fairly remote, which seems to discourage most visitors. It features the house where Joan of Arc was born - shown below - which is now a museum and the ancient church next door. Of course, it may have

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

John Cook Bennett and "Spiritual Wifery"

Bennett is a fascinating figure. He arrived in Nauvoo in September of 1840 only a few months after Herman Melville passed by and he quickly assumed a powerful position in the young community. He also became an even more industrious practitioner of what he called "spiritual wifery" than

Homer's Women

John Flaxman's Illustrations for the 'Odyssey'

Mercury and Calypso by sculptor and draughtsman John Flaxman around 1805 (shown here in a subsequent French edition of 1835). Calypso is ordered to give up Odysseus... Flaxman was one of the main sculptors and illustrators of the Neoclassical movement and very successful in his day. Below: Odysseus and Circe.

Splendour in the Grass

John Ruskin, Effie Gray and Rose La Touche

Among the stranger tales of Victorian obsession are those concerning John Ruskin, the most influential art critic of Victorian Britain. But there is less here than meets the eye. Like Lewis Carroll he appears to have remained celibate his entire life, while being drawn to the innocence of young girls,

Letters from Africa

Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal'

You would think that such a devastating satire would have had an enormous impact when it was published in Dublin in 1729, but in fact it didn't. Swift's Anglo-Irish contemporaries saw it for what it was, a scathing Tory attack on Whig policies in Ireland, and

Homer's Women

Jorge Luis Borges on the Odyssey

Borges was interested in the idea that transmigration was a respectable concept in ancient Greek thought and it is still an under-appreciated thought in the West today. He cites Pythagoras who recognized the shield he fought with in the Trojan War. And then there was Plato: "In the tenth

A Tale of Two Women

José Clemente Orozco

This is José Clemente Orozco's great mural of Cortés and Malinche (Cortés y La Malinche) as Adam and Eve. Is the figure beneath them México? It is hard to see this mural of 1926 as anything other than a very negative image. Then compare this with his other

Life as Opera

Joséphine Baker

Josephine Baker's story is an entire website to itself (celebrity entertainer, war hero, bisexual, etc.). She was born in 1906, moving from the U.S. to Paris in 1925, when she was 19. There she quickly became known as La Baker and elsewhere as the Black Pearl (take

Oz is China

Journey to the West

The classic Chinese epic, Journey to the West, is the tale of four travelers (technically five: the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, Monkey, Pig, Sand Demon and a dragon prince who acts as the monk's horse), who experience many thrilling adventures before returning home to China. This journey is a

Sacred Prostitute

Jules Joseph Lefebvre's Mary Magdalene in the Cave

Jules Joseph Lefebvre's Mary Magdalene in the Cave (1876) certainly prompts the question of what she was doing in that cave. Lefebvre specialized in female nudes. This painting is in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. His best-known painting is surely La Vérité, which shows a naked

Letters from Africa

Juliet Was Black?

It turns out that Othello wasn't Shakespeare's only African or Moorish character. Below is the official Juliet statue in Verona, by Italian sculptor Nereo Costantini, in 1972. Tourists love to rub her breast for some reason, which is why it is shiny. It has led to

Letters from Africa

Kahina and Xena, Warrior Princesses

You cannot be more highly honored than to be in a Xena episode, in this instance "Legacy" (Season 6 in 2000). After a dramatic sandstorm, Xena and Gabrielle help two warring Berber tribes, one of which is led by Kahina (above), to put aside their differences and take

Kama Sutra

Kama Sutra - Good Wives

What does the Kama Sutra say about a good wife? Sir Richard Burton’s Kama Sutra says: A virtuous woman, who has affection for her husband, should act in conformity with his wishes as if he were a divine being. Sir Richard Burton’s wife, Lady Isobel, wrote out her

Kama Sutra

Kama-Sutra - Timeline

* 1821 Sir Richard Burton born * 1842-49 Burton in India * 1857 Obscene Publications Act in the UK * Indian Mutiny * 1861 Burton marries Isabel * 1871 Burton transferred to Trieste * 1877 Herman Hesse born * 1883 Burton publishes The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana * 1885 Burton publishes Ananga Ranga, The Book of the Thousand Nights

Kama Sutra

Kama-Sutra Art and Sculpture

A sample of artwork and early temple carvings. There is erotic art and sculpture all over India. This one below is from the Javanese-Hindu temple of Candi-Sukuh, Indonesia.

Kama Sutra

Kama-Sutra Today

The Kama Sutra today is widely regarded as a pornographic sex manual, but Indian filmmakers and writers have tried to reclaim it from whence it was hijacked. Mira Nair’s film of 1996 (above and at bottom) was well received: it was released theatrically in India in 1998, but it

Splendour in the Grass

Karl and Jenny Marx

Jenny von Westphalen was four years older than Karl Marx and she came from the Prussian aristocracy. Marx himself came from a line of rabbis on both his mother's and father's side. They had seven children together although only three made it to adulthood. It always

Immortal Beloved

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

Karlovy Vary was known as Karlsbad to Beethoven when he went for walks there with Goethe and when it was one of the leading spa towns of Europe. The names literally mean "Charles Bath" after Charles IV, the founder of the town in the 14th century. The town

Homer's Women

Keats and 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'

Was Circe one of the models for Keats when he wrote this celebrated poem of 1819? Circe, like her sisters the wild fertility goddesses and faeries of myth and poetry – like Lilith in the Bible and Morgan le Fay in the Arthurian legends -- seduces men and wreaks havoc by

Alice's Mirrors

Ken Russell

Was there ever a filmmaker so drawn to literary sex? Ken Russell's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love came out in 1969 and won an Academy Award for Best Actress, but what made it interesting was the first full-frontal nude wrestling scene between two

From Russia with Love

King's Cross Station

She was a woman on fire, spotted at King’s Cross station – her halo up-piled black and beehived above her head. The pale-faced man with the video camera and the bad teeth – everyone there had bad teeth – followed her across the platform. A killer. When he got back to the

Women in Trousers

Kiyomizu

Kiyomizu ("pure water" - named after its waterfall) is in the eastern hills of Kyoto. It is one of the settings for The Tale of Genji and it is one of the most beautiful spots in Japan as well as (arguably) one of the most famous. It was