Nigel Bruce

The Judgment of Paris

The Salons and Molière

For over a hundred years the arts and culture in France were controlled by aristocratic women and intellectual life was dominated by the salons. Initially the leading salon of the era was the Marquise de Rambouillet’s, from 1620 till 1645, but it became pretentious, as they all do eventually,

Sacred Prostitute

The Scallop Shell

The scallop shell is the traditional symbol for Christian pilgrimages. It is associated mostly with the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia (the other two main pilgrimage sites being Jerusalem and Rome). The shell can be seen as small badges worn on clothing or on signposts or on buildings

Splendour in the Grass

The Serpentine

Water symbolism occurs throughout this chapter: Shelley pursuing Rousseau's lovers on Lake Geneva or Rousseau himself hiding out on St. Petersinsel; Wordsworth lost in the Lake Country; my grandmother born in secret disgrace and borne away downriver. The Serpentine, in Hyde Park, is full of foreign students and

Homer's Women

The Sirens in painting

Over the centuries the Sirens have resisted easy definition. In the Odyssey, Book 12, when Circe is warning Odysseus about them, they are just creatures with a bewitching song. He has himself bound to the mast while all his crew have their ears blocked, and he gets past them unscathed.

From Russia with Love

'The Sleeping Beauty'

Arguably the most popular ballet in the world and one that changed people's lives (Diaghilev, Anna Pavlova to name two). Tchaikovsky's second ballet premiered in St. Petersburg in 1890 and he saw more success with it than with Swan Lake or The Nutcracker. Sexual metaphors aside

The Judgment of Paris

The Strange Tale of Louise Labé

In the century before Ninon de Lenclos, a strange figure emerges in the literary histories: Louise Labé, aka Louise Labbé, who was born in the early 1520's and who lived most of her life in Lyon, the French city most associated with the Renaissance. Records show she was

Women in Trousers

The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari) was written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century. The author is named after the character, not vice versa, since no one knows who really wrote it. The best we can do is assume that it was written by a woman of the

Angel Incarnate

'The Temptation of Saint Anthony'

The ultimate fable of sexual temptation. Saint Anthony was a Christian saint in Egypt who may have died around CE 356 (his monastery is here). His claim to fame is his sojourn in the desert, fending off Satan and all manner of monsters and demons. But it is difficult to

How to Look at a Naked Lady

The Tomb of Hafez

Islamic art and architecture are consistently under-appreciated in the West, not least of all because of the misunderstanding over why people or God are not to be shown in art, because that's considered idolatry. Is seeing believing? Does believing require seeing? Do we see everything we believe in?

Loki's Children

The Totem

The Baltic, German and Slavic gods resemble the Norse pantheon. Totems can be found everywhere dotted around the countryside and in the architecture. A pagan undercurrent flows through the area’s history. It is neatly captured in the sculpted head of a woman which appears on a Jugenstil (German Art

The Woman in the Bower

The Tristan and Yseult Legend

Tristan and Yseult (or Isolde) became popular when Henry and Eleanor were on the throne. French-English and German storytellers all took a crack at enhancing the older Celtic plotlines. As Joseph Campbell put it, the legend dramatizes a conflict between love and marriage, in an era when aristocratic families were

Alice's Mirrors

'The Ugly Duchess'

Possibly the nastiest painting ever produced, this is called A Grotesque Old Woman and it is attributed to Flemish Renaissance master Quintin Massys in Antwerp sometime between 1513-1530, with many favoring 1515. It served as a model for John Tenniel’s Duchess in Alice in Wonderland and the painting is

Angel Incarnate

'The Virgin and Child with St. Anne'

This is my favorite Leonardo painting - mostly because of the way he has painted Saint Anne (the Virgin Mary's mother - at top). It may have been begun as early as 1500 and it remained unfinished at his death. It is now in the Louvre. This painting

Oz is China

The White Man's Burden

Rudyard Kipling’s satiric poem, The White Man’s Burden was published in 1899 and it was a direct attack upon the U.S. annexation of the Philippines (its sub-title was “The United States and the Philippine Islands”). The cartoon above was in response. It was the same year Joseph

The Whore's Revenge

The Whore's Revenge - Timeline

* 1725 Casanova born in Venice * 1746 Casanova employed as a lowly violinist but he soon makes a connection with the wealthy Bragadin family. * 1749 Casanova meets Henriette * 1756 Casanova escapes from the Leads Prison * 1759 La Charpillon’s family emigrate to London * 1762 John Wilkes founds the newspaper The North

Oz is China

The Wicked Witch of the West

While we may not all agree on whether she looks Chinese or not, The Wicked Witch of the West shown here could pass for Chinese if compared with the racist cartoons of Chinese at the time. Primarily it's the Manchu pigtails and the apparel. Here's another

Oz is China

The Wizard of Oz himself

The Wizard of Oz as shown in the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The venerable con-man from Omaha, Nebraska. He leaves Oz at the end of Baum's novel, again in a hot air balloon. In later books, he is allowed to return to Oz to live. If the

Oz is China

The Woggle-Bug Map

L. Frank Baum's famous Woggle-Bug Map has the Emerald City at the center. But notice - it's admittedly hard to see - the NSEW compass point top right with East and West reversed? The controversy is solved - sort of - if the map is viewed

Oz is China

The Woggle-Bug

The Woggle-Bug was once a regular insect living in a classroom who listened in to all the lessons. One day he became magnified and he stayed that way. Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated, this pompous creature opened the Royal Athletic College of Oz. He appears in The Marvelous Land of

The Woman in the Bower

The Woman in the Bower - Timeline

* 1151 Eleanor’s marriage to King Louis VII of France is annulled; she marries King Henry II of England * 1153 Death of St. Bernard of Clairvaux * 1165 Henry II first meets Rosamond de Clifford * 1166 John is born (the last child born to Henry and Eleanor) * 1166 Eleanor relocates to

Oz is China

The Yellow Terror

The caption from the 1899 racist cartoon below reads: "The Yellow Terror in all his Glory." How did things get to this point? What with the "Yellow Terror," the "Yellow Danger," the "Yellow Peril," yellow journalism, yellow fever, yellow quarantine flags... Such

Dreaming of the Virgin Mary

Theodora - Empress and Courtesan

In the Orthodox, Syrian and Oriental churches today, Byzantine Empress Theodora is a saint. But among Roman Catholics she is dismissed as an unrepentant ex-courtesan and a heretic, who argued that Jesus was divine and not human at all. It doesn't help that she convinced the Emperor Justinian

Splendour in the Grass

Thomas Jefferson and Illegitimacy

Thomas Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings is by now well known. Technically, the DNA tests of 1998 were inconclusive, but it seems likely the two had a relationship for 38 years and possibly as many as six ("illegitimate") children together. Certainly his contemporaries thought so. Below

Immortal Beloved

Thomas Mann’s 'The Beloved Returns'

Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns is a 1939-40 novel by Thomas Mann. In the novel, Mann imagines what it might have been like if Lotte (Charlotte Kestner), the childhood sweetheart of Goethe’s who inspired The Sorrows of Young Werther, comes to Weimar many decades later to see him.

The Whore's Revenge

Tiepolo's Parrot

A year or two before Casanova bought La Charpillon her raucous parrot, his contemporary from Venice, Giambattista Tiepolo, painted Young Woman with a Parrot (or a Macaw - I've seen both titles) and it is now in - where else - England of course - in Oxford'