Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (c.1665) is one of the most famous paintings in the world, and also one of the most mysterious. Who is this girl, dressed in an unusual blue-and-gold headscarf, with her iconic pearl earring? Why does she stare out of the canvas in such an enigmatic way? What was her relationship with the artist? No one knows for certain, and this secrecy only adds to her allure.
The much-debated identity of Vermeer’s model inspired Tracy Chevalier to write the best-selling historical novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which tells a fictitious story behind the painting. Set in seventeenth-century Holland, it follows the narrative of Griet, a sixteen-year-old Dutch girl who becomes a maid in the house of the successful painter. From his studio, the artist paints solitary women in domestic settings, illuminated by brilliant sunlight. Griet is quiet and calm; she is also beautiful and perceptive, and soon attracts Vermeer’s attention. The very first time they meet, he notices the way that she has arranged the vegetables she is chopping:
‘I see that you have separated the whites,’ he said, indicating the turnips and onions. ‘And then the orange, and the purple, they do not sit together. Why is that?’
‘The colours fight when they are side by side, sir.’
It is a significant moment, revealing an intimate connection between Vermeer and Griet, who shares his understanding of colour. Alongside her household duties, the artist teaches his maid to make paint, drawing her into his world. It’s not long before Griet becomes his next subject: she sits for the notorious painting, wearing his wealthy wife’s pearl earring, with her hair tied up in the striking headscarf. Griet has become the artist’s muse, the source of his creative inspiration.
This stereotypical artist–muse relationship portrayed in Chevalier’s story is one that is embedded in our consciousness: Griet plays the role of a young, attractive, female muse, existing at the mercy of an influential, older male artist. While she shares Vermeer’s artistic sensibility, as his maid, Griet must surrender to his control. Nowhere is this made clearer than in the moment Vermeer pierces her earlobe so that Griet can wear the pearl earring; she endures pain for the sake of the portrait.
Chevalier also submits Griet to the trope of the romantic muse, lacing her narrative with sexual tension and emphasising physical touch between the pair: ‘I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.’ She inspires this man in ways that his wife cannot, and an intimacy develops between the maid and Vermeer that ultimately gives power to his painting. In 2003, Chevalier’s book was adapted into a film, starring Scarlett Johansson as Griet against Colin Firth’s moody Vermeer. Johansson’s sensual portrayal of the servant girl only perpetuates the stereotype of an artist–muse relationship defined by female subordination to male authority. ‘Open your mouth. Now lick your lips,’ the artist demands, and she silently obeys, perfectly playing the part of compliant muse.
But is this perception of a muse – as powerless, submissive and female – accurate? Or could this characterisation actually be somewhat lazy and untrue? Have muses had more agency than we give them credit for? To find out, we must go back to Ancient Greece to understand the original identity, purpose and status of the muse – but, first, we should also take a look at the Disney 1997 animated feature film, Hercules.
‘We are the muses, goddesses of the arts and proclaimers of heroes,’ declare five sassy, gospel-singing female figures. Calliope, Clio, Melpomene, Terpsichore and Thalia step out from the ancient vase on which they have been painted to tell the story of Hercules and his heroism. Awakened as goddesses of poetic inspiration, the film portrays them as skilled storytellers, and it’s not wrong.
In Greek mythology, there were nine female muses. They were the children of Zeus, King of the Gods, and Mnemosyne, Titaness of memory and artistic inspiration. Born at the foot of Mount Olympus, the muses were gifted goddesses of the arts: music, dance, song, poetry and memory. Ancient Greek vase painting depicts them as animated young women, playing musical instruments, singing and reading from scrolls. Invoked by mortals, the muses inspired musicians, artists and writers, all of whom depended on them for divine creativity, wisdom and insight.
The Greek writer Hesiod claimed in his poem Theogony to have spoken with the muses, who turned him from a simple shepherd into a blessed poet: ‘The Muses once taught Hesiod to sing / Sweet Songs’. Similarly, narrators of epic poems appealed to a muse, or multiple muses, without whom they could not start their story. ‘Sing, goddess’ is the opening invocation with which poets made clear that their performance relied on direct communication with a muse, who had taught or told them the tale to be repeated. As Homer begins The Odyssey:
Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home. He failed to keep them safe; poor fools,
they ate the Sun God’s cattle, and the god
kept them from home. Now goddess, child of Zeus,
tell the old story for our modern times.
Find the beginning.
At their ancient origin, the muses were far from passive subjects for an artist to paint or write about. Instead, they were agents of divine inspiration. The artist–muse relationship was one that was revered, and poets, at their mercy, paid homage to these divinities.
The Ancient Greeks have not been the only ones to question the source of creativity, and attribute it to a higher being. In Hinduism, Saraswati is the goddess of music, learning, art and wisdom, and since c.1500 BCE she has featured in paintings and relief sculpture on Hindu temples. In each of her four hands Saraswati holds a symbolic object: a book signifies knowledge, mala beads evoke meditation, a water pot embodies the source of creation, and the ancient string instrument, the veena, represents her gift of music to humanity. Nevertheless, the ‘muse’ is predominantly a Western concept – one which has evolved dramatically over time, particularly throughout European art history.
During the Italian Renaissance, the likes of Titian, Tintoretto and Mantegna drew on ancient Greek culture to paint allegorical masterpieces in which muses came to symbolise the rebirth of the arts. They appear frequently as joyful young women, dancing and playing music in mythical forests, providing inspiration to those around them. However, there was also a significant shift in the portrayal of muses during the Renaissance: frequently, their drapes and dresses have fallen away to reveal bare bodies, painted in soft, fleshy tones. These nubile nudes appear as seductive mistresses, feeding the fantasy of men, both in and outside of the picture frame. We find that muses have become icons of idealised and sexualised beauty.
As early as the thirteenth century, the arts saw another major change in the relationship between the creator and the muse: visual artists and writers were increasingly influenced by real-life, rather than mythological, subjects. Dante Alighieri famously wrote about Beatrice Portinari as ‘the love of his life and inspiration muse’. By the Victorian era, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were painting models who were friends, fellow artists, wives, sisters and lovers. Artists had become enamoured with, and creatively dependent upon, the muses they knew personally.
Given their interest in myth and legend, many Pre-Raphaelite painters presented their models as doomed damsels. Most notably, John Everett Millais portrayed twenty-three-year-old Elizabeth Siddall as Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, drowning in a river, in Ophelia (1851–52). Through this definitive painting, not only did Siddall become the face of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, but she has since been held up as a symbol of the mistreated female muse, repeatedly cast as a victim – much like the fictional figure she had posed as – in biographies, plays, novels and period dramas. After her marriage to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddall’s surname was shortened to Siddal. Several art historians and academics, including Griselda Pollock, Deborah Cherry and Serena Trowbridge, take issue with this misspelling, arguing that it adds to the mythology around Siddall as a muse who primarily served, and signified, her husband’s genius. In order that she be valued as a historic individual who brought her own creativity to the role of muse, I have followed their lead in using ‘Siddall’.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many male artists not only embraced, but also perpetuated, this myth of the romantic, feminine muse, focusing on her as an object of desire. With his bronze sculpture, The Sculptor and his Muse (1895), Auguste Rodin presented the muse as a nude, long-haired woman who whispers seductively into the ear of the male creator to provide him with inspiration. Meanwhile, with his modernist oval-headed sculptures such as The Sleeping Muse (1910), Constantin Brâncuşi imagined the muse in idealised feminine terms, often with her eyes closed, as a peaceful dreaming beauty.
Meanwhile, Pablo Picasso brought dramatic tension to the surface of his canvases, on which he portrayed the many women who shaped his life and career: Fernande Olivier, Eva Gouel, Olga Khokhlova, Dora Maar, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Jacqueline Roque and Françoise Gilot. ‘To my misfortune, and maybe my delight, I place things according to my love affairs,’ he declared. While he acknowledged the presence of many muses within his work, Picasso also attempted to deny these women any agency: ‘Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.’ Thus the stereotype of the muse – as a passive, young and attractive female serving man’s creative genius – was firmly established. To possess a muse had become a status symbol for the ‘great’ male artist, and patriarchal art historical accounts have since bought into, and preserved, this idea.
Therefore, with the arrival of feminism came a much-needed critique of the muse. While preceded by a long history of activism, it was during the so-called ‘second wave’ of the 1960s and 70s, that the feminist art movement drew particular attention to systemic sexism, inequality and discrimination ingrained in the arts, as well as wider society. Critics raised concerns about women being objectified and exploited by philandering playboy artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who once notoriously claimed, ‘I paint with my prick.’ By the 1980s, art historians such as Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock were refuting tropes of the idealised, silent muse perpetuated by masculinist discourses. ‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?’ demanded the anonymous art activists, Guerrilla Girls, in 1989. More recently, narratives have invited us to see artists’ models, especially women, as ‘more than a mere muse’. When the portraitist Jonathan Yeo, who had been painting model Cara Delevingne, called her his ‘perfect subject and muse’ in 2016, he was met with much contempt. ‘It’s time to lock this silly term away in the attic,’ wrote the Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones.
However, perhaps it is our misconception of the muse – a term which has come to carry patronising, sexist and pejorative connotations – which needs locking away. If we delve inside the relationships that real-life muses have held with artists, might we find that they have been far from subordinate and romantic subjects? Instead, have these protagonists been involved and instrumental within their creative partnerships? Is every muse a model, or have they inspired artists in other ways? Are muses also more diverse than traditional narratives have allowed? It’s time we took another look at the concept of muse, what the complex role truly entails, and the individuals who have assumed this responsibility.
For a start, must there always be a sexual undercurrent or romantic association between artist and muse? Let’s return to Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Many art historians think that the model for Vermeer’s masterpiece was in fact his eldest daughter, Maria, who would have been aged twelve at the time; other authors have proposed that Magdalena, his patron’s teenage daughter, was the real sitter. Either way, Chevalier’s version of events is highly unlikely and demonstrates the unrealistic mythology that exists around the muse.
In truth, many muses have been non-romantic subjects with whom the artist has held a close bond: friends, mentors, art collectors, patrons, mothers, children, siblings, colleagues and companions. Who was the unlikely muse behind Lucian Freud’s voluptuous fertility goddess reclining naked on a sofa? What was the relationship between Andrew Wyeth and the young woman in pink, who seems to lie waiting for him on the grass in his celebrated painting, Christina’s World (1948)? There is often more to an image, and its muse, than first meets the eye.
This book will also uncover the unique value and qualities that each muse brings to the role. Far from silently posing, muses often bring emotional support and intellectual energy to the relationship; they share ideas, inventions and techniques; they provide practical help and funding. When the muse is an artist in their own right, this creates a particularly creatively charged dynamic within the partnership. Since the Renaissance, studio assistants and apprentices have served as muses for the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Diego Velázquez. Modern art then saw the rise of artist couples acting as mutual muses: Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller and Man Ray, Emilie Flöge and Gustav Klimt. What impact did the almost-forgotten fashion designer, Flöge, have on Klimt’s iconic The Kiss (1907–8)? Should we see such masterpieces as co-created by both artist and muse? Beyond individual artworks, which movements have muses sparked?
Of course, many muses have been in romantic relationships with their artists. This book will explore how this dynamic has created tensions and problems for the likes of Peter Schlesinger and Dora Maar. It will also discuss how many muses, particularly women, have been overlooked and overshadowed by their male contemporaries. Taking into consideration the social and historical context within which muses have operated, this book will question why and how people have adopted the role. Millais’s model, Elizabeth Siddall, a poet, artist and muse, had severely limited access to formal art education, and was barred from life drawing classes, as a woman in Victorian Britain. Could she, then, have turned to musedom as a career opportunity? Have muses, particularly women negotiating a male-dominated art world, sought and benefited from the position?
It is also important to consider the ways in which artists, from Artemisia Gentileschi to Frida Kahlo, have framed themselves as their own muse to disrupt dominant narratives, explore their identity and even heal themselves. Why does Sunil Gupta ‘play dead’ for his own camera? He is one of many artists who have challenged and subverted expectations of the stereotypical muse. Feminist artists, such as Sylvia Sleigh, have consciously depicted male muses nude and reclining, reversing the typical gender dynamic of artist and model. Who were these men who Sleigh painted inside her bohemian New York home during the 1970s? How did they feel about being muses?
In today’s post-feminist world, women continue to consciously reclaim the role of an active, authoritative muse. Grace Jones, Beyoncé Knowles, Tilda Swinton; all of these women are formidable agents who choose to enter into an artist–muse relationship on their own terms. Renowned fashion photographer Tim Walker, who frequently shoots models who inspire him, reveals the need for absolute equality within the alliance: ‘The portrait is a handshake, the embrace, the agreement where we meet halfway along a collaborative path.’ Working with multiple artists – compared with whom they are more prominent – modern muses, such as these, play a defining part in determining the final image.
Although born in Western culture, the construct of the muse has also been adopted by contemporary artists across the world. Why does Chinese artist Pixy Liao photograph her boyfriend as a piece of rolled-up sushi? Who are the naked figures in Fukase Masahisa’s family photo albums? How do these artists and their muses interrogate heritage, identity and gendered expectations? Who we see represented in artworks when we visit a gallery is important; what impact does this then have on the muses depicted?
Over time, the concept of a muse has changed considerably. Since its divine origins in Greek mythology, the term has acquired connotations of powerlessness. Today, therefore, it’s often met with much criticism and even mockery. But could it be our view of the artist’s muse as a passive model that is the real myth? Established by male artists, in order to glorify their gaze and frame their individual genius, sexist ideals of the muse have been perpetuated by patriarchal narratives for centuries. Feminist accounts, too, have framed female muses primarily as exploited victims, doing them a huge disservice.
But if we rewrite muses into history, might we find that they have been just as important as artists? For too long the muse has been constrained by traditional and mythologised accounts, which maintain our perception of a ‘great’ male artist painting a silent sitter, as we find in Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. This book will contest such oversimplified views and, instead, demonstrate the true power that muses have held. Without doubt, it’s time that we reconsidered muses, reclaiming them from reductive stereotypes, to illuminate their real, involved and diverse roles throughout art history.
This book features many familiar faces – individuals who have been immortalised in artworks which are hung on the walls of major museums – and introduces some lesser-known figures. As it reveals these subjects’ connection and influence over the artists who pictured them, and the enormous contributions that they made, the muse will be reframed as a momentous, empowered and active agent of art history.
Let’s meet the muses.