Who's That Girl?

I've been thinking about this post for quite a while now. Should I write about it? Or better not? I decided to listen to my heart and give it a go. Please look at this painting. It is one of the earliest works by Joshua Reynolds, and is it not wonderful?

Joshua Reynolds, 'Shading the Eyes"  1747-1749.
The National Portrait Gallery London

What do we see? We see a young man aged twenty-four at the beginning of a career that will change a nation's  taste and its awareness of beauty in paint. There is that visionary and ruthless boy shading his eyes and looking into his future, fearless and bold. What does he see? What is he dreaming of this exact moment? Getting famous? Finding love? He gives himself the air of a young man fired up with confidence and also determination, and it is a very personal and yet sympathetic self-portrait. The world is his oyster and ready for him and his adventures. Stunning, really.

Now, please look at this painting.

References: Royal Academy, Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A, ca 1780.

What do we see? This paining years later is an extraordinary work of perfection as well, of course it is. Are you feeling a 'but' coming on? Yes, indeed. What happened to that beautiful boy?

We see a statement of the first order. By using all painterly expedients available in the Reynolds' armoury, this is a statement of prestige and power that could not be any clearer and forceful in expression. His striking techniques for the audacious  setting of light and shadow in this painting are simply breathtaking and extremely masterful. The incident of light he has chosen to bestow attention upon his body and specifically his face is more than significant for the Reynolds of that time. He is in masterly command of his own image and his importance as a public figure in the cultural circle of the epoch he lived in. There is another point that adds up to the rather unsympathetic and aloof impression Reynolds makes on me. Undoubtedly, the authoritarian aspect he firmly wants to convey is reinforced be the low viewpoint, which suggests that the viewer has to look up to the sitter, i.e. to Sir Joshua Reynolds. The reverse is even more indicative, Sir Joshua is looking down at us from his lofty column. Oh dear, oh dear... Artistic characteristics as such, the small things we notice to understand the purpose of people if you will, sweep me off my feet. Frequently and lasting.

I'd like to go back to my question, what happened in between these two portraitures and also in the years after 1780? Or, may I go even further and ask what went wrong? Let's investigate a little, shall we?

Fame happened. Love did not, so it seems at first look. But let's go step by step. Joshua Reynolds was, and this goes without a question at all, a very gifted painter, a natural talent, with an eye for colours, texture, effects of light and shadow. Status and influence played a not unimportant role in his upbringing. For his family it always was of more concern where and with whom Joshua was learning to become an artist. They saw for a first- class start. This attitude had an early impact on Joshua and we can already detect his  slightly abrasive and self-promoting touch in 'Shading the Eyes'. I think this very attitude to eminence and strategy, Joshua was a strategist to the core if you ask me,  was encouraging and impeding him at the same time. Acting strategically did help him achieve great goals, but it didn't help him in the matters of imagination, feeling and love. And aren't these three always the biggest motivations of art? Oh, Sir Joshua Reynolds wasn't lacking of feelings and imagination, of course he was not! Joshua Reynolds had difficulties to transfer them into the paintings he created. Reynolds knew that because it was part of his personality. Reynolds felt that his soberness and self-control sometimes stood in his way. There was another obstacle he had to deal with, an artist who was counterpart to all this: Thomas Gainsborough.  A man too talented, too fanciful and dreaming, too capricious, too alluring, too elegant, too much of grandeur, too sex-driven, too unhappily married for Reynolds' sense of responsibility. His next decisions were also based on these facts and he became obsessed with getting better and better, obsessed with being different. And he lost himself with this. Reynolds got famous for his  relentless experiments with materials and the layers of colours the old masters used. Having seen 'Susanna and the Elders' at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin I'm not quite sure wether Rembrandt has ever forgiven Reynolds for messing around with his beautiful work. Shockingly diletanttish, to say the least. To solve his dilemma Reynolds adopted a course that could only be a success because it was inventive, entirely new, and utterly surprising to the society and therefore his clients. Here is one of the results, 'Kitty Fisher as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl', 1759.

References: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/joshua-reynolds-creation-celebrity/joshua-reynolds-creation-0-7

And another one, 'Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen', 1773.

References: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/reynolds-three-ladies-adorning-a-term-of-hymen-n00079

With his new course Reynolds nearly shoots to fame. People went crazy at this. Everyone with a name or the desire of wanting to become a name made an appointment for a session in Reynolds' studio. Reynolds really touched a nerve and obviously met demands like never before. With transforming into a goddess or some mystical  creature women could be what they wanted to be. Who, I wonder, suggested the theme? Did the woman? Did Reynolds? These are very interesting and important questions I believe. If it was Reynolds, and I opt for this, we can see a lot about him again. To create this kind of fine works the artist must have more than painterly skills. First and foremost, he must have been a very good and interested observer of possible needs and conflicts of the women that came to him. It requires tact, compassion, and a great deal of understanding the female psychology. Was Reynolds able to manage that? Yes, in parts he was. When the painting worked it was a comprehensive triumph for both, Reynolds and his sitter. Painting a likeness has never been the problem for him, but any transcendence of more than a likeness means alternating dynamics between artist and sitter. I think this was a bit the struggle  for Reynolds, even though the paintings are poignant and quite superb. Reynolds was so obsessed with his fascination with people of elevated rank that he failed to notice some fundamental issues: no woman seems to have reached the space in his heart that is designated for real love in each of us. This makes his paintings commercial because they lack female spirit and sensuality and sexiness. This is also the reason that Reynolds was so much better at painting men than he was at women. You can see this here. Please look at this amazing painting, 'The Dilettanti Society', 1777/1778.

References: https://www.wikiart.org/en/joshua-reynolds/the-dilettanti-society-1778

All the time during these immensely successful years Reynolds was wearing a mask and so were some of his clients. Reynolds did not see this either. Fancy dresses, you see,  may give the person individuality but can also take away personality and otherness that usually makes any person so beautiful. Don't you think? Painting went like clockwork for Reynolds and it gets really difficult for me to like his paintings as the years of his work go by. It is just hard to remember the distinctive features in his late works in comparison to the early works that totally identify Joshua Reynolds. And it shouldn't be like that, should it?

Everything changed, however, when Reynolds lost his eyesight. Late in life, but not too late, Sir Joshua realised the importance of love and true friendship. Because of his illness commissions came to a halt and so did the visits of people he thought were his friends. The society Reynolds believed he was a member of was closing ranks in some way and Sir Joshua got lonely and broody. Finally, he shows us his inner self and ambition, a desire that wasn't meant to be lived openly. Please look at this, 'Cupid and Psyche', c. 1789.

References: https://www.wikiart.org/en/joshua-reynolds/cupid-and-psyche

It is outstanding a masterpiece in more than one way and I love it. In real life it is even more brilliant and sensional. I'd like to thank the Courtauld Institute of Art in London for giving it the perfect place and atmosphere to cast its magic. I for one was so touched and enchanted, I found it very hard to leave the beautiful couple. For some reason, none of Reynolds' other works is comparable in emotional content and meaning.

Photograph: The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, taken in April 2018

It is recorded that Sir Joshua Reynolds depicted Miss Greville and her brother as Cupid and Psyche. Maybe. I won't deny the truth of it. But, personally, I have my doubts. To be more precise, I see it a bit different. Are you familiar with the story of Cupid and Psyche? It is a story about love between a man and a woman where love, against all odds, wins in the end. This painting is composed in a manner so unlike and yet superior to everything Reynolds created before. I can't think of  a more personal and intimate way that shows how deeply attached Reynolds was to the moral of the tale. So deep, in fact, that this might be his own story of love. There is that beautiful idea. It suggests that Joshua Reynolds painted himself as the boy Cupid. Having engaged myself in the possibility and spent months and months with the beauty of it, I do agree with all my heart. He did, and it is not the striking similarity of the boys' faces in both paintings that convinced me in the first place. It is the story that has been told with the works. I do believe  the painting I started with, Shading the Eyes', and  this one, 'Cupid and Psyche', are closely intertwined. Whilst Joshua Reynolds was reminiscing about life and felt that he will perhaps never reach that level of happiness again he realised that he already had. He had found himself again and with it the knowledge that love is the most essential thing in life. It is impossible to know whether there was a girl like Psyche in Sir Joshua's life or whether she was a product of his dreams. If there was such a girl, it is not even of interest to us who she might have been. She knew who she was. Oh yes, she knew! Sir Joshua had told  her. He declared his love through the painting and she understood. It is love that is worth fighting for and this deserves our very best try. Over and over again. Let's live for that.