Before the cardboard inspired Robert Rauschenberg’s creative senses to use it as a leading medium for his artistic explorations, the material itself had its own creative past. The history of cardboard as an utilitarian product is closely related to the industrialization of Western cultures at the beginning of nineteenth century. The real professional name of the especially composed paper^[1] design is corrugated fiberboard.^[2] Its initial purpose was to protect diverse products related to the industrial commodities during their transport and not to create artistic objects with it. At the end of nineteenth and at the beginning of twentieth century the products based on the corrugated board were largely adopted in most commercial storages or transportation activities. The global commercial development and closely related to it necessity to transport various goods stimulated the relatively constant growth of the packaging industry. In order to satisfy the increasing demands for more sophisticated and durable transportation materials the corrugated board was submitted to various modifications in order to satisfy the market expectations. The cardboard’s particular association with the industrial activities symbolically relates it to the imperialist socio-political exploitation and as such echoes its contemporary realities. The practices associated to the use and reuse of cardboard packaging materials reflected the capitalist social context of it. In consequence various artists were using it to project their own image of the modern industrial times and Picasso^[3] besides Braque^[4] and Gris^[5] might be added to the list of the first examples of such intentions. Picasso in his Cubist collages^[6] combined pieces of cardboards with paint and other objects on the canvas (see fig. 9). Sometimes he created entire compositions from cardboard as for example the Maquette for Guitar,^[7] which was done entirely from paper and rope (see fig. 8). The Dada^[8] movement employed cardboards for construction of decorations, masks, and costumes for their Avant-garde performances. Kurt Schwitters,^[9] one of the most interesting Dada artists, used cardboards in his various artistic explorations. The use of corrugated boards for other than packaging purposes has continued in the works of many artists since. The specific qualities of the cardboard as an industrial product made it omnipresent in contemporary human activities. During the late sixties when the socio-political protests spread across Europe against the governmental imperialist politics and its corrupted system of art institutions, the artists begun to contest the existed pattern of conventions imposed on the art market by the corporate powers. Before Rauschenberg used the corrugated paper for his various cardboards series the Italian art critic Germano Celant^[10] wrote his Arte Povera manifesto and organized its first two expositions. The Italian artists took the opposite direction in comparison to the American artistic trend of sixties. They were looking for unconventional materials of everyday, which would have connections with the nature and express the modern realities. They were searching for the ways to approach art closer to life by negating the conventional stereotypes of the artistic aesthetics. Furthermore, Arte Povera was against the old conservative traditions of conceiving an object of art. The Arte Povera movement promoted the total liberty in art conception including the unlimited variety of materials used for its execution.

Robert Rauschenberg admired the European art and was sympathetic to the Arte Povera initiatives. He followed its creative development from a distance. It is possible that few years later the Arte Povera concept sparked in Rauschenberg’s creative mind the idea to explore various possibilities offered by the corrugated paper to the broader extend. The use of paper related products was always present in Rauschenberg’s artistic evolution. However, his experiments with cardboards made him the first artist to be able to express the urban poetic catastrophic romanticism with the material related directly to the contemporary world of human consumption. The adoption of corrugated boards as a means of artistic expression contains an evidence of the artist’s political agenda. Through the application of cardboards as a symbol of Imperialist production and consumption Rauschenberg stated his artistic protest confirming his disillusion in human race and its values. This is especially visible in his Cardboards series where the purity of cardboard medium is enforced with the sublime lexicality of the imagery it projects.

At the beginning of the seventies Robert Rauschenberg moved from New York to Florida where he created a series of artworks completely different from anything he had tried earlier. He explored the new avenues incorporating in his creative venture a medium never used before by any artist to such extend as he did. He made few significant series of compositions using the cardboards packaging boxes as a principal material to express his ideas. He almost simultaneously worked on the Cardboards, Cardbirds, Tampa Clay Pieces, Bronze Cardboards, Venetian, and the Early Egyptian cycle of thematic artworks. The entire collection emanates with the Dadaist rebellious flavor. The Avant-garde aesthetics are omnipresent in the structural proprieties of the cardboard medium to which Rauschenberg imposed completely different role to play than the material’s initial purpose was.

The Rauschenberg’s Dadaist Avant-gardism is expressed the most in his Venetian and Early Egyptian series of cardboards compositions. These brilliant concepts, which were explored with the most unexpected materials, prove Rauschenberg’s force of intellectual irony emphasized by the ambiguity of the employed medium. By doing so he attempted to intellectualize the medium itself. The review of few chosen artworks from both series proves Rauschenberg’s method to apply the Dadaistic notion of anarchic irony in his conceptual pattern of conceiving the cardboard art.

Rauschenberg in the Venetian series shows his creative virtuosity, which needs to be deciphered in order to understand its intellectual content. Rauschenberg’s strangeness of the refine minimalism of his compositions is stunning. He plays with the space and time contained in the sublime vulgarity of the cardboards. Combining different components with the corrugated paper he completes its indexical narratives. Each object used in Rauschenberg’s compositions has its own meaning and the collection of all of them induces to its final understanding. In his Venetian cardboards he constructed a pictographic biography of Venice.^[11] He coded the city’s architectural sites compressing their essence through the Avant-garde practice of his rebellious imagery. At the first glance on the Untitled (Venetian) cardboard composition (see fig. 1) from the formal point of view the viewer sees the forms constructed from the cardboard, canvas, and leather interacting with the flat surface of the white wall and the floor in front of us. However, Rauschenberg’s genie leads our deductive senses further and deeper into the total disclosure of artist’s intellectual quiz. In this particular cardboard composition Rauschenberg contextualized through the prism of his Dadaist ridiculous lenses and its minimalist symbolism the heart of Venice. He portrayed the Piazza San Marco together with the Torre dell’Orologio (see fig. 10). This place was and still is the principal place for the most important socio-political and cultural public manifestations in Venice. Since the very early beginning of the Venetian Republic, the Piazza San Marco has witnessed holiday gatherings, processions, executions, funerals, departures, celebrations, important historic visits, and many other significant to Venetians events. Rauschenberg in his depiction of the Piazza San Marco limits himself to the essence of this place’s historical past. Using the cardboard box he constructed a shape of the Torre dell’Orologio the Venice highest landmark and placed it horizontally making it emerging almost from the center of the stretched white canvas. He suggests an aerial view of the entire Piazza San Marco. In his perception of the depicted space he respects the architectural irregularity of the object itself. The Torre dell’Orologio in reality does not emerge from the center of the piazza’s central edge but it is placed very close to the corner of it. That is why in Rauschenberg’s composition the cardboard tower is not situated at the edge’s center of the canvas’s squared shape. Rauschenberg made his references even stronger by giving to the white surface of the canvas a floppy flexibility implying by it a symbolic connection to the image of maternity. The leather belt as the umbilical cord is attached to the center of the canvas in form of a belly and is dropping down connecting the aerial spaces of two surfaces. One is the wall as a reference to the past and the second is the floor referring to the present. This embryonic metaphor celebrates the birth of the new perception of the Venetian cultural heritage with Dadaist flavor. Rauschenberg symbolically refers to the time passage between the greatness of human achievements and its values to the present socio-political and cultural decay. The cardboard medium used by Rauschenberg emphasizes his statement even stronger. Rauschenberg in his ambivalent concept conveyed the birth of Venice to the Immaculate Conception. He compares the two miracles of human creativity: the first would be a dogmatic imaginary and unreal religious concept of Christianity; the second would be Venice itself, the bijou of the Adriatic Sea, a real still existing and appreciated by anyone who had the chance to visit it. Rauschenberg through intellectual nuances of his artwork compares the social structures of Venetian Republic with the image of socially disgraceful Imperialist actions of the Western world. The Venetian Republic’s social system was organized in great respect to every Venetian citizen. The poorest citizens of the Venetian Republic were better treated few hundreds years ago than the poorest citizens of the most advanced countries of the world today. The Venetian socio-political structure was an object of envy to many. The Venetian Republic independence lasted for few centuries until it was completely destroyed by the Napoleon’s Imperialistic hunger at the end of the eighteenth century. Rauschenberg, with his encoded silent intelligence, compares the Old World with the Modern through the allegorical depiction of the mixed materials with the cardboard medium, which symbolizes the disastrous effects of the uncontrolled Capitalism. Rauschenberg concludes his Untitled (Venetian) piece by combining the aerial view of Piazza San Marco with the shape of the turtle, a symbol of longevity, strength, and wisdom. Implying by it that the world has lot to learn from the Old Venetians.

In the second cardboard from the Untitled (Venetian) series (see fig. 2) Rauschenberg elaborates on the architectural concept of Venice. He exposes the viewer to more than one reading of his artwork. However, Rauschenberg always gives the indications how to follow the path of his intellectual crossword towards the final unity of his thoughts. The various fragments of the suspended on the wall cardboards suggest the variety of the facades of the Venetian homes situated along its canals (see fig.11) and refers to Venetian households infected by the Western world and its Capitalist pattern of the city economic development. The six different parts of the cardboards in sizes and shapes represent the six principal districts^[12] of Venice: San Marco, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce, San Polo, Sestiere Castello, and Cannaregio. He starts his cardboard landscape parade from San Marco as the most important place in Venice. Rauschenberg distinguished the particularity of the place by different and much more elaborated form. He composed it from four parts. It starts with the industrial cleaning brush on the top of the larger cardboard from under which appears a smaller in size form with attached to it pendulum suspended on the cord to the floor. Taking in consideration the unity of all elements it appears to us an anthropomorphic shape, which could be read as feminine, and as such would refer to the Venice name. The industrial brush represents the head, than the following two parts refer to the torso and the waist. The cord represents legs, and the pendulum refers to the particularities of the Venetian high hilled bases of the ladies shoes (see fig. 15). This particular structure contains many elements connected all together in one unity of the symbolic representation of Venice perceived through the anarchic Dadaist spirit. The suspended pendulum refers also to the port anchor a symbolic connection to the way Venice was constructed. Rauschenberg arranged the cardboards accordingly respecting the period of time when each of the Venetian districts developed in respect to their importance. Castello district is the oldest and is represented by the darker and most wrinkled cardboard. At the end of the composition there is Canarregio district, which developed as the last and is known as a place of the first Jewish Ghetto in the world. Rauschenberg made a special distinction of the last board from the others by using cardboard with a grid on it as a direct reference to the concentration camps.

In the third Untitled (Venetian) piece (see fig. 3) Rauschenberg expressed the maximum with the minimum. It is a great and subtle representation of the Venice famous Bridge of Sights (see fig. 12). It was the last passage of the condemned prisoners from the Doge’s palace^[13] to the prison Prigioni Nuove. The bridge has two small windows through which the prisoner had the last contact with the daylight before getting to the prison’s dark small cells for the time of his sentence. The prison itself is known for its famous one time tenant Giacomo Casanova^[14] who was imprisoned there by the Venetian inquisitors for his frivolities and who managed to escape from it. Rauschenberg with the use of two cardboard boxes connected together with the rope dropping from both sides to the floor depicts the symbolic representation of the architectural unity of the two important Venetian buildings and he is reflecting the opposite extremities of socio-political irony of life in general as the antagonistic existence of “good” and “bad.” He might even create this piece thinking about Casanova’s escape what would suggest the slightly opened box from the left side of the composition. Casanova managed to escape by passing from the prison through the Doge’s palace to the canal and this is exactly the schema traced by Rauschenberg in his artwork. From the formal point of view this minimalist concept underlines also the constancy of nature perpetual movement of energy particles, which form the miraculous cycle of life.

Rauschenberg exerts his creative right to impose his anarchic intelligent perception of the Venetian cartography through the San Pantalone (Venetian)^[15] piece (see fig. 4) the artist is using different materials than in the previous artworks. This time Rauschenberg created composition with the tar paper,^[16]wood, metal, rope, and coconut. The materials like tar paper, wood, or metal are usually used in construction industry. Rauschenberg reconstructed the aerial view of the Grand Canal^[17] using these materials to symbolize the importance of this main water-traffic artery around which the construction of Venice took place. The Grand Canal divides Venice on two parts and has a shape of a big reversed letter “S” (see fig.13). The title itself refers to the Venetian character from the Commedia dell’Arte whose name is Pantalone. This reference indicates the importance of Venice as a cultural center of the world. Rauschenberg’s depiction of the Grand Canal has actually the shape of Venetian pants (see fig. 14). They are usually floppy from the waist to the lower part of the knees where they are buttoned with one or two buttons around long socks. The rope stands for socks and the attached coconut for the shoe. Rauschenberg’s composition shows actually the profile of the sitting Venetian’s leg from the waist to the feet. The curved shape of the structure connecting the wall with the floor is working as an anker^[18]making sure that the constructed form on the wall would not go away. It reflects symbolically the permanence of the Venetian establishment. The fact of using the barnacle-encrusted tar paper for the composition of the Grand Canal Rauschenberg implies also the ecological aspect of its propriety.

In these few samples of the Venetian series Rauschenberg’s cardboard compositions confirms his high esteem for the past cultures from which he was skimming the essentials and processed its content through the intellectual digestive system of his mind. These abilities permitted him to project his own contrasting images by using the uncommon methods and materials. Rauschenberg created many Venetian pieces what in its totality gives an image of unconventional topography of Venice contained in the medium inherited from the Imperialist industrial excrements.

Rauschenberg’s continued his Avant-garde visual silent lectures of the history of human evolution in his Early Egyptian pieces. The examination of few chosen compositions from this series affirms Rauschenberg’s anarchic despite of traditional aesthetics. His intellectual connotative genie of processing and capture the Egyptian monumentality is exceptional. Rauschenberg, in the Untitled (Early Egyptian) composition (see fig. 5), created in nineteenth seventy-third, contains a minimalist composite of elements, which needs to be decoded with a subtlety hieroglyphic mist of knowledge. The freestanding structure is composed from boxes of various sizes made from corrugated paper. The oblique figure is larger at the base and its frontal side is narrowing irregularly as it progresses to the top. The composed pieces are joined together with the fabric containing glued traces of sand and wrapped all around it from the lower part to its highest. On the top a pink pillow with decorative ornaments is placed. Rauschenberg in this seemingly simple freestanding composition contained the essence and the complexity of the Egyptian believes and its religious mysticism. Furthermore, with his explicit intelligent minimalism Rauschenberg illustrates the entire history of the Ancient Egypt coding it in the obelisk’s exterior surface. He created an Egyptian totem like object, which is fulfilled with the connotative content projected at the viewer from its surfaces and its forms. The structure expresses the monumentality of Egyptian architecture (see fig. 17 and 19) and also links us directly to their religious mortal practices such as the mummification^[19] process of the death bodies (see fig. 16). The use of boxes constructed from corrugated paper has an ironic connotation to the Egyptian papyrus^[20] from which today’s paper got its name. The pillow at the top of the Rauschenberg’s obelisk refers symbolically to the sarcophagus^[21] as well as to the process of stuffing of the mummified bodies before they were placed in the stone or wooden sarcophagus.

In another piece the Untitled (Early Egyptian) created in nineteenth seventy-fourth (see fig. 6) Rauschenberg shaped the cardboard boxes referring to the massive particularities of Egyptian sculptures (see fig. 18 and 19). He emphasizes the static stoned quadrature of their Royal dignity. The additional impact is obtained by the lexical iconographic context of the imprinted text on the cardboard boxes. The words “Fragile” and “Handle with care” symbolize the objects of archeological importance and the necessity to preserve its cultural roots of humanity.

In the Untitled (Early Egyptian) composition (see fig. 7) Rauschenberg through the anarchic Dadaist mastery of his spirit constructed an intellectual rebus, which synthesized all aspects and particularities of Egyptian pyramids (see fig. 20). The imposing height of the covered with sand cardboard symbolize the enormity of pyramidal constructions. The open boxes in the middle part refer to the complexity of the internal corridors leading to the central room where the Pharaoh’s mummified body was deposed. The twine coming out of the middle box suggests the Egyptian tradition of the mummification process itself. The metal bucket would signify the ritual canopic jars^[22] for the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. The unusual position of the standing vertically bike addresses the physicality of the human effort, which was necessary for the construction of these splendid proofs of our ancestors’ genie. The bike’s structure also corresponds with the characteristics of the hieroglyphic linearity. The group of boxes on the right side of the composition form Greek letter “π”^[23] what suggests the necessity of complicated mathematical calculations necessary to construct the pyramid and its interior scheme of corridors and passages. The box on the right top site is open and the bleu fabric is coming out of it to the floor symbolize the ritual parade of the Pharaoh to his grave. In this particular composition Rauschenberg surpassed himself in the elaborated simplicity and rebellious concept to represent the ancient heritage of human civilization in such subtle refined but anarchic way.

Robert Rauschenberg in his Cardboards series such as Venetian and Early Egyptian retraces the old and ancient cultures using the wastes of the consummatory behavior of the Western world. Such gesture from his part is not associated with any abstract meaning but anarchic and as such would be considered as a Dadaist practice. Rauschenberg declines aesthetic conventions through the narratives of the cardboards as an emblem of deterioration within which humanity exists.

An artist writes their biographies with the creative imagery and forms of their own creativities. Through the intellectual content and intimate lexicality of depicted scenes the artist expresses spiritual interiority. He does it by encrypting information about himself in his artwork; sometimes he does it intentionally and sometimes unconsciously. Edward Hopper would be an excellent example of how through the spatial imagery of the exterior and interior places contained on the surface of his canvases the artist externalized the interior space of his own personality. Many consider Hopper as an icon of “Americanism” and everything what the word itself may imply. He certainly reflected the America of his time.

The Hopper’s United States of America at the beginning of twentieth century were passing through the times of great inventions and socio-economic and cultural development. The socio-political instabilities and economic troubles in Europe caused in consequence the Diaspora of various nations towards the American continent.^[1] The growing fast European population, especially in the Eastern and Southern parts of Europe, as well as in Ireland, were the leading members of the waves of immigrants looking for better chances of surviving for their families on the new welcoming territories. The flow of immigration brought to the expending country not only working labor but also different cultural values as a part of the integration process. The massive industrialization and immigration had also significant impact on the evolution of the American Art. Many of the new arrivers represented the artistic world of their respective countries.^[2] At the beginning of twentieth century the American art was exposed to various European artistic tendencies.^[3] In nineteenth thirteenth the Association of American Painters and Sculptors organized the opening of the Armory Show^[4] in New York.^[5] It was an International Exhibition of Modern Art where American artists exposed their work in the company of international artists representing a waste kaleidoscope of artistic tendencies. The European Avant-gardism inspired the progressive members of the American art scene to create their own artistic liberty. It was in mode to travel to Paris city, which was considered as a capital of artistic modernity, and practice the art of painting there. Many American young artists went to Europe to study these movements and imply these theories when they came back home. The Ashcan School^[6] was one of the progressive spirits of the artistic expression during this period. Its members were bored with existing traditions of American idealism, and were rather inspired by the urban Contemporary realities of American life. They depicted the New York’s working class neighborhoods. Through their paintings they contested the conservative aesthetics of American impressionism and academicism in painting and sculpture. The leading character of the Ashcan School was Robert Henri and the terminology of the group was first used by Art Young^[7] in nineteenth sixteenth. Edward Hopper, as a young adept in the art of painting, studied in Henri’s atelier together with George Bellows.^[8] Both of them at later time were considered as the followers of the theoretical principals of the Ashcan School.

Edward Hopper at the early stage of his artistic carrier visited Paris^[9] on three occasions, as he would like to follow the established pattern for the beginning American artists. With the significant help of his parents he was able to spend some time in Paris, visiting as well other European cities as London, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Berlin, and Brussels. Hopper, at that period of time, explored museums’ elaborated content of their walls. Most artists during that time resourced their creative batteries gathering the European experiences in Paris and other cities, and soon or later adopted and exposed the Parisian influences in their own artworks. In case of Edward Hopper’s paintings what is extraordinary is the persistent resistance to all artistic tendencies and influences surrounded him during the time of his staying in Europe. Some scholars^[10] could probably contest this notion, but Hopper from the very early beginning had his particular perception of surrounding him realities, which did not change during his entire artistic carrier.

Through the examination of Edward Hopper’s chosen artworks it is interesting to see how Hopper’s context of space is depicted in relation to the artist’s self-representation. It is interesting to look at how the artist projects through his artwork the essence of American realities and its particular ambiance during the times of “Great Depression”^[11] and the periods before and after the World War II. Edward Hopper lived his live surrounded by great artistic changes in painting and sculpture. However, he never was really a member of any particular style, or movement. He drifted between the constantly changing artistic environments by always following his deeply psychological trail of his own and particular only to him creativity. Hopper portrayed himself through the talking architectural forms of light and shadow in his paintings. The dissemination of artist’s imagery through the formal analyze of the use of color and light in his composition of space is exposing its relation to each other in reference to the depicted subject of his paintings. The deeply metaphysical realism of his artworks emanates with certain dose of psychoanalytic Modernity, which is visible through his representation of space and his palette of colors. Through the review of artist’s few artworks it is possible to understand how the content of Hopper’s imagery refers to our Contemporary realities and how the space depicted by the artist affects the space of today’s viewer.

The painting titled Sun in an Empty Room (see fig. 1) is one of the artworks, which represent the most Hopper’s artistic complexity. He conceived this artwork four years before his death when in his was eighties and it is almost his last painting. The evocative character of the room’s emptiness is penetrated by the sunlight coming from the open window into the unobstructed metaphysical territory. The sunlight symbolizes the spiritual liberation of consciousness coming with the moment of death. The window represents the passage from the material state to the spiritual one. The bleu horizontal division of the window space indicates the two religious dogmatic forces of the two principal alternatives of afterlife: the eternal Heaven, or the eternal Hell. Hoper came from very religious family practicing the Baptist’s church ceremonial activities. His parents’ contacts through the Baptist church helped him during his first staying in France. The various shades of the shadows reflect the various states of Hopper’s inner intimacy. His frequent frustrations caused by the luck of inspiration and the constant insecurity is contained in these shadowed walls of his painting. Hopper sometimes did not worked for several months looking for the subject, which could motivate him enough to start painting.^[12] This particular artwork reflects Hopper’s entire life. It is his most perfect intellectual biography of his artistic persona. He was extremely privet individual and his love of solitude and the discomfort of sociability are depicted in this relatively small canvas. Hopper was extremely well read person. He grew on books and lived with literature as his second most intimate friend through all his life. The painting and reading activities absorbed him the most.^[13] The formal aspects of the canvas emphasize even more Hopper’s encapsulated essence of his personality. In the paint particles and the artist’s compositional genie, the gentle strokes of his brush cover the entire imprimatura^[14] surface blending softly the warm tones of yellow ochre, sienna, and burnt umber pigments. Through this chromatic ambiance Hopper imprisoned seemingly the impossible, a particular moment of the time of his presence.

Hopper painted only two paintings, which resembles in some way to each other, but they are quite different in the psychological sense. The painting titled Room by the Sea (see fig. 2) precedes the Sun in an Empty Room painting by twelve years. The size is similar to the previous canvas, but the space is divided in two plans and the picture projects an optimistic ambiance and it glorifies the free spirit of life in contrast to more sentimental and summarizing content of the later painting. The first room is empty and filled only with the breeze coming from an open sea to the interior space and the artist through the overwhelming bluish tones in the composition expressed it. The second space with some furniture visible through the narrow passage on the left indicates the human presence. The green carpet on the floor refers to the nature, life, and hospitality. The red sofa symbolizes love and the frame and the commode refer to the domesticity of the depicted space. The scene of the painting depicts the view from Hopper’s studio room of the house that he built at Truro on the Cape Cod in Massachusetts where every summer for few months Hopper retrieved from his New York apartment with his wife. In this artwork the artist shares his happiness and enjoyment of the view and the summer weather. In both paintings Hopper speaks about himself and his spiritual comfort, which is secured by the open space of the view spreading in front of him. The view invades the welcoming space of his artistic sensuality supported by the direct beams of the sunlight. It is clear that it is the happy time for him. In this painting Hopper is again exteriorizing his state of interior happiness through the exterior surfaces of his own home space and he does it with the mastery and perfectly balanced composition. Edward Hopper was the master in exteriorizing the interiority of human’s mind. In both paintings he is exposing to the viewer the results of the psychoanalytical exam of his creative personality.

The general emblem attached to Hopper’s artistic activities is the “Americanness”^[15] of his paintings. Most scholars and art critics consider Hopper as a painter of the American realities. Such perceptive judgment of Hopper’s creativity is understandable, especially when looking at the two another samples of his work. The first painting Office in a Small City (see fig. 3) reflects the reality of working and living in the small American town. The speed of people functioning in small cities is quite different than in such industrial metropolis as New York, Chicago, and Boston. In this painting Hopper surprises the viewer with another great compositional game of depicted spaces. He is accessing from the exterior the interior surface of the office and through the man’s regard to the exterior of the window Hopper is closing the aerial spatial territory, which circulates around the solidity of the building’s corner. Hopper projects in this artwork the “Robinsonian” kid of surviving in America. Everyone depends on his own initiative and the professional success is possible only through the persistent attitude in order to obtain the final goal. Furthermore, the picture indicates the particularities of the American system of working space. Everyone is assigned to his own cage. It is his space to act and perform. Through the building’s window Hopper refer to his own working realities. He sometimes stayed closed in his studio doing nothing else than think in front of the canvas empty white surface. Hopper in this painting portrayed his own complicated interiority. The window acts as a painting frame through which the viewer has the intimate access to the artist’s psychological boundaries of his fragility. In the second example titled Morning Sun (see fig. 4) Hopper depicts a woman sitting on the bed as in the middle of an island surrounded by the immensity of morning sunlight. The projected shadow on the bed might indicate symbolically the lover who just left and the only trace of his presence is the suggestive shade. These two paintings share the same aspect of the framed identities. Is it the socio-political pattern of American realities of the effects of industrialization and its discriminatory social realities, or it is just poetic representation of the Immaculate Conception?^[16] Dissecting the image from the Hopper’s perspective, it may be the satirical representation of the artist’s wife and her overwhelming power to which the giant painter was submitted^[17] what would indicate the long shadow the woman is sitting on. It is yet another proof of the exteriorization of Hopper’s intimate interiority.

The artwork Soir bleu (see fig.5), Hopper’s most unfortunate masterpiece,^[18] represents the artist himself as a character inspired by the Harlequin from the Commedia dell’Arte.^[19] In this artwork Hopper reflects his own fragility surrounded by the orthodox vulgarity of the public places. He refers also to his own outstanding physical particularities, which made him over exposed to the public eyes wherever he went. He reflects on this fact with the note of irony depicting the Harlequin in white garment smoking the cigarette under the watchful glance of the woman passing by. Hopper compares the profession of a painter to the ridiculed character of Harlequin and his constant naivety of better tomorrow. It is an intellectual portrait of artist’s sensibility and artistic consciousness.

The Sunday painting (see fig.6) Hopper painted just few years before the “Great Depression” stricken the United States market and as such it has a premonitory character. However, it is mostly about Hopper as a center of attention to the critics writing about his artwork. The lonely sitting character exposed to the light of the public attention to his work is contemplating about the ridicule commentaries on his paintings. The empty shop windows reflect Hopper’s opinion about the judges of his artworks. Hopper’s strongest points are his mastery of perfectly balanced spatial arrangements of his paintings. He achieved in the conceptual structure of his paintings the linear and the chromatic balance completing each other needs perfectly. Hopper owned the beauty of his imagery to his explicit sense of compositional stability. The artist never started to paint before exploring completely his ideas before making a significant amount of preparatory sketches. He was privileged through extremely hard work and persistence to obtain the ability to distinguish the right from the wrong in his painterly mastery through which he portrayed his own multiple facets of his delicate artistic personality.

The ambiguity of Hopper’s imagery is omnipresent in his artwork. He may be considered as a painter of the American style of life, but most of all he was projecting his own image through the architecture and synthetically depicted figures of people whom he imprisoned to serve his personal biographical purpose. Hopper cannot simply ignore not to do it. His desire to exteriorize his nature was stronger than his personal control of himself. During the few interviews he accorded during his entire life he often said that in his artwork he is looking for the way to reflect his own artistic anxieties, what would mean that he still did not know at that time that he got it already from the very early beginning of his artistic carrier. When during the Venetian Biennial in nineteenth fifty-two the Italian journalists described Hopper as an American Chirco^[20] they proved by such statement that they recognized the artist’s uncommon metaphysical originality. The poetic flattery of such statement certainly made Hopper happy. Despites the variety of painted subjects, Hopper for real painted only about his struggles with his own complicated personality. Hopper was mostly interested in depicting the architecture what inspires an idea that he actually made the painted constructions speak about himself through his canvases trying to depict the most exact transcription of his most intimate impressions. Hopper’s imagery values did not change with the passed time. The narrative content of Hopper’s paintings still reflects the same anxieties of human existence in our Contemporary world and everyone can find his own reflection in his imagery. Hopper encapsulated forever in his artworks the essence of the metaphysical realism of the commonplace coding into it his own artistic biography.

The reputation of Paris as a leading center of important economic, socio-political and cultural changes was already well established in European social circles at the beginning of the twentieth century. The booming industrialization inspired various economic activities in every aspects of human existence. The market for the commodities of all kind was constantly growing and opening widely for business offerings basically everything, including indecent services, as long as the buyer was able to afford its price. The city of Paris was becoming the international center of the world of fashion, entertainment, and Modern art. Despite its administrative problems related to the overwhelming population growth not followed by the infrastructural necessities in order to accommodate the new arrivals, Paris embraced everyone who was looking for a chance of a working space in the city. The artists from around the world were crossing each other on the streets of Paris, pursuing their dreams for a success and recognition of their talent. Kees Van Dongen,^[1] whose exposition was hosted by the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, was one of many who tried to establish his artistic personality in Paris, and one of few who was able to do it successfully during his lifetime.

The Van Dongen’s exposition in Montreal gathered artworks from different periods of his artistic carrier. The artworks which capture a particular attention are the drawings titled: “Woman Drinking Absinthe” (see fig.1), “Cocotte” (see fig.2), and “Le Mepris” (see fig.3). These particular artworks Van Dongen executed during the time he was working for the Parisian reviews such as La Review Blanche, L’Assiette au Beure, Le Rire, and Gil Blas. The magnetic power of these artworks attracts the viewer not only for its aesthetics, but also because of their refine commentary and psychological content. These drawings were executed between the years of 1901 and 1902. These three artworks belong to the series of drawings^[2] created by Van Dongen during his first years  in Paris.^[3] It was the time when he had to struggle for surviving by drawing portraits of people in cafeterias and on the streets in order to be able to sustain him-self and his young family. Van Dongen’s sharpness of his allegoric statements is emanating from these artworks at the viewer with horrifying exposure of the psychological summary of French classes. These drawings depict the social degradation of Parisian society. The picture “Woman Drinking Absinthe” differs from all the others exposed in the museum. In this artwork Van Dongen made editorial comment taking as a subject the problem of prostitution in Paris. At first regard the artwork gives an impression of humoristic view on the male versus female relations. However, this particular drawing Van Dongen executed not in the conventional realistic way as he did with the other drawings. This time the semiotic ambiguity of his judgment of the social degradation is enforced by psychological allegory to the human basic instincts. He exposes the animal nature of human beings. It is a dark satire on the imperfection of the phallic social system. Besides the editorial subjectivity the artwork does not have yet the “Van Dongian” fauvist flavor. Instead, the aesthetics and technical particularities of the drawing ”Woman Drinking Absinthe” suggest enormous influences of Toulouse-Lautrec’s artistic style. Especially in these particular artworks the freedom of the brush is definitely borrowed either from Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Pierre Bonnard, or from all of them at the same time.^[4]

Submitting the artwork to the closer examination of its symbolic allegorical meaning, it is necessary to begin with the general description of its content. Van Dongen depicted a seating woman on the street in black dress with her legs covered with black stockings spread widely in a provocatively inviting position in the direction of the metamorphic skeleton of either a rabbit, or a dog, with a human skull and a tuxedo hat on it. The seated position of the skeleton suggests a rabbit, which symbolizes besides many other meanings the dishonesty, damaging activities, as well as a man’s libido. We can also consider that it is a hesitating dog that is not sure if the tempting garter in the hand of the woman is worth the bite. In such case, the dog symbolizes greediness and bad habits. Both descriptions fit the image well. The woman, according to the title of the drawing, is drunk what would symbolize her weakness and frivolity. Her head is covered with the hat with an evident unspecified red decoration on it. Her lips are in red and the visible underwear between her legs is red too. The red color goes from her head through her lips to the woman’s underwear. It is symbolic reference to the three steps of merchandising the prostitute services. The first is the idea of selling her body for money. The second is her mouth, through which she would trade with the client. The third would be the final consumption of the purchased “ goods.” The Woman is supporting her seating figure with her right hand preventing herself from falling. With her left hand stretched out, she is grasping her garter. She is trying to attract the metamorphic creature between her legs. The skull of the creature has an opened mouth, what emphasizes his hunger and the desire to bite the garter, or more. The spread legs are actually preventing the metamorphic creature from escaping, exposing the red flounces as an additional element of temptation. The drawing is executed with great artistic freedom of the brush and mixed media.^[5] The image provocative composition is catching the viewer in its psychoanalytic imaginary spider net. From the psychological point of view the image itself does to the viewer exactly what the woman does to the metamorphic creature. It emanates the temptation. It attracts the viewer’s attention by its unusual allegoric symbolism. It is Van Dongen’s the only artwork at the exposition with the surrealistic taste. The allegory of this image is evident and represents the essence of Parisian realities viewed through the critical perception of the artist’s intellect. Van Dongen’s irony in this drawing reflects the consequences of industrialization and its impact on the style of living of those less fortunate who became as merchandise for those who can afford it. The prostitution in Paris become affordable commodity and followed closely the development of consumer society. The difference in the sizes between the woman and the metamorphic creature figures symbolizes how serious the problems of social inequities were at that time, and how devastating the prostitution was as means of gaining a leaving, especially for women.^[6] The overwhelming figure of the lady refers to the demography of poverty among the lower classes of Parisian society, which was ruled by the financial power of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist exploratory system, which on the image is represented allegorically as the metamorphic creature. The artwork represents in itself a sort of diagram of economic divisions between the poor and the rich classes in Parisian society at the beginning of the twentieth century. The skeleton beast refers to the phallic demoralizing attitude towards the lower classes. It reflects the elaborated taste of the bourgeoisie to the commodities available to them through their monetary power. The seating woman represents allegorically the social devaluation of human dignity to the object of commodity. Van Dongen, during the time of working on the editorial illustrations for the magazines, produced great deal of drawings. Each of them was accompanied with intelligent commentaries spicy to the point, but in the drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe,” he proved his great talent of critical psychoanalytic artistic judgment and elaborated perversity of intellectual thought.

Taking in consideration Van Dongen’s Parisian realities at the beginning of his carrier, the interpretation of Van Dongen’s drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe,” would be quite different. Analyzing his artwork without any knowledge of any specific details about his personal life, the viewer would come to less or more the same interpretation of his drawing as it was explained earlier in this paper. However, knowing about the hardship of his life at the beginning of his Parisian period, as well as his brilliant carrier, which started few years later, this artwork represents the artist himself and his Parisian realities. The drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe” illustrates an unconscious prediction of Van Dongen’s own future. Van Dongen in his own words stated in his biography: “I am a prostitute of my glory.”^[7] Van Dongen’s well being depended on the bourgeoisie interest in his art. In such case the reading of the artwork “Woman Drinking Absinthe” would be different. The female character would represent Van Dongenès affords to attract attention to his talent and his artistic services. The meaning of the metamorphic character would not change. The creature would still represent an important monetary aspect, but in different sense. This time it would be the bourgeoisie’s taste for Van Dongen’s art. The artist in this artwork exteriorized his own artistic struggles. He referred himself as a prostitute, because from the beginning he had to put aside painting and concentrate on publishing in order to survive. The ambiguity of this drawing could refer to Plato’s “problem” with the art, when he said that the artists speak through the images more than through the ideas, what makes the truth cloudy and so not clear.

The artwork “Cocotte” follows similar psychological pattern of the ridicule aspects of live imposed on women in Patriarchal social order. The naked body of sleeping woman is lying on a bed. The body has a signs of physical fatigue related to the erotic services and her supposedly advanced age. The vapor coming from the oil lamp forms a word “Cocotte”^[8] floating over her head. In the darkness of the room behind the bed a face of a man is slightly visible. His face expresses his madness of desire for sexual pleasures seemingly available just in front of him. He may represent also “Death” waiting for the body to “burn out” like the oil lamp, so it can take it to the abyss of the “Hades.”^[9] In the right corner the way the vapor is turning gives an impression of another individual standing behind the woman’s bed. Assuming that it may be the case, the artist refers to the biblical story of “Susanna and the Elders.”^[10] It fits perfectly to the story drawn by the artist. In either way in this simple drawing Van Dongen depicts sarcastically the essence of the human existence.

The drawing “Le Mepris” refers to the common social phenomenon during the times called the “Belle Epoch” when the rich bourgeois men used to take advantage of young women coming to Paris with a hope to find better working conditions and socio-economic opportunities. Instead, they fell in the hands of rich bourgeois men who, with promises of eternal love and possibilities of marriage, misled the women’s cautious attitude. Those women who were unlucky enough to meet such individuals on the streets of Paris, were placed in rented apartments paid by the men and in exchange for the promised dream of marriage, they served to those men for entertainment of sexual pleasures. Many of the men had their own families and regardless to this fact their financial fortune inspired them to have indecent ideas. This euphoria of happiness lasted untill the woman got pregnant. Then usually women were left alone with the babies and without any possibilities of financial support from the child’s father. Most of the times they were thrown out from the apartments they were occupying when they were still unspoiled by the pregnancy. Many women suicides, others went back to their homes in the country, and yet some of them were lucky to survive in the city. Such situations were common in Paris, and Van Dongen as a good observer commented these situations with the brush of his own intelligent sarcasm. In the drawing “Le Mepris” Van Dongen draws a woman sitting in the room on a chair with her back towards the window and her face covered with her hands. Her posture suggests that she is worried and crying. Her face is not visible but it is evident that she is unhappy. The large curtain separates her from the window, which symbolizes the exterior world. The balustrade ornament, which is visible in the lower part of the window’s exterior, suggests the possibility of pleasant and fancy life. The fact of her pregnancy separates her from the exterior world and the enjoyment of life, which she was experiencing before. From now on what she has left is the darkness in front of her marked by the artist with the dark color brush strokes. The picture is accompanied by the captions: “Lover went away… woman is left alone… with her baby.” The text completes the moral of this story. ­­­This artwork represents yet another simplicity and depth of Van Dungeon’s thought and his brilliant mind. Studying these drawings makes it evident Van Dongen’s exceptional sense of social critic and proves his intellectual draftsmanship. These three chosen works represent a particular period in Van Dongen’s artistic quest. It was the time when he needed badly to work and earn enough money to make his living. Van Dongen with his extraordinary commentary intuition did not have any problem to make a great satire on any subject.

Analyzing Van Dongen’s artwork from the formal point of view his line and color from the time of his editorial production did not represented yet its future characteristics. During that time Van Dongen did a significant amount of drawings as those discussed earlier in this essay. Their main characteristic was the economy of line and color what certainly was dictated by the technological means available at that time. However, what strikes the most in these artworks is their similarity to the lines of drawing of another artists as Toulouse-Lautrec for example. It is obvious that artists always get inspired one another and with the solid and constant dynamic practice with the passing time they develop their own visual distinguishable characteristics. In Van Dongen’s case it is very clear that his early paintings and drawings have eclectic characteristics. Looking at his artwork from his early period it is evident to see all his favor artists such as Frans Hals, Goya, Manet, and Toulouse-Lautrec collected together. He was amalgamating different styles, which seems typical for most of young artists. Focusing on the drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe” one thing seems evident that he borrowed the brush stroke from Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Van Dongen mentioned that he saw the artist from time to time on the streets of Montmartre passing by him when he was drawing caricatures and portraits of people on the street ^[11]during his first staying in Paris. He did not speak to Toulouse-Lautrec because of shame of being too poor and unpleasantly looking. The fact that Van Dongen mentioned such incident proves that he knew of the artist’s artwork at that time. Comparing the drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe” with some of Toulouse-Lautrec’s artworks (see fig. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ) proves the point of enormous resemblances. It to put together the Van Dongen’s drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe” and chosen samples of Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawings, it would seems like it is Toulouse-Lautrec’s artwork. The way Van Dongen is applying the paint on his work has the same characteristic tonality. The nervousness and spontaneity of the lines are identical to Toulouse-Lautrec artworks “Monsieur, Madame and her Lapdog” (see fig. 4) and “Alone” (see fig. 5). It is particularly visible in the Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Alone” drawing. The Van Dongen’s and Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawings share the same energy of brush strokes and can actually be part of the same series. Another interesting resemblance is visible when looking at the faces on Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawings such as” Alone,” “Woman Pulling up her Stockings,” (see fig. 7) and “The Tattooed Woman or The Toilette:” the face of the woman on the first artwork and the two faces of the women helpers depicted on the two other drawings are almost the same to the face of the woman depicted on Van Dongen’s artwork. Their physical profiles and the expressions are identical. What is also comparable between the Van Dongen’s and Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawings in this particular case is the way Van Dongen treats chromatically the background of his work. The verticality of brush strokes is identical. Especially when comparing the Van Dongen’s artwork with the drawings “The Brothel Laundryman,” “Woman Pulling up her Stockings,” and “The Tattooed Woman or The Toilette.” The Van Dongen’s artwork “Woman Drinking Absinthe” is quiet different form all the other drawings exposed from the first period of his artistic struggles in Paris. The second sample of Van Dongen’s artwork “Cocotte” looks almost an allegorical copy of Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawing “Alone.” The two women share the same laying body position. The two other artworks “Cocotte” and “Le Mepris” besides their graphic resemblances with Toulouse-Lautrec’s brush line have similarities to the two other artists such as Edgar Degas and Pierre Bonnard.

Comparing Van Dongen’s “Cocotte” and Le Mepris” with Degas’s artworks of the ballet dancers (see fig. 10, 11, 12) the strong decisive lines of the Van Dongen’s figures resemble the heavy outlines on the Degas’s drawings. In Degas’s “Dancer” the hairs of the woman is depicted with the same perfect economy of color like on the Van Dongen’s “Le Mepris.” The solid well granted lines drawn by Degas with the charcoal are visible in Van Dongen’s treatment of his figure of the woman in the drawing “Le Mepris.” Van Dongen’s brush follows the Degas’s pattern. The same concerns the Degas’s depiction of the dancers dresses on his artworks. Van Dongen applied his technique on the curtain, floor, and on the garment of his character. The Degas’s famous painting “Dans un café: L’Absinthe” (see fig. 13) also inspired Van Dongen in creation of his drawing discussed previously “Woman Drinking Absinthe.” He borrowed the subject from Degas’s painting and created his own interpretation of it. Some elements from Degas’s painting such as a sitting woman’s with slightly spread legs, red gather skirt, and boots are the same as in Van Dongen’s drawing. However, Van Dongen recomposed the entire situation; in Degas’s artwork the indifferent man is sitting beside the lady; in Van Dongen’s drawing he is in front of her hesitating and to some point indifferent to her charms as it is visible on Degas’s work. It is perfect allegorical view of Dega’s masterpiece with Van Dongens’s spicy intelligence of a great cartoonist.

The Pierre Bonnard’s influence on Van Dongen’s artwork referring only to the chosen drawings is a visible freedom of his lines what gives sometimes an impression of sketch. The Bonnard’s freedom of line without any preoccupation about anatomic correctness and its slightly cartooning look are visible also in Van Dongen’s samples represented in this essay. Anatomically speaking all three samples of Van Dongen’s drawings has traces of Bonnard’s drawings (see fig. 14, 15, 16, 17). Bonnard’s liberty of line and characteristics of certain naivety and lightness of his drawings encourage Van Dongen to liberate his stoke from certain rigidity of Degase’s heavy outlines of his ballet models. Bonnard’s artwork has certain amount of psychological complexity. Van Dongen saw this nuances in Bonnard’s artworks.

Van Dongen through the psychological collages of his allegorical imagery he was inspired by the greatest artists of the Parisian bohemia and as many artist before and after him is trying to make a sense of the mysterious world of their creative minds.

Van Dongen’s chosen artworks exposes the psychological mirror of Parisian realities. He experienced it by leaving in doubtful neighborhoods at the beginning of his crusade for the fame and glory. The world where Van Dongen was searching for recognition was the world he criticized brilliantly in his early years, and portrayed it with a great success later. It was the world he depended on through all his life, as his female symbolic character in his drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe.”

Through the history of humanity the visual representation of the “Liberty” concept has been practiced in many cultures and depicted in many different ways. The pictorial image of “Liberty” and its meaning varied from one country to another and was mostly represented as a female character and as a symbolic personification of national independence.^[1] Woman’s image was used to represent divine purity, especially in religious, legendary or mythical creations. In the Patriarchal systems of various societies the feminine image was used as a symbol to represent the best of what humanity had to offer. At the same time socially women were treated as the submissive objects of the men’s desires with very limited personal liberty and respect. Eugene Delacroix for his vision of “Liberty” appropriated the feminine image to connect together the two worlds: a mythical world and a popular realistic world. Delacroix’s references symbolize the antique divinities. They were motivated by his romantic spirit and certainly not by the modern concept of the “Gaze” (Wiseman, 1998). With time his image was adopted as a brilliant allegory of freedom to many. The popularity of the painting Liberty Leading the People (see fig.1) largely exceeds French borders. The artwork was and still is appropriated by many to various utilitarian and promotional aspects of contemporary realities (see fig. 4, 5, 6). Its intriguing particularity is still controversial and subjected to scholarly^[2] critiques.

The critical theories of art appeared as comprehensive system of understanding the arts’ structural complexities in the second part of the nineteenth century and evolved in many various conceptual approaches in the twentieth century.^[3] These theories are constantly evolving as important academic tools in the effort to dissect and understand various aspects of artistic creation. The application of these various methods in studies of an artwork’s intellectual content can be conducted through different scholarly approaches. Reviewing some of these methods in practice it is interesting to see how certain aspects of Delacroix’s painting Liberty Leading the People could be read, especially when approaching the subject of feminine representation in Delacroix’s socio-political masterpiece. For the purpose of this enquiry, three different methods will be adopted; the first is Erwin Panofsky’s Iconographical analysis and Iconic interpretation; the second is Heinrich Wolfflin’s Formalist approach; and the third is Arnold Hauser’s^[4] Social History of Art.

Panofsky developed his method studying the Renaissance paintings, but his way of apprehending the essence of an artwork can apply to the most objects of art. Panofsky divided his system into three basic elements: Pre-iconographical description, Iconographical analysis, and Iconological interpretation, called also the intrinsic meaning. Each element functions separately and completes another. The summary of all three projects is the final comprehensive conclusion about the artwork in question.

Following Panofsky’s system of pre-iconographical description, viewing Delacroix’s painting, Liberty Leading the People, one sees a quite large canvas (see fig.7) where a group of armed individuals is moving spontaneously. They are following a female figure that is exposing a large part of her bare breast. Her imposing features diminish the importance of the two life-size, juxtaposed, dead figures on the first plane in the lower part of the painting. The woman is carrying in her right hand a three-colored flag, and in the other hand she is holding a rifle armed with a bayonet. To her right, a young boy waving his hands equipped with guns is accompanying the female character in her marching on the barricade. Behind the woman, to her left a group of armed men with rifles, pistols, and sabers is following her to attack the enemies situated somewhere outside the frame, perhaps in front of them. In the center of the painting, just in front of the female character, another person is placed in horizontal position obstructing the progressive movement of the group of armed men. It seems as if the individual is trying to rise up and follow the woman, encouraged by her vitality. In the background behind the front characters the signs of battle are visible at the right corner of the artwork. The silhouettes of buildings and some people are emerging from a fuzzy and smoky landscape indicating some signs of street fighting. In general, the image clearly gives the impression of an armed conflict. The spontaneity of the movement, initiated by the vitality of the central female character, reveals certain influences from the Baroque, especially the spontaneity of Rubens’s^[5] euphoric movement and color. Through the collection of all mentioned visual elements of the artwork it is possible to apprehend the particular moment of the French history to which the image is referring. The style of clothing is typical to the first part of nineteenth century period, as well as the two different models of the rifles^[6] and the pistols carried by the depicted characters on the painting. The recognizable shape of the Notre Dame church towers visible on the right side of the painting’s background helps to localize where the action takes place. In this case it is in Paris. The optimal historic reading of the image would be related to the socio-political struggles that were taking place in France from the end of eighteenth century until almost the end of nineteenth century. In our case it would be the representation of the “July Revolution”^[7] in the year 1830, which was limited only to the Parisian district. The artwork size^[8] corresponds with the dimensions reserved usually to the heroic historical paintings and it is typical for the Romanticism.^[9] The bare breasted female character irrationalizes the historic reality and suggests its allegoric presence.

The completion of the first general description of the reviewed artwork, permits me to begin the iconographical analysis. The pyramidal composition of the painting directs the viewer to the top of the canvas, where the female bare breast shocks in its obvious appearance and gives an impression of illogical exposure unless we take in consideration the woman’s sculptural posture. Delacroix, for his representation of Liberty, appropriated the position of the sculpture Nike of Samothrace^[10] replacing the wings with the hands holding the national flag of France and the rifle as a symbol of protection of the national freedom. The Phrygian cap on the woman’s head is a symbolic reference to the emblem of the first French revolution.^[11] The bayonet on the rifle refers to the spear kept originally by Marianne^[12] in her hand. The woman’s bare foot standing on the solid ground emphasizes the allegoric and the sculptural representation of the Greek goddess, “Victory.” Besides the allegorical references, Delacroix gave also the “Liberty” the appearance of the woman of the people. According to the historic sources, Delacroix was inspired by the real story of a woman who took the place of her killed brother on the barricade and fought bravely killing many royal soldiers before she was killed too.^[13] Delacroix’s “Liberty” represents the artist’s homage to many women fighting besides the men during the July revolt.^[14] “Liberty’s” dress refers to the “Peplos,” which Greek women wear and its yellow^[15] color symbolizes the power of divine energy, light, stability, sublime purity of judgment, spiritual maturity, and prosperity. On the “Liberty’s” left side the young boy^[16] with the waving pistols, symbolizes the new generation, which is revolting against the ruling authorities and hungry for social change. The marching boy is partly shadowed by the “Liberty’s” elevated posture, which suggests that he is under her protective influence. On her right side Delacroix painted a symbolic representation of French society. The group represents different social classes united together in order to defend the revolutionary principals of liberty, fraternity, and brotherhood. “Liberty” is staring at the man^[17] in front wearing clothes typical of the period, with a top hat on his head and the rifle in his hands. He is a symbolic representation of either the progressive French nobility or revolutionary middle class. “Liberty’s” direct look at the leading character indicates that she is putting him in charge of the fight for the better tomorrow of the French nation. The crawling character of unspecified gender^[18] at the center of the artwork represents the French Republic trying to rise again, encouraged by the brave spontaneity of the marching goddess. The red, white, and blue colors joined together at her waist suggest the colors of the French flag carried in “Liberty’s” hand. The figure is connected with the half-naked, dead body of the man wearing white shirt as a symbolic interpretation of the sacrifices the nation has to make in order to protect her liberty and social equality. The dead soldiers laying on the right side of the painting refer to the royal forces. One body is a Swiss grenadier of the Royal Guard and another is a cuirassier. Both bodies symbolize the falling despotic monarchy of King Charles X.^[19]

The final stage of Panofsky’s method permits the iconological synthesis of Delacroix’s painting. Taking into consideration already known elements from the previously conducted analyses it is evident that Delacroix emphasizes the female aspect in his artwork. For Delacroix, the image of woman symbolizes all the positive aspects of humanity. He depicts an image of the bare breasted woman in order to make a sublime symbolic reference to protective motherhood in its entire complexity. Her uncovered breast does not have sexual connotations. He desired to reflect the troubled realities of the civil disorder through the allegoric veil of his creative sensibility. The artist’s socio-political consciousness did not permit him to be indifferent to the events of his time. Furthermore, in order to be considered for the future contracts^[20] he had to take a political stand in these significant struggles for the new social order. Delacroix as a Romantic painter was preoccupied by the realities of his epoch. Delacroix’s fragile character forced him to participate in the revolution with his talent and not with a weapon. The painting depicts the visualized synthesis of the social changes Delacroix was witnessing and was overwhelmed by the July events.^[21] The painting is executed in the same heroic spirit and great colorist treatment as in his previous artworks.^[22]

In reference to Delacroix’s treatment of color it is appropriate to explore Liberty Leading the People in the context of formal analysis as suggested by Heinrich Wolfflin. He developed his theory comparing the art of two periods respectively: Renaissance and Baroque. The theory consists of several principal analytic approaches: the development from linear to painterly, from plane to recession, from closed to open form, from multiplicity to unity, and the subject absolute and relative clarity. In Delacroix’s painting a symphony of colors are arranged in the accordance to the musical score. The ambiance of the dramatic space is moving successively to the top of the painting’s pyramidal structure. The unity of various tonalities of the dark colors is broken at the top of the painting, where the red, white, and the blue prevail. The right part of the artwork slightly to the middle erupts with light yellow surface attracting the attention to the energetic chromatic movement of the unlighted silhouette of the woman representing allegorically the “Liberty.” In the context of perspective the silhouettes at the front have various vanishing points in comparison to the background. The compositional structure of the artwork suggests to the viewer to accept the presence of the vanishing point, as strongest on the left side of the painting. It exceeds the borders of the frame. The chromatic rendition at the top section of the artwork emphasizes the psychological drama of the depicted situation. When the artwork is examined from the viewer’s point of view, the life size silhouettes in front and the compositional framing encourage an emotional identification with the historic event. A close investigation of the painting surface reveals Delacroix’s brash strokes indicating the spontaneous application of the oil medium on the canvas. Looking closely at the artwork it becomes evident that the artist’s main concern was to give an impression of reality to this allegorical situation. Delacroix definitely had a painterly approach and not a linear one. Delacroix argued^[23] that the linear approach restrains the object’s visual flexibility and does not serve his purposes to express the molecular movements of the various segments in his compositions. The linearity of the elements of his painting is partial and discontinuous. In Delacroix’s artwork the linearity most of the time is achieved through color contrast. The painting’s chromatic drama corresponds with the rules of Romantic schema for the construction of psychological poetic depth within the painterly space. The artist is using light in order to create a dramatic three-dimensional volume.^[24] For the purpose of Wolfflin’s theory of formalism, particularly referring to linear and painterly development, it will be helpful to compare two artworks of artists living and working at the same period of time, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres^[25] and Eugène Delacroix. Ingres represented Neoclassic^[26] and Delacroix the Romantic^[27] Movement. For the sake of formal inquiry two samples of their artworks will be reviewed. The first is a fragment of Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (see fig.2) and the second Ingres’s Princess de Broglie (see fig.3). A comparison of the draperies and the parts of the bodies reveals two different personalities. In Delacroix’s fragment the strokes of the brush and layered color variations compose the impression of the flesh. In Ingres’ artwork the flesh is depicted with the great rigor of academic values; the various shadow tones construct an almost photographic depiction of reality. On the Ingres’ painting^[28] it is impossible to distinguish the brush strokes, even under the magnifying glass. In contrast to Ingres’ artwork, the Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People roughly executed drapery confronts the sublime gradation of the Princess de Broglie’s crinolines. These are depictions of opposite worlds: the popular ordinary and the aristocratic, the revolutionary and the despotic, and finally the beautiful and the ugly.^[29] It is also the reflection of two different feminine realities: one is the rough physical existence of the populist revolutionary and another is the one of the refined nobility. Delacroix expresses by the movements of his harsh brushstrokes the rebellious character of Romantic modernity. Ingres by the flatness of his static canvases and controlled perfection of his draughtsmanship exteriorizes the inflexibility and archaism of the academy system and its values. Delacroix’s roughly painted surface gives an impression of living entities. Ingres’ perfection emanates from the canvas’s surface with the severe unity of immobilized linearity of dead particles on it. The plasticity of the various elements of Delacroix’s painting and his virtuosity to play with the color and the line conclude the formal aesthetic unity of the whole picture. In general, the energy and the anxiety of chromatic life emanates from Delacroix’s artwork. Delacroix’s painterly and compositional formality serves perfectly to express the revolutionary ambiance and spiritual spontaneity and greatness of these historic moments. Delacroix aligned the materiality of the surface of his canvas to the subject of his concerns. Delacroix, through his style of painting reflects the demographic composite of the French society at his time. The Liberty Leading the People is an artwork documenting through its formality and visual symbolism a moment in the social history of the French nation.

This brings my attention to Arnold Hauser’s discussion of the Social History of Art. According to Hauser each art object is related to the socio-political and historical conditions in which it was created. Art plays a significant role in social history and is bounded to it by the moment of time it was executed. The artist’s perception of historical truth is regulated through general social conditions and it is necessary to take into consideration the circumstances leading to the creation of art, including its reception by the public. Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People confirms Hauser’s theory in terms of how socio-political conditions influence artistic creativity. In Delacoix’s image the historical fact of the July conflict is not represented literally but through the artist’s interpretation of it. Taking into consideration the socio-political situation in France just before the revolution, especially in Paris, the symbolic representation of its citizens in Delacroix’s vision refers to the social discontent of Parisians. The despotic methods of Charles X and his ministers aggravated significantly the already difficult situation among the poorest citizens of the overpopulated city. Delacroix approached the aspect of “Liberty” through the Romantic movement of its euphoric perception. The various elements of the painting reviewed from the historic point of view do not represent an “archival document” but its allegoric content reflects the revolutionary enthusiasm of Parisians at that time. Delacroix depicts the idealistic unity of various social classes and presents a psychological portrait of the revolution. Each character represented is representative of a specific social problem. The lack of unity and hesitation of bourgeoisie’ position is illustrated by the man with the top hat. He gives an impression of moving but the position of the rifle in his hands suggests uncertainty. The young boy with the pistols in his hands reflects the opposite attitude of young radicals bored with the insufficiency of changing governments. Also his image refers to the existing problems of young, poor, and homeless members of the society. On the left side of the painting the man with the sabre design, typical of the equipment of the Napoleonic cavalry, represents the aspirations of the working classes, ready to reconstitute republican values. The strongest emphasis is given to the representation of the women importance in the ideal functioning of the nation. The woman as an allegorical “Liberty” represents the principal structure of social health to any nation. The woman’s healthy naked torso and her basic dress refer to the “popular” identity as the nation real roots.

These few samples show how the social conditions surrounding the artists shaped his vision of reality. Delacroix’s representation of “Liberty” reflects also his rebellious attitude to the orthodoxy of Academy establishment. He imposed his artistic individuality of his revolutionary style of painting in every sense of this word. In the context of Delacroix’s fragile personality and his concerns about his artistic future at a time of social uncertainty his intelligence dictated him the necessity to depict the current of change.

Mirror as a charming and mysterious object begun to be used by humans approximately from the beginning of six thousands years BC. The first traces of the object used as mirror were made from the obsidian,^[1] which were found in Anatolia.^[2] Besides obsidian another materials were used for production of these reflecting reality commodities.^[3] The mirror as we know it today appeared in the first part of nineteenth century.^[4] Human’s curiosity evolved around the mirror’s particular abilities to reflect anything what was placed in front of it. This mirror’s specific quality helped Alberti^[5] to establish the principles of perspective. At the early stage of mirror’s popularity the fact of owning one was considered as a luxury and indicated also the social status of the owner. Due to the mirrors’ intriguing capacities to imitate reality, people have developed the pleasure in discovering secret parts of their own bodies, which they would not be able to see otherwise. The taste of personal appearance and representation has developed, what was in particular advantage to the feminine part of the society. The mirror quickly became a utility of the first necessity as a means of personal assurance of oneself. With the mirror’s growing popularity the possibilities of psychological consequences of looking at oneself reflected image inspired scholars to do the studies of its potential effects and explore these issues psychoanalytically:^[6] in particular, the various theories concerning the allocation of libido named Narcissism.^[7]

The first and the most known example of the disastrous consequences of over exaggerated admiration of oneself mirrored reflection was Narcissus (see fig. 1). His story was propagated in various literary sources going back as far as the Greek mythology. There are three different variants of the Narcissus’s tale.^[8] However, the Ovid’s’^[9] version of Narcissus story described in his Roman epic “Metamorphosis” is probably the most popularized account of this unfortunate adventure. In Ovid’s tale Narcissus is the son of the Nymph Liriope and the river god Cephisus. The baby from the beginning was of extreme beauty. When his mother wandering about her son’s future went to see Teiresias,^[10] he told her that Narcissus would live as long as he would never know himself. When Narcissus was sixteen, the nymph Echo falls in love with him. Narcissus rejected her love. Heartbroken nymph suffers an enormous pain and she slowly disappears to the point that finally only her voice stays alive. The goddess Nemesis^[11] touched by her tragedy decided to punish Narcissus making him falling in love with his own reflection in the pool. Enable to fulfill his desires Narcissus finally dies. It is sad but deeply meaningful myth. Based on this story the meaning of the word Narcissism entered to the Western history as an overstated admiration of self, leading to the egocentric behavior of an individual.

Narcissus’s misfortune inspired artists since the early stages of the Western cultural development. Writers,^[12] poets, sculptors, and painters nourished their creativities on Narcissus tragedy. The various interpretations of this original story are not always exact. The painterly interpretations of this myth including the Acadian surroundings were the most successfully depicted by Nicolas Poussin (see fig. 2) and John William Waterhouse (see fig. 3). They are typically literary interpretations of this tale. Caravaggio’s^[13] version is completely different from the previous two artists, because the painter focused on the psychological aspect of it and more personal approach to it. In order to emphasize this, Caravaggio put on Narcissus a dress from his own epoch and not the mythological one. Caravaggio was not the only one who found out that there is much more in this story than just a fascinating myth. The tale is interesting because it is touching the psychological aspects related to the human perception of reflected reality. The painters as Van Eyck^[14] and Velázquez^[15] treated the psychological aspect of mirror reflection in particular to them respective way. Van Eyck in his painting titled “Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife” (see fig. 4), intricate the space of the canvas by depicting the curved mirror in the central middle space of his artwork. The mirror’s particular optics reflect the entire space visible from its position on the wall including the backsides of the portrayed couple and the people present in front of them including the artist himself.^[16] The reason for the presence of the curved mirror might be the artist’s desire to create three-dimensional space on flat canvas, what would permit him to join intellectually the entire space visible from all sides. It is also possible that the artist’s Narcissistic psychology tempted him to depict his own reflection in the mirror. Velázquez in his painting titled “Las Meninas or The Family of Philip IV” (see fig. 5) aborts the aspects of psychological space created by the presence of the mirror in the similar way as Van Eyck did, but reverses the importance of the artist’s presence in the picture to highlight the Narcissist individuality. The presence of the flat mirror in the middle of the painting with almost perfectly depicted faces of the Queen and the King complete the three-dimensionality of the space visible through the Royal eyes. It suggests that Velazquez’s underlines his own importance as a painter in the eyes of Queen and King.

The perception of the psychological space created by the mirror’s reflection was always intriguing to many artists and each of them had a particular way to deal with it. These issues have been explored a lot in the art of self-portraiture. The self-portraiture art in its essence is nothing more than a psychological reflection of not always objective image of the artist and his personality. Any kind of portraiture projects artist’s Narcissist attitude. Furthermore, any kind of portraiture is nothing else than reflection of the Narcissist idealistic perception of the portrayed self. It is interesting to see how the artists perceive their own reflection in the mirror and transform it on the canvas. In just few examples it is possible to review how various artists deal with it. It is evident in Victor Brauner’s^[17] psychological premonitory^[18] self-portrait that the artist’s focus was mainly on his obsessive self (see fig. 6). In the same spirit of Freudian psychic territory is the self-portrait of Francis Bacon^[19] (see fig. 7), who as he said about himself always hated his personal visage what to some degree is visible on his artwork. However, the“Baconian” aesthetics of the mastery of his brush proof the opposite and expose his Narcissist affection of self. Jean-Pierre Reynard’s^[20] self-portrait (see fig. 8 ) reflects the artist’s obsession with the grid. The grid over his face refers to the way his projected reflection is framed by the social perception of the artistic creative sensibility. The Erik Bulatov’s^[21] self-portrait (see fig. 9) combines the artist’s duplicated individuality framed by the context of the social limitations reflected in the infinity of the mirror’s space. It is a psychoanalytic point of view of the artist’s self-embraced place by the space allowed to his artistic liberty.

The question of the reflection projected by the other unreachable materiality of the mirror infinite space was probably aborted in the most interesting way by the Surrealism movement. The Surrealistic art tried to mirror the unconsciousness of the dreamed fantasies intellectuality. For Surrealists the psychoanalytic perception of the reflected reality was filtered through their visionary mind inspiring the efforts to apprehend and capture its essence in their artworks. Painters such as Salvador Dali,^[22] Paul Delvaux,^[23] and René Magritte^[24] were preoccupied by the psychoanalytic vision of thought reflected in the mirror of their intellectual vision. Dali’s depiction of “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” (see fig. 10) takes the viewer to his own Narcissist space exteriorized by him on the canvas. It is a very different interpretation of Ovid’s myth in comparison with other paintings reviewed earlier. Here the traditional myth faces the intellectual contemporary reflections: the first is in the water and the second on the right side of the painting. Dali depicted his own perception of the Freud’s “Anti cathexis”^[25] through his “Dalistic” personal vision of it. His dreamed hallucinations mirror its-own inner creative complexity.

Paul Delvaux is exposing his “Simulacrum”^[26] world overwhelmed by the erotic fantasies in artist’s chosen works (see fig. 11, 12, 13). From each portrayed characters emanates the Narcissist desire to escape to the realities of the beautiful desirable hallucinations offered by the infinite opening of the mirror’s surface. Delvaux’s paintings reflect the artist’s personal psychological visual autobiography exteriorized through the actions of the feminine characters. Delvaux through his visual linguistics shows the mirror as an object able to transfer the mental state of anyone to the other realities. The personages dream about different realities through the surface of the mirror. It could be seen as a “Hegelian”^[27] dialog between the model that owns the mirror and the mirror itself, but in the reversed order where the mirror owns the model and the model takes the place of the mirror as an object.^[28]

René Magritte through the image of the mirror as the subject of his allegoric voyages depicts in his artworks various concepts in order to express the state of his mind in relation to the other self. In the image “The Reproduction” (see fig. 14) Magritte depicts his interior battle against his Narcissist temptations by depicting the mirrors incapability to reproduce the perfect reflection of the silhouette standing in front of it. In each of his paintings Magritte poses questions but he does not offer any answers. It is the viewer who reads the hidden messages accordingly to its mental ability. The painting “False Mirror” (see fig. 15) represents the artist view of the outside world from the inside of his eye. It is yet another reflection of the artist’s self. Magritte created in this piece an interior dialogue with the exterior world through the instrument of the vision. This time the artist refers to the allegoric mirror and his abilities to look at the outside world through his own psychological perspective depicting the interior space of the eye. It is possible to assume that he took his inspiration from the Velazquez’s artwork “Las Meninas or The Family of Philip IV.” In the artwork “Dangerous Liaisons” (see fig. 16) Magritte created a perfect representation of the Narcissist self-sufficiency. The mirror protective reflection of the female body suggests that we all carry within ourselves a certain amount of a psychological luggage of the Narcissist tendencies. Magritte by using the philosophical imagery provokes a dialog of an intellectual exchange by exposing publicly the fragmented unity of his visualized thoughts. The summary of his hybrid compositions collected from the logical visual contradictions engages the viewer to reflect on the surrounding realities of his own. Magritte in his works is playing with the irrationalities of the reflected space by implying different order accordingly to his own-mirrored perception of his physical existence.

The apparition of photography changed significantly the problem of inconstancy of he produced mirrored reflection. From now on any reflection of mirrored space can be documented and looked at it at any time. The picture can be printed and carried as a very personal reflection of intimate moments. One of the first masters who exposed these mysterious abilities of the mirror was Eugène Atget.^[29] He had a great sensibility to capture the pictures with the stories to read from them. The picture “Ambassade d’Autriche, 57 rue de Varenne” (see fig. 17), gives an impression of the mirror reflection of the hotel room. It captures the invisible history of that piece and its sublime ambiance of the physical presence of the previous visitors in that room. This picture has the content for psychoanalytic studies of the interior space reflected through the mirror in the room. The two divided parts of the chamber by the mirror are connected by the chimney and the reflected other part of the room suggests the presence of a couple, which after exchange of the energy of their libidos left the room going each of them in different directions. Atget through his image tells the story remaining hidden behind his camera visible on the left side of the mirror reflection. The fact that he decided to show himself in the picture and not to take another shot from different angle in order to avoid of being visible proves to some point his personal Narcissist touch in it. The picture “Shop Window: Tailor Dummies” (see fig. 18), Atget captured the essence of human existence in the industrialized world of the big cities. The human mannequins in the window, with the reflected in the glass city architecture, suggest an allegorical automatism of the Modern life, which is taken over by the fever of the commodities consumption. Atget exposes in his pictures his own admiration or even love of the objects them-selves. He is exploring the psychological otherness of the reflected spaces. From his pictures he projects a poetic psychology of the photographed area. He perceives the reflected spaces through the Freudian psycho analytics without probably knowing it. Atget was using his “camera lucida”^[30] to create as Barthes putted nicely together in his book^[31] referring to his thoughts about photography: “little mythologies” of human lives. Mirror and photography share common similarities. Both of them reflect the reality of the spaces and objects. However, they do it with significant differences. The reflections in the mirror are never permanent exposed on constant changes, in contrary the photographic image frames the moments of the reflected subject preserving a visual proof of its one time existence.

The mirror aspect of fluid permanence was explored often by the cinematographic productions. The fact that the movie camera reflects and registers in the same time the presence and the past, which could be reviewed indefinitely as a simulated truth captured on the celluloid pages, opened another possibilities to the artistic creativities. Especially when talking about the Avant-Gardism in cinema during the Surrealist period of thirties and forties. At the beginning of nineteen thirty-two individuals were competing between each other permanent leaders of the Surrealist cinema: the best known is Jean Cocteau^[32] and Luis Bunuel.^[33]

Jean Cocteau and Luis Bunuel received each one million dollar from the Viscount Charles de Noailles in order to freely explore their creative talents respectively. Jean Cocteau realized the movie “Le Sang d’un Poète” (see fig. 19) and Luis Bunuel made “L’Age d’Or.” The film “Le Sang d’un Poète” is loaded with a variety of symbolic references to the human existence. The first image shows a chimney build from the bricks as an allegoric representation of manhood achievements in every meaning of this word including the aspect of “libido.” The story of the film describes the life of an artist trying in his studio to create a masterpiece, which would help him to secure his artistic carrier, a dream shared by many artists. His mind is overtaken by his desires transferring him from the rational to the irrational world of his imagination. He draws a portrait of a woman with simple lines and when he finished to draw the lips he realized that they look as if they are alive. Scared by his own irrationality, he tries to erase the leaps with his hand. The lips would not to go and finally they transferred themselves on the artist’s hand. The lips became the part of artist’s body. The beauty of the lips provokes the artist to kiss them and putting his tongue inside of his own hand. This extremely erotic scene is beautifully elaborated interpretation of Narcissus myth. Cocteau transferred in this scene the genius of his poetic imagery. He as well refers to his own Narcissism. The scene reflects his mirrored passionate interiority. The kiss of the lips on his hand releases the artist’s emotional tension. He sat on the chair and falls asleep. When he awakes he realizes that he is in the company of a sculpture without lips. By trying to detach the lips from his hand he touches the sculpture’s head and the lips from his hand moved on the bust’s face. Instantly the sculpture started to speak saying to him: “Is not it stupid to strain the statues from their mundane sleep?”^[34] Here Cocteau makes another reference to our hidden desires and anxieties to expose them to the public. It is a symbolic representation of the fear to be radicalized and wrongly perceived by our gestures posed in the public. The next scene of the movie begins with the artist awaken in the empty room without windows where instead of doors there is a big mirror. Artist started to look nervously for the way to escape from this strange place. The only apparent way of getting out is the mirror. He touches the mirror and realized that its surface is liquid. He puts his hands inside the mirror in order to assure his next move. Finally he decides to jump in. On the other side of the mirror is an empty space. He swims through in the air as if in the water arriving to the corridor with many doors. Cocteau in the scene with the mirror refers to the way the mystery of the mirror is perceived by humans as yet another space to explore. As many artists have tried to explore the mirror’s illusory space before in their respective approaches, Cocteau takes his chance to propose his own poetic version of it.

He invites the viewer to the abyss of the mirror’s space, which he opens to the public playing the role of an intellectual guide. Cocteau visualized the complexity of the artistic creativity with the various rooms in the corridor where the artist is looking at each of them through the keyhole in the doors. The Surrealistic poetry of his visions leads the viewer through the rest of his Avant-Garde epopee. The movie finishes as it started, with the brick chimney but this time the chimney falls down in ruins. Everything has to die and give a chance to a new beginning. It concerns the artists too. Cocteau tried in his movie to show allegorically the mental specifics of creative process. It is visual depiction of thought rambling through the artist’s brain cells.

Cocteau in his movie explores the theme of the mirror through the labyrinth of his own interior fantasies. It is Cocteau’s own biographical story. Through the character of an artist he expose his own artistic Narcissist ” libido” of his intellectual mind.

Through the reviewed few samples of various artistic creativities inspired by the void irrational space of the mirror, it is possible to see how important place in the human life this commodity object always has been. The mirror psychologically attracts our attention because it reflects the “Other” of us and gives us the impression to have a “perfect” twin. However, it is important to remember that it is just an illusion.

It is appropriate to conclude with the translation of the phrase written by Seneque:^[35] “The mirrors were invented for better knowledge and understanding of self.”

The reputation of Paris as a leading center of important economic, socio-political and cultural changes was already well established in European social circles at the beginning of the twenty-century. The booming industrialization inspired various economic activities in every aspects of human existence. The market for the commodities of all kind was constantly growing and opening widely for business offering basically everything, including indecent services, as long as the buyer was able to afford its price. The city of Paris was becoming the international center of the world of fashion, entertainment, and Modern art. Despite its administrative problems related to the overwhelming population growth not followed by the infrastructural necessities in order to accommodate the new arrivals, Paris embraced everyone who was looking for a chance of a working space in the city. The artists from around the world were crossing each other on the streets of Paris, pursuing their dreams for a success and recognition of their talent. Kees Van Dongen,^[1] whose exposition is hosted at the present by the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, was one of many who tried to establish his artistic personality in Paris, and one of the few who was able to do it successfully during his lifetime.

The Van Dongen’s exposition in Montreal gathered artworks from different periods of his artistic carrier. The artwork, which captures a particular attention is the drawing titled, “Woman Drinking Absinthe” (see fig.1). The magnetic power of this artwork attracts the viewer not only for its aesthetics, but also because of its psychological content. The drawing was executed in the year of nineteen oh-two. It is one of many from the series of artworks^[2] created by Van Dongen during his first years of staying in Paris.^[3] It was the time when he had to struggle for surviving by drawing portraits of people in cafeterias and on the streets in order to be able to sustain him-self and his young family. Van Dongen’s sharpness of his allegoric statement is emanating from this artwork at the viewer with horrifying exposure of the psychological summary of French classes. It is an artwork depicting the social degradation of Parisian society. This drawing differs from all the others exposed in the museum. In this artwork Van Dongen made editorial comment taking as a subject the problem of prostitution in Paris. At first regard the artwork gives an impression of humoristic view on the male versus female relations. However, this particular drawing Van Dongen executed not in the conventional realistic way as he did with the other drawings. This time the semiotic ambiguity of his judgment of the social degradation is enforced by psychological allegory to the human basic instincts. He exposes the animal nature of human beings. It is a dark satire on the imperfection of the phallic social system. Besides the editorial subjectivity the artwork does not have yet the “Van Dongian” fauvist flavor. Instead, the aesthetics and technical particularities of the drawing ”Woman Drinking Absinthe,” suggest enormous influences of Toulouse-Lautrec’s artistic style. Especially in this particular artwork the freedom of the brush is definitely borrowed either from Toulouse-Lautrec, or Edgar Degas, or from both of them at the same time.^[4]

Submitting the artwork to the closer examination of its symbolic allegorical meaning, it is necessary to begin with the general description of its content. Van Dongen depicted a seating woman on the street in black dress with her legs covered with black stockings spread widely in a provocatively inviting position in the direction of the metamorphic skeleton of either a rabbit, or a dog, with a human skull and a tuxedo hat on it. The seating position of the skeleton suggests a rabbit, what symbolizes besides many other meanings the dishonesty, damaging activities, as well as a man’s libido. We can also consider that it is a hesitating dog, not sure if the tempting garter in the hand of the woman is worth the bite. In such case, the dog symbolizes greediness and bad habits. Both descriptions fit well to the image. The woman, according to the title of the drawing, is drunk what would symbolize her weakness and frivolity. Her head is covered with the hat having an evident unspecified red decoration on it. Her lips are in red and the visible underwear between her legs is red too. The red color goes from her head through her lips to the woman’s underwear. It is symbolic reference to the three steps of merchandising the prostitute services. The first is the idea of selling her body for money. The second is her mouth, through which she would trade with the client. The third would be the final consumption of the purchased “ goods.” The Woman is supporting her seating figure on her right hand preventing her-self from falling, and with her left hand stretched out and grasping her garter. She is trying to attract the metamorphic creature between her legs. The scull of the creature has an opened mouth, what emphasizes his hunger and the desire to bite the garter, or more. The spread legs are actually preventing the metamorphic creature from escaping, exposing the red flounces as an additional element of temptation. The drawing is executed with great artistic freedom of the brush and mixed media.^[5] The image provocative composition is catching the viewer in its psychoanalytic imaginary spider net. From the psychological point of view the image itself does to the viewer exactly what the woman does to the metamorphic creature. It emanates the temptation. It attracts the viewer’s attention by its unusual allegoric symbolism. It is Van Dongen’s the only artwork at the exposition with the surrealistic taste. The allegory of this image is evident and represents the essence of Parisian realities viewed through the critical perception of the artist’s intellect. Van Dongen’s irony in this drawing reflect the consequences of industrialization and its impact on the style of living of those less fortunate who become a merchandise for those who can afford it. The prostitution in Paris become affordable commodity and followed closely the development of consumer society. The difference in the sizes between the woman and the metamorphic creature figures symbolizes how serious the problems of social inequities were at that time, and how devastating the prostitution was as means of gaining a leaving, especially for women.^[6] The overwhelming figure of the lady refers to the demography of poverty among the lower classes of Parisian society, which was ruled by the financial power of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist exploratory system, which on the image is represented allegorically as the metamorphic creature. The artwork represents in it-self a sort of diagram of economic divisions between the poor and the rich classes in Parisian society at the beginning of the twentieth century. The skeleton beast refers to the phallic demoralizing attitude towards the lower classes. It reflects the elaborated taste of the bourgeoisie to the commodities available to them through their monetary power. Furthermore, in reference to Benjamin Walter’s^[7] writings about Baudelaire’s allegorical symbolism in his poetry, the seating woman represents allegorically the social devaluation of human dignity to the object of commodity. Van Dongen, during the time of working on the editorial illustrations for the magazines, produced great deal of drawings. Each of them was accompanied with an intelligent spicy to the point commentaries, but in the drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe,” he proved his great talent of critical psychoanalytic artistic judgment and elaborated perversity of intellectual thought.

In reference to Kant’s^[8] writings about art regarding the importance of knowledge for creating and understanding the art, the interpretation of Van Dongen’s drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe,” will be quite different. If taking in consideration Van Dongen’s Parisian realities at the beginning of his carrier, analyzing his artwork without any knowledge of any specific details about his personal life, the viewer would come to less or more the same interpretation of his drawing as it was explained earlier in this paper. However, knowing of the hardship of his life at the beginning of his Parisian period, as well as his brilliant carrier, which started few years later, this artwork represents the artist him-self and his Parisian realities. The drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe” illustrates an unconscious prediction of Van Dongen’s own future. Van Dongen in his own words stated in his biography: “I am a prostitute of my glory.”^[9] Van Dongen’s well being depended on the bourgeoisie interest in his art. In such case the reading of the artwork “Woman Drinking Absinthe” will be different. The female character would represent Van Dongenès affords to attract attention to his talent and his artistic services. The meaning of the metamorphic character would not change. The creature will still represent an important monetary aspect, but in different sense. This time it would be the bourgeoisie’s taste for Van Dongen’s art. The artist in this artwork exteriorized his own artistic struggles. He referred him-self as a prostitute, because from the beginning he had to put aside painting and concentrate on publishing in order to survive. The ambiguity of this drawing could refer to Plato’s “problem” with the art, when he said that the artists speak through the images more than through the ideas, what makes the truth cloudy and so not clear.

Most artists are trying through their art to extract their psychological complexity. Seemingly to Van Dongen, Jean Cocteau^[10] tried to visualize in his surrealist movie,” The Blood of a Poet,” the nuances of artist’s interiority. Louis Bunuel^[11] and Salvador Dali^[12] tried to do the same in their movie “An Andalusian Dog.”^[13] Through the psychological collages of allegorical imagery, the viewer as well as the artist, is trying to make a sense of the mysterious world of the creative mind.

Van Dongen’s artwork exposes the psychological mirror of Parisian realities. He experienced it by leaving in doubtful neighborhoods at the beginning of his crusade for the fame and glory. The world where Van Dongen was searching for recognition was the world he criticized brilliantly in his early years, and portrayed it with a great success later. It was the world he depended on through all his life, as his female symbolic character in his drawing “Woman Drinking Absinthe.”

Before the concept of Childhood began to take shape during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the concept of the Child had many symbolic connotations in the popular imagery through the history of art. In a general context, the child symbolizes the new beginning, as for example the New Year, or innocence, naivety and a precious gift. The symbolic meaning of child differed from one culture to the next. In Roman mythology the most famous child besides the traditional founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, was Cupid, the son and inseparable companion of the Goddess of love, Venus. In Christian iconography, especially in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, children were depicted mostly as flying putto,^[1] besides the omnipresent child Jesus. In many other mythologies and rituals of the Near East, Mediterranean, Pre-Columbian, or India and China, the child was an object of offerings generated by barbarian beliefs. Only with the social evolution of societies, especially through the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, the importance of elaborated attitude towards the children evolved to the rational social level.

The importance of child as a fundamental element of socio-political regeneration of societies began to be valorized in literature, sculpture, and painting. One of the best descriptions of the importance of the child comes from the William Wordsworth poem “My Heart Leaps Up” in the sentence: “The Child is the father of the Man.” Another great sentence: “The Man is like a river of Childhood,” written by Polish writer Stephan Zeromski, in his book titled “A Story of Sin.” ^[2] The different psychoanalytical aspects of childhood and adolescence, besides the literature, became more and more visualized in painting and sculpture. Many painters^[3] were preoccupied by depiction of different states of childhood.

Balthus was one of the most intriguing painters who depicted mostly feminine childhood in his own particular way. Among other artists who had courage to paint the nude female children in quite provocative poses, as Felicien Rops, Egon Schiele, Otto Dix, or Edvard Munch, Balthus is one of the most mysterious artists. He made his name basically for the intriguing depiction of the female child models. Balthus imagery of young girls oscillates between the adoration and perversity of the childhood. By close dissection of the content of his selected paintings and the elements of their composition as well as the technical aspects of it, we might be able to conclude what generated to such large extend his interest to illustrate the young female bodies the way he did it.

Balthus, whose real name was Balthazar Kossowski de Rola, had Polish origins, but he was born in Paris in 1908. Both his parents were intellectuals and artists.^[4] His attraction towards depiction of innocent perversity of the childish female models in their intimately provocative poses was influenced to some extent by the book of Emily Bronte^[5] “Wuthering Heights.” Balthus illustrated the first part of the book not because he had a contract for it, but because he was overwhelmed with the story itself. He was especially interested in the childhood of Catherine and Heathcliff, the two principal characters of Bronte’s novel. This particular story inspired majority of his artwork. Each of his paintings is fulfilled with a dose of mysterious sexuality of his models, which is present not only in the exquisite composition, but also in the way he applied the paint on it. Some of the Balthus paintings are still shocking to some viewers even today.

The most controversial of his works is the painting titled “The Guitar Lesson” (see fig.1) which was one of his first five works he exposed in the Gallery Pierre in Paris in 1934 during his first solo exposition. The painting scandalized the public and the French media showed no mercy. He was generally accused of being obsessed with sexual perversity. One of the strongest statements came from Gaston Poulin^[6] who named the artist a fanatic nymphomaniac. Furthermore, he described his style as naïve and crude portraying Balthus as the cruelest painter than Goya and Rouault. This particular painting is rarely shown and at the present it is in the hands of a privet collector. Whenever it was exposed, even the first time, it was presented mostly in separate rooms covered with the curtains just for “special” public to see. For forty years Balthus did not wanted this painting to be exposed or printed because as he himself explained from fear of the public misunderstanding of his controversial piece. The close examination of this particular artwork might vaguely respond why would people be offended to such degree by this image. Certainly, it would not be exaggeration to say that this image represents the zenith of his provocative artistic perversity. Many artists are trying to surround themselves with the mist of mystery in order to attract the public interest in their creative efforts^[7] and Balthus was a master of it. He never gives any explanation why he does what he does. That is why so much curiosity surrounds him. To criticize his artwork by the imagery would be too easy and unfortunately many critics do it. Before judging his paintings positively or negatively one needs to focus on deeper study of his artwork because in Balthus case each element of the image tells a story, understanding of which depends on how far we are prepared intellectually to dissect the hidden meanings. “The Guitar Lesson” depicts the moment of sadistic violence executed on the innocent female child by her guitar teacher. The child is lying on the teacher’s knees in the position of Pieta^[8] suggesting the death Jesus reincarnated in the girl’s denuded figure. The naked body of the child is smoothly transferred symbolically into the erotic guitar on which the teacher is playing the sadistic notes of erotic education. It looks like the child is forced to play hesitantly with the partially denuded sensually erected breast of the teacher. Looking at the Balthus study sketches done for this painting, it becomes clear that he wanted to paint himself as a teacher but probably he realized that such scene would not be acceptable for any public display. It would be too personal and too revealing of his somehow overloaded with sexual fantasies mind. That is why he decided to replace himself with a woman. It probably appeared to Balthus safer to depict lesbian sodomy rather than to use the mixed genders. However, he could not refuse himself the pleasure to portray at least his face in the corps of the woman teacher. Comparing the teacher’s facial futures with the Heathcliff face from “The Cathy’s Toilet,” (see. fig.2) artwork where Balthus portrayed himself as a Heathcliff and his future wife^[9] as a Cathy, the two principal characters of his favor book “Wuthering Heights,” the resemblance of the two faces is unquestionable. Furthermore, his sketches (see fig. 3) for the artwork clearly confirm that. The teacher’s right hand is squeezing the girl’s hair lock as the guitar neck and with her left hand she is pulling the imaginary strings in the child’s pubic area. The almost feinted girl gives impression of being entirely submitted to her teacher’s erotic game. Her face projects evident signs of the total subjection to the sadistic sexual sodomy of her innocence. The child’s right hand partly reposing on the floor is touching the guitar neck lying on the parquet forming a triangle suggesting the pubic area. The instrument noise hole is symbolizing the loss of innocence by the girl. The colors^[10] of the child’s clothing are also symbols of the transition from the state of innocence to the state of impurity of experienced sexual pleasures. The vertical lines on the wallpaper suggest the cage of immorality to which each female child will eventually be subjected. The green color of the lines symbolizes the freshness of the girl’s femininity. The piano situated on the left side of the painting suggests much more elaborated erotic initiation in the near future when the girl would be a woman.^[11] It is really fascinating artwork executed with simplicity and sincere adoration of innocent purity of the childish femininity. This painting is mentioned in many publications as a legendary probably because of its provocative content. Balthus will never again be so open to expose his explicit interiority to the exterior world. This artwork forces us to recognize that we all have a room for provocative drastic perversity and only by pure hypocritical social attitude some of us find paintings like this drastically shocking.

After his questionable experiences with “The Guitar Lesson” painting Balthus elaborated his provocative attitude by painting the adoration of childish femininity using rather poetic eroticism. The best example of such approach would be the artwork titled “Dreaming Therese” (see fig.4). It is beautifully painted canvas. The female child is presented as a dreaming girl. What her dreams might be about we can guess only by her provocatively astride legs exposing in evidence her white panties covering her genital area leaving the space for sensual imagination. Balthus plays with colors to symbolize the content of the picture. The panties are white as well as the half-slip suggesting the unspoiled yet purity. The red skirt surrounds the covered crotch suggesting the future fortress of sexual desires. The red slippers with the black pompons symbolize the approaching sexual enlightenment and the consequences of it. The green colors of the pillow, which make her comfortable, signify the feminine freshness, fertility, and the beauty of the female youth. In the front at the right low corner Balthus placed white cat^[12] sipping milk from the white plate. Cat has very rich symbolic meanings but in reference to this picture it symbolizes a protection against demonic forces, perversity, independence, sexual potency, female pubic hairs and in some cultures vagina.^[13] The fact that the white cat is licking the rounded white plate suggests the girl’s eroticism of the dreamed dreams. At the same time it suggests the imaginary consumption of the innocence and virginity of the pubescent female child. Balthus is the foreteller of the girl’s intimate future. In the further background he uses again the wallpaper stripes. This time they are red symbolizing again the cage of the future impurity and with the furniture, drapery and pots, the girls unavoidable households destiny. The provocative posture of the model Balthus would use many times in his other compositions. He knew that by such pose he would seduce the viewer’s erotic fantasist imaginary without the necessity to show a young innocent flesh. His mathematically calculated provocative creations would become the trademark of his artistic quest.

During the fifties and the beginning of sixties, Balthus adopted another seductive pose for the models of his sensual compositions. The painting titled “The Golden Age” (see fig.5) is the first from the series of many and as discovered by the scholar Jorg Zutter the first one ever exposed by Balthus in the museum.^[14] The artwork shows a young girl stretched comfortably on a small sofa and she is preoccupied by looking at the reflection of herself in the white mirror, which she keeps in her left hand. The mirror symbolizes the world, life, femininity, love, and vanity. The pearl necklace on her neck refers to the virginity, health, perfection, and preciousness. The right hand hung down looks as it is suspended in the air. Her torso is partly uncovered suggesting a delicate touch of feminine coquetry. The girl’s legs are spread in provocative invitation of sexual curiosity. Together, the white slippers on her feet, the white mirror and the white pillow behind her head as well as the white bowl on the table completed with the white light projected from the window situated in the back symbolize the innocent purity of the young female beauty. The entire room is divided by the two sources of light. The white light coming from the window on the left is mixed with the red reflections projected by the chimney. Both these lights blend together exactly in the area of the girl’s spread legs suggesting the boundaries between the innocence and the sexual initiation. The sofa itself has a shape of the hiking shoe suggesting that the young beauty is on her way approaching the sexual fire of her first erotic experience. The man on the right is preparing the ground for her erotic enlightenment by warming up the room. On the left side of the chimney, a small statue with phallic forms is standing. Just beside the sculpture the log tongs are leaning against the chimney surface. The log tongs have the shape of female crotch as well as the form of infant what symbolize the process of future maternity. The chimney itself suggests the female sexual organs and the small in posture man working hard to keep the fire on representing symbolically the process of sexual intercourse. The man with his right hand covered with the white glow is touching the chimney that suggests clearly the act of defloration. The massive quantities of symbolic information, which is easily readable after close examination of all elements of the painting, refer to the passage of time from the childhood to the adolescence and the first encounter with sexuality. It is another great artwork opened to sensual discoveries. Balthus’s mind could be read through the imagery of his paintings. He is proposing the internal conversation and to hear it one needs to understand his symbolic alphabet. His paintings need to be decoded by the meaning of each element. It can take hours or days before one can complete the entire source of information he offers for intellectual digestion on the surfaces of his canvases. To some people his paintings look simple, primitive, or perverse, but only the ignorance can judge his artwork paranoid and obsessive. Balthus came from intelligent and intellectual family and he expressed himself with intelligence too.

Another of Balthus painting titled “The Patience” (see fig.6) reaffirms his genius of writing stories with symbolic images. This artwork is different from the others. Balthus tells the story of a female that is still a child waiting for her sexual enlightenment. The erotic curiosity is already implanted in her soul. She is placing the cards on the pink table trying to foresee when it would happen. The way she placed the cards suggests a window. It is situated between the shadows projected by the girl’s arms on the table suggesting the girl’s spread legs. The candle on the table refers to the phallus. Furthermore, the candle in the chandelier suggests the sexual intercourse. The girl stretched out her legs, one of which is using the support of the chair and the other is on the floor. The curved posture of her body is emphasized by the sensual provocative curve of her buttock. Her face and a part of her body are in the shadow suggesting her innocence and sexual ignorance. The part of the chair is entering between the legs of the table illustrating the process of sexual initiation. The cat under the shadow of the table symbolizes the inexperience of her sexual organs relates to her virginity. Furthermore, the scene of running cat trying to catch the ball suggests the foreplay before the act of the final seduction. The white wall behind with the horizontal division might suggest a bed.

While most of the time Balthus depicted denuded innocence of the childish girls one cannot consider his paintings in anyway as pornographic. The perversity of his images might be disturbing to some only when he painted the models naked with spread legs, this definitely emphasizes the suggestively provocative reading of the picture, as for example in his two chosen artworks for review: first titled “Elevation” (see fig.7) and second titled “Naked and the Guitar” (see fig.6). The “Elevation” was executed in the late eighties. In the square format of the canvas, Balthus painted a child girl touching with the tips of her fingers a toy bird, as she would like to help the bird to fly. Her connection with the toy bird suggests the desire to fly with her innocent mind to satisfy her erotic curiosity. The girl’s spread legs and the half sitting position on the bed with white pillow behind, and sheets, and blankets symbolizes the purity of the sitter waiting for a discoveries of the erotic pleasure. The hungry fixed eyes of the cat, which is coming out from the cage of sexual desires suggest clearly cat’s appetite to catch the bird. The cat might not realize that the bird-versus-girl is not comestible because of her young age. The cat is overwhelmed with the girl’s purity, which makes its appetite for her innocence even greater. The “Naked and the Guitar” was executed in the early nineties. In addition to the even more pronounced and provocative of the girl’s spread legs in this painting, Balthus placed just beside her a guitar as he did it previously in his other paintings. The guitars and cats are very often used in his compositions to emphasize the elaborated erotic content that has to be discovered. Balthus certainly knew that most people even the art critics would judge his artwork by the most evident imagery without seeing the entire story of his paintings. That is why he probably had a lot of fun when he was reading the critics of his works. The scene of this painting is situated in the closed room, probably somewhere in the south, as the window would suggest, maybe even in the Mediterranean. Just by suggesting the Mediterranean region through the window he refers to love and sexual freedom. The girl lying stretched comfortably on the bed marks the center of the painting with her pubic area very evidently saying all what the artwork is about. Her beautiful innocence is offered to the viewer to enjoy looking at her without even being interrupted. The triangle created between her legs, her pubic area and the white blanket refers to the ancient symbol of femininity and erotic poesy and music. The draperies hanged over on the right side of the bed have a form of monk clothing what would suggest the chastity. Furthermore, the violet color of the drapery symbolizes the innocence, virtues, love and beauty but also a short grief and the male genitals in the Indian culture. The composition of the violet drapery by itself is very suggestive. Taking in consideration the omnipresent symbolism in Balthus’s paintings, one has to recognize his artistic genius. Furthermore, each of his artworks has qualities of the sensual novel.

Most scholars recognized the particularity of the subjects of his artistic quest and also his artistic greatness and individuality, while others see rather just the obsessive pedophiliac character and mediocrity of it. His artwork is certainly controversial according to the contemporary social fragility towards such delicate issues as a depiction of the sexual innocence of the children, especially young girls.

However, by careful studies of Balthus works, one can certainly appreciate their thematic and artistic values. In order to have an understanding of his greatness, one needs to see at least one original artwork of his, because Balthus really painted his paintings. By close examination of the surfaces of his canvases one can see his enormous physical effort to produce the three dimensional chromatic coatings. From far away it seems as it is just a flat application of few colors participating in visualization of his images but from a close range by tracing his brush movements, one can feel the excitement he went through in order to get the results he wanted to get. It would not be exaggeration to tell that he struggled with the canvas as he was fighting to exteriorize his adoration and his creative excitement, which was supplied to his mind by the beautiful, fulfilled with innocence childish femininities of the posing models. His seemingly simple paintings have extremely complex exterior chromatic superficies. Whatever excitement he accumulated in his creative mind he throws it out in the chunks of paint with multiple chromatic strokes of his brush. The surface of his canvases besides the figurative content consists of the orgy of the colors applied with the painter’s erotic energy constantly nourished with the adoration of the visual references. The artist devoured the beauty of the innocent bodies with the paint and his brush, and as it can be seen on the surface of his canvases he enjoyed every inch of doing it. Balthus qualities as a painter do not exclude a question, if his artwork is about admiration or perversity of the female childhood. Answer to this question lies somewhere between the two groups of Contemporary society: the paranoid conservative hypocritical part and the mentally healthy and liberated intellectually individuals.

Balthus was one of those artists whose persona had extremely rich inner world filled up with elaborated perverse fantasy. He would not be able to commit any indecent act on the child in reality. His artistic perversity did not materialize in any physical wrongdoing, except on his paintings. He nourished his artistic intellectually degenerative mind with the images of beautiful, young and vulnerable souls. To the certain degree he was a perfect pedophile, one of those who just imagine and keep his dreams in closed room of his mind. The only exteriorization of his lusty thoughts was executed through the genius of his brush. The society would not persecute such pedophiles and certainly the world would be much safer if there would be just Balthuses around. Fantasizing and dreaming do not hurt anyone as long as their fantasies and dreams stay in the closed room of their minds.

To conclude, in the Balthus case to give the clear answer how to perceive his greatly painted artwork is not easy because the line between the adoration and perversion in his phenomenon is extremely thin. However, taking in consideration his inoffensive character it would be honest to say that his dissection of the female childhood was more about the adoration and the dichotomy of it than perversity. Furthermore, his obsessive adoration of the sublime erotic beauty of the unspoiled mentally and physically corpuses served him to provoke the attention to his artwork.

Through his art he was trying to prolong the memories of his own childhood and all his childish erotic fantasies. Balthus knew that each of us has hidden room of perversity locked in our minds against any intrusion of the socio-hypocritical order and with his art he would nourish the hunger of these rooms with his provocative imagery. At the end, art is at its best when it provokes our senses.

The scholarly world of the art history critics projects many conflicting theories when referring to the Artemisia Gentileschi’s artwork. The omnipresent argument surfacing every time is that her art is motivated mostly by the trauma of her personal experiences as a female exposed to the Patriarchal system of her contemporaries. What motivated the artist to express herself the way she did could not be proven hundred percent and the basic question still remains unanswered leaving place to the variety of scholarly interpretations of her artwork. Was she trying to impose herself as a female artist and proof at the same time that she is as skilled as the male artists are or was she trying to avenge to some degree her personal misfortune and her disgust with the surrounded her phallic society? Looking for answer by taking in consideration the themes of her paintings might confirm that she was somehow marked by her personal tragedy. However, what complicate such easy judgment is the virtuosity and the intelligence of her elaborated compositions.

Browsing through Gentileschi’s most significant artworks in her carrier, such as “Susanna and the Elders” (see fig.3), “Judith beheading Holofernes” (see fig.1 and 2), or her self-portrait “The Allegory of painting” (see fig.4), bring in evidence her great artistic talent of the intelligent logic of her conceptions. She created her own particular chromatic expression mixing the Caravaggio’s and her father’s Orazio painting styles, and as such she marked the Baroque as the most interesting female artist of that era.

The period of time before and during Artemisia Gentileschi’s creative epoch was filled up with many known and unknown female artists active in painting and in many other categories of art mostly decorative as embroidery and manuscripts. Some of them were more talented than the others, working most of the time in the family ateliers as helpers,^[1] or partners.^[2] Gentileschi was not known^[3] much and considered as a minor painter until discovered again during the organization of the exposition titled “Women Artists: 1550 to 1950,” in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976.^[4] There is not much written information available about her art because she was completely ignored by her contemporaries, writing about art as Mancini,^[5] Scannelli,^[6] Bellori,^[7] or Passeri.^[8] What makes her paintings standing out from the other canvases done by women artistes before Artemisia, or after her, is Gentileschi’s courage to abort the subject of female heroic presence in the men’s world. Gentileschi was one of the first female artists with the precursory feministic views of women’s important presence in Patriarchal social order, where role played by a woman was established by definition as domestic and procreative. She was also one of the first female painters able to provide for herself with her artwork. In regard to the time she was living in, it was an innovatory approach to make a socio-political statement in her artwork by the use of biblical stories and historic references to the female heroines.^[9] Her paintings are fulfilled with the power of feminine presence in the world of men. She painted women strong physically and mentally. Most of the bodies of her painted heroines are solid, powerful, and almost mannish.

Gentileschi did not leave many canvases, and these available to us are still of controversial origins causing disagreements among scholars.^[10] One of her most known painting “Judith slaying Holofernes,” (see fig.1) is the most violent image she ever painted, and it was a theme, which she interpreted few times in different ways during her artistic carrier.^[11] The first interpretation^[12] of the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes,^[13] she painted between the years 1612^th and 1613^th. The 1612^th was a year of the Agostino Tassi’s trial for the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi.^[14] Tassi was a painter and close collaborator of her father Orazio Gentileschi. According to many scholars, it is possible that the choice of the subject was motivated by her personal inconveniences of the trial, during which Gentileschi suffered public humiliation. She was tortured with thumbscrews and passed gynecological exams in order to proof the rape accusations in the court. Most scholars and art critics agreed that Artemisia painted the scene probably as the expression of her desire to avenge her humiliation. Under the cover of the biblical story she depicted her psychological state of mind and her frustration with the man as a principal cause of her unfortunate experience. By scrutinizing the painting symbolic elements of composition, it is possible to agree with some previously proposed interpretations by different scholars. Marcia Pointon^[15] (1991) for example, suggested that Artemisia recomposed previously painted version of this theme by Caravaggio^[16] to depict the murder of Holofernes through her own imaginary view of the childbirth. Her arguments are based on the composition of Holofernese’s arms, which symbolize the woman’s opened tights in “V” shape, and the mouth of Assyrian general as a shape of vagina surrounded by the hair and the bird as a reference to the pubic hair. Also the positioning of the bodies Judith and her maid Abra refers to the way the midwife would be placed with her assistant during the process of child delivery. Dissecting the painting with visual attention makes possible such interpretation. With little more imagination, the left arm of Holofernes might as well be symbolic visualization of the phallus, as remarked earlier by Joseph Slap (1985) in his interpretation of Gentileschi’s painting. Taylor Graeme (1984) refers to the first version of Gentileschi’s painting from 1612^th as a combination of both: childbirth and castration processes. His assumptions were based on the analyzes of the folds on the Holofernes’s neck. All these interpretations are possible and quite convincing after closer studies of the painting’s composition elements. However, such deductive approach might be as well just a matter of simple coincidences and the artist did not intend it. What is interesting in Gentileschi’s interpretation of this biblical story is the emphasis on the violent depiction of this event. The theme of Judith and Holofernes was explored in completely different ways by contemporary to her and earlier living artists.^[17] All of them were males. Their depiction of the biblical tale is very static and gentle, in some cases even elegant, where all aspects of such violent act are rather suggestive not active as it is in Gentileschi’s case. Caravaggio was one of the first to illustrate the biblical episode in action. The act itself does not have so much energy like in Gentileschi’s version. The reason for such different approach is evident. Gentileschi painted her version of Judith story based on her own tragic experiences. She was certainly inspired by Caravaggio’s interpretation of this tale, as she was a great lover of his artwork and the faithful follower of his painting style, which she successfully adopted with her father’s help. What makes this painting to stand out from any other interpretations of this theme before is her very personal touch of a woman’s brush. She exteriorized through this story her blessed female dignity. Yet, in fact the painting is loaded with a strong socio-political statement rather than canalization of Gentileschi’s desire of revenge. She knew that to get the attention she was seeking for as a female artist she needs to provoke the viewer and the remake of the famous biblical story was exactly what she needed to do.

Gentileschi changed the composition angle in order to create three dimensional and very powerful images. Playing with the chiaroscuro technique, she created very successfully a tragic atmosphere of the moment of murder. From Gentileschi’s canvas the violence is just bursting at the spectators. In the second version (see fig.2) of the same theme, the image is even more powerful, as the blood is spouting almost at the viewer in parabolic movements. The significant difference between these two versions is the way the blood spouts from the Holofernes neck. Mary Garrard explains it in her story about Artemisia, as possible homage to Galileo’s theory of the trajectory of the planets. Gentileschi knew Galileo, and he helped her on one occasion to receive a payment for her two paintings she had sent to the Ferdinand II. It seems possible, but what probably happened was rather artist’s observation of real slaughter of animal in the butcher’s shop or some other place in order to depict more realistically such violent event. In the second version of this biblical story, the blood flow is much more realistic than in the first one. At the same time it emphasizes the movement of the cutting hand.

Regardless of all these deductive suppositions Gentileschi succeeded as an artist and as a woman in making a strong socio-political statement. Statement of frustration and disaccord with existing social order created and maintained by the Patriarchal system. By such convincingly elaborated picture, she visualized her voice, the voice of disapproval for the surrounding realities of women’s existence and their sexual exploitation. Many scholars suggest that the principal inspiration for Gentileschi’s interpretation in such violent way of the biblical tale “Judith beheading Holofernes” was the rape of her by Tassi. However, taking in consideration her first signed artwork “Susanna and the Elders” (see fig.3), it is evident that even before the rape Gentileschi was already conscious and concerned by the social fragility of the female existence in the surrounding her Patriarchal social order. It is possible that Gentileschi as a young girl^[18] already contested her contemporary realities in her first signed painting. This artwork according to Pollock has uncompleted composition because of missing an important element of the biblical story such as the trees. However, how about assuming that Gentileschi as inexperienced as she seems to be proved her brilliance by suggesting in very intelligent way the presence of the trees in the opposite faces of the elders. The elders themselves present the trees. Furthermore, the balustrade, which separates Susanna from the elders, symbolizes at the same time the court of justice where they were judged after Daniel’s intervention to save Susanne. Such elaborated suggestive symbolism is present in all Gentileschi’s paintings. The seemingly evident content of her imagery has a double meaning. Ignoring to paint the trees she focus stronger attention of the viewer on the narrative of the biblical story. Further attentive examination of the painting reveals another interesting symbol. The white shirt of the elder on the left has a shape of white lily, which symbolizes virginity. Why would Gentileschi paint the shirt as a lily? Maybe she already was molested by Tassi then and wanted to exteriorize her worries. The positioning of the hands surrounded the lily tells the entire story. Even if she did made a reference to her personal inquietudes, one has to recognize her brilliant artistic creativity. Griselda Pollock made interesting connection between the paintings of “Susanna and the Elders” and “Judith beheading Holofernes.” She remarked the reversed composition of depicted characters. The two elders from “Susanna and the Elders” painting were replaced by two women in “Judith beheading Holofernes” artwork. Assuming that she did it consciously would prove further her creative genius. The violent depiction of “Judith beheading Holofernes” could be just continuation of her discontent with surrounding her realities. The expressive approach to the subject could be emphasized by her personal disappointment with the male gender. There is no proof of what really happened between Gentileschi and Tassi. If Agostino raped Artemisia, or she was in love with him^[19] it does not change the fact of her discontent. In either case she was mislead by the man she believed would respect her honor and keep his promises.^[20] Gentileschi’s depiction of “Judith beheading Holofernes” is as shocking to the viewer as it was shocking for Gentileschi to be lied to. She expresses her emotional state and her disapproval of dishonesty in the strongest way possible. By cutting the head of Holofernes, she contests symbolically the end of Patriarchal tyranny and injustice towards women. It is a visual protest against the omnipresent sexism and exploitation of women. By her pictorial statement she rejected the conventional feminine role imposed on women by men.

While some scholars promote their strong convictions about the semiotic references of Gentileschi’s representation of the famous biblical story, Griselda Pollock suggested that the painting of “Judith beheading Holofernes” is rather nothing more than an illustration of the heroic action undertaken by the Jewish widow to save her compatriots. Such statement is quiet interesting from the feminist point of view. It is certainly annoying to accept the wide spread of sexist interpretations of Gentileschi’s motivation to depict the biblical story the way she did. However, taking in consideration Gentileschi’s unfortunate accident and the time of the first execution of this painting it is quiet understandable that most scholars interpret it as a sort of vengeance dedicated to her offender and those who protected him. For example, as Ward Bissell’s suggestion that Gentileschi consciously or unconsciously depicted Agostino Tassi as a Holofernes. After closer look at her first signed painting “Susanna and the Elders,” it becomes quite evident that Gentileschi already depicted Tassi’s face as one of the elders. These two faces, the left sided elder character and the Holofernes resemble very much. Maybe already than she remarked something evil in his face and decided to use it as a model for her composition. Following this path, the second elder might be as well her father, Orazio Gentileschi. It is not surprising that anyone who knows Gentileschi’s story would read the artist’s message as a psycho-biographical artistic statement. Sometimes it might be just wrong way to understand the artist’s motive. However, it is important to notice that the stories of “Judith beheading Holofernes” and the story of “Susanna and the Elders” were quite popular among the social circles of the Baroque society. These two paintings prove Gentileschi’s artistic virtuosity in construction of elaborated intelligent drama sustained by her intimate symbolism. It is hard to dissociate Gentileschi’s artwork from the strong possibilities of the personal cause as the main source of her artistic creativity.

The studies of Gentileschi’s other paintings^[21] reveal that in most of the themes of her canvases, her heroines are somehow involved in rape, or other misfortunes in the world ruled by men. Her artwork is about fight against the underestimated significance of women values in the society she lived in. With the beautifully colored, honest, and magnificent compositions she imposes on her contemporary the image of women as heroes. Gentileschi overwrites the reduction of women significance by men to the object of sexual desires. Her later paintings,^[22] starting from 1630, are calmer and focused less on the sexist aspects of female image surrounding her. For example, in her paintings “Clio, The Muse of History,” or “Corsica and the Satir,” she is promoting the intellectual qualities of the female kind. Gentileschi proves her precursory qualities in depicting the subjects of her paintings once more in her self-portrait “The Allegory of painting”(see fig.4), a composition of great economy and virtuosity, but most of all the novelty of portraying an artist. Her approach to present female artist self-imagery in such outstanding and elaborated way filled up with perfectly balanced symbolism has been not seen yet before and rarely after. Furthermore, by her intelligent depiction of the principles of the creative process she proved her artistic maturity. She painted herself in parabolic inclination of all body, suggesting the steps of artistic creativity. The point of departure is placed on the palette kept by her left hand and is raising up, passing through a sophisticated drapery of her creativity, passing through the head of the artist’s mind where the final picture is made and the information is sent to be executed by the right hand with the brush. It is a genial way to portrait an artist. She summarized all necessary elements to explain how artists mind works. She presents a suggestive diagram of artistic creativity. Gentileschi is really special and the only one with such intellectually elaborated taste. She depicted herself as a woman artist and a muse at work at the same time. Artemisia was conscious of her values as a female artist. The remaining correspondences between her and her costumers proof it clearly.^[23] Gentileschi used the art of painting to represent women’s abilities to achieve as great things as men do. She firmly states her position against existing social inequities. By her particular creative approach, her socio-political statement was noticed, at least in the cultivated circles of the Baroque society.

Gentileschi proved with the excellence of her artwork that she could easily compete with the best male artistes of her epoch. Gentileschi’s artistic quest was not about vengance but a fight for recognition of her incredible talent among her contemporary. She carefully chose the themes of her paintings in order to present to the Patriarchal system in the strongest way possible her concerns. She knew that the best way to do it would be by strong visual argumentation of her cause.