Koloman Moser

Koloman Moser

Pilze (Still-life with Chanterelles and Bottle)

circa 1909

     Freshly-picked and plump - their umbrella heads still shine with the water they were washed in. Specks of dirt litter the grey ground; the conical glass piece stands like a lone spire, towering over the nearby canopy of dense, autumn-sticken 'trees'. The surrounding grounds, already frost-bitten with the season's dropping temperatures, form a slick, icey rink on which one small chanterelle has already ventured out - its not-so-daring siblings (with their heads resembling little brown grapes) still hugging the skirts of their parents. In the near distance the cloudy skies are soaked in sunrise, their bright complexion casting strong shadows throughout the huddling mushrooms.

     Indifferent to the youngsters, the adults cluster together as if to discuss something private, away from our prying ears. Their heads seem to bob into one another, each occasionally turning around to see whether anything is creeping by too closely. Are they planning to escape the imminent saucepan, already heated and gurgling with a splash of olive oil? Or are they deciding how to best woo some stubborn oregano leaves into a savoury harmony? Whatever it is, they are undoubtedly mishchievous. Unlike any pile of mushrooms we have seen, this one is soft and velvety on the outside - but also deliciously devilish on the inside. 

Paul Poiret: the Perfume, Part I

Paul Poiret

Rosine Aladin, perfume bottle

circa 1919

     The Aladin scent was perfectly paired with this rustic, almost mysterious, brown-stained flask. Its crescent shape and black chain suggest that it could have hung from a kind of netsuke, perhaps one in toggle-form of two Persian slippers curled together, like sleeping Siamese cats, painted in uncharacteristically bright colours to offset - and even prelude - the surprise corked inside.

     The relief design on the bottle's front shows a rearing horse facing another, their back legs separated by a patch of wild, flame-like leaves on the ground while above them, arcs of gadrooned borders imitate a starry night. Whom was this perfume for? Nothing in the bottle's appearance implies either the feminine or the masculine; it does not explain itself clearly, or follow obvious rules - as neither did Aladin or the genie himself - and it reveals very little about its Middle-Eastern motifs. During the night, the reign of the moon changes features and distorts thoughts; reflections tell of hidden stories; things transform. Imagining the horses are untamed, as wild as the dancing plants overwhich they rear, one could interpret either animal as being the mirror image of the other. The horse on the right could be the guise of its daytime self, while that on the left is its truer, even darker, side. Maybe this perfume inspired transformation. Maybe, like the relief shows, this perfume was meant to be worn once night fell - once the confidence of the wearer was able to release their real identity.

James Whistler

James Whistler

Bibi Lalouette

circa 1859

     The girl's imaginative trance dictated to Whistler how her portrait was to be etched. She is as thoughtful and as chubby-cheeked as one of Robert Louis Stevenson's anonymous children for whom he wrote his short fantastical poems (especially those illustrated by Charles Robinson), each bearing a cadence of childhood that anyone can recognise.

     For Whistler, Bibi assumes a charm that is unspoken: she does not look or awknowledge him, but casts her eyes downwards. She is like François-Louis David Bocion's Célestine (see post for 19 May 2013) in that she lives in another world, perhaps one of her own creation, in which she forgets her understanding of time and space and seems to float on a surreal cloud of thoughts. Clothed in a heavy night gown, Bibi's head and hands are the only parts of her body which remain grounded in reality, while the rest of her falls into the thick swathe of lines making up the thing on which she sits and the gown in which she is wrapped. Her hair is tossled; what seems like a lidded box sits next to her, opened. Is she a child dreaming of unlocking treasure troves and discovering places unknown, or - given that this drawing is more than a century old - is she now living that dream?

Marie van Regteren Altena

Marie van Regteren Altena

Still-life with Cactus

circa 1925

     With the Asian script and the floral tracery comes a hint of the Orient. Glazed in a cool tourquoise, the vase looks meditative, smooth; it holds a pine cone-shaped cactus that, because of its casual lean to the left, also looks relaxed. They are opposites that attract: the prickly quality of the plant looms over the notebooks' supple, limp pages while the vase's pale glaze compliments the redness of the cloth.

     The coupling of these colours brings to mind a komon (a type of kimono) that is brightly embroidered with fiery silks and flowering tassels. It is worn by a young woman, one who walks slowly, oil-paper parasol in hand, through a small garden bathed in a midday sun. Maybe she is thinking; maybe she sets aside her shade to write down her thoughts onto a similar pad as this dark green one, with its ivory paper and string-bound spine, while her long shadow trickles across the garden's sandy path in a neat arc, like a sun-dial, marking the beginning of her thoughts to their ends, once they are pencilled on paper. The folds of her robes remain stiff and formal, but they occasionally yield to a low breeze which fills and billows them outwards into the shape of a lantern, or a heavy bubble, only to escape into the surrounding hedges again and leave behind a trail of incense. The scent is as dark and as deep as the woman's hair, the tips of which attempt to escape from the tight coil pinned to the crown of her head. All of this imagery, however personal, comes from this picture - a picture that was not drawn by a Japanese, but by a Dutch.