Why I Haven't Been Here. And Also, a Gorgeous Calendar!

The Beautiful Necessity was my very first blog, started in February 2008.  At the time, I lamented that there wasn't more out there for enthusiasts of Pre-Raphaelite art to get information both on the original movement, and its influence and marketing in the modern day.  But now...there are some incredible resources out there, not the least of which are Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, run by my dear friend Stephanie, and The Kissed Mouth, run by my dear friend Kirsty.  Because of this, and new extracurricular obligations that are taking up much of my time, I haven't posted here very often lately.  I do still plan to post here if I find new content, but the posts will be admittedly few and far between.  Thankfully, as I said, Stephanie and Kirsty are incredible experts in the field, and I highly recommend following everything they both do!!!

In the mean time, I DO have new content to share with you!  The incredibly talented Hannah Titania recently coordinated the creation of a new calendar for 2015 called Pre-Raphaelite Muses.  This calendar features gorgeous never-before-seen images of modern day Stunners who are not only inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art, but are artists in their own right who help create new beauty every day!

Or, in Hannah's words,

"After finding other Muses from different parts of the world, who shared the same inspiration and love for Pre-Raphaelite art, I started the Facebook group 'Pre-Raphaelite Models and Muses'. People enjoyed sharing their Pre-Raphaelite inspired photographs, and I loved all of the creativity. I then had the idea of bringing modern Pre-Raphaelite Muses together to create a calendar.

One of the most important things about the Muses in the calendar is that they are not simply models dressing up in a certain style, they are being themselves.

Each Muse in the calendar holds a special type of beauty that is described as ‘Pre-Raphaelite’. Apart from all being artists’ models who pose in the Pre-Raphaelite style for photography, paintings and drawings, they are also artists themselves, care about nature, and inspire others through their being and ideals. All the Muses in this calendar were chosen not only for their unique beauty and artistic endeavours, but also because they have a passion for Pre-Raphaelite art. Every page has text about who each Muse is and their art. There are musicians, writers, crafters and artists."

The calendar is available at the Pre-Raphaelite Muses website, and an exclusive sneak peek will be seen in the Winter issue of FAE magazine. 

It can also be purchased on Etsy, here and here.  You can also follow new information on the project on the Facebook page.

Incidentally, I was supposed to be a part of this project, but failed to get an image to Hannah in time for this year.  Hopefully if the project is successful, I can participate next year!

Aurora Ophelia

Tonight, a friend linked an article on Vanity Fair about the costume designer for Maleficent, and how she focused on emphasizing Aurora's innocence for the new film.

Two costume sketches from the film's wardrobe department are shown in the article slide show, and the last one was immediately familiar to me.

Who better, I suppose, to look at for innocent aesthetics than Ophelia?

Ophelia by JW Waterhouse

 You can see some of the influence in the inspiration painting in the finished garment...the embroidered band around the hem, the sleeve style, and the chemise under the neckline.

I did adore this movie, and am counting the days till it's out on DVD and I can see it again!

A Curl of Copper and Pearl

This morning, right before leaving for work, I closed Kirsty Stonell-Walker's new novel, A Curl of Copper and Pearl, on the final page.  The novel is the story of Alexa - nee Alice - Wilding, one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's most often used, yet little known, models for the opulent and sensual female portraits we know so well.  Kirsty creates a wonderful story based on careful research and some knowledgeable and careful extrapolation, with Alexa at its center. 

I have to admit the book really got interesting for me when familiar faces and names became more prevalent, especially when Alexa started visiting Kelmscott and met the Morris family.  I was a little sad that she never met my personal favorite Pre-Raphaelite, Edward Burne-Jones, but that's entirely a biased opinion based on how much I would have enjoyed Kirsty's description of the man.  I especially adored Kirsty's vivid descriptions of Fanny Cornforth, the mysterious Mrs. Jane Morris, and the man of the hour himself, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

The most exquisite part of an already engrossing book to me was its last few chapters, as we joined Alexa Wilding in hopelessly watching the decline of this incredible light, Rossetti, who drew so many to him like enchanted moths to a flame.  To see the experiences of his last few months through the eyes of a single observer, and one so close to him, was heartbreaking.  As Alexa laments when she hears of his death, "what am I without him?"  We can see, through the constructed character we have grown to know throughout Kirsty's book, why this man would inspire such devotion and dramatics.  Indeed, Alexa Wilding would be no more than a name on a census, were it not for this face that looks back at us from Rossetti's canvases. 

A wonderful book, and highly recommended to anyone who enjoys the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and especially to anyone who wants to understand the facts of their lives more intimately. 

Borrowing A Distinct Dress

Have you ever had a really long, involved, practically epic blog post or piece of conversational writing in mind, and because you just never seem to end up having the time to do it, you end up not writing anything at all?  And then its been so long it's awkward...

Last spring, no, not 2014, but 2013, I went to the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the NGA in Washington D.C.  And it was an amazing experience.  It was my first time seeing these artworks I so adore in person, and it was truly almost a religious pilgrimage to me.  I wanted to do a series of blog posts talking about all my experiences at the exhibition and at the Delaware Art Museum.  But then things got busy and one month led to another...and I never got around to it.  But there are things I really wanted to say!  So I decided that there's no time like the present to at least start giving one or two highlights from the experience.

I had to share a fun little detail from the National Gallery.  Honestly, and totally unexpectedly, in the room where Millais' Ophelia was triumphantly displayed in all its glory, I found myself drawn more to this artwork, Rossetti's Salutation of Beatrice.

You see...all of the artworks, every single one, familiar or unfamiliar, was a thousand times more stunning in person than even the most accurate of online images could show.  But some were more surprising in their beauty than others.  We've all seen Ophelia.  We all know the intricacies of the flowers scattered on the water's surface, the murky river reeds.  But then there were artworks like this, easily admired and then put aside when perusing online collections.  But in person...oh in person, the colors...the glowing, radiant colors so vivid and vibrant you felt like you should hold your hands out to it for warmth.  The frame...the shining glowing wood frame, like the tree it came from was beaming with pride at the beauty it had been transformed into.  The whole thing was just breathtaking to me.

But I digress from my point.

Across the room from The Salutation of Beatrice was another artwork we've all seen before...William Morris'  La Belle Iseult.

This was also lovely in person, but not quite as stunningly so, perhaps because Morris never really quite got the "glowing colors" thing down in his paintings (but more than made up for it in, oh I don't know, a trillion other talents).

Wait a second...I thought to myself, peering at the familiar figure of Iseult.

I walked back across the room diagonally, looking at Beatrice.

I walked back across the room and looked at Iseult.  After three or four times doing this, I think the security guards got a bit antsy.

But sure enough, there it was...the same gown used as reference in both paintings.  Oh sure, the colors had been changed, and the sleeves were patterned in one and solid in the other, but there was no denying that one-of-a-kind pinecone and circle-punctuated gridmark of diamond lines on the gowns.

Sadly, this was the best version of Beatrice I could find online, but trust me...in the actual outfit the design is far clearer and more distinct.

Like a modern day costumer who finds a dress reused in two movies, I always get a huge tickle out of discovering props or costumes reused across Pre-Raphaelite artworks.  I recall seeing the same gown used multiple times by the same artist (Waterhouse, anyone?) but I can't recall ever seeing the same gown, modeled by the same woman, in two artworks with two subjects, by two artists.

It's just a little tidbit, but I didn't want to wait any longer to share it, as it gave me an inordinate amount of amusement and excitement to discover.  Was it just coincidence that the gown was chosen for Jane to wear by both artists?  Both paintings were done early in their careers...perhaps they were limited in their wardrobe options that early on.  Or perhaps this is a subtle little sign of the quiet competitiveness between Rossetti and Morris, an ironic symbol when worn by the woman who would eventually be their greatest source of conflict (to what extent real or later imagined by scholars we may never fully know). 

Who wishes this gown still existed?  And indeed, perhaps in some dusty attic of some random rowhouse in London, this gown sits, folded and tucked away in a chest.

Happy Valentine's Day

Last fall, I had the opportunity to jump on a photo shoot that has been a concept on my bucket list for a long time now.  After talking to a friend at a graduation party in June, I had a lead on a knight in shining armor who had the clean-cut good looks to pull off a chivalrous photography concept.

We are still working on trying to find a publication home for most of these images, but I decided I just couldn't wait any longer to share one of them.  And so in honor of Valentine's Day I give you....

John William Waterhouse's La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Photographer: Richard Wood
Knight: Patrick Neill

I Feel I Owe You An Explanation...

Portrait of me by Ellie Lane Imagery

I love blogging.  There's something marvelous to someone who is an introvert and creative about putting your thoughts out to the universe, and having people respond positively.  It's therapeutic to get my thoughts down, exciting to share beautiful objects or discoveries or realizations in an organized manner, and it's great fun to go back and read through old blog posts, almost like discovering all of the discoveries over again. 

But lately I've been a terrible blogger.  I have three blogs, each of which serves a different purpose, each of which I love very much for different reasons: There's Catty-Corner Cottage, my personal blog where I share stories and pictures from the process of fixing up and personalizing our first home.  There's The Beautiful Necessity, where I talk about my never-ending obsession with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and explore new and re-evaluated details of their lives and their art.  And then there's Domythic Bliss, where I talk about the Mythic Arts in general, and more specifically how to express a love for myth and fairy tale in one's personal abode and daily environment. 

I haven't blogged at either of the latter webpages since early November 2013.  And before then, it had been months between posts on either blog as well.

Please, reader, I beg you not to think I'm abandoning these blogs.  I'm not...I hold them close with a sense of ownership and pride and community.  But I have to admit something to you: life has been challenging.

By Brooke Shaden

In early 2011, I discovered the absolutely phenomenal blog, Hyperbole and a Half.  The genius behind the entries, Allie Brosh, was one of the most hilarious comedians in any medium I had ever seen.  I spent half of my time reading her entries wiping away tears of laughter and trying to breathe. 

In October of 2011, Allie wrote a blog post about how she had gotten a book contract.  Her readers were all very excited, but then there was nothing but silence; months and months and then over a year of absolutely nothing.  Even though I adored the blog, and followed her page on Facebook in case there were any new posts ever, I gradually stopped checking back to the blog itself.

In May of 2013, Allie returned with an absolutely epic post about depression, and what it's like to go through depression.  I mean, the brilliance with which she described what it's like, with both wit and total truthfulness and minute detail...it was nothing short of a blow-out comeback phenomenon.

Allie's experience is a perfect example of how life and all its imperfections and struggles can get in the way of something we really love.  Mental illness is truly a destroyer of all joy, sapping any bit of happiness you have and twisting it into knots.  I don't struggle with depression, but what I've started to admit to myself, and what I've had an especially hard time with since October 2013, is a suspected generalized anxiety disorder. 

In late September, I went to my rheumatologist for a routine visit, and his assistant thought she heard something of concern.  An appointment was set up with a cardiologist to have him check it out in late October.  And to make a long story short, I eventually had to come to grips with the fact that some doctors will always want to run more and more tests and will never be willing just to tell you that everything will be okay, even if the problem is minor.  I ramped up such an overabundance of anxiety by the time my appointment was scheduled, my heart was already racing a million miles a minute, chest tight, panic attacks waking me up at 3am.

By Brooke Shaden

 

Finally I decided to let the fear go, and I focused on having a great Christmas.  And it was a great holiday, but soon thereafter, I switched the focus of my anxiety from physical wellness to fear for our house, its safety, the weather and its affects on it.  My mind would create a thousand completely unlikely scenarios for how everything could fall apart: the loud pops and cracks old houses make in cold weather meant the roof was caving in, or the floor would give way.  An unknown smell in the air was undoubtedly carbon monoxide poisoning and we'd die in our sleep (despite the fact that we have detectors on every floor with fresh new batteries).  And lately?  Our furnace will go out in the negative degree weather, leaving our pipes to freeze and burst in the walls and collapse the ceiling and floor.  You get the idea, maybe. 

And the stressful thing about having an anxiety disorder is that sometimes...well, often...the things you're worried about are things that could legitimately happen.  It's just that they are rather unlikely, and you blow the ramifications of what if they every happened way out of proportion, as if your whole life will end if they occur.  But because these fears really are theoretically possible, it's hard to just ignore your anxiety.

By Brooke Shaden

 

Everyone has worries sometimes, but usually we can tuck them to the back of our minds, telling ourselves we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.  But lately I seem to lack that filter, that ability to let it go.  (Let it go, I am one with the wind and sky...)  And the worse the anxiety gets, the more it feeds on itself, until I can no longer even focus or concentrate on anything other than my fears.  I haven't worked on a single creative project since Christmas, and as a creative person who needs that almost as much as I need food, I'm feeling the loss of it.  But in my mind, the idea of focusing on anything but the fear seems absolutely impossible.

So...Um, yeah.  I suppose there you have it.  There's my rambling and somewhat paltry explanation for why even though I love blogging, you haven't seen much of anything from me lately.  I'm working on my anxiety issues...trying to find workable coping mechanisms and relaxation techniques.  And hopefully soon spring will come, both nature's reawakening and the reawakening of my creative spirit.  But for now, I am in deep hibernation, just trying to survive my own personal winter.