I use this Velazquez painting, humorously, in the first few pages of my book, However, the painting has had a tumultuous past. Not sure it will stay in my book, unfortunately. Rude awakening:
Permission to use NPG paintings, $90+ a pop!
What is it about this Velazquez nude that made it so provocative?
The painting took at least five slashes with a meat chopper. Its attacker was Mary Richardson, a suffragette who later became a disciple of Oswald Mosley, leader of the (antisemitic) British Union of Fascists.* *
She was protesting the arrest of activist Emmeline Pankhurst. The press dubbed her “Slasher Mary.” Richardson later admitted that it wasn’t just the picture’s value, of £45,000 in 1906, (almost $1½ million today) that made it a target.
It was “the way men visitors gaped at it all day long.”
Valazquez’ Venus, one of the most erotically charged images of that age, “is seen as the paradigm of female beauty,” says (British) Times art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston. An unknown model reclines on a bed with her back to the painter. Cupid’s mirror gives the viewer a sense that she is looking back at them. The face appears much older than her body.
“It’s a warning about beauty being ephemeral, nothing lasts forever.”
Venus was faithfully restored after the slashing.
To this day you can still see people having a close look at the painting to see if the damage is still visible. It is. Mary Richardson throughout her life used to visit the painting ‘to cheer herself up’.
* From: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26491421 \ Magazine Monitor A collection of cultural artifacts 10 March 2014
** Former suffragettes were drawn to the British Union of Fascists for a variety of reasons. For many, their energy reminded them of the suffragettes. Others thought BUF’s economic policies would offer true equality, unlike European counterparts. BUF insisted it would not require women to return to domesticity. They ensured adequate representation for housewives, while guaranteeing equal wages for women and removing the marriage restriction for employment. The BUF offered effective birth control. While these policies were motivated more by making the best use of women’s skills than any kind of feminism, it still drew many suffragettes.
From Pugh, “Why the Former Suffragettes Flocked to British Fascism.”
Slate, Ap 14 17.
