by Anastasia Hayes
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, despite housing a world-renowned collection, can be extremely frustrating to visit. The crowds that swarm the place can quickly transform the masterpieces into sources of claustrophobia and annoyance. As such, I entered the museum feeling less than optimistic, not looking forward to the jostling and idle chatter of tourists who had come only to check the museum off their “To-Do” lists. I was determined to connect with a piece though, inspired by the anointed sufferers of the Stendhal Syndrome. I had just read Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn” and was sure he must have been under the influence of that most heavenly seizure when writing about the piece of pottery:
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme (Lines 1-4)
I read these lines and was jealous of Keats’ holy communion with the pottery, seemingly innocuous when I first thought about it. Through his ode, though, Keats reveals the urn to be more than just an object of aesthetic pleasure: the vase emerges as a powerful story teller whose tale reveals itself “more sweetly” than Keats’ already poignant words can. I was struck by this description, as Keats had such a talent with the pen. Few pieces of art, regardless of their medium, can approach the beauty encased in his poems. After reading “Ode to a Grecian Urn”, I found myself wanting to forge my own connections with a piece, one as pure as the words Keats picked to describe his urn. This desire of mine spurred romantic dreams of succumbing fully to the sheer beauty of a piece and letting it commune with my soul: my body would crumple, leaving my mind alone to examine every facet of that most gorgeous work.
Pulling myself from my reverie, I mounted the museum’s grand staircase and ascended to the second floor. I beat a hasty retreat from the early nineteenth-century works, in search of some solitude. My journey took me past many famous paintings: Salome (1870), Woman with a Parrot (1864), and The Storm (1880). I recognized that there was indeed skill and charm in all of these works but none made me feel the least bit faint. I trudged on, hands in pockets, waiting to be visited by some divine embodiment of Art.
I was coming to the century’s end when I found what I was looking for. I did not have visions but the work drew me into communion with itself. It answered for me that supreme question about a work of art: out of how deep a life had this piece sprung? The raw loneliness and sexual frustration I saw displayed there, contrasted against both verdant and feminine beauty suggested this piece had sprung from a most profound life. I let my eyes travel around the picture and then scanned the placard next to the piece: Der Traum des Hirten (The Dream of the Shepherd) (1896) by Ferdinand Hodler.
The Painting: A Description of Contents
The sitter holds his hand in front his face, a partial flesh barrier between himself and the onlooker. The shepherd is effectively hidden but there is some ambiguity as to how much this boy can see of his audience. The boy might be peering at the viewer from behind it or avoiding his audience altogether. His hand is placed abnormally far up on his forehead. With this hand, Hodler has cleverly constructed a barrier that is only unconquerable in the moment. It would not take much effort on one’s part to remove this hand from the boy’s face in real life, yet in this composition, it is forever cemented to that forehead with oil paints. Here, I think Hodler has best shown the power inherent in painting. With a brush, one can set down the ephemeral in foundations stronger than stone.
The painting is run through with a whole complex network of uncertainties and feints. Hodler leaves the viewer with some uncomfortable questions: Am I welcome in this scene? Is this shepherd trying to ignore me? Is he instead trying to escape the figures that dance above and behind him? These figures are the fulcrum upon which the entire composition revolves. All involved with the work (shepherd and audience) react to these women. The shepherd has his back to them, trying to avoid them. His efforts to block them out seem like an invitation for the observer to do exactly the opposite: one is directed by obstinate contrarianism to zoom in on the women and to examine their function as the common locus of representation in Der Traum des Hirten.
Hodler’s broad, blurry strokes render the females’ faces unknowable. Despite being able to see the outline of four out of the eight faces, the women’s faces are eventually as invisible as the shepherd’s. That is not to say the women are not beautiful, though. Hodler has sketched out female forms that are clearly meant to be attractive to a Western observer. With small waists, long limbs, flowing hair, and a supple firmness that imbues all of the females with astonishing grace leading the way, it is easy for the bystander to impose beautiful features on the eight graces dancing behind the boy.
Hodler has impressed me once again. Instead of imposing his particular idea of feminine beauty on his audience, he simply provided the viewer with sultry scaffolds that accept our imposition. In a work where so much is done to push out the viewer, this opportunity for audience participation is essential. The power we have been given by Hodler to determine the look of the work keeps us feeling involved in a painting we might not otherwise consider ourselves to be welcome in. The shepherd’s dream is kept democratic: depending on how closely we choose to mold the females’ faces to our preferences, the boy’s dream can just as easily be our own. And so, Hodler has not painted a simple shepherd’s dream. The boy’s dream emerges as something much more universal. Hodler has instead created a representation of feminine beauty that is inclusive because it is so ambiguous. This emptiness provides the viewer an essential place to hang on to as Hodler pushes him in and out of the painting.
Just as the audience discovers a place for themselves in the painting, however, they again begin to wonder how much Hodler wants them to be involved in the composition. The audience feels Hodler oscillating them in and out of the work as they further examine the women. Despite the fact that their indefinite beauty invites the audience in, we find them totally disinterested in the outside world and, more importantly, their audience. Most of the women are turned away from their public. Even the female with her face pointed towards the viewer makes it clear, by the tilt of her head and the assumed direction of her glance, that she is absorbed by those around her, giving no thought to the viewer or to the shepherd boy. The viewer feels uninvited and unwanted, like a nomad poaching his way across fields he does not own. This sensation is strange, given that paintings so often try to draw the observer in.
Musing upon the work before me, I finally understood why the shepherd holds his hand to his face. He does so not, as I first assumed, to block the audience out. It is instead Hodler encouraging the audience’s participation with this very alienating piece. The shepherd, because we cannot see his face, becomes a stand in for everyone, an Everyman. He has no discernable features and so it is easy to impose our own onto his hidden face. One still may not feel totally comfortable in the painting but Hodler, through this series of “blank canvases”, has hinted that he does want his viewers in the painting. His piece is not one of exclusion but inclusion.
I referenced universality and while I continue to laud Hodler for inviting his viewers behind the curtain, I must offer some qualifications to my applause. The shepherd is only an Everyman if the viewer is a white, heterosexual male. Even though faces are hidden and smudged, its clear all of the work’s nine actors are Caucasian. As the painting is a product of the nineteenth century Western Europe, this fact is by no means surprising: it is expected (Berger, 45-64). As such, colored and/or homosexual men as observers have no place in this painting. Women are involved only as “object[s]-and most particularly a[s] object[s] of vision: sight[s]” (Berger, 47). In positioning his females thus, Hodler draws off a long and storied tradition in European painting centering on female nudes. He tweaks it slightly, though, as his women will not engage completely as figures to lust after. There are no furtive, suggestive glances to make the male viewer feel desired by the females encased in paint. However, that only makes the shepherd’s desires all the more tangible for onlookers, as men no longer have to imagine the shepherd’s sexual frustration: it is their own. So, despite the parochial subject of a shepherd’s desires, there is an inherent exclusion bound up in the work that ropes it off for males of a certain class, race, and sexuality. Indeed, despite my recognition that Der Traum des Hirten is a work created by an artist with a profound soul who cleverly manipulated the conventions of paintings to sneak viewers into his fortress of a painting, I find myself stopped at the gate because I cannot participate in the composition in the same way a male, heterosexual peer can. In spite of this recognition, though, I find myself able to mount this barrier, as the uncomplicated grace and raw emotion contained in the painting build a bridge over the divide.
Having examined the piece on its face, I decide to climb into the frame and to assume the mental trappings of the shepherd. You never really understand a painting (or its protagonist) until you consider things from an internal point of view:
Nature of the titular shepherd’s dreams: Erotic, with a tinge of deep shame.
THE SHEPHERD (Der Hirten): I have sat alone for many hours, watching my sheep with glassy eyes. The flock does not provide much stimulation and so I search the recesses of my mind for something to amuse me. The sun above shines warmly and a feeling of drowsy happiness floods me. My mind spirals along the threads that my subconscious spins. From these silky revolutions, I create Woman. I looked for stimulation and have found it in this vision: the lady is generally amorphous but I spy the outline of her naked shape and sense willowy arms, a well-formed waist, healthy hips, long legs, and firm breasts. The terrible poetry of human nudity, I understand it at last. I tremble for the first time in trying to read it with blasé eyes. My face flushes forever darker but I cannot stop my ogling. Septuplet sisters appear about her, each as well made as the last. Some of the women let their hair hang freely and others have it loosely tied. The fine strands brush against their soft skin and I feel the tickle transmitted to me. My blush increases and I feel hot: shame burns my bowels and the sun sears my skin.
Worried that someone should come upon me in the midst of this chimera, I bend my legs closer together and cover my face with a quivering hand. I should bring my palm lower and use it to squeeze this vision out of my mind. I will not, though, as I am certain my efforts would be futile. This dream, wet and warm, is now engraved on the walls of my skull. Shame and juvenile excitement color this etching, swirling in different shades of red: one, hot and heavy crimson, is amorous and the other red, sanguine in shade, is the tone that colors my embarrassed cheeks.
My conscious pangs, and basic morality nudges me yet again to escape the seedy den of my mind’s eye. I cannot contemplate opening my eyes and looking up, though, for it is as painful to be awakened from a vision as it is to be born (especially when the apparition is so illicit in nature). Even those dumb, stupid sheep will be able to sense the sin that hangs over me. I sweat cold tears, expecting to be met with a chorus of reproachful “baah”s. I know I do not have the strength to face them. But this inability of mine to banish these women only increases the likelihood of my claiming a place in Hell. I push my face farther into my hand, divided and defeated.
Notes:
- “Also known as Florence Syndrome, Stendhal Syndrome [is] described as a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations in people who are exposed to extraordinary artistic achievement, whether it is paintings or sculptures.” Nick Squires, “Scientists investigate the Stendhal Syndrome-fainting caused by great art”, The Telegraph, 28 July 2010, Web Edition, 1.
Key:
“…can quickly transform the masterpieces into sources of claustrophobia and annoyance.” “When Art Makes Us Cry”, Francine Prose
“…that supreme question about a work of art: out of how deep a life had these piece sprung?” Adapted from a quote by James Joyce featured in Ulysses, “Episode Nine: Scylla and Charybdis”
“…a whole complex network of uncertainties and feints…” “Las Meninas”, Foucault
“…the common locus of the representation…” “Las Meninas”, Foucault
“…like a nomad poaching his way across fields he does not own.” “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” by Jonathan Lethem
“Nature of the titular shepherd’s dreams: Erotic, with a tinge of deep shame.” Inspired by the style of narration in Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds
“The terrible poetry of human nudity… trying to read it with blasé eyes.” Rachilde,Monsieur Venus: A Materialist Novel
“…it is as painful to be awakened from a vision as it is to be born.” James Joyce, Ulysses, “Episode 14: The Oxen of the Sun”
Bibliography:
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973. Print.
Keats, John. “Ode to a Grecian Urn”. The Mentor Book of Major British Poets. Ed. Oscar Williams. New York: New American Library, 1963. 196. Print.
