Maleonn and his staged universes

(from the series Nostalgia)

(from the series Nostalgia)

(from the series Book of Taboo)

(from the series Book of Taboo)

(from the series Little Flagman)

(from the series Postman)

(from the series My Circus)

source: http://www.maleonn.com

In the weeping brook

Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles

La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys,

Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles...

-- On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.

(Arthur Rimbaud: "Ophélie" [a fragment])

In his The Philosophy of Composition, Edgar Allan Poe asserts that "the death ... of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world", and, indeed, the compelling, lush, and grisly melancholy of the death of a beautiful woman has attracted tremendous attention in a number of artistic fields. 

While one of the tragic heroines most popular with artists appears to be Shakespeare's Ophelia, undoubtedly the most famous representation of her was produced by John Everett Millais (1852). The painting has proved extremely influential (on the subsequent representations and interpretations of Ophelia, for instance), and not only the drowning scene in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) reminds us of it, but also, for instance, one scene in Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) is clearly reminiscent of it.

(John Everett Millais) 

(Jean Simmons in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet)

(Kirsten Dunst in Lars von Trier's Melancholia)

A number of other Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as John William Waterhouse, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Arthur Hughes, and Joseph Noel Paton, were also captivated by the subject.

"These Pre-Raphaelite images were part of a new and intricate traffic between images of woman and madness in the late nineteenth-century literature, psychiatry, drama, and art. First of all, superintendents of Victorian lunatic asylums were also enthusiasts of Shakespeare, who turned to his dramas for models of mental aberration that could be applied to their clinical practice." (Elaine Showalter, "Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism". In Susanne L. Wofford (ed.), Hamlet, Bedford Books, 1994)

(John William Waterhouse)

However, there were many other artists who in one way or another tackled the subject in the 19th and early 20th century. For instance, have a look at the works of Richard Redgrave, Alfonso Simonetti, Antoine-Auguste-Ernest Hebert, James Bertrand, Henrz Lejeune, Frank Willimas, Marcus Stone, Joseph Severn, George Frederick Watts, Artur Grottger, Joseph Kirkpatrick, Carl F. W. Trautschold, John William Godward, Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, Joseph Kronheim, James Parker, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Eugène Delacroix, Alexandre Cabanel, Gaston Bussiere, Henry Nelson O'Neil, Thomas Francis Dicksee, Dominico Tojetti, Madeleine Lemaire, W. G. Simmonds, etc. 

The subject not only has not suffered decline in popularity in the contemporary arts, but its interpretation has been broadened and a great number of contemporary artists have toyed within the Ophelian paradigm, often applying the bricolage technique. Check out, for instance, George Steeves, Desiree Doloron, Angelo Cricchi, Marlene Dumas, Victor Burgin, Elly Strik, Marilène Oliver, Steven Graber, Pipilotti Rist, Iris van Dongen, Tom Hunter, Erzsébet Baerveldt, Gregory Crewdson, Anne Wenzel, Anouk De Clercq, Krien Clevis, Delphine Courtillot, Amie Dicke, Jason Beam, Juul Kraijer, Erik Odijk, William B. Hand, Justine Kurland, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Elisabet Stienstra, etc.

(Angelo Cricchi)

(Victor Burgin)

(George Steeves)

Besides, there are undeniable Ophelian influences, for instance, on PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love (1995) album cover art, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Kylie Minogue's "Where the Wild Roses Grow" (1995) music video and single cover art.

Moreover, fashion photographers have recently taken to the subject as well.

(Vogue November 2011)

(Vogue Korea April 2007)

(Vogue Japan March 2009)

And, interestingly, the (death) scene has often been moved into the private space of a bathtub.

 (Eleanor Hardwick)

(Sophia Sanchez and Mauro Mongiello)

(Ayten Alpun)

Furthermore, Izima Kaoru in his photographic series Landscapes with a Corpse abandons the motif of the death by drowning and collaborates with beautiful young women (actresses and models) to develop their fantasy of "a perfect death", including location, clothing, and the manner of their death. Izima then constructs the scenes, and shoots a series of images of each scene from the panoramic to the close-up perspective [1].

Finally, Erik Odijk removes the beautiful woman from the picture and confronts us with her absence as the Ophelia in his "portrait" of Ophelia's death is no longer in view, having been absorbed by  the surrounding nature.

(Eric Odijk)

A Kiss as a Snapshot Photography Trope

A kiss has always been, though rather inconspicuously and sporadically, a recurrent theme of what might be labeled artistic snapshot photography. Some of the most famous photographs depicting a kiss follow.

Robert Doisneau is recognized as a witty, humorous, yet emphatic photographer of Parisian street life, and many of his photographs are viewed as the icons of French lifestyle. Although eventually revealed as posed [1], the photograph entitled Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville has come to be read as a story of boisterous love, lust, and spontaneity.

(Robert Doisneau: Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville)

(Robert Doisneau: Les amoureaux de Paris)

Henri Cartier-Breson is often pronounced the most capable street photographer. He believed in the time-stop, individual history preservative effect of photography, and with the patience of a fisherman, observed the surrounding him life in order to capture “les moments décisifs”.

(Henri Cartier-Breson: Café de Flore)

Alfred Eisenstaedt became famous by means of taking pictures of the famous (both in culture and politics), as well as by pioneering an available light photography. Nonetheless, the photograph for which he is known world-widely is a picture of a sailor passionately kissing a young woman on V-Day in Times Square. This snapshot not only became one of the symbols of the U.S. jubilant victory, but also one of the photographs that contributed to the definition of American photojournalism.

(Alfred Eisenstaedt: V-Day Kiss)

Eliot Erwitt is known for his candid look at the everyday city life, his portraits of people (often juxtaposed with some static objects), and (arguably) predominantly, for his witty photographs of dogs. His photograph California Kiss is considered one of the finest American snapshots from the 1950’s.

(Eliot Erwitt: California Kiss)

John Kimmich-Javier is a trained as an architect photographer who is rather unknown to wider public. His photograph, The Kiss, quite neatly documents Kimmich-Javier’s novel depiction of ancient buildings and their interiors.

(John Kimmich-Javier: The Kiss)

In 1968, Rocco Morabito, a former Jacksonville Journal photographer, was awarded Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography for his photograph entitled The Kiss of Life. The picture captures an apprentice lineman, Champion, who is hanging unconscious having received a high voltage jolt, and another apprentice lineman, Thompson, who breathes life into Champion, and eventually rescues him.

(Rocco Morabito: The kiss of life)

Finally, Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for her documentary(-like) photographs of transsexual and gay communities, drug addicts, and people with AIDS. In spite of the fact that her pictures more often than not burst with the aggressive search for identity, violence in relationships, and rough sexuality; falling into the category of (memento) AIDS and gay photographs, the photograph entitled Gotscho Kissing Gilles affectionately represents a farewell kiss to a lover, a tender kiss of loss.

(Nan Goldin: Gotscho Kissing Gilles)

Poetics of the ParkeHarrisons

A multidisciplinary production process, comprising numerous photography techniques (such as darkroom, photomontage, collage, or varnishes), as well as painting, drama theatre (see staged scenes or fabricated props) and sculpture (see versized objects), has been applied in Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison's photographs in order to create photographs that, in spite of touching the surreal, attempt to picture a disturbing actual man-nature relation, primarily focusing on the human impact on nature, destruction and rehabilitation.

"I want to make images that have open, narrative qualities, enough to suggest ideas about human limits. I want there to be a combination of the past juxtaposed with the modern. I use nature to symbolize the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated world, strange clouds of smog float by, there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed." Robert ParkeHarrison, The Architect's Brother (Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2000).

(Forestbed)

The ParkeHarrisons' work may be divided into two distinct periods: (1) the older works that might be distinguished by their monochrome (sepia or black-and-white) tonality, laboriously constructed sets of damaged or hollow landscapes, and the character of an "archetypal", black-suit-clad figure of "Everyman", who is patiently executing obscure, improbable and futile acts and rituals, and uses crude machines in attempt to communicate with the earth, to help it in its work, and to heal its wounds; and (2) the newer works, which are characterized by subdued colour palette; bare, grey walls or ground; blindingly white snow or contrejour (i.e. backlight); and by showing only parts of human body: there is no full man/woman portrayed.

(Cloud Burst)

(Pollination)

The photographs appear to me strangely poetic, and beautifully rendered ambiguous: they are witty and ironic, as well as unnerving and gloomy. In a highly organized fashion, they tell the story of chaos of a struggling (?), angry (?) and confused (?) existence.

(Grey Dawn)

(The Scribe)

Digital Legerdemain of Loretta Lux

Critics have responded in a number of ways to the digital legerdemain of Loretta Lux, a former German painter and currently a photographer creating rather formal, quasi-portraits of children. Her creations - utilizing photography, painting, and Photoshop technique of digital manipulation - have been described as disquieting, disturbing, repellent, displaying barely sublimated eroticism, creepy, kitschy, and monstrous, as well as charming, arresting, lovely, fashion-magazine-photography-like, fascinating and beautiful.

(Study of a Boy 1)

The genre of portraiture is undermined by means of showing children who "do not belong to themselves": the portrayed children do not represent themselves, they are awkwardly distant, anonymous and unengaged figures of children, dressed in vintage clothes and willed into existence. The surreal, doll-like, emotional opacity of the children's gazes evokes what is missing, yet the artifice is not hidden but accentuated, creating thereby eerily enigmatic air of obscure, carefully composed inconsistency superficially nearing oddly smooth perfection of calculated charm. The photographed subjects are slightly altered: they have distended hands and limbs, enlarged heads and eyes, their faces wear distinctive deathly pallor, their hair is silky, and their skin translucent.

(Girl With Marbles)

The sense of staginess is dramatized by the serene, shadowless, light background, into which the children - in heavily mannered poses - are set. By virtue of such Photoshop devices as Gaussian blur, unsharp masking and level control as well as thanks to the use of manual coloring, the subtle color palette is impeccable and the composition of forms is carefully structured, underlying thus the lurking element of fantasy.

(The Green Room)

Numerous influences, especially among Renaissance and German Romantic painters (some of whom have been cited by the artist herself) might be noted. They include: Agnolo Bronzino, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, Balthasar Kłossowski de Rola (known as Balthus), Piero della Francesca, Caspar David Friedrich, Philipp Otto Runge, etc. Lux's photographs also resemble those of a German photographer, August Sander.

(Bronzino: Bia, the Illegitimate Daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici)

(de Goya: Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zunica)

(Runge: The Hulsenbeck Children)

(Velázquez: Las Menians [a fragment])

Gregory Crewdson's Constructed Realities

The following photographies come from a series of forty images shot at dusk, i.e. time when the artificial light merges with the natural, - entitled Twilight - which Gregory Crewdson (and his production team) made between 1998 and 2002. Their constructed stillness and eerie play of light together with the capitalization of the "mundane", suburban, domestic scenes create a subtly voiding and exude sense of a sublimely unfathomable narrative.

(Gregory Crewdson)