Garry Shead 'Rembrandt and Muse'
When Gustav Klimt was dying in 1918, his final utterance was apparently: “Call for Emilie!” A fashion designer and prominent member of the Vienna Secession movement, Emilie Louise Flöge was Klimt’s companion for decades. Their union was not necessarily romantic nor monogamous, yet Emilie reappears throughout some of Klimt’s most lauded work, including ‘The Kiss’ (1907–1908) and ‘Portrait of Emilie Louise Flöge’ (1902). She was his muse.
|
|
|
The concept of the muse traces back to the nine Goddesses of Ancient Greece with each representing a different artform. It has since been understood as the actual figures who inspire artists (like Flöge), the concept of inspiration itself and the feminine within male artists. Feminist scholars have problematised the almost always female muse, imploring us to remember that these women were often creatives in their own right, reduced to appendices by the constructions of gender.
As the incendiary writer Germaine Greer has declared, “the muse is anything but a paid model.” In Australian art history, there are figures whose auras proved so magnetic they are inextricable from an artist’s oeuvre, such as Wendy Whiteley or Barbara Blackman. In his work, Garry Shead repeatedly invokes the spirit of the Ancient Greek muse Erato, who symbolised erotic song and dance. The way Shead speaks of Erato is almost mystical; she is a phantom upon whose whims he falls utterly dependent.
Auguste Blackman 'Red Sisters'
