Page 35 of Rivals at Ashmore Castle

The Tuesday sessions had mostly been spent in his studio studying and copying the works of great masters such as Holbein, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lely and Van Gogh. But they had also made visits to galleries, including the Leven Collection, to look at the real thing. Among his many treasures, Lord Leven had a full-sized copy of the Lely Venus, a Roman-era marble statue of a naked woman crouching, as if washing herself in a pool. Alice remembered how Mr Wentworth had used his pointer to run over the various sinuous curves, to indicate the muscle structure. When the pointer had caressed the perfect globes of the buttocks, it had caused Miss Henderson to giggle, which had made Wentworth angry. He had told her that if she couldn’t appreciate pure form she had better leave the class, which had sobered the poor girl instantly.

It was a beautiful statue. Of course, a photograph did not do it justice, but she recalled it perfectly.

Wentworth seemed about to speak again, then frowned and said, ‘Do you know what “erotic” means?’

Alice felt herself blush. ‘Um – not – not entirely,’ she said. He waited, looking at her. ‘Is it to do with—’

‘Yes?’ he urged impatiently.

She looked at her feet. ‘To do with love. Physical love,’ she managed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The erotic is that which evokes, or provokes, sexual feelings in the viewer. The word “sexual” is going to come up frequently over the weeks, Miss Tallant. I know you are a well-brought-up young lady, but no-one in this room is going to judge you on drawing-room shibboleths. You must harden yourself and cast off false modesty if you are to be an artist. Art – and in this context I mean not just fine art but literature and to an extent music as well – art has a very close relationship with sex. They are the two most powerful driving forces in life. And sex is what enables art to rouse strong feelings in us. You, I think – please look at me, Miss Tallant.’ She raised her head and looked at him, focusing on the bridge of his nose, so as not to meet his eyes, which would have been impossible. ‘You, I think,’ he continued, ‘are not a stranger to sexual feelings. Am I right?’

She thought instantly of Axe Brandom, and she saw in Wentworth’s face that he had somehow fathomed it. How did he know? He had looked through her sketching-book once and seen a drawing – she had been sketching Wentworth’s own three-quarter back view, but the figure had somehow turned into Axe without her intending it. He had asked her pointedly who it was meant to be. Could he really tell, just from that?

She saw that he was going to make her answer. ‘I think so, yes,’ she whispered.

He nodded, and said, ‘Don’t be ashamed. It’s natural and good – and necessary if you are to be an artist. You have experienced sexual feelings, but society wishes you, as a female, to deny them. Through art you will be able to express them.’ To her relief, he turned back to the easel. ‘So – Lely’s Venus. Remember her, hold her in your mind, and now look at this.’ He turned over the sheet and revealed the next subject. ‘This is Olympe, by Édouard Manet. Look at it, please. It caused shock and controversy when it was first exhibited in Paris in 1865. Some called it vulgar, some immoral. There were calls for it to be destroyed, burned. Why do you think that was?’

A woman reclined on a chaise longue, her face turned towards the viewer. The ‘lighting’ in the picture was hard and bright, so that the woman’s body stood out very white. She had one hand covering her pudenda, but the rest of her was naked. No, actually, not quite: she had a black ribbon tied in a bow round her neck, a bracelet on one wrist, and a little pair of silken high-heeled slippers, one of which had fallen off her foot onto the chaise. Looking at the picture made Alice feel uncomfortable: she experienced a sensation of heat behind her eyes, as though her brain were blushing.

‘Well?’ Wentworth said. ‘In recent weeks we have looked at a great many depictions of naked women, on canvas and in marble. Classical art is full of them. Why is this different?’

The heat was fading. Now she had got used to looking at it, the initial shock was gone, and she could study it impassively – almost. Manet was a famous painter from the previous century, one of the great ones, so there could not be anything wrong in her studying it, could there? Wentworth had said it had shocked when it was first exhibited so presumably it was accepted now. So, what was it about the white body that was unsettling?

‘I think it’s the face,’ she said at last. The woman in the painting was not classically beautiful, though she had a certain cat-like prettiness, but she seemed very much a real person, not an allegorical figure. And she was gazing straight at the viewer, a hard stare, not exactly defiant, but brooking no criticism. ‘It’s the way she’s staring.’

Wentworth smiled. ‘Yes, well done! This is no goddess, no remote figure from the myths of Greece and Rome. This is a real flesh-and-blood woman from our own times. And she displays no shyness or modesty.’ He flipped the sheet back. ‘Remember Lely’s Venus – her eyes lowered, her face turned away, covering herself with her arms. Nude women from the classical period generally have draperies concealing various parts, and they never stare. But Miss Olympia’ – he flipped the sheet and the white naked body was exposed again – ‘has nothing to hide. Here she is on display, like fruit on a market stall, and she wants you to look at her. I have to tell you, in context, that various elements in the picture suggest that she is a prostitute.’

An hour ago Alice would have gasped at the word, but she had hardened a little. Besides, she was too interested to yield to embarrassment.

‘I think…’ she began, saw his encouraging nod, and continued ‘…I think the ribbon round her neck and the bracelet and slippers somehow make her look even more naked than if she were wearing nothing.’ By decorating only her extremities, the subject seemed to be emphasising what lay between.

‘Yes, well done, you are right. One can imagine her taking the end of that ribbon bow and slowly pulling it undone. It is titillation. That is why this was shocking. Painters tread a fine line between art and eroticism, and Manet is reminding us here of the hypocrisy of gentlemen – and remember, almost all art is created by men for men – who want looking at naked ladies to be respectable.’

‘Because a Greek goddess must be respectable?’ Alice hazarded.

‘How could she not be? There was a lot of nudity in ancient Greek society – Greek men exercised and swam in the nude. Of course, they had the climate for it,’ he added, with an irreverent smile. ‘So depicting goddesses unclothed had no special meaning to them. They were celebrating the aesthetic beauty of the human form. By patronising Greek art, modern gentlemen can claim to be doing the same. You can have it on your drawing-room wall. You can put Lely’s Venus in your great hall where visitors will see it as soon as they enter and know you to be a person of taste and gentility. And there may be gentlemen who do see only the abstract beauty of pure form. But for the rest…Let me read you what Émile Zola said about Olympe. Zola?’ he raised his eyebrows at her.

‘I think I’ve heard the name,’ she said doubtfully.

‘French novelist, playwright and critic.’ He picked up a book and opened it at a bookmark. He read: ‘“When our artists give us Venuses, they correct nature, they lie. Édouard Manet asked himself why lie, why not tell the truth; he introduced us to Olympia, this fille of our time, whom you meet on the sidewalks.”’ He closed the book, and returned his gaze to the painting. ‘She has the ordinary face of a Paris street girl, doesn’t she?’ he said with a hint of affection.

‘I’ve never been to Paris,’ Alice said foolishly. Then, ‘I think I know what you mean.’

‘Good,’ he said briskly, and turned the sheet up to reveal another mounted print of a different painting. ‘Now, we shall consider Ingres’ Odalisque with a Slave. An odalisque, in case you are unfamiliar with the term, is also a prostitute, so Ingres is at least being more honest in his title. Now, given the subject’s profession, why did this painting not shock in the same way as Olympe?’

Alice was so interested she forgot to be shy or embarrassed. Or to think for an instant of what her mother would say if she were there.

‘I hate to leave you,’ said Mr Cowling, looking at his pregnant wife with concern.

‘I shall be perfectly all right,’ Nina said. ‘I shall have friends visiting me every day.’

‘But are you comfortable here, my love? Not even in your own house.’

‘It’s a very nice house. And it’s not for long.’

Having finalised the plans for the new wing, Mr Cowling had got down to it straight away in his usual, businesslike manner. ‘Leathwaite says it can be done in three months,’ he had told Nina. ‘That will give us a bit of leeway for last-minute alterations and arranging the furniture and so on. I want it all behind us by the time the baby comes.’