The muse; Sleeping Venus, 2022

100cm x 150cm

Oil on canvas 

The Sleeping Venus has been a widely popular subject for male artists throughout art history such as Giorgione and Titian, Sleeping Venus (1510), and Édouard Manet, Olympia (1863). The Venus that inspired me to act is Diego Velazquez’s Venus in her Mirror, (1644-48), also known as the Rokeby Venus. Upon visiting the National Gallery in April 2022 when I entered room 30, known as The Spanish Room, it felt like meeting a tragic rock star. Velazquez used expressive brush marks and the limited colour palette adds a dreamy and symbolic atmosphere to the nude figure relaxing, but when it comes to composition of this piece, I feel uneasy. The viewer is placed in the position of a voyeur and is watching Venus, or in reality an unknown model, without her say so. It’s the moment she spots the viewer in mirror. Her face is barely visible in the reflection detaching the viewer from getting too close to her and making her a real woman rather than a mythical muse. At the time in Spain, it was ‘socially taboo and officially forbidden’ (Hagan and Hagen, 2018) to paint a naked woman. This may be why we see her from a rear view.

In my version, like Gentileschi and Valadon, I have an insight into the female muse and model as a woman artist. I made studies to explore the way I could express the narrative of Venus but with an insight into today’s society. Venus is approached from a non-traditional angle where the viewer is directly invited into the room. This is an empowering continuation to the muse narrative with a female voice, a sort of permission to view. There’s a performative, action-like feel to my chosen pose. Venus is not positioned politely and posed by male direction in the traditional ‘Venus pudica’ way. It’s as if she’s thrown herself down on the bed without direction. She is still wearing her boots, to symbolise she has been active or working. The rose placed beside her is a traditional symbol of love, but this rose is dying and falling apart, almost like the wilting rose in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. The petals have fallen off but are still fresh. Could it be used as confetti in the celebration of love? In this manner the viewer is asked to question love at the time the painting was made. In an era where love is expected to be found online through websites and apps. No longer does one typically meet love in person but demands it to show up and start completely from scratch. Social media blurs the lines between real life and fantasy and makes it incredibly difficult to find a truth.

Ref: What Great Paintings Say. Beautiful Nudes, Rose-Marie Hagen and Rainer Hagen, 2018