Violon d’Ingres.
Many countries have found themselves with the title of “raunchy”, and in fact,
Pattaya gets its fair swag of sanctimonious finger-pointers, but Pattaya’s
sexiness is commercial, not something in the DNA.
Paris in the early 1920’s had the DNA and was one of the raunchiest cities in
the world. What went on in Paris makes Pattaya today look like a kindergarten.
It was a city of excesses in all ways, and definitely sexually. “Free love” was
not invented by the flower power groups in the USA. Paris had it all, and then
some, almost half a century earlier.
It also had a flourishing artistic commune (another concept the Americans did
not invent), and two of their members were Emmanuel Radnitsky (who changed his
name to Man Ray when he was 15 years old) and Kiki of Montparnasse a truly free
spirit who once said, “All I need is an onion, a bit of bread, and a bottle of
red; and I will always find somebody to offer me that.” Both of them have left
their marks on the history of photography (as well as their marks upon each
other).
Lee Miller.
Man Ray (1890-1976) arrived in Paris in 1921, drawn to a city that attracted
writers, musicians, artists, exiles, free-thinkers and Americans. America was
then, as it still is in many ways, the bastion of nudity (Penthouse et al) and
also prudity. An amazing contradiction!
As one means of supporting himself abroad Man Ray, who was initially an artist,
took photographic portraits, and he quickly emerged as the premier photographer
in Paris at the time. Man Ray had quickly turned to the camera as the fastest
way to do a portrait. “If it is a portrait that interests me, a face, or a nude,
I will use my camera. It is quicker than making a drawing or a painting (and) to
express what I feel, I use the medium best suited to express that idea, which is
also always the most economical one.” His reputation as a master of the
photographic portrait was unsurpassed, not only for his technical prowess but
also for his innovative poses and imaginative approach. He photographed
virtually all the artistic literati and personalities of Paris in the ‘20s
including Picasso, Matisse, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Ernest
Hemingway.
It was during this time that he met Kiki of Montparnasse. Illegitimate and poor,
her early years were marked by her ability to fend for herself, by whatever
means were needed (chrome poles and Pattaya come to mind). By the time she was a
teenager she was working as a ‘model’, and soon came into contact with major
artists and writers of the time and she met and befriended the likes of
Hemingway, Cocteau, and Man Ray - the latter who also became her lover for six
years. Her collaborations with Man Ray produced some of Surrealism’s most iconic
images, including Noire et blanche and Le Violon d’Ingres, where for this
photograph Man Ray painted the f cut-outs on her back, seeing the relationship
between the female form and the shape of the violin.
At the height of her fame in 1929, Kiki created a sensation when she wrote her
memoirs, which were promptly banned in America (the prudity factor again). Armed
with the most endearing charms, creative talents, and a keen intelligence, Kiki
revealed in her recollections the life of a fiercely modern individual who was a
truly emancipated and imaginative woman.
Man Ray’s imagination also led him to produce other non-standard ways of
producing a photograph, including placing objects on photographic paper and then
exposing the paper to light and processing from there, and also solarized
prints, such as the famous one of his assistant Lee Miller taken in 1930. This
effect is produced by a re-exposure of the negative during processing, which
reverses the blacks and whites. According to Miss Miller, this occurred when a
mouse ran over her foot during the development and the light was turned on and
off to see what it was!
We do not have such unbridled artistic expression these days, despite iPads and
the social media!
