Considering Venus explores my interest in drawing and the performative elements within my practice. In the Considering Venus drawings there are acts of ritual that firstly had been explored within the privacy of the studio - the experimenters workshop. However in 2007 a Venus drawing was made specifically for the exhibition, ‘Out of Place’ Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham. A third drawing was executed at the Bloc Assembly event in Sheffield 2007 before a live audience.
The female nude by historical association is evident in this work but without representation or convention. The work is placed within recognised boundaries for aesthetic discourse but which adds to the dynamic of the ‘unruly body’ and the un-fashioning of boundaries.
The considering Venus drawing by the nature of its production is made (and can be interpreted) as a work produced from of a series of desperate and grabbed moments. The marks created on the paper (no matter how well observed from the reproduction) have been created in a multitude of very brief flights. With flailing arms, the artists grasps at those mille seconds in space; an attempt to accurately draw a version of the Rokeby Venus. (using a third rate reproduction as my reference material). It is possible that when this work is stripped or detached from reference material and prop and placed under exhibition conditions, the drawing may well appear to be ‘bad’ drawing. When I break the act, the ‘magical’ hand to eye coordination that is used in drawing, this work continues to search other possibilities within the language of drawing.
Principle Action
A sheet of paper 84 x 59 cm is positioned upon a wall. The artist places it at a desired height so that the bottom of the paper is marginally out of reach. The sheet of paper is always placed at a jump height of 216 cm (bottom of paper to floor) By jumping up to the paper the artist makes the drawing.
Brief History
In 2006 I spent a day in the National Gallery archives looking through dossier NG2057. The dossier contains facsimiles of newspaper cuttings, photographs and conservation documents relating to the painting, ‘The Rokeby Venus’ by Velazquez. With the Considering Venus drawings, the charcoal is an extension of an energetical body. The actions undertaken upon the work by the artist is in part ‘the mirror reflected’, this reflection is the manner to which the painting ‘The Rokeby Venus’ had been subject to attack by Mary Richardson in 1914.
Ref: The dark mirror / Obsidian Mirrors / The existence of multiple futures / The Gaze.
Exhibitions
'Out of Place' Curated by Mary Doyle. Angel Row Gallery 3rd March / 31st March 2007 (Second Performative Drawing at ARG 28.02.07)
Bloc Assembly. Bloc Space Sheffield. December 14th 2007. Live 1 hr performance.
The female nude by historical association is evident in this work but without representation or convention. The work is placed within recognised boundaries for aesthetic discourse but which adds to the dynamic of the ‘unruly body’ and the un-fashioning of boundaries.
The considering Venus drawing by the nature of its production is made (and can be interpreted) as a work produced from of a series of desperate and grabbed moments. The marks created on the paper (no matter how well observed from the reproduction) have been created in a multitude of very brief flights. With flailing arms, the artists grasps at those mille seconds in space; an attempt to accurately draw a version of the Rokeby Venus. (using a third rate reproduction as my reference material). It is possible that when this work is stripped or detached from reference material and prop and placed under exhibition conditions, the drawing may well appear to be ‘bad’ drawing. When I break the act, the ‘magical’ hand to eye coordination that is used in drawing, this work continues to search other possibilities within the language of drawing.
Principle Action
A sheet of paper 84 x 59 cm is positioned upon a wall. The artist places it at a desired height so that the bottom of the paper is marginally out of reach. The sheet of paper is always placed at a jump height of 216 cm (bottom of paper to floor) By jumping up to the paper the artist makes the drawing.
Brief History
In 2006 I spent a day in the National Gallery archives looking through dossier NG2057. The dossier contains facsimiles of newspaper cuttings, photographs and conservation documents relating to the painting, ‘The Rokeby Venus’ by Velazquez. With the Considering Venus drawings, the charcoal is an extension of an energetical body. The actions undertaken upon the work by the artist is in part ‘the mirror reflected’, this reflection is the manner to which the painting ‘The Rokeby Venus’ had been subject to attack by Mary Richardson in 1914.
Ref: The dark mirror / Obsidian Mirrors / The existence of multiple futures / The Gaze.
Exhibitions
'Out of Place' Curated by Mary Doyle. Angel Row Gallery 3rd March / 31st March 2007 (Second Performative Drawing at ARG 28.02.07)
Bloc Assembly. Bloc Space Sheffield. December 14th 2007. Live 1 hr performance.
Further Notes
Unaltered since they were written in 2007
Considering Venus explores my interest in drawing and performative elements contained within some of my working methods. In the Considering Venus drawings there is an act of ritual that is to be made public - until now the work has been only explored within the privacy of the studio and during one of the installation days at a gallery.
There are marked differences between the two performed drawings. The first drawing had been an uncertain experience and upon reflection I came to realise that the drawing had been about exploring my new endeavour. As I jumped I began to understand further as to what my own body was experiencing. The drawings are more physically demanding than I originally expected.
The second drawing had been performed with assured intention and focus. The drawn marks on the paper derived from a greater appreciation and understanding of my practice. The drawing became more purposeful, forceful, intense and refined.
With the Considering Venus drawings, the charcoal is an extension of an energetical body. The actions undertaken upon the work by the artist is in part ‘the mirror reflected’, this reflection is the manner to which the painting ‘The Rokeby Venus’ had been subject to attack by Mary Richardson in 1914.
The considering Venus drawing by the nature of its production is made out of a series of desperate and grabbed moments. The marks I leave upon the paper and no matter how well I have observed my third rate reproduction, the marks are created in very brief flights. With flaying arms, I grasp at my mille seconds in space whilst attempting to accurately draw a version of the Rokeby Venus.
28/02/2007
‘…. Right then, lets begin’ I said. The second of a proposed ten performative works commenced at approximately 1.45pm Wednesday 28th February 2007 in the Angel Row Gallery. For the next three hours I stood in front of an easel that held upon a tripod of limbs a modest reproduction of the Velazquez painting, The Rokeby Venus. I stood close to the easel observing the image in before commencing with the drawing. The sheet of paper was on the wall in front of me and out of normal reach. If I stood on tiptoe and stretched, I would be able to reach the bottom of the paper. I had deliberately placed the paper at this height. This was my environment that I would attempt to undertake the new drawing. In order to make the drawing my intentions and my rules for engagement were to jump up against the wall and make a charcoal line upon the paper. Each mark would correspond and relate to the image upon the easel. During those three hours, I approached the wall and jumped up against it many times, stretching and reaching out to place an accurate and descriptive line on the paper. These are physically demanding drawings to undertake, punishing on the body, likely to graze fingers and draw blood. (Blood can been seen smeared on the wall.) I banged against the wall during my assent to the paper on many occasions, I began to leave more and more marks on the white wall created by blackened hand and foot; Charcoal crumbled and disintegrated as the mark making intensified. With increased effort, I launched my body into action as I became increasingly heavy and weary. Charcoal splinted and turned to dust, in lay around my feet, I began to walk it into the ground, a trail of dark matter lead to the easel, my path being plotted with the dust. I created a series of walked lines, from easel to wall and from the easel to a position located some distance away, may be ten feet further back, away from the easel. Here I stood, and looked from afar at both drawing and painting. As a fast bowler approaches the stumps to launch a blistering ball against his opponent, so likewise I aligned my body to the wall and continued to jump.
28/08/2007
The first Considering Venus drawing had been produced at the mere jelly HQ in Nottingham in August 2006. The second drawing was made for the Angel Row exhibition, ‘Out of Place’ in 2007. There are marked differences between the two drawings. The first drawing had been a tentative affair and upon reflection I came to realise that the drawing was about exploring a new environment for the first time. As I jumped I began to understand more as to what my own body was experiencing. The drawings are more physically demanding than I originally expected.
The second drawing was performed with greater purpose and focus. The drawn marks on the paper derived from a greater appreciation and understanding of my practice. The drawing became more purposeful, forceful, intense and sophisticated.
To mark the making of the second drawing I produced a 20-page pamphlet. This booklet acts both as an introduction and a catalyst to develop additional discursive possibilities.
The positive forces of exhibition advanced the nature of my second drawing. My dialogue with the curator provided me with not only a new context for the work but provided an exclusive stage for the drawing to be produced and exhibited. From this positive experience I concluded that curated exhibitions and new locations including exhibition spaces and alternative spaces are vital in order to contextualise all future drawings. My intention is to undertake a series of ten performances that deliver ten Venus drawings.
14/12/2007
Bloc Assembly is a platform for artists to try out experimental ideas to a live audience, for one evening only. My live art performance commenced at 8.30pm and the duration of this drawing was one hour. I deemed this the absolute minimum of time that I would allot to a drawing. The time constraint and the fact that it was to be performed in front of a live audience I believed would make it an intensive experience. The space for the Bloc Assembly event is next door to the Bloc studios. I was undertaking this performance to an audience of approximately 70 people. Throughout the evening other performance activities took place and the evening concluded with this the third Considering Venus drawing. The space was cold. After I had been jumping intensely for half an hour my leg muscles had significantly warmed up. Progress on the drawing was satisfactory. For the remaining half an hour the drawing developed a different dimension and it became a drawing of attrition. Members of the audience would begin to stop and talk with me whilst I looked at the Venus image on the easel, to find the line and to contemplate the mark to be made upon the paper. The detrimental effect of this conversational time raised several questions during the performance. Would I be able to satisfactorily complete the drawing in my allotted time and as I was jumping in a cold environment, would my limbs begin to get cold and how would this affect my ability to jump efficiently? At 9.30pm I completed the drawing. The last half an hour was undertaken with increasingly stiff leg muscles and the limbs began to tighten up, I began to significantly feel the cold. I noted that during the last half an hour I was holding a series of small personal battles, these were between the marks that I was placing upon the paper and my ability to correctly position those marks. It was difficult reaching the top of the paper so it was a question of constantly trying to reach the furthest point; on this evening those marks remained out of reach. I note that I had banged into the wall more frequently whilst undertaking this drawing that my left shoulder, and the left hand side of my torso continued to ache for ten days afterwards.
Room 17
Text as it appears in my 20 page booklet for the Angel Row Gallery Exhibition
On March 10 th 1914, shortly after 10.00am., a slight woman, neatly dressed in a grey suit, made her way through the entrance of the National Gallery in London. It was a Tuesday and had been designated one of the, ‘ Free’ Days. On such days the entrance charges to the gallery would have been waived. This was to allow those who could not afford the usual admission charge to enter the gallery and to see the national collection.
The woman made her way through the Galleries succession of rooms, pausing now and then to examine a painting more closely or to make a drawing in her sketchbook. The woman eventually made her way to a far corner of Room 17, where she stood, apparently rapt in contemplation in front of a painting. By now it was approaching lunchtime and the room was beginning to empty of crowds. The tranquillity without warning was broken with the sound of shattering glass. The noise came from the corner of the room where a woman in grey had produced a small ‘chopper’ from her muff or cloak and began to attack the painting, in total seven cuts were made upon the back of the Venus.
The woman upon being challenged by an attendant, two plain-clothed detectives and several gallery visitors offered no resistance. As she was disarmed and lead out of the Gallery she calmly answered questions about the motive, "Yes, I am a suffragette. You can get another picture, but you cannot get a life, as they are killing Mrs Pankhurst." (1) She was referring to Emmeline Pankhurst, who at the time was on hunger strike in Holloway Prison following her a re-arrest in Glasgow on the Monday. The woman in grey was Mary Richardson, a militant suffragist connected with, The Women's Social and Political Union. When she had been arrested at the museum, Mary Richardson herself was only on temporary leave from prison as a part of the so-called "Cat and Mouse Act" (prisoners were released from prison in a weakened state and brought back when they had sufficiently recovered). The following day Richardson was taken to court, tried and sentenced to six months imprisonment. ‘ I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history (2). Between 1912-1914 The suffragettes embarked on their most militant and violent phase of its campaign. Sylvia Pankhurst put Mary Richardson's act into the context of wider militancy:
"The destruction wrought in the seven months of 1914 before the War excelled that of the previous year. Three Scotch castles were destroyed by fire on a single night. The Carnegie Library in Birmingham was burnt. The Rokeby Venus, falsely as I consider, attributed to Velázquez, and purchased for the National Gallery at a cost of £45,000, was mutilated by Mary Richardson. Romney's Master Thornhill, in the Birmingham Art Gallery, was slashed by Bertha Ryland, daughter of an early Suffragist. Carlyle's portrait of Millais in the National Portrait Gallery, and numbers of other pictures were attacked, a Bartolozzi drawing in the Doré Gallery being completely ruined. Many large empty houses in all parts of the country were set on fire, including Redlynch House, Somerset, where the damage was estimated at £ 40,000. Railway stations, piers, sports pavilions, haystacks were set on fire. Attempts were made to blow up reservoirs. A bomb exploded in Westminster Abbey, and in the fashionable church of St George's, Hanover Square, where a famous stained-glass window from the Malines was damaged ... One hundred and forty-one acts of destruction were chronicled in the Press during the first seven months of 1914."
‘Guerrilla activity performed by a small group of individuals tasting ‘the exaltation, the rapture of battle’ (3) .
The Times described the painting as Perhaps the finest painting of the nude in the world. ‘She is strength and vitality - of the perfection of womanhood at the moment when it passes from bud to flower.’ The Painting is still considered to be, ‘the sexiest nude ever painted’(4).
According to the paintings advocates, the Rokeby Venus could satisfy all tastes and tastefully avoided aesthetic and moral extremes. The figure seems to have conveyed an image of eugenic propagation, of woman in her prime, young, healthy, potent and fertile.
If the act of violence had been an attack on just a work of art in principle, then perhaps the reporting may have been conveyed with a very different tone. This was however a painting which belonged to every man and woman in the country, it was a ‘national treasure’. On the 11th march 1914 the front page of the Daily Express ran the headline, ‘The Nations Venus’ and with that headline a picture of the damaged painting.
Mary was presented by the press as an object of deviancy and her natural femininity was held by some form of demonic possession. This de-socialising of the ‘feminine’ suggests that the woman’s lapse into violence that had taken place was to be exploited by the press. The vivid language used to describe the attack would enable the public, characterised by the master of the house seated at breakfast to help visualise the assault. It is very clear that Richardson’s actions against the painting can be viewed in the context of the headlines of the day, This was an assault upon a person. The attacker is portrayed as a murderer and the crime as sensational manslaughter.
Her behaviour had been described as a wild woman and her attack upon the work as a wild frenzy. Mary’s actions were of a woman who was hacking furiously and raining blows upon the painting. These descriptions sit in conflict with Mary being described as a small quiet woman of demure appearance.
In 1952 Richardson in an interview gave an additional reason for choosing the Rokeby Venus, ‘I didn’t like the way men visitors to the Gallery gaped at it all day’ (5). Mary Richardson’s herself felt that her actions were to be justified as an eye for an eye attack. ‘If the Government was going to mistreat and abuse Mrs Pankhurst, then she felt justified in her violent attack on the figure of femininity which same authority held in esteem.’ Mary’s signed statement continues to test the wider hypocrisies and injustices against women at that time.
The humanisation of an inanimate object.
The Construction of a ‘Violent’ language by the media upon the body was explicitly applied in describing Mary Richardson’s attack upon the Rokeby Venus. Venus was ‘mutilated’ and Venus was the naked victim. The cuts to the canvas are described as cruel wounds. The seven distinct Injuries were sustained to the neck and to cuts across the shoulders and back. It is clear that the papers were describing an attack that assimilates in terms of language wounds that were inflicted on a female body rather than damage to a valuable painted canvas. This was the substitution of canvas for flesh. Furthermore her injuries were forensically described as sustaining ‘ragged bruising’. To bruise suggests the softness of the human body and may not be not an evocation of the flat surface of the painting but aimed at constructing a three dimensional form, the body. The bruise is a signifier of damaged flesh upon a woman’s body in this case. This interpretation however may in itself be subject to interpretation and further scrutiny and the theatre of this attack shall continue to resonate.
The glass in front of the picture now as in 1914 continues to offer variable readings as to how works of art are viewed. The glass offers both barrier and transparent substance, providing us with a safe and legitimate barrier in which to view the work. The glass is to protect the painting from the public and also to protect us from ourselves and our malevolent behaviour and urges. The Glass gives us our freedom to view and without it we would not be untrustworthy in the presence of such an important treasure. Our freedom to view would be suspended. In these contemporary times many new paintings are placed immediately behind glass. I suggest that this is to raise their value, not in terms of financial value but out of a sense of cultural urgency.
Richardson following the press frenzy would always be knows as ‘Slasher Mary‘, ‘the ripper’ or Mary ‘Slasher’ Richardson. Most reports of the day did not carry actual photographs of the damaged work. Some papers had reproduced the image as an illustration and superimposed the cuts to the image and offering both before and After images. If this required additional pictorial impact for the reader then an image of ‘slasher’ Mary was juxtaposed with the painting along with a close up of a hand brandishing a chopper.
The woman was attacked from behind and the victim was naked, she was cut and torn and subject to a vicious assault. This graphic description could all to easily be describing a contemporary attack. How the Rokeby image could be used in today’s advertising and media hungry world makes for interesting speculation. To imagine the nature of the ‘cut up’ being used to inform; for example in the style of some kind of public safety campaign or to aid some form of cosmetic interference is seductive. If one stands a little to the left of the painting - close to the frame - it is possible to see the faint, pale scars on the perfect Venus's back.
The profound ‘Gaze’ that is to be found within the painting is something that continues to have significant relevance as to how the painting can be interpreted by today’s voyeurs. The male gaze is as fixed as the face in the painting. The face in the mirror Gazes without an acknowledgement of the woman to whom it apparently derives from, is this reflected face indifferent to us the desiring viewers? Does the face in the mirror assumes the position of attending the gaze of the viewer as she narcissistically appraises the front of her own body. Is Venus nude or Naked? and is Venus victorious over men's hearts ? The Velázquez work is the wisdom of Venus, relaxed, mature and natural, it is Venus at her most exposed.
Although the National gallery do not outwardly promote this dossier as being open to public scrutiny, no more or no less than with all public records, it does not withhold the information as suggested. On the internet there have been postings by the public claiming that there is some kind of cover up and conspiracy and that there is no access to this dossier. This is simply not the case.
Simon Withers would like to thank the National Gallery and Matthew Storey (Documentation Assistant) for his help during my visit to view the Conservation and the Historical Dossiers for The Rokeby Venus by Velázquez (NG2057).
1. The Times, 11 th March 1914
2.Extract of Richardson’s handwritten statement 1914 3. Christabel Pankhurst - from Paris (1880-1958)
4. Maev Kennedy. The Guardian - June 19 th 2003
5 .London Star 22nd Feb 1952
Unaltered since they were written in 2007
Considering Venus explores my interest in drawing and performative elements contained within some of my working methods. In the Considering Venus drawings there is an act of ritual that is to be made public - until now the work has been only explored within the privacy of the studio and during one of the installation days at a gallery.
There are marked differences between the two performed drawings. The first drawing had been an uncertain experience and upon reflection I came to realise that the drawing had been about exploring my new endeavour. As I jumped I began to understand further as to what my own body was experiencing. The drawings are more physically demanding than I originally expected.
The second drawing had been performed with assured intention and focus. The drawn marks on the paper derived from a greater appreciation and understanding of my practice. The drawing became more purposeful, forceful, intense and refined.
With the Considering Venus drawings, the charcoal is an extension of an energetical body. The actions undertaken upon the work by the artist is in part ‘the mirror reflected’, this reflection is the manner to which the painting ‘The Rokeby Venus’ had been subject to attack by Mary Richardson in 1914.
The considering Venus drawing by the nature of its production is made out of a series of desperate and grabbed moments. The marks I leave upon the paper and no matter how well I have observed my third rate reproduction, the marks are created in very brief flights. With flaying arms, I grasp at my mille seconds in space whilst attempting to accurately draw a version of the Rokeby Venus.
28/02/2007
‘…. Right then, lets begin’ I said. The second of a proposed ten performative works commenced at approximately 1.45pm Wednesday 28th February 2007 in the Angel Row Gallery. For the next three hours I stood in front of an easel that held upon a tripod of limbs a modest reproduction of the Velazquez painting, The Rokeby Venus. I stood close to the easel observing the image in before commencing with the drawing. The sheet of paper was on the wall in front of me and out of normal reach. If I stood on tiptoe and stretched, I would be able to reach the bottom of the paper. I had deliberately placed the paper at this height. This was my environment that I would attempt to undertake the new drawing. In order to make the drawing my intentions and my rules for engagement were to jump up against the wall and make a charcoal line upon the paper. Each mark would correspond and relate to the image upon the easel. During those three hours, I approached the wall and jumped up against it many times, stretching and reaching out to place an accurate and descriptive line on the paper. These are physically demanding drawings to undertake, punishing on the body, likely to graze fingers and draw blood. (Blood can been seen smeared on the wall.) I banged against the wall during my assent to the paper on many occasions, I began to leave more and more marks on the white wall created by blackened hand and foot; Charcoal crumbled and disintegrated as the mark making intensified. With increased effort, I launched my body into action as I became increasingly heavy and weary. Charcoal splinted and turned to dust, in lay around my feet, I began to walk it into the ground, a trail of dark matter lead to the easel, my path being plotted with the dust. I created a series of walked lines, from easel to wall and from the easel to a position located some distance away, may be ten feet further back, away from the easel. Here I stood, and looked from afar at both drawing and painting. As a fast bowler approaches the stumps to launch a blistering ball against his opponent, so likewise I aligned my body to the wall and continued to jump.
28/08/2007
The first Considering Venus drawing had been produced at the mere jelly HQ in Nottingham in August 2006. The second drawing was made for the Angel Row exhibition, ‘Out of Place’ in 2007. There are marked differences between the two drawings. The first drawing had been a tentative affair and upon reflection I came to realise that the drawing was about exploring a new environment for the first time. As I jumped I began to understand more as to what my own body was experiencing. The drawings are more physically demanding than I originally expected.
The second drawing was performed with greater purpose and focus. The drawn marks on the paper derived from a greater appreciation and understanding of my practice. The drawing became more purposeful, forceful, intense and sophisticated.
To mark the making of the second drawing I produced a 20-page pamphlet. This booklet acts both as an introduction and a catalyst to develop additional discursive possibilities.
The positive forces of exhibition advanced the nature of my second drawing. My dialogue with the curator provided me with not only a new context for the work but provided an exclusive stage for the drawing to be produced and exhibited. From this positive experience I concluded that curated exhibitions and new locations including exhibition spaces and alternative spaces are vital in order to contextualise all future drawings. My intention is to undertake a series of ten performances that deliver ten Venus drawings.
14/12/2007
Bloc Assembly is a platform for artists to try out experimental ideas to a live audience, for one evening only. My live art performance commenced at 8.30pm and the duration of this drawing was one hour. I deemed this the absolute minimum of time that I would allot to a drawing. The time constraint and the fact that it was to be performed in front of a live audience I believed would make it an intensive experience. The space for the Bloc Assembly event is next door to the Bloc studios. I was undertaking this performance to an audience of approximately 70 people. Throughout the evening other performance activities took place and the evening concluded with this the third Considering Venus drawing. The space was cold. After I had been jumping intensely for half an hour my leg muscles had significantly warmed up. Progress on the drawing was satisfactory. For the remaining half an hour the drawing developed a different dimension and it became a drawing of attrition. Members of the audience would begin to stop and talk with me whilst I looked at the Venus image on the easel, to find the line and to contemplate the mark to be made upon the paper. The detrimental effect of this conversational time raised several questions during the performance. Would I be able to satisfactorily complete the drawing in my allotted time and as I was jumping in a cold environment, would my limbs begin to get cold and how would this affect my ability to jump efficiently? At 9.30pm I completed the drawing. The last half an hour was undertaken with increasingly stiff leg muscles and the limbs began to tighten up, I began to significantly feel the cold. I noted that during the last half an hour I was holding a series of small personal battles, these were between the marks that I was placing upon the paper and my ability to correctly position those marks. It was difficult reaching the top of the paper so it was a question of constantly trying to reach the furthest point; on this evening those marks remained out of reach. I note that I had banged into the wall more frequently whilst undertaking this drawing that my left shoulder, and the left hand side of my torso continued to ache for ten days afterwards.
Room 17
Text as it appears in my 20 page booklet for the Angel Row Gallery Exhibition
On March 10 th 1914, shortly after 10.00am., a slight woman, neatly dressed in a grey suit, made her way through the entrance of the National Gallery in London. It was a Tuesday and had been designated one of the, ‘ Free’ Days. On such days the entrance charges to the gallery would have been waived. This was to allow those who could not afford the usual admission charge to enter the gallery and to see the national collection.
The woman made her way through the Galleries succession of rooms, pausing now and then to examine a painting more closely or to make a drawing in her sketchbook. The woman eventually made her way to a far corner of Room 17, where she stood, apparently rapt in contemplation in front of a painting. By now it was approaching lunchtime and the room was beginning to empty of crowds. The tranquillity without warning was broken with the sound of shattering glass. The noise came from the corner of the room where a woman in grey had produced a small ‘chopper’ from her muff or cloak and began to attack the painting, in total seven cuts were made upon the back of the Venus.
The woman upon being challenged by an attendant, two plain-clothed detectives and several gallery visitors offered no resistance. As she was disarmed and lead out of the Gallery she calmly answered questions about the motive, "Yes, I am a suffragette. You can get another picture, but you cannot get a life, as they are killing Mrs Pankhurst." (1) She was referring to Emmeline Pankhurst, who at the time was on hunger strike in Holloway Prison following her a re-arrest in Glasgow on the Monday. The woman in grey was Mary Richardson, a militant suffragist connected with, The Women's Social and Political Union. When she had been arrested at the museum, Mary Richardson herself was only on temporary leave from prison as a part of the so-called "Cat and Mouse Act" (prisoners were released from prison in a weakened state and brought back when they had sufficiently recovered). The following day Richardson was taken to court, tried and sentenced to six months imprisonment. ‘ I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history (2). Between 1912-1914 The suffragettes embarked on their most militant and violent phase of its campaign. Sylvia Pankhurst put Mary Richardson's act into the context of wider militancy:
"The destruction wrought in the seven months of 1914 before the War excelled that of the previous year. Three Scotch castles were destroyed by fire on a single night. The Carnegie Library in Birmingham was burnt. The Rokeby Venus, falsely as I consider, attributed to Velázquez, and purchased for the National Gallery at a cost of £45,000, was mutilated by Mary Richardson. Romney's Master Thornhill, in the Birmingham Art Gallery, was slashed by Bertha Ryland, daughter of an early Suffragist. Carlyle's portrait of Millais in the National Portrait Gallery, and numbers of other pictures were attacked, a Bartolozzi drawing in the Doré Gallery being completely ruined. Many large empty houses in all parts of the country were set on fire, including Redlynch House, Somerset, where the damage was estimated at £ 40,000. Railway stations, piers, sports pavilions, haystacks were set on fire. Attempts were made to blow up reservoirs. A bomb exploded in Westminster Abbey, and in the fashionable church of St George's, Hanover Square, where a famous stained-glass window from the Malines was damaged ... One hundred and forty-one acts of destruction were chronicled in the Press during the first seven months of 1914."
‘Guerrilla activity performed by a small group of individuals tasting ‘the exaltation, the rapture of battle’ (3) .
The Times described the painting as Perhaps the finest painting of the nude in the world. ‘She is strength and vitality - of the perfection of womanhood at the moment when it passes from bud to flower.’ The Painting is still considered to be, ‘the sexiest nude ever painted’(4).
According to the paintings advocates, the Rokeby Venus could satisfy all tastes and tastefully avoided aesthetic and moral extremes. The figure seems to have conveyed an image of eugenic propagation, of woman in her prime, young, healthy, potent and fertile.
If the act of violence had been an attack on just a work of art in principle, then perhaps the reporting may have been conveyed with a very different tone. This was however a painting which belonged to every man and woman in the country, it was a ‘national treasure’. On the 11th march 1914 the front page of the Daily Express ran the headline, ‘The Nations Venus’ and with that headline a picture of the damaged painting.
Mary was presented by the press as an object of deviancy and her natural femininity was held by some form of demonic possession. This de-socialising of the ‘feminine’ suggests that the woman’s lapse into violence that had taken place was to be exploited by the press. The vivid language used to describe the attack would enable the public, characterised by the master of the house seated at breakfast to help visualise the assault. It is very clear that Richardson’s actions against the painting can be viewed in the context of the headlines of the day, This was an assault upon a person. The attacker is portrayed as a murderer and the crime as sensational manslaughter.
Her behaviour had been described as a wild woman and her attack upon the work as a wild frenzy. Mary’s actions were of a woman who was hacking furiously and raining blows upon the painting. These descriptions sit in conflict with Mary being described as a small quiet woman of demure appearance.
In 1952 Richardson in an interview gave an additional reason for choosing the Rokeby Venus, ‘I didn’t like the way men visitors to the Gallery gaped at it all day’ (5). Mary Richardson’s herself felt that her actions were to be justified as an eye for an eye attack. ‘If the Government was going to mistreat and abuse Mrs Pankhurst, then she felt justified in her violent attack on the figure of femininity which same authority held in esteem.’ Mary’s signed statement continues to test the wider hypocrisies and injustices against women at that time.
The humanisation of an inanimate object.
The Construction of a ‘Violent’ language by the media upon the body was explicitly applied in describing Mary Richardson’s attack upon the Rokeby Venus. Venus was ‘mutilated’ and Venus was the naked victim. The cuts to the canvas are described as cruel wounds. The seven distinct Injuries were sustained to the neck and to cuts across the shoulders and back. It is clear that the papers were describing an attack that assimilates in terms of language wounds that were inflicted on a female body rather than damage to a valuable painted canvas. This was the substitution of canvas for flesh. Furthermore her injuries were forensically described as sustaining ‘ragged bruising’. To bruise suggests the softness of the human body and may not be not an evocation of the flat surface of the painting but aimed at constructing a three dimensional form, the body. The bruise is a signifier of damaged flesh upon a woman’s body in this case. This interpretation however may in itself be subject to interpretation and further scrutiny and the theatre of this attack shall continue to resonate.
The glass in front of the picture now as in 1914 continues to offer variable readings as to how works of art are viewed. The glass offers both barrier and transparent substance, providing us with a safe and legitimate barrier in which to view the work. The glass is to protect the painting from the public and also to protect us from ourselves and our malevolent behaviour and urges. The Glass gives us our freedom to view and without it we would not be untrustworthy in the presence of such an important treasure. Our freedom to view would be suspended. In these contemporary times many new paintings are placed immediately behind glass. I suggest that this is to raise their value, not in terms of financial value but out of a sense of cultural urgency.
Richardson following the press frenzy would always be knows as ‘Slasher Mary‘, ‘the ripper’ or Mary ‘Slasher’ Richardson. Most reports of the day did not carry actual photographs of the damaged work. Some papers had reproduced the image as an illustration and superimposed the cuts to the image and offering both before and After images. If this required additional pictorial impact for the reader then an image of ‘slasher’ Mary was juxtaposed with the painting along with a close up of a hand brandishing a chopper.
The woman was attacked from behind and the victim was naked, she was cut and torn and subject to a vicious assault. This graphic description could all to easily be describing a contemporary attack. How the Rokeby image could be used in today’s advertising and media hungry world makes for interesting speculation. To imagine the nature of the ‘cut up’ being used to inform; for example in the style of some kind of public safety campaign or to aid some form of cosmetic interference is seductive. If one stands a little to the left of the painting - close to the frame - it is possible to see the faint, pale scars on the perfect Venus's back.
The profound ‘Gaze’ that is to be found within the painting is something that continues to have significant relevance as to how the painting can be interpreted by today’s voyeurs. The male gaze is as fixed as the face in the painting. The face in the mirror Gazes without an acknowledgement of the woman to whom it apparently derives from, is this reflected face indifferent to us the desiring viewers? Does the face in the mirror assumes the position of attending the gaze of the viewer as she narcissistically appraises the front of her own body. Is Venus nude or Naked? and is Venus victorious over men's hearts ? The Velázquez work is the wisdom of Venus, relaxed, mature and natural, it is Venus at her most exposed.
Although the National gallery do not outwardly promote this dossier as being open to public scrutiny, no more or no less than with all public records, it does not withhold the information as suggested. On the internet there have been postings by the public claiming that there is some kind of cover up and conspiracy and that there is no access to this dossier. This is simply not the case.
Simon Withers would like to thank the National Gallery and Matthew Storey (Documentation Assistant) for his help during my visit to view the Conservation and the Historical Dossiers for The Rokeby Venus by Velázquez (NG2057).
1. The Times, 11 th March 1914
2.Extract of Richardson’s handwritten statement 1914 3. Christabel Pankhurst - from Paris (1880-1958)
4. Maev Kennedy. The Guardian - June 19 th 2003
5 .London Star 22nd Feb 1952