Edgard Maxence

She greets the viewer with ice-blue eyes, her mouth slightly open, lips apart, as if caught by surprise.  With her haunting song about to begin, the musical beauty has one hand poised on the strings of a lute while the other grasps a long bow to draw it slowly across the instrument's bridge, releasing a tune to accompany her melody.  Resting against the picture plane, her body partially hidden by the frame's edge, the background view only of flat, clear waters, this alluring figure both confronts and confuses the viewer.  Does she wear an elaborately brocaded dress?  Could those really be silver, scaled fins that wrap around her back?  Is this a minstrel maid or indeed a mermaid?  The viewer cannot escape the surprise of this work which, in its highly detailed, decorative beauty and fantasy, demands exploration.  One becomes captured within the grotto, caught in the Siren's spell and Maxence's mastery of magical painting.

Despite this arresting image, Maxence's hand is perhaps not immediately recognized by today's viewer.  Given the Siren's compelling nature, it is not surprising to learn that Maxence was a favored pupil of both Jules-Elie Delaunay and Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.  He was particularly influenced by Moreau, who allowed his pupils to develop their own inherent talents while at the same time guiding their focus to the genres he valued most highly.  Considering history painting one of the noblest forms of art, Moreau expected his most gifted students to “not forget that art must uplift, ennoble, improve moral standards… art can lead to religion… which uplifts the soul and guides its working toward an ideal beauty and perfection" (as quoted in Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, London, 1977, p. 219).  A ready source of this perfection could be found in the art, folktales and mythologies of the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance. Symbolist ideals were then assimilated into these original sources in idiosyncratic ways, adding distinct elements of swarming, visual details in bold color, loose brush strokes, and energized feeling. The suggestive power of decoration in tandem with dramatic narrative was essential to Moreau's teaching, because "one must only love, dream a little, and refuse to be satisfied, under pretext of simplicity, where a work of imagination is concerned, with a simple, boring ba-bo-boo" (Moreau as quoted in Edward Lucie-Smith, Symbolist Art, London, 2001, p. 63).

Certainly Maxence's Siren is anything but "ba-bo-boo," as her clear, creamy skin, noble features and sinuous form, decorated with strands of pearls and coral beads all create a sense of otherworldly beauty.  The mystical creature faithfully serves many of the Symbolists' most significant tenants. The influence of the Quattrocento, highly revered by Moreau, is revealed in the Siren’s nuanced expression and her well-modeled form particularly recalls the mythological maidens of Botticelli's Birth of Venus  or Primavera.  Meanwhile, the mottled rocks, dripping seaweed, and strings of beads reveal the Symbolist passion for exotic decoration. 

Yet Maxence did not limit himself to finding artistic direction only in the Symbolist ideals of his teachers. Many of the most intricate details of the Siren’s craggy sea cave, elaborately braided hair-style and decorated tail are created from the artist's careful study of Breton liturgical costumes in the church of Saint-Nicolas of Nantes, his birth city.  The artist was so compelled by the seaside area that he would return in the late 1890s, establishing a studio in La Bernerie-en-Retz, where he could observe first-person the daily life of Brittany and its denizens. As such, Maxence found inspiration for his aesthetic not only in the highly brocaded cloth of the church collection but also in the countenance of the Breton people themselves; the artist discovered that models from small villages provided a specific, timeless beauty of fair skin, amber hair, and clear features.  In works such as Portrait of a Young Girl (circa 1900, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes), heavy cloaks and embroidered costumes are worn by a quietly beautiful woman placed in a mysterious landscape of ancient rocks and rugged plains. Paired together, Portrait of a Young Girl and Siren suggest that Maxence was never a slavish follower of Symbolism's insistence of feeling over fact; instead, he employed highly detailed decorative surfaces and high finishes to explore and embellish iconic images of local history. 

Indeed, Maxence was fascinated with local legends, in which Christianity mingled with ancient Celtic folklore (though long under the control of France and influenced by French traditions, Brittany retained its Celtic influence since the 6^th century). As with his Spirit of the Forest (1898, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes) and its disconcerting composition of winged women surrounded by byzantine aureoles of light and swirling smoke, Siren reveals an intense awareness of ancient myths and medieval Breton legends.  Living on the coast, treacherous waters cost many lives, and a great number of local legends tell that "on the shores of the Channel are numerous grottos or caverns which the Bretons call houles, and these are supposed to harbor a distinct class of fairy. Some of these caverns are from twenty to thirty feet high, and so extensive that is unwise to explore them too far. Others seem only large enough to hold a single person, but if one enters he will find himself in a spacious natural chamber"  (Lewis Spence, Legends and Romances of Brittany, New York, 1997, p. 75).  The lovely inhabitants of these secret grottos known as Morgans, or Sirens, particularly liked young, strong fishermen. While seated alone on rocks, or reefs, near whirlpools, they would entice lonely sailors with their song, pulling them to their death or to eternal capture in underwater palaces made of coral, pearls and diamonds.  Variations of the legend involve an aspect of Christianity: many stories reveal sea fairies to be rebellious angels sent to earth to expiate their offences against heaven.  In its iconography, the Siren could easily serve as an illustration for any of these tales, as Maxence sets this dangerous beauty in a rocky grotto waiting to seduce the unsuspecting. The pale and subtle grey-blue of her upper body and the flower and fern pattern of her tail suggest that this Siren has just applied the magic salve that transforms her from half fish to woman, turning scales into flesh, and fins into dress fabric, as described in the ancient tale of The Fisherman and the Fairies (Spence, p. 80-81).  The fairy creatures would appear in a series of works Maxence completed in the early 1900s from his Little Fairy to The Fairy of the Grotto, Lady Dragonfly, and most dramatically the Siren -- all exploring the mythical, beautiful creatures of the water.

The importance of these fairy creatures extended beyond their beauty. Ancient myths enjoyed a serious revival at the turn of the century, when various schools of thought redirected the modern world to look back at an idealized Golden Age or the idyllic lore of the Middle Ages.  "Portraits" of mythological creatures such as the Siren were not meant to be a complete narrative but a starting point for the imagination, a way to bring out was hidden in the subconscious. The fierce monumentality of the Siren suggests that one part of that hidden feeling might be fear and intimidation of female power.

Finally, the present work exemplifies Maxence's allegiance to the last phase of symbolism--in which the French symbolists incorporated a new understanding of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics. The Siren, in fact, recalls the major works of Burne-Jones and Rossettii celebrated for the magnetic charm of the figures and dreamy suggestiveness of the backgrounds (Henri Dorra, ed. Symbolist Art Theories, Berkely, 1994, p. 252-254). In Maxence's early career, he exhibited regularly at Salon Rose + Croix  events, organized under the direction of Joséphin Péladan from 1892-1897.  Péladan revived the mystical tradition of the Middle Ages and condemned naturalism in all its manifestations; the resulting painted figures, particularly women, gave off an air of dramatic, self-absorbed detachment.  As the Siren casts her spell, Maxence ultimately desired to provide viewers a forum for spiritual insight and imaginative interpretation.  In many respects, this was a response to Péladin's demand that artists capture "the soul of the least animated things, the symbol behind the appearance, the eternal idea beneath the form—even those [things] complicated... fleeting or ungraspable." (Josephin Peladan, Le Correspondant, March 25, 1892, p. 1133).