Figure 1 – British soldiers playing footbal on a Greek beach in 1915. In the public domain by virtue of its age.

To my Christian readers, Merry Christmas from Hati and Skoll Gallery.  To all my readers all the joy of holidays, of family, and of friends.  May we soon recognize that all men and women are part of the family of man.

And in that vein, for today’s “Favorite and Noteworthy Photograph,” I’d like to take you all back one hundred years today to the then waging Battle of the Somme. There was that day a Christmas truce, Weihnachtsfrieden in German, and Trêve de Noël in French.  The truce was unofficial but widespread along the Western Front.  German and British soldiers came out of their trenches to exchange greetings, souveneirs, and treats.  They played games, such as football or soccer.

Figure 1 is an image of soldiers playing football in 1915 that you often see associated with the Christmas Truce 1914.  I became just a bit skeptical that it was actually an image of the truce, when I read accounts of whether or not the famous game actually occurred.  I think that the evidence is good.  However, as it turns out the image of Figure 1, so powerful a depiction, was actually taken in 1915 and shows British soldiers recreating on the beach in Greece. When you recognize that these men probably fought and many of them died in the terrible Battle of Galipolis (1915-1916), the poetic license seems acceptable.

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all Men.  After the Christmas truce, after Christmas 1914, they got back to killing and the machines of war.  May we be wiser in our time!.

Figure 1 – Benjamin Couprie, Participants at the First Solvay Conference, 1911. From the Wikimediacommons, uploaded by Fastfission and in the public domain by virtue of its age.

Today’s Favorite and Noteworthy Photograph (Figure 1)  is, indeed, one of my favorites but for different reasons than most.  It is by Belgian photographer Benjamin Couprie “Participants at the first Solvay Conference, 1911.”  The Solvay conference was an invitation only meeting of all the great contemporary physicists to discuss molecular theory.  The list of participants is truly amazing.  They are:

Seated (L-R): Walther Nernst, Marcel Brillouin, Ernest Solvay, Hendrik Lorentz, Emil Warburg, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Wilhelm Wien, Marie Curie, and Henri Poincaré.

Standing (L-R): Robert Goldschmidt, Max Planck, Heinrich Rubens, Arnold Sommerfeld, Frederick Lindemann, Maurice de Broglie, Martin Knudsen, Friedrich Hasenöhrl, Georges Hostelet, Edouard Herzen, James Hopwood Jeans, Ernest Rutherford, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Albert Einstein, and Paul Langevin.

What is, of course, most striking about the image is that Madame Curie is the only woman and, perhaps because of that fact, she seems the gravitational centroid of the photograph.  It seems very clear that this was Couprie’s intent, given the way that he has positioned the subjects in the photograph. For the modern viewer this seems a commentary on sexism in physics, then and to a large extent now as well.

Curie is a one of the true greats of twentieth century physics and chemistry.  I cannot overstate the point.  The Curies saw what was believed to be impossible, one element transmuting into another.  It seemed impossible, but as great geniuses, their minds were open.  Marie and Pierre Cure won the 1903 Nobel prize in physics.  In 1911 she was to win the chemistry prize, making her the first person to win the coveted award in two sciences.

Pierre died tragically in a carriage accident in 1906.  Several years later Marie became  romantically involved with physicist Paul Langevin, a doctoral student of Pierre’s. Langevin was estranged and separted from his wife.  At the meeting “love letters” between Marie and Paul were circulated to the press by Langevin’s wife.  When Curie returned to Paris her house was surrounded by an angry mob that terrified Marie and her two young daughters Irene and Eve.  It is in this regard that the story and image of Madame Curie and Christine Keeler are curiously connected.  Despite her genius Marie Curie, like Keeler, could not escape small-mindedness, prejudice, and stereotyping.  Mysogyny reigned. There is a wonderful letter very recently unearth in which Albert Einstein tells Curie to ignore the haters.   “If the rabble continues to be occupy itself with you then simply don’t read that hogwash, but rather leave it for the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”

Following up on yesterday’s theme of “The Seductress” I’d like to discuss today Richard Avedon‘s, “Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent, 1981.” And I will admit that this is, in fact, one of my favorite photographs.  Avedon was one of the twentieth century’s greatest portrait and fashion photographers. Kinski remains one of the world’s most beautiful women, and their collaboration in this work is truly electrifying.

The woman and the serpent is, of course, Eve and the serpent.  The goddess and the serpent goes way back in classical art and mythology.  The double serpent entwined around the stick or tree is the caduceus, (Hermes’ mthic staff) which is the symbol of the medical profession.  You will recall that Moses turned his staff into a serpent before the pharaoh. And there is a significant example of the artistic image in Michelangelo Sistine chapel, where the serpent beguiles Eve and “tricks” her and Adam into eating an apple of the tree of knowledge, leading to their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In that regard Avedon is not simply creating a powerfully sexy image, but rather is carrying on in a long and classical tradition.

A colleague of mine had this image on the wall in his lab for many years.  I must suppose it was the classical references that he found so appealing.  There are some interesting links to follow: an interview with Avedon about the photoshoot and a 2005 satire by Mike Ruiz of the image with Miss Piggy taking Kinski’s place.  From the interview we learn an important lesson that creating such a remarkable portrait is a matter of collaboration between artist and subject and requires more than a little serendipity.

Today is December 2014, which means that it is time for the annual “Favorite Photographs” feature.  I’ve been thinking about this over the last two months or so and I’ve started to question exactly how many favorite photographs I can have without diminishing the whole thing.  So I’m going to do this a little differently this year and make the series a combination of not only true favorites but also noteworthy images.  For the noteworthy part, I thought that I would focus on images that are, I hope, just a little bit what I like to call quirky – something unexpected.  The goal overall is to choose images that bring a smile: a smile of recognition, a smile of amusement, or the smile of common humanity that great art elicits. As always, it is my intent not to violate copyrights.  As a result, some of these images, like today’s, will be links.

So to begin with, this past Thursday I was reading on the BBC about the untimely death of Mandy Rice-Davies. Ms. Davies, a former model was one of the main figures in the 1960s “Profumo affair.”  Davies and her roomate Christine Keeler were at the center of a scandal which almost brought down Harold Macmillan’s government.

In 1961 Keeler met society osteopath and artist Stephen Ward. Ward introduced Keeler to John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, at a pool party at Cliveden, the Buckinghamshire mansion owned by Lord Astor. The affair was short-lived because Profumo was warned by the security services of mixing with the Ward circle. Through Ward, Profumo also met Russian naval attaché and intelligence officer, Yevgeni Ivanov, with whom Keeler claimed to be briefly involved.  After her relationship with Profumo ended, two of Keeler’s partners became involved in a violent jealous quarrel. This had the unfortunate effect of bringing Ms. Keeler into the public eye, more significantly the press’ eye, which led to  the “Profumo affair,” the scandelous involvement of the Secretary of War with a woman also involved with a Soviet spy.  Keeler initially denied all improriety but eventully confessed. Profumo was forced to resign both from the government and parliament. The “Profumo Affair” is reminiscent of the Lewinski scandal of the 1990’s.  Keeler caught up in the drama and power-play ultimately served a prison term for perjury.

All of this would have nothing to do with photography except that a that height of the public uproar in 1963, Keeler sat for a portrait by Lewis Morley to promote a movie about the scandal. Ms. Keeler was reluctant to pose in the nude, but the film producers insisted. As a compromise, Morley persuaded Keeler to straddle a chair, thus obscuring most of her body.   The result was “Lewis Morley “Christine Keeler, 1963.”

In reading Ms. Rice-Davies obituary all of this came back to me, and I found myself seeing this image of Christine Keeler again after fifty years.  It is like a time capsule, and I believe that it represents a commentary on how women were treated in photographs fifty years ago, and to a large extent today.  Indeed, it struck me that a series exploring the different, but so very often stereotypically, they have been treated since the invention of photograph would be an interesting endeavor.

Morley’s portrait is photographically excellent and well done – really a masterpiece of black and white portraiture.  Ms. Keeler seems to emerge from the darkness as if  spotlighted in a most alluring pose.  The nudity speaks both of seductress and victim.  That is a common ambiguity.  The image brings to mind the contemporary drama Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.  The characters of that play also occupy the darkness of the stage until those moments when the play Hamlet catches up with them and they briefly emerge from the shadows into a brilliant light to play their minor parts among the greater players.

Remarkably a photograph by Australian/US photographer Peter Lik, a wonderful trick of light taken in Arizona’s Antelope Canyon recently sold at auction for a remarkable and record breaking $6.5 MI.  It is now the most expensive photograph ever sold. And it reveals a spectre that would have made Conan Doyle blink with credulity. To the extent that the art market sets the standards, this moves photograph to a new echelon in the artistic hierarchy.

Figure 1 – Possibly the earliest (1849) ballet photograph from the George Eastman House and in the public domain because of the age of the image.

The discussion of the 1892 premier of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” got me wondering about the earliest dance photography. This (Figure 1) appears to be a daguerreotype in the George Eastman House collections from 1849 that unfortunately is by an unknown photographer of an unknown dancer. What is remarkable about the piece is that the dancer is shown in a relatively simple position.  This is remarkable because of the long exposure times required at the time.

Figure 1 is of a contemporary image (~ 1850) a beautiful full plate Daguerreotype portrait of a Spanish dancer complete with castanets. The original is in the collection of the Photo Library IPCE (Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain) in Madrid. There seems to be a huge temperol disparity between the two images.  The second seems almost modern in its expression.  The turning of the neck creates a marveklous sense of muscular motion, and the coloration is gorgeous in its subtlety.

Figure 2 – Spanish Dancer with castenets (~1850). From the IPCE – Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain- and in the public domain because of its age.

Figure 1 – the first performance of the Nutcracker production of The Nutcracker (Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1892). (Left to right) Lydia Rubtsova as Marianna, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz, in the original. From the Wikimediacommons and in the publi cdomain because of age of image.

The weather is turning colder here in Boston. Our skin is cracking from the freeze-drying air, but spirits are high.  One of the important seasonal events is the Boston Ballet’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s “the Nutcracker.”  This is a ritual played out in many American cities, and thinking of it always brings a smile to my face.  My son, at the time, referred to it as “The Nutcrack'” and, out of deference to his mother, tolerated being dressed in itchy wool shorts, knee socks, and a blazer to attend what must have seemed a very boring event with an audience filled with coughing and contagious children.  But it is such a delightful parade of little people in wool and velvet, looking ever so Christmassy. And the ballet itself does capture the unique aspect of anticipation that permeates the holiday.

Hearing about this year’s event got me thinking about whether or not there are photographs of the original performance, and sure enough, hence Figure 1 . The Nutcrack’ was first perfomed on the 18th of December 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The performance was conducted by Riccardo Drigo, and featured:  Antonietta Dell’Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, and Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer.

Counter to current practice children performed the major child roles in those days.  It is, I guess, another one those photographic time travel events, except that the whole pageant seems, in fact, pretty timeless.  This image is especially poignant as it offers up a view of imperial Russia at its height of misplaced and complacent glory.  You look at the picture and, if you live where I do, you can imagine the bone-chilling cold of St. Petersburg just outside the doors of the theatre.

Figure 2 – The Tchaikovskys in 1848. From the Wikimediacommons and in the public domain because of the age of the image.

In researching this, I also came across a photograph from 1848 of Tchaikovsky as a young child himself. Left to right are: Pyotr, Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolai, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father). This again is a time trip.  It is wonderful in the way that so many family groupings from that date are.  Not everyone is looking at the camera which creates a sense of abstraction and indifference.  For the little girl in front the whole event seems rather boring.  Perhaps this anticipates the obligatory journey to her brother’s ballet by so many little children then unborn. Certainly the outfit that Pyotr is wearing would be suitable for a modern performance and the cowlick is just wonderful.