Sitting on the dock one day after swimming, this large dragonfly landed on the top of my book. The book is The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson and I have almost finished it after many moons of reading. I've enjoyed it (full review to come later) but I just haven't been reading much of late.
My bookmark shows a detail of Liebe (1895) by Gustav Klimt. The dragonfly seemed very taken with it, gently gnawing on the edge of the paper.
When the sun emerged from a passing cloud, his head showed a bright emerald green.
When I removed the bookmark from the book and placed it on the arm of my chair, he settled on it for a few minutes more.
From the side his little head looked almost human. It brought to mind a poster I have of the wonderful Art Nouveau exhibit I visited in Washington in 2001 at the National Gallery of Art. The image is a "corsage ornament" by Lalique and made of gold, enamel, chrysoprase, moonstones, and diamonds. It measures 9" x 10.75" with an articulated spine and wings hinged to flutter.
My bookmark shows a detail of Liebe (1895) by Gustav Klimt. The dragonfly seemed very taken with it, gently gnawing on the edge of the paper.
When the sun emerged from a passing cloud, his head showed a bright emerald green.
When I removed the bookmark from the book and placed it on the arm of my chair, he settled on it for a few minutes more.
From the side his little head looked almost human. It brought to mind a poster I have of the wonderful Art Nouveau exhibit I visited in Washington in 2001 at the National Gallery of Art. The image is a "corsage ornament" by Lalique and made of gold, enamel, chrysoprase, moonstones, and diamonds. It measures 9" x 10.75" with an articulated spine and wings hinged to flutter.
From the National Gallery of Art's website:
Emerging from the jaws of a chimera (part serpent, part lion) is a woman/ dragonfly. The dragonfly was an especially popular art nouveau motif, a favorite of Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé, all of whom would have seen examples in Japanese art. Probably its popularity in France grew after translation of a series of Japanese poems (Judith Gautier, Poëmes de la libellule [Poems of the Dragonfly], 1885).
But why this conflation of dragonfly and woman? On one level, the two are connected through language: the small iridescent blue and bronze dragonflies, called "damselflies" in English, are demoiselles (young ladies) in French. But probably of greater significance is the idea of metamorphosis. Interest in biological transformations had been spurred by Darwin's theories of evolution. Yet even this fails to offer satisfactory explanation. Here is a very different sort of metamorphosis, more psychic than physical. It reveals something of fin-de-siècle views on the nature of women - of women as an embodiment of nature, instinctual and seductive.
Emerging from the jaws of a chimera (part serpent, part lion) is a woman/ dragonfly. The dragonfly was an especially popular art nouveau motif, a favorite of Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé, all of whom would have seen examples in Japanese art. Probably its popularity in France grew after translation of a series of Japanese poems (Judith Gautier, Poëmes de la libellule [Poems of the Dragonfly], 1885).
But why this conflation of dragonfly and woman? On one level, the two are connected through language: the small iridescent blue and bronze dragonflies, called "damselflies" in English, are demoiselles (young ladies) in French. But probably of greater significance is the idea of metamorphosis. Interest in biological transformations had been spurred by Darwin's theories of evolution. Yet even this fails to offer satisfactory explanation. Here is a very different sort of metamorphosis, more psychic than physical. It reveals something of fin-de-siècle views on the nature of women - of women as an embodiment of nature, instinctual and seductive.
