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The So-Called Caryatids

THE SO-CALLED CARYATIDS

On the street, a nude is more often in bronze than alive,

in stone than in the flesh.

And we aren't surprised by unclad ladies

brightening sidewalks or buildings gracefully and lasciviously.

Tell me, O Venus

What pleasure do you find

In causing my virtue to come cascading down?

More than the sexy flower-women and sirens, pale or bronzed...

I like the statues that serve as human columns...

bearers of doors, lintels, capitals, or balconies.

The so-called caryatids.

The Roman architect Vitruvius tells of their origin.

The Peloponnesian city of Karyes

sided with Persia in a war with the Greeks.

The Greek victors took revenge on the Karyatian collaborators.

They destroyed their city, slew their men,

and carried their women off as slaves.

The women were paraded triumphantly as spoils of war —

at least the noble women, in their lovely gowns and finery.

To show how the traitors had been punished...

architects used this sort of statue

instead of columns on public buildings

The incident faded from memory, but the caryatids had been born.

Here we'll only see...

Parisian caryatids of the late 19th century.

They occur in pairs, clothed or nude.

Often one is half naked, while the other isn't.

They're symmetrical but never identical.

Except for a male-female pair on Avenue de Tourville,

Paris has a dozen male pairs of these "almost twins"

and about 50 female pairs.

There are even triplets

supporting the heavy pediment of this large bank.

Here four columnar ladies have become 12.

He bears this building alone, with just one hand.

Male caryatids are called atlantes,

in memory of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders.

"My dad's the strongest, and my mom's the prettiest."

The statues convey the same message.

The men are strong and muscular.

So we must see the muscles...

and the strain...

and the facial tension.

An atlas conveys force and power.

When women bear a load, it's usually on their head, casually.

A woman carrying a basket on her head

is a serene sculpture all on its own.

I've photographed them in my travels.

In Portugal, for example.

A caryatid is not meant to display support or effort.

She's a specific concept of woman in architecture.

Returning to classicism was once again fashionable.

Leconte de Lisle wrote his Ancient Poems.

Théodore de Banville published his first verses, The Caryatids.

But it's precisely between 1860 and 1870

that caryatids appeared on buildings.

That prodigious decade also produced Hugo's Les Misérables...

Offenbach's La Belle Hélène, Marx's Das Kapital...

Flaubert's Sentimental Education...

Delacroix's last works and Manet's first,

which were as scandalous as Les Fleurs de mal by Baudelaire...

the poet of poets...

who sang of women and suffering as no one else has.

"I am beautiful, O mortals, like a dream carved in stone

And my breast, where mortals come to grief

Is made to inspire in the poet a love

as eternal and silent as matter."

"I am fair and I command

That for love of me you love only Beauty

I am your guardian angel, your muse, your madonna"

"What will you say tonight, poor solitary soul

What will you say, my once withered heart

To the fairest, kindest, dearest of women

Whose divine glance suddenly revived you?"

Baudelaire wooed Madame Sabatier for years.

He'd send her poems — anonymous at first, later signed.

One night after a trial concerning Les Fleurs de mal,

she finally gave herself to him.

The next day he broke off with her in a letter.

"A few days ago you were a goddess,

which is very convenient, beautiful, and inviolable.

Now you are a woman."

One could cry.

But I cry even more over Baudelaire's last two years.

In 1866 he was 45 and famous,

but also poor, worn out, bitter, and ill.

A fall in a church left him a mute hemiplegic.

Though mute, at times he could form words.

"Damn it! Damn it all!"

He died 18 months later, still mute.

"Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish

Shame, remorse, sobs, and vexations

And the vague terrors of those frightful nights

That press on the heart like a paper one crumples?

Angel of gaiety, do you know anguish?"

"Angel full of kindness, do you know hatred

Fists clenched in the dark, bile-filled tears

When Vengeance issues his hellish call to arms

And makes himself captain of our faculties?

Angel of kindness, do you know hatred?"

One rarely notices this strange angel on Rue Turbigo

when leaving the office for housing assistance

and small homeowners' aid.

The neighbors we spoke to

seem never to have noticed this giant caryatid.

Or they never think about it.

They only know that the French victory at Turbigo in 1859

gave the street its name.

Could she be related to the decorative textile industry,

given her tasseled bag?

They call her "the Lady with the Bag" or "Fortune with Myrrh"...

or "the Odd Angel."

No one knows who created her...

or what she represents.

"Mask or ornament, hail! I adore your beauty."