Triggers, Paratexts and Interpretations
Lynne Pearce in Woman Image Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and
Literature suggests that the figure depicted in John Everett Millais's
Mariana is caught in a distinctive moment: "Mariana is presenting her
body for inspection, while she gazes desirously into the eyes of the
Archangel Gabriel represented in the stained glass." Curious to observe if
the gaze is returned, one turns to plate three to inspect the
reproduction. Inconclusive. Indeed it is difficult to confirm that the figure
of Mariana is indeed looking at the angel. However, one notices that plate
three (Mariana) is situated on the right page and plate two (Beata
Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti) on the left page of the open book and
that the figures of Mariana and Beatrix by their positions as reproduced
in the book might be seen to converge on the stained glass angel.
He may be looking at her but is she looking at him? Reproductions in
Pearce's sources are marshalled to make the claim. The article "Subliminal
Dreams" by George MacBeth in Narrative Art edited by John Ashbury and
Thomas B. Hess provides a black and white detail of the upper left
quadrant followed by a colour reproduction. The layout induces a subtle
repetition: left page the b&w detail, right page the first page of the
article, [turn the page] left page the colour reproduction of the full
painting. The manner of the disposition of the illustrations supports the
critical story that is being offered. Interestingly Pearce in introducing
a quotation from an Andrew Leng article that quotes Macbeth's article fails
to mention that Leng remarks upon the tone of Macbeth's "post-Freudian
enthusiasm" in whose prose "[t]he erotic implications of the painting
which Ruskin ignored are made abundantly if facetiously clear [...]".
Leng's article is now available on the Victorian Web. In "Millais's
"Mariana": Literary Painting, the Pre-Raphelite Gothic, and the Iconology
of the Marian Artist", Leng draws upon how knowledge of Tennyson's poem
affects the reading of the painting. In the online verision of the article
there is to be found a thumbnail reproduction of the painting that is hot
linked to a larger image.
Paratexts push if not produce the interpretations of the painting: that gaze is certainly askance.
And so for day 1960
25.04.2012
