After yesterday’s stories of Robin Hood and other men, today I look at paintings of two women from legend. The first is Lady Godiva, who stars in one of the most unusual of British folk tales.
There’s reasonable historical evidence that Godiva, real name Godgifu, was the wife of Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, in the years prior to the Norman invasion of 1066. Both Leofric and Godgifu are known from their generous benefactions to religious houses from about 1040, and she is thought to have died in the twenty years after the invasion.
Godiva’s claim to fame arose from her husband’s swingeing taxes on the people of Coventry, in England. She supported the people, and tried to persuade her husband to relent. Despite repeated appeals, he refused to reduce them, finally offering to do so only if she stripped naked and rode a horse through the streets of the city. The Countess of Mercia decreed that everyone should remain indoors, with their window shutters closed, when she rode through the streets, covered only in her long hair. One person, a tailor named Thomas, disobeyed, and was either struck dead or blinded by the other citizens as punishment.
This legend wasn’t recorded for about two hundred years, but has been repeated frequently ever since, and the story of the original Peeping Tom added later from oral tradition. During the seventeenth century, the Godiva Procession became an established feature of the city’s annual fair, although the naked rider was usually a young man.
For the visual artist, this legend offers both rich opportunities, and great danger: until the inclusion of nude women in paintings became acceptable in British art in the nineteenth century, its prominent theme was taboo. I have been unable to find any paintings of it prior to 1833.
Clik here to view.
Then, George Jones risked baring one breast of his Godiva Preparing to Ride through Coventry (1833). If there is any historical basis to the story, this may be more accurate than the legend, in that the Countess would have more plausibly ridden while wearing a penitential white shift, as shown here. Jones is thorough in his depiction: at the left, affixed to the wall, is the sealed proclamation instructing everyone to remain behind shuttered windows, and on the flagstones in the foreground are red roses expressing the love of the people. Godiva also has very long and thick hair.
Clik here to view.
It was over forty years before the next painter plucked up the courage for this motif. In 1877, William Holmes Sullivan painted Lady Godiva setting off alone on her horse. Her face is downcast and her eyes closed: perhaps it’s the horse’s expression which is the more telling. She here appears with white doves, presumably symbols of peace.
Clik here to view.
My next depiction wasn’t painted, but woven in silk using a proprietary technique invented by the Coventry textile manufacturer Thomas Stevens: The Lady Godiva Procession (1875-1888). This ‘Stevengraph’ shows one of the annual processions held as part of the city’s fair, suggesting that by this time the role was filled by a woman who at least appeared to be naked. By some quirk of history, this beautiful work, made in Coventry by a local man, has ended up in Honolulu.
Until the late nineteenth century Godiva’s story had been confined to England, but aroused the interest of the great French academic painter and teacher, Jules Lefebvre, who painted her at least twice.
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Lefebvre’s first painting of Lady Godiva from 1891 shows her passing over deserted narrow cobbled streets, covering her breasts and appearing in some distress. Her horse is being led by a maid, and flying alongside are three white doves. She now appears almost saintly in her mission, as if undergoing a form of psychological martyrdom.
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Edmund Blair Leighton was known for his paintings of old European history. His Lady Godiva from 1892 ducked the issue of nudity by showing an early scene from the legend, where the Earl of Mercia tells his wife of the terms under which he would reduce Coventry’s taxes. Although he had several opportunities to give the viewer clues as to the rest of the story, in the reliefs carved on furniture and above the arch of the doorway, the viewer is left to rely on their memory.
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This is John Collier’s sketch for his later painting of Lady Godiva, from about 1897. It’s delicately composed using a side view to minimise her female form, so avoiding the risk of causing offence.
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Collier’s superb finished painting of Lady Godiva from 1898 emphasises her nudity by clothing the horse, but makes no reference to any other part of the legend. This is curious, as Collier was well known at the time for his ‘problem pictures’ giving the viewer multiple clues to resolve a narrative.
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Jules Lefebvre exhibited this painting of Lady Godiva at Prayer (1905) at the Salon that year, and I presume that this is a monochrome reproduction of a full colour original. The heroine is now clearly approaching a religious transition, standing in front of a psalter, her eyes looking up to heaven. However, the artist doesn’t offer any visual clues as to what she is about to do.
Moving to the Slavs of eastern Europe, the Polish bishop and chronicler Wincenty Kadłubek recorded the legend of Wanda in the early 1200s.
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Wanda was the daughter of the legendary Polish king Krakus, who founded the city of Kraków. After the king’s death, her lands were invaded by a German tyrant. When Wanda led her forces out in battle, the Germans saw her beauty, refused to fight, and their commander killed himself. In later accounts, Wanda’s army overcame the invaders, but she later committed suicide by throwing herself into the Vistula river, as shown in Maksymilian Piotrowski’s dramatic painting of The Death of Wanda from 1859.
References
Wikipedia on Lady Godiva.
Wikipedia on Thomas Stevens and Stevengraphs.