{"id":8833,"date":"2018-10-05T21:49:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T01:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=8833"},"modified":"2018-10-06T10:01:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T14:01:23","slug":"casanova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/10\/05\/casanova\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Make Of The MFA\u2019s Sumptuous \u2018Casanova\u2019 Exhibit In Our #MeToo Moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCasanova\u2019s Europe: Art, Pleasure, and Power in the 18th Century\u201d<\/a> at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts through Oct. 8 is a sumptuous, deeply researched exhibition inspired by Casanova, the charismatic 18th century intellectual, libertine and scoundrel whose name has become synonymous with \u201cwomanizer.\u201d<\/p>\n

His autobiography, the museum says, \u201coffers an unrivaled account of 18th-century European society, and his experiences provide a framework for our journey through the art of his time.\u201d Frederick Ilchman, chair of the MFA\u2019s Art of Europe department, says, \u201cHe went everywhere, he met everyone, and he wrote it all down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Casanova.<\/a>
Casanova. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Published in 1821, two decades after Casanova\u2019s death, his memoirs are best known for his accounts of having sex with some 130 people, beginning with a night with two sisters and continuing to nuns, married women, his own daughter. By his account, pretty much everyone had a splendid time.<\/p>\n

But Casanova\u2019s stories include kidnapping a man so that Casanova and his masquerading friends can have a gangbang with the fellow\u2019s wife. He joyfully reports seducing his own daughter Leonilda. A sign in the exhibit acknowledges that the memoirs \u201cdescribe behaviors toward women that today would be criminal.\u201d\u00a0Which is part of why I\u2019m late in writing about this exhibition\u2014wondering if I should write about Casanova at all.<\/p>\n

A sign of the deep misogyny of Western society is that the term \u201cCasanova\u201d is generally a compliment, letting the crimes slide and instead praising exploitive womanizing as a sort of accomplishment. But there\u2019s been a societal shift since the MFA, the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco began organizing this exhibition in 2012. \u201cWhat [Casanova\u2019s memoirs] offer is a specific perspective,\u201d a sign in the show says, \u201cone man\u2019s experiences, expressed in his own words, which resonate in new ways in the #MeToo era.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to do with Casanova now?<\/p>\n

\"Canaletto<\/a>
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), “Bacino di San Marco, Venice,” about 1738, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) was born in Venice to a couple of itinerant actors, went to seminary, served in the military, then when he was 21 came to the aid of a Venetian senator who was having a stroke. In thanks, the man invited Casanova to live in his palazzo and bankrolled his ascent into high society. \u201cHe\u2019s very low born,\u201d Ilchman says, \u201cbut he\u2019s reinventing himself again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Casanova pursued the warm embrace of various royal courts and aristocracies from Paris to London to Dresden to St. Petersburg to Constantinople, he would spend many years hobnobbing with folks like Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, King Louis XV of France, King George III of England, Benjamin Franklin (they talked hot-air balloons), French philosopher Voltaire, English writer Samuel Johnson, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the composer Mozart.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitically this era is so different from ours,\u201d Ilchman says. \u201cVenice is the only republic, and it\u2019s barely a republic, an oligarchy basically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tableau<\/a>
Tableau of man meeting with a female boarder at a Venetian convent, c. 1754. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Casanova explored the occult and alchemy\u2014and used them to con people. He was sentenced to five years in prison in Venice for heresy, escaped after 15 months and fled to France. \u201cHe would retell this at every dinner party in Paris,\u201d Ilchman says. \u201cAnd it later becomes one of the kernels of his autobiography.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casanova organized a national lottery in France and ran a silk manufactory. He made and gambled away a fortune. He planned to kill himself by jumping off a London bridge. \u201cHe loads his pockets with stones so that he might drown,\u201d Ian Kelly, author of the 2008 book \u201cCasanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy,\u201d said at an exhibition preview. A passerby convinced him to reconsider. And so on.<\/p>\n

\"Fran\u00e7ois<\/a>
Fran\u00e7ois Boucher, “
Resting Girl (Louise O\u2019Murphy),” 1751, oil on canvas. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reason we remember Casanova is his salacious 12-volume autobiography, \u201cThe Story of My Life,\u201d that he penned while spending his last 13 years as the court librarian in the castle of small, remote Dux in Bohemia (today\u2019s Czech Republic).<\/p>\n

\u201cCasanova\u2019s Europe\u201d uses the memoirist\u2019s account as a starting point to explore exquisite achievements in the arts across the continent at the time. A sign in the exhibition acknowledges, \u201cHis behavior (particularly toward women) could prove scandalous, indeed unconscionable,\u201d but mainly Casanova comes across here as a charming rascal.<\/p>\n

\"Jean-Honor\u00e9<\/a>
Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard, “The Useless Resistance,” 1770\u201373, oil on canvas. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paintings by Canaletto depict Venice\u2019s canals. One gallery is filled by erotic French rococo paintings of doughy naked lades by Fran\u00e7ois Boucher and Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard (including one from 1773 titled \u201cThe Useless Resistance\u201d)\u2014the pinnacle of French art in the years before the French Revolution.<\/p>\n

Casanova\u2019s life is evoked by elaborate life-sized diorama tableaus of mannequins dressed in period clothes cavorting in rooms of period furnishings and art. Here is a Venetian palazzo. Another tableau shows a man romancing a woman in an Italian convent. Nearby a naughty two-sided painting shows a nun kneeling on the front and reveals, on the back, that her habit is lifted to show her naked bottom.<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/a>
Martin van Meytens, “Kneeling Nun,” front and back, about 1731, oil on copper. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A man and servant woman in a Paris tableau pass a note to plan a tryst in a sumptuous mansion decorated with a cycle of large paintings of mythological scenes by Boucher. A London tableau depicts two men fighting over accusations of cheating at cards as a shocked woman drops her drink. Paintings record some of Casanova\u2019s lovers and big wigs of his acquaintance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s still very much a figure,\u201d Ilchman says, \u201cwho\u2019s trying to make it by chasing the hierarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paintings, clothing and furnishings dazzle. Altogether it is a portrait of \u201ca world of excess\u201d in Europe as it slid toward revolutions\u2014in America (c. 1765-1783) and France (c. 1789-1799)\u2014and the radical unification of Italy in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways,\u201d Ilchman says, \u201cit\u2019s a world about to be swept away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Tableau<\/a>
Tableau of man exchanging a note with a maid at a Paris mansion, c. 1760s. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sedan<\/a>
Sedan chair, Italy (probably Naples), possibly mid-18th century, gilded wood frame with painted panels, glass, gilded metal fittings, and silk upholstery. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jean-Honor\u00e9<\/a>
Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard, “The Desired Moment,” about 1770, oil on canvas. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"London<\/a>
London host accuses guest of cheating at cards, c. 1760s. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pierre\u2010Etienne<\/a>
Pierre\u2010Etienne Falconet, “Catherine the Great,” 1773, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Giovanni<\/a>
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, “The Charlatan,” 1756, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fran\u00e7ois<\/a>
Fran\u00e7ois Boucher, “Venus at Vulcan’s Forge,” 1769, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fran\u00e7ois<\/a>
Fran\u00e7ois Boucher, King Louis XV’s famous paramour”Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour,” 1750 with later additions, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Henri<\/a>
Henri Hemsch, harpsichord, probably 1736, poplar. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Man's<\/a>
Man’s court suit (coat) (detail), 1785\u201392, French, silk cut and uncut voided velvet embroidered with gilt silver wire, sequins, and bits of glass. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pietro<\/a>
Pietro Longhi, “The Confession,” about 1755, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jean<\/a>
Jean Marc Nattier’s 1757 oil portrait of “Manon Balletti.” Casanova, the MFA says, “considered Manon one of the few true loves of his life, but he would not commit to marriage.” (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Capodimonte<\/a>
Capodimonte Manufactory, “The Doctor, Harlequin and Colombine,” about 1750, soft-paste porcelain with colored enamel and gilded decoration. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jean<\/a>
Jean Marc Nattier, “Thalia, Muse of Comedy,” 1739, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"William<\/a>
William Hogarth, “The Lady’s Last Stake,” 1759, oil on canvas. (Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tableau<\/a>
Tableau of man exchanging a note with a maid at a Paris mansion, c. 1760s. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCasanova\u2019s Europe: Art, Pleasure, and Power in the 18th Century\u201d at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts through Oct. 8 is a sumptuous, deeply researched exhibition inspired by Casanova, the charismatic 18th century intellectual, libertine and scoundrel whose name has become synonymous with \u201cwomanizer.\u201d His autobiography, the museum says, \u201coffers an unrivaled account of 18th-century European […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[37,443,216],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8833"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8865,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8833\/revisions\/8865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}