The main idea of this information is about the concept of the muse in art history and how it has evolved over time. The concept originated in ancient Greece with the muses being revered divine goddesses who bestowed creativity and inspiration on artists. However, over the years, the idea of the muse has become simplified and often seen as a passive figure, particularly in Western art history. The book "Muse" by Ruth Millington explores the hidden figures behind art history's masterpieces and challenges the passive stereotype of the muse. It showcases muses who have played an active role in supporting and inspiring artists, such as Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, and Tilda Swinton. The book covers various categories of muses, including artists as muses and the self as muse. It also highlights the importance of diversity in the concept of the muse, with muses from different genders, races, and cultures being represented. Overall, the book aims to shed light on the significant c
There's so many kind of fictional narratives around Frida Kahlo, call it Frida-mania, we see her face everywhere. The more I researched her, the more I realised actually there's another story here and I think there's something even more important than this going on in her works of art. And it actually goes right back to the fact that she originally wanted to be a doctor. It was just on her way back from the school that she was involved in this horrific crash between a bus and a tram which left her in bed for a year.
And this is the point at which, what was she going to do? She couldn't go to medical school anymore and she knew, right, my hopes of being a doctor are over now. And she used a mirror which her parents bought for her to start painting portraits of herself. In painting herself, you can see she's using art as a form of therapy. We really need space to create good things. I do see a lot of artists creating works just for Instagram, just to sit in the square.
You know, there's one thing to have instant success on social media, but I think we should all be trying to create things that will last beyond us. Hello everyone, welcome to the Artidot podcast, where I, Vasik Armenikos, ask questions to best-selling non-fiction authors about their books and ideas. The guest of this episode is Ruth Millington, the author of a brilliant book called Muse, which uncovers the hidden figures behind art history's masterpieces. When we hear the word Muse, we often think of a passive, powerless model, a mere tool in the hands of a genius artist.
Ruth Millington tells us that this idea is largely a myth. Muses are not those silenced tools in the possession of genius artists. They have brought emotional support, intellectual energy, career-changing creativity, and practical help to artists. In this interview, Ruth will tell us stories behind the muses who inspired artists such as Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, Tilda Swinton, and many, many others. I hope you will enjoy listening to my interview with Ruth Millington, and let's begin.
Dear Ruth, thank you so much for coming to my podcast. I'm so excited about this interview and your book. Finally, we've made it. For our listeners who do not know, we tried to arrange this interview since early November, and so many things happened. And finally, we are here. Welcome to my podcast. Thank you for coming. Oh, thanks very much for having me. Yeah, as you said, it's taken a few goes to try and get us both together because of travel and snow chaos and illness.
Yeah, nice to be with you. And thanks for your interest in the book, Muse. It's such a wonderful book. Unfortunately, our listeners cannot see it, but I would recommend everyone to get a hard copy of your book. It's such a wonderful edition with beautiful illustrations. Just holding it in my hands is such a pleasure and wonderful book. And it was kind of, I felt as if I found gold in my local waterstones when I stumbled upon your book.
You know, a book about muses and explaining the relationship between artists and muses. So I'm so excited to record this podcast and ask you all the questions that my readers and listeners sent in when I shared this book. Perhaps, should we begin by maybe you can tell a little bit about yourself so our listeners who are not yet familiar with you would find out about you? Yeah, sure. I always find it funny when people say, you know, what do you do? It's always a question at a gallery opening.
And it's like, well, I do a hundred different things. I actually originally wanted to be an artist and I went after school to art college and studied on the foundation for specializing in painting. And I mean, you can see that interest in the book. I primarily talk about paintings. But after a year there, all my lecturers were telling me, listen, you're writing too much here. Can you stop writing so much and get to the studio and do some painting? And then I realized what I'm interested in is actually the history of art and writing about works past and present.
So after the foundation course, I went to do a liberal arts degree, English classics and art history at university. Then I specialized in a master's in art history. And from there, I went to work in museums and galleries, including a very fancy art dealership in Mayfair, where I was responsible for selling million pound paintings to clients. And all of this has been in the book because that's where I started to realize there's so many stories in the history of art which haven't been told in artist names that people don't know.
So for every kind of Monet impressionist, there's, you know, 10 more minor impressionists who we haven't heard of. So, yeah, that kind of that's been my journey. And now I work at Sotheby's Institute of Art, where I manage the career service, giving advice to our students on master's courses about careers in the art world, helping them get jobs and internships. And then, of course, I'm doing my research and my writing on news and other books as well.
But this is what we're talking about today. It's clearly like your career and what you do cannot be confined into one box. You know, it's obviously it's related all to art, but it's so spread out into different parts of the art world. Sounds really interesting. And obviously, we're going to talk about muses and I cannot ask about your own muse. What was first of all, what or who was your muse to be interested in art so much, you know, first of all, to want to become an artist yourself and then start writing? Who was your muse or what was your muse? I'd say two things.
First of all, the landscape. And people always ask, you know, does a muse have to be a person? And I say absolutely not. If you think about the Impressionists and the great landscapes which they've painted, we all need some form of inspiration. For me, I've always loved painting the landscape and I've lived in lots of different places. I actually grew up in Bermuda and love that kind of tropical landscape, more so than the British one. And I've always been interested in different climates and locations and how who we are is kind of wrapped up in place as well.
So I'd say landscape, but also beyond that, two teachers of art. And I think credit to them really because they kind of brought out, I mean, I was already interested in art, but through their lessons, I felt this kind of freedom to express who I was. And from the start, really, we were exploring art history as part of the practical art lessons. And when I was 11, a great art teacher, we did a project with him on Picasso.
And I just spent hours and hours copying his pictures and then making my own portraits of my face in a cubist manner. And he said to me then, oh, you know, you're actually really good at drawing. And yeah, just spent more and more time in the art department, really. And, you know, I think a lot of people were saying, don't do art. It's not, you know, it's not a proper subject, not a serious subject. But I couldn't help it.
I was hooked. It's like a drug to me. I have to be, I have to do something creative every day to feel good. It sounds interesting. I didn't know, obviously, that you grew up in Bermuda, you said. It's interesting how the environment and the nature influences us in terms of where do we feel comfortable, what inspires us. You divide your book into several categories of muses that an artist can have. As you said, it doesn't have to be a person, or it can be anything, you know, that inspires you.
And the categories that you explore, just a couple of them to let our listeners know is the first one is the artist as a muse. And in that category, we find Dora Maar, also the self as a muse, in this case is Artemisia Gentileschia. My question, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit, how did you decide to divide your book? Why is it divided into the types of muses? How did you decide what to include, what to exclude? Could you tell a little bit about this? Joan Didion said it really well.
Writing fiction is like making a watercolor painting. And you see where the marks take you and you're free to express yourself. But writing nonfiction is like making a sculpture. And you chip away, you chip away, you scorch and you carve and you kind of hone your art there. So muse was kind of like this, the process of deciding which muses went in and which sections to include. And at the start, I had a long list of 60 muses, maybe more even.
There's still that working document on my laptop in case there's ever a muse too. But yeah, there were 60 who I could have written their stories, really. With some of them, I started to research and found actually, I just, I wouldn't be able to tell their story appropriately. You know, I can't, I just don't have the access. So, for example, the Taj Mahal, I was interested in the story about the woman buried there. It is a tomb for her and her story, but I just, I couldn't get enough information to tell that really truthfully.
Whereas with the ones that went in, there were enough kind of, there was original material, which I could look at, there were diaries or journals. So that kind of helped influence who went in. But also, I wanted to make sure that there were real variety of muses of different genders and races from different cultures, different periods of art history, because this concept of the muse has always been there in art history. So it really needed to span that kind of breadth of what we find in museums and galleries today.
And then I began to play around with these different sections and some, it was really obvious, you know, we absolutely have to have artists as muses, because so many artists have worked as mutual muses with others. And then this idea of the family album came to me because I thought, yeah, people are always portraying those closest to them. And, you know, it could be a friend, but I found particularly family members to kind of fit in as muses, sometimes unwillingly.
So, you know, that famous painting of a restless mother. She didn't want to be a muse, but basically the first model didn't show up for the portrait, so she sat in instead. And you can see she looked quite glum about it in the portrait. So that's, yeah, that's the evolution of the book. And I also worked closely with the editor at Penguin on deciding who came in and who we left out for perhaps another book. I hope there will be like kind of a second part sequel to this book.
You said that there are muses across cultures, that the concept of music existed across cultures. Are they different across cultures? Is an Indian artist, his or her muse different from Western artists, artist muse or the concept of being muse? And the second thing is, of course, my question is about this essential core of your book, that we treat muses as those passive beings, you know, that's a passive phenomenon. While they are very active, they play very often very active role.
Could you please explore those two areas that my readers asked a lot is that, do muses differ across cultures, the idea of muse and why do we treat it as a passive rather than active phenomenon? It is by nature, a Western concept. So the muses, we have to go back to ancient Greece. And I talk actually in the introduction about the Disney movie Hercules, because I think it's a really good example of what muses were originally, because you see in that film that they were wearing these sexy togas and dancing about dancing about singing the story of Hercules and telling telling the story and singing about it.
And it's kind of true, because at their origin, there were nine divine goddesses, they were sisters, and they were the goddesses of the art of knowledge and musicians, poets, artists, they had to invoke the muse. So the muses were these revered divine goddesses who they had this kind of power to bestow creativity and inspiration on artists and other creators. I think from there, the concept of the muse has really evolved and changed into what now we have as this kind of passive stereotype of the muse.
Just sticking within Western art history for now, you see kind of during the Renaissance, that's where we get a lot of paintings of the muses dancing around fields and forests with their dresses falling off them. And you can see then there's that shift and they've become kind of just beacons of beauty. And I think there's another shift here where it's kind of male artists, male painters saying, the kind of the power and the inspirations within me alone, and I kind of, I own the muse.
So there's a shift in the power dynamic there. So they no longer need the muse, it's just kind of become a status symbol to be able to paint a muse. Then we see in the 13th century onwards, this is when I think this is the biggest shift then. The muse becomes a real life person for artists to work with. And you will see particularly in pre-Raphaelite paintings, so now by the 19th century, artists are painting wives, sisters, partners, romantic partners, other artists.
And the muse has gone from being this kind of allegorical figure to being the real life person. So they have an intimate relationship with them in some way. And the pre-Raphaelites really played on this notion of the muse, that every artist needs a muse. And from there, then we go to modern art, and Picasso picks up this mantle. And, you know, a lot of the paintings have got the word muse in the title. And he actually said, you know, my art is shaped by my love affairs.
And he was definitely toying with this notion of having a female muse. And he's very responsible, I think, for shaping this idea that great male artists have pretty younger female muse. And from there, it's picked up by art critics and art history narratives. And then, you know, beyond that kind of popular culture, books, films, we see this notion of, you know, the fact that this muse kind of belongs to an older male great artist, and they're lucky to be inside his studio.
We see this idea really has become crystallized. In terms of other cultures, there's no concept quite like that kind of concept back in ancient Greece of the divine goddesses. But obviously, there are goddesses of the art in other cultures. None of them, I would say, are straightforward equivalent of the muse. But, you know, the art, everybody takes inspiration from other cultures. And you can see that kind of impact between and across borders now, particularly with contemporary artists.
A lot of them do actually, I think, play with notions of the muse as being Western and shaping it from their lens and their point of view. So I write a lot about Chinese artist Pixie Lau, a photographer, and she actually works with her boyfriend, Moro, who's Japanese. And the two of them are not only playing with ideas that, oh, the muse should be female, because in their case, the muse is Moro, who's male, but also notions that the muse has to be a Western person.
And they wrap, photos are fantastic, but they wrap Moro up as a sushi roll, with bedding on a bed in their apartment to kind of poke fun at notions of the muse, and the fact that it is always a young Western woman, which is not the case. But yeah, absolutely, it exists globally now, and in lots of different iterations. It's interesting that how the concept of the muse changed over the centuries, as you mentioned, you know, and when you described Renaissance muse, I had a feeling as if in during the Renaissance time, as if the concept of muse has been simplified a little bit more, like, as you described that, that they started picturing them as those dancing, tameable creatures phenomenon, I, from my perspective, I feel as if it is a simplified version of the concept of the muse, more complex.
And we imagine Renaissance period, that, you know, it's kind of the opposite way that when everything got more interesting, more complicated, when, from what you described, it kind of got more simple. Yeah, I think they lost kind of their individual characteristics. So in paintings of the muses, you see, they all just look quite similar, you know, nine very attractive women with long flowery dresses with hair, you know, the hair floating about in the wind stamping in the spring time, as opposed to if you go back to ancient art, you could find, you know, even on temples, sculptures and friezes of the muses, and each of them are holding different instruments.
So for example, Cleo Muse of History, you will always find her with the scroll in her hands, showing, yes, she's recording history, and that's what she's known for. So if you go back, you can easily identify actually all of the different muses by the objects that they come with. And that's, that's why I had to write about Artemisia Gentileschi, because she plays with this symbolism of the muse in a lot of her paintings, including Cleo Muse of History, she does a painting on that title of the subject.
Since we mentioned Artemisia so many times, for our listeners who might not be familiar with her and her art, why did you include her in your book? Why is she important, if you could tell her story? There were lots of women artists who I was kind of weighing up whose story should I tell in this section on an artist taking themselves as their own muse. So many great examples, but for me, Artemisia Gentileschi does it the best.
And in the Renaissance, there was this saying that every great artist paints himself. And you can see the problem with that phrase. But at this point in history, small handheld mirrors have become available. So a lot of artists did begin to paint themselves at work in their studios showing, oh, you know, I have a great painter here. This is where the mystery happens. Look at me. I'm an artist and also my own muse. And Artemisia Gentileschi, she's kind of taking on all these male painters showing themselves as great creators in studios.
She's saying, well, yes, I'm a woman and I can do this too. But she does it in a very clever way because she's not simply kind of emulating what they're doing, but she's kind of playing with tools and symbolism and allegory of the muse because she's well aware that the muse is seen as female and that an artist is seen as male. So she's kind of blending all this symbolism together. So a good example of this is she's made a painting of herself as the allegory of painting.
So at this point, there was a kind of famous handbook, which has lots of different symbols. So there's lots of different allegories, like the allegory of music or the allegory of painting. And painting was always seen in the form of a woman with dark brown hair, long, flowing, she wore a gold chain around her neck. So in her painting, Artemisia Gentileschi is showing herself as this allegory of painting because she can be because she's a woman, but she's also showing herself, you know, in her own studio, really hard at work.
And I love the depiction of this allegory of painting because a lot of men have painted this same allegory as a kind of sexy woman lounging around on a bed, like kind of holding a palette in one hand, but obviously they're not using it to make a painting. They're just there for decoration. Artemisia Gentileschi's version, she is leaning forward towards that canvas. You can almost see sweat on her brow and she's showing this is hard work.
Being a painter is really difficult. And particularly for a young woman like herself, because at that point she couldn't attend any formal academy for training. And as is the case of many women artists, they only made it because, you know, someone in the family would teach them. So in her case, her father was a great painter and he taught her how to paint. And a really important point about her story, I mean, she overcame these kind of really practical odds as a young woman not being able to access academies.
But then her father brought in one of his friends to teach her painting as well. And this man raped her. And so she also had to go through such trauma. And I think after this has happened, you see in her paintings, this real shift, where there's a lot of violence towards men. And, you know, she's cutting off the head of John the Baptist and serving up for the platter. And she's taking all these biblical subjects where normally women are kind of passively watching on.
But actually, in her versions, they're very active heroism. And for me, I think you can see in these paintings, this kind of reclaiming of her power and her agency. And, you know, I think that's also important that she was portraying herself and using herself as her own model for a lot of these paintings as well. So I think her story is one of absolute survival against the odds, really. And all the paintings that you mentioned here will be included on your page.
So they can go and look at the artworks that you mentioned. What I liked about your description of Artemisia Gentileschi is that it shows that while other artists were very driven by their ego, her muse was more pure. It was a true expression of the truth that she sees. There was no this showing off, not taking the ability to be an artist for granted that many other male artists didn't have to struggle with. I found her story to be very inspiring.
You also mentioned Picasso's inspiration, Dora Maar. She falls into the category of her being an artist herself, and inspiring Picasso. And you focus the chapter on famous Guernica painting. I didn't know, I read, I cannot say that I read a lot about that painting. I'm not an art historian, but I knew about this painting, explored it, but I didn't know her role that she played in making that epic kind of painting that up till today shocks the viewers when you see it.
What was Dora Maar's contribution to famous Guernica to our listeners who might not know about because I didn't know about? And how is it possible to miss such a key person who plays such a role in the painting? How is it possible? I just couldn't believe it. I think in art history, we all love this idea of genius and the one talented person, but most artworks are created in collaboration in some way, or they're based on having a great teacher or great influences, practical help.
I was just hearing recently about Marcus Rashford, the footballer, and how when he was little, his mum took him on the bus to football training. This took hours out of her day. She took him to football training every day. Without his mum, he would not be the footballer he is today. But we don't hear her story or hear her name. We just see, you know, this one kind of superstar on the field. But, you know, behind all of these great stars, they've needed other people.
And the same is there for Picasso. And I think, you know, he was great at kind of branding himself as solo genius. And he made lots of paintings of himself in his studio, kind of showing this is where the magic happens. And I think he was also responsible for kind of writing out the contributions of lots of women, and particularly Flora Marth. And I knew that she'd had an influence on his style. But when I started digging around in her story, I couldn't believe actually how much impact she had on not just his style, but also his subject matter.
So for your listeners, they met in Paris in 1935 in a small cafe. A lot of narrators always say that, you know, the muse wants to be found. And, you know, they were plucked out of obscurity by this great artist. In fact, with Flora Marth, she wanted to meet Picasso. At this point, she was a young artist, really talented. She was part of the Surrealist movement. She was considered a rising star in that group. She was exhibiting with them.
She was also a fashion photographer and had her own studio and was commercially really successful, working on really big campaigns for big brands in the city. And she put herself kind of in the way of Picasso and at this cafe they met. And then that's when they started this both personal and artistic relationship. And you see after they met that Dora Marsh, she introduces Picasso to photography and she starts to teach him black and white photography in her studio.
And there's portraits they've made of each other at this point. So Picasso also becomes her muse. And you can see the influence of black and white photography clearly on Picasso's paintings because he leaves behind, you know, beautiful bright palette, which he used in the years before and moves towards the monochrome imagery, including in Guernica, which is in black and white. And you can also see at the top of that mural, a light bulb, which is just like the one in Dora Marsh's own photography studio.
But with this painting, I think more important is the fact that Dora Marsh introduced Picasso to her politics. And she, which was really rare at this time for a woman, she was heavily involved in ultra left-wing groups. She was really anti-war in her stance. And she was getting involved in theatre performances. She was volunteering to look after the phone lines for the group. And when it came to Picasso painting Guernica, which is an anti-war painting, she found him, the studio big enough for him to paint it in, which was the former headquarters of one of these political groups she was a member of.
And really, you know, she introduced him to her politics. She found him the space to paint the mural. She helped him paint sections of it, including one of the horses. And then also he asked her, please, can you photograph me making this? So he invited her to do that. So she was really instrumental in the subject, the style, the practical making of it. And yet, yeah, we all know it as Picasso's great mural, and her contributions have been downplayed there.
It just fascinates me how that part of the story could be so missed out. I've read in Simon Schama's book, I think, called The Power of Art, he mentions a story that when the United States was announcing the invasion of Iraq in 2003, they had to do it in one of the United Nations buildings. And I think that a copy of Guernica is there. And when Colin Powell, I think he was US Secretary of State or something, was about to announce the invasion, the Guernica was behind him.
And they had to remove the painting from away because obviously, it was such an ironic thing, you know, to have an anti-war painting behind Colin Powell when he's announcing that, you know, that Iraq has nuclear weapons and stuff like that we need to. And I found this story like a real power of art, you know, that even across decades, over a century, it still has such a power. Yeah, well, that's the thing about these great works of art, that they, the message still carries today.
And I think, to me, one of the big problems with the muse is that we always see, particularly the women through their romantic relationships, you know, they were the lover of this artist and see them just through that lens of the really personal, but with Zora Marks, she was really a political person. And we need to see her as a whole figure, as an artist, as a political being, and as a romantic partner of Picasso. There's the mix there.
And it was when I was looking at the portrait of her, The Weeping Woman, which I'm sure many of you listeners will know, it's a portrait of the woman, made the same year as Guernica, of she's crying, and she's crying and there's glass coming out of her tears. It's a really kind of hard image to look at. And this picture is held up as a reflection of their relationship and Picasso treating Zora Mark badly, and she's always crying over him.
But if you look closely in her eyes, in this portrait, there are warplanes instead of her black pupils. So again, it's showing actually her grief here is about what's happening, you know, with the body of Guernica and war in Europe. I think that, you know, there's often more symbols and hidden messages in these pictures for us to find. I hope you enjoy listening to my interview with Ruth Millington. Before we'll continue, I would like to let you know that you can send your own questions to the future guests by sending me a direct message on Instagram or by replying to my newsletter.
I would like to thank everyone who sent their questions for this interview. Those of you who are not yet subscribed to my newsletter, or don't follow me on Instagram, I will leave a link to both of them in case if you would like to join Artidote's book community. Now let's get back to my interview with Ruth Millington. Of course, I cannot not ask you about Frida Kahlo here because her story is also incredible. I think like the pain that she's gone through, you know, and how she found inspiration in pain, it's such a strange to say, but it's such an inspiring story, you know, like overcoming.
Could you please tell a little bit about her muse and why her muse is also unique? Yeah, so the Frida Kahlo chapter, I was really looking forward to writing it. I mean, she had to go in because she's such an iconic artist who's taken herself as her own muse. But it took me the longest to research and to write because in a way there was so much material there, but also there's so many kind of fictional narratives around Frida Kahlo.
Call it Frida-mania, we see her face everywhere. And she's held up as this icon of fashion. And, you know, she was obviously celebrating in these portraits of herself, you know, or deconstructing notions of gender. She would, you know, paint that monobrow, which we all know is really famous now. And the images of her cutting off her hair as well, with short hair, and, you know, playing with Mexican dress and fashion. But the more I researched her, the more I realised, actually, there's another story here.
And I think there's something even more important than this going on in her works of art. And it actually goes right back to the fact that she originally wanted to be a doctor. And she was one of the first girls to be at medical school. And then it was just on her way back from this school that she was involved in this horrific crash between a bus and a tram, which left her in bed for a year.
And this is the point at which, what was she going to do? She couldn't go to medical school anymore. And she knew, right, my hopes of being a doctor are over now. And she used a mirror, which her parents bought for her, to start painting portraits of herself. And you can see in these early portraits, she's beginning to find some kind of relief in painting herself. You can see she's using art as a form of therapy.
Before that's even a term that people are using, and it's not, you know, a method that doctors used at the time. And she's also bringing in lots of medical imagery as well. And once you understand this, you can see it in all of her portraits. She's often puncturing her skin. So the famous portrait, The Broken Column, it shows this kind of neck and back brace, which she had to wear. And she had many operations on her back after this horrific accident.
But there's also nails going into her skin in this portrait. And you can see it's like she's trying to release the pain, but she's also trying to work out, you know, physically as well as emotionally, what's happening to me here and how can I exercise these feelings. So for me, I thought, oh, she's kind of trying to act as her own doctor in these portraits, and trying to understand what's happening, trying to heal herself. And there's a really great portrait, lesser known, but you can find it online.
And I'd say all the works of art that I discuss in the book, you can easily find reproductions of them. And it's Frida Kahlo with the doctor Farrell, who operated on her many times. And they're stood side by side while he stood and she sat in a wheelchair. And she's got on an eagle with this portrait of him. And then she sat in the wheelchair with her palace in one hand, but her palace is actually made up of her own heart and kind of veins and blood.
So you can see she's playing with this medical imagery showing that, yes, he is the formal doctor, but she's also acting as this kind of artist doctor to, you know, represent herself. But also, I think more than that, she was trying to find some kind of comfort and release both her physical and her emotional pain. And I was reading that she underwent quite a few different psychological tests. And she definitely had some severe mental health problems beyond kind of what happened in the accident.
But again, at that point, they just weren't being treated or they weren't understood. So again, in her paintings and also in her diaries, you can find out there a reproduction of her diaries. She's really just kind of expressing herself and using art in this way. So, so many layers in her paintings, you can see why it took me a long time to really focus on one narrative in this chapter, because there's so much happening in her works of art.
Do you think that she had multiple muses? I think she was her own muse. I think Mexico was kind of her muse as well. She definitely, she liked to be the muse of others as well. And, you know, she would sit with photographers, allowing them to construct for the surface this identity of her as, you know, the fashion breeder. But then below the surface, I think, you know, she felt kind of trapped. I think for her, it wasn't wanting to take herself as her own muse, but needing to.
There's a necessity there. Would you say that this chapter was the hardest for you to write or were there other challenging ones? This was one of the hardest ones to write, yes. And another chapter actually that didn't make it into the book was really difficult to write. I wrote about an American painter, Mickalene Thomas, and her relationship with her mother, who she was estranged from for many years. But through this project, the photography project in which her mom became a model for her, they began to talk again and heal their relationship.
And it brought them really close together. And they ended up making a film about the artist's mum. The artist, Mickalene Thomas, was really happy with the text to go in the book. But she said, because her mum had just passed away, she didn't want another artist illustrating her mother. She wanted to kind of control that imagery. And so I had to respect her wishes there. And, you know, I spoke to the publisher. We could have included the text and an image in the book legally, but it felt morally wrong.
And the book's all about respecting the wishes of the muses and telling their story fairly. So that chapter, yeah, it was a really emotional one to write. I went on quite a journey. And I'd say with each of the muses, actually, I felt like I kind of lived in their world for that month while I was researching and writing about them. And then I really needed a little bit of a break before heading into the next one, because it was like trying to understand from their point of view what their role was.
So, yeah, it was a shame that one didn't make it into the book, because it was a tricky one to write. But I'm sure the material will be used at another point. How long did it take you to write this book? It's kind of a hard one to answer. I'd say about two years. Research for that was going on before I started writing the book. And that all went into the proposal. And if anybody interested in pitching to a publisher, it took nine months from me sending in my initial submission to then getting an offer to write the book.
And during that time, I went through various rounds of pitching and I had to write sample chapters and an introduction. I had to write the conclusion in that time. I had to write a synopsis for all of the other chapters. So I'd say even in that nine months, that was also writing the writing of the book. So it was, yeah, many, many years of research and writing went into it. Sounds really interesting how that works. You know, how do you write the chapter proposals? And was there any difference between writing about artists who lived in the past, in contrast to writing and describing muses of the artists such as Beyoncé? What was it like? Did you contact the artists to contact Beyoncé to ask her experience of becoming a mother and how it influenced her? Or how did it work with artists like that? So I actually, my specialism is in modelling and contemporary art.
And I particularly enjoyed writing the chapters on these contemporary figures, because also I felt like that, you know, that's up to today in this concept of the muse, you can see it's still shifting and evolving. So great to kind of get into that debate as well. I mean, Beyoncé, no chance of her responding, but with some of the other contemporary artists and muses, I would say with most of them, I did do interviews, and I absolutely love that.
So for example, one of Lucian Freud's most famous muses, Sue Tilly, who she's supervisor sleeping, she's the woman sleeping on the sofa in his studio. She gave a great interview about her relationship with Freud and how she was actually working as a job centre supervisor at the time and going from this day job, quite a hectic day job, to his studio in the evenings. And she was so tired that she naturally just fell asleep on his wooden floorboards in the studio.
And she said to him, listen Lucian, I'm pretty tired, and not very comfortable on your floor. What can you do about it? So he went out and bought her this secondhand, really comfortable sofa. And that's how we have these images of her now sleeping on the sofa. And she was also saying that she's been to some of these collectors' houses or yachts to see where these paintings are now. And in one of them, it was a very beautiful mansion in North London.
She went round and they hung the portrait of her opposite the TV. And she said, I love that. I'm just lounging around watching TV all day. I mean, she was just a brilliant character to interview and she was really generous and open. But I interviewed artists as well. The fashion photographer, Tim Walker, he told me all about going to Mexico with Tilda Swinson for two weeks, where they did a photo shoot. And he was really eloquent in speaking about how for him, there's a difference between a model and, you know, anybody can be a model and come to a set and be told what to do, and a muse who brings something to the photo shoot and will, what he says, meet him halfway in that portrait.
And he says he refers to it as a handshake between the artist and the muse, where they're both sharing something and coming together in this collaboration. So, I mean, it was such a privilege to be able to interview him. How did he describe that middle way of meeting in a halfway? How does he feel that what differentiates for him a model and the muse? How would he describe that article? How does he feel that somebody is a muse, not just a model? Yeah, well, he gave a really specific example, because I was looking at all these photographs of Tilda Swinson in Mexico for a series called Stranger Than Paradise.
And they shot this series in a, what was a surrealist estate of Edward James. And Edward James, he funded many of the great surrealists, including Dali. So it was, actually, this is a good story to go off tangent, but Dali and Edward James, they were in a hotel room together, and they were sipping champagne eating lobster. And basically Edward James flung one of the lobster claws across the room and it landed on top of the telephones in the hotel room.
And voila, there we have the artwork, which then Dali turned into one of his most famous surrealist objects. So Edward James was really at the heart of the surrealist movement. And he created this incredible estate in the Mexican jungle, which you can visit today. And this kind of staircase is going into the sky and murals all over the place. And Tilda Swinson, she is interested in surrealist art. So in terms of their collaboration, the collaboration between her and Tim Walker, he said she's the one who came up with the concept and the idea to recreate some of these surrealist characters from the murals around the estate.
And they worked closely together on kind of storyboarding and concepts and what kind of outfits were she going to wear. So the vision for the whole photoshoot also came from Tilda Swinson. And then he also talks about the fact that she's an actress and she brings that presence and that understanding of how to perform to the photoshoots. So he'll say, you know, I want you to, you know, stand over here, you know, the light here is great.
But then he said, you know, she would always bring something to it. She'll bring, he says, particularly timing, she'd be great if she could step into that, into the space, into the role and just kind of instinctively knew how to perform for the camera. And he said, you know, they had also just a fantastic time making the series together. Sounds like a really surreal two weeks. It sounds so interesting. It's just like sometimes you want, you wish you could be the fly on the wall just to see everything.
Definitely. Especially that, yeah, those two weeks in this jungle. I don't know what they got up to, but it sounds fantastic. Since you've written about and described the life of so many muses, if an artist would have asked you, like, what are your key takeaways of how to find muses, how to meet muses, how to start a relationship with your muse, what kind of things you've noticed when you were writing this book, what kind of advice would you give to an artist of embracing the muse, like Frida Kahlo embraced her pain and, or as Tilda Swinton wasn't just, you know, a model, she was collaborating with a photographer.
So what would be your advice to an artist, like how to build a relationship with the muse? The relationships throughout the book, they're also varied. There's no one model for it, but if there's something that is the constant is that there was, there was a kind of integrity to each of the relationships and meaning. And it's something that I tell my students at Sotheby's Institute as well, in terms of networking with people where you can't just, you can't just pick up a person and then expect them to help you out.
You need to share some visions and values and better to network with meaning and with fewer people, but really to build a connection. And for me, I always meet the greatest people who've become friends at events, you know, like a book launch or a gallery opening or something where I've gone because I'm interested in that. And then the people I meet there are going to be like minded. So we're going to share some interest or maybe some political view that's the same from the start.
So for me, it's all about that connection, connection to another person. And I don't think you can manufacture that. And also these relationships can be instant or they can take time to develop. And, you know, I've met people sometimes 10 years ago who I ended up working on a project with down the line. You never know when someone who, you know, you've had a meeting with or maybe sat on a panel with, can become more. So I think just being open to that and also not wanting to rush everything.
I feel like in our society now, everything has to be instantaneous and we have to be creating content, social media, but actually some of these great works of art took many, many years to develop and to give things and people time and space to naturally evolve. I don't think it's something that can be forced. How do you think that all this ephemeral, instantaneous things, how do you think it affects modern artists? Do you think being able to connect to so many people is of benefit or of not? Do you think social media is a bad influence, let's say, on an artist or the other way around? I think it's good and bad.
I mean, in terms of my writing, I feel that pressures have been posting constantly and everybody's asking me, what are you doing next? And what's your next project? Which, you know, we need space to create good things. I do see a lot of artists creating works just for Instagram to sit in the square, which, you know, may be seen online, as opposed to in reality, a painting, a sculpture, a 3D object. I also see trends on social media towards being really consistent and just doing the same thing over and over again to kind of fit with the brand, which, you know, it works in one respect, but then, you know, beginning a gallery to represent you, maybe not necessarily.
I think there's a lot of pressure on all of us. I feel it's true to be a content creator, to be a brand. But then beyond that, you know, I need weeks and weeks of sitting in a library to do the real research in the book to create that quality work and to create work that will stand up to the test of time. You know, there's one thing to have instant success on social media, but I think we should all be trying to create things that will last beyond us.
Isn't that what great art is? It would stand up in a museum or you'd find the book in a library in decades to come. So I think it's hard because social media makes you feel like you have to chase that instant gratification, that rationale. But there's also a longer game there, which I think we should all be playing. And we should try and act with a bit more integrity and make sure that the social media is, you know, working for us.
We're not working for it. That it enhances our experience rather than kind of replaces, you know. Do you think the artists that we described could have survived and could have created the masterpieces that they did if they were living in our instantaneous world? I feel like Frida Kahlo would have absolutely thrived on Instagram. That's what I thought actually, what I wanted you to say. I feel like some, yeah, some would have absolutely hated it because also, you know, so many, so many artists and muses were private and wouldn't have wanted to share everything.
And there's something personal going on there. I think it's the same for all of us, though, you know, you become adapted to the environment you're in. We've all become used to social media now, I think. Yeah, you, you exist in a culture you're born into. So I don't know, it's interesting to think about it. But yeah, definitely Frida Kahlo would have been loving it. She would be a star on Instagram. Towards the end of my interviews, I always ask my guests to recommend a couple of books that they think that our listeners and our readers would like.
Are there any, usually it's three, but you can choose as many as you want. Even my previous guests chose like six or seven books. Are there any books on art or something that inspired you that you would like to share? There's a really great curator, an art historian called Denise Murrell. And she has curated exhibitions on black models and written about them being erased from art history. Because we always think, if we look at the Pre-Raphaelites, we were thinking about Elizabeth Fiddle and young white women with auburn hair as being the face of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
But actually, Fanny Eaton's Jamaican born model was just as important to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. So she's written a book on black models in art history. I can't remember the exact title. It's a really beautiful book. It's coloured plates throughout. It's a big coffee table book. But if you look up Denise Murrell, Black Models in Art History, it will come up. And I love that book so much. Then there's a really good book, the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, based on an exhibition at the National Gallery, which writes about the Pre-Raphaelite women, not just as muses and models, but also as makers, as artists.
So the wife of William Morris, Jane Morris, she was an embroiderer. We see her in lots of portraits, but also she was making art as well. So that's a fantastic book. Is that by the same author or it's a different author? Different author. There's a few authors involved in that one because it's an exhibition catalogue. But yeah, National Gallery, Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. And then I mean, to quote an absolute staple in my library, Lyndon O'Kliff, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Classic.
Talking about, you know, all the issues that women artists have faced, including Artemisia Gentileschi. There's your three. That's great. For our listeners, everything that we've mentioned during this episode will be on Ruth Millington's page on my podcast, if you can find it in the description. Where can our listeners find you? Is it Instagram? Is it Twitter? Website? Where should they go? Well, Twitter's still standing. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram. I've got a blog. I mean, just search for Ruth Millington on Twitter and Instagram.
And my blog is ruthmillington.com. Or you can find me hopping around the galleries in London to go to private views and having a glass of wine and meeting lots of lovely people. That's great. Is there anything that you wanted me to ask, but I didn't? And like, you think that this bloody interviewer didn't ask that question that I was expecting? Well, normally I'm asked at the end by someone in the audience, can an animal be abused? So what I would say is, yes, absolutely.
We deserve this now. You know, artists have had really strange pets throughout history. David Hockney with his sausage dog. So if you want to look up a funny picture, look up David Hockney's sausage dog. There's some really cute pictures of his dogs at home in a basket. Thank you so much for coming to my podcast. I could have talked with you for another two or three hours, but thank you so much. I wish you all the best with the future projects.
I hope social media won't rush you a lot. You know, the deadlines will allow you to, you know, take your time and do your research as much as you want. Thank you once again for coming to my podcast. Oh, thanks for having me. And greetings. Have a nice holiday. Thank you. Thanks a lot. I hope you enjoyed listening to my interview with Ruth Millington. You can find the link to her book in the description of this episode.
I think it is one of those books that you need to have and hold in your hands. I think the ebook version doesn't give you the full appreciation of wonderful illustrations and wonderful design and generally the whole experience of the book. So I would really recommend you to get the hard copy of this book. I would also like to mention that Ruth has a great website where she posts her pieces on art history. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Everything will be included in the description of this episode. One last thing that I would like to ask you, it's actually a very small favor. The fact that you listened this part of the episode means that you've actually enjoyed this podcast. And if you did, I would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts, whichever platform you use. It will help my work immensely and it will help more people to discover Artidot Podcast.
Once again, thank you all for sending your questions and I'll see you in the next episode. This was Vasek Armanikus and Artidot Podcast. you
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