Wednesday 24th December - After the Dance

 Here we are at the finale of Blogvent for 2025! Goodness, what a month, with so many beautiful paintings of women reading.  It was never in doubt what painting I was going to choose for my final one as it is definitely one of my favourites and also how I wish to be, most of the time...

After the Dance (1899) Ramon Casas

Also known as Decadent Young Woman, here we see a languid lass in a state of collapse after a party.  She has taken to her couch with a copy of a yellow book as her reading matter.  We are all aware the significance of that I'm sure...

Obviously, by 1899, the significance of a yellow book was heavily weighted to debauchery, decadence and damn-right naughtiness. The Yellow Book, seen above, lasted only for three years, which is somehow fitting, dissolving in a puddle of its own debauchery in 1897. As a side note, when Sainsbury's made yellow t-shirts a few years ago, I did the only sensible thing...

I can't be trusted with an embroidery needle, obviously.

Going back to our collapsed lass, she probably isn't holding the Yellow Book, but a yellow book, which denoted French literature of a scandalous nature.  Mrs Cheveley in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband says she never reads blue books, but prefers yellow, telling you that she is absolutely no better than she should be.

Colour in After the Dance is very important, which is exactly why it featured in the Ashmolean exhibition on colour in 2023 (which was absolutely gorgeous). From the sage green of the sofa to her midnight blue dress and her red hair and lips, there are a lot of colour cues that both contrast and combine for a decadent effect. Yellow and sage green are definitely decadent colours, the latter being referenced in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (not their best work and mercifully least remembered as Pirates or Pinafore are far less offensive) with 'greenery-yallery' referring to the aesthetic movement. Mind you, this isn't the only version of this image...

Do you know, I hadn't realised she had the big bow around her neck in the original and I rather like this poster for Pèl & Ploma, the Catalan artistic and literary magazine which ran from 1899 to 1903. Here our supine lass has not been out dancing, but has fallen over because of the amount of art and writing she has been doing, hence the quill and brush in her hand (and in the title). maybe this is just how this woman ends every day, by collapsing on her rather lovely couch? To be honest, I feel the same.

Between Two Chapters (c.1890)

I must admit that I was only really aware of the decadent girl, but Casas created some beautiful works and I'd like to see more. For contrast, his girl pausing her reading in the pale room couldn't be less decadent if she tried.  She is sat up straight and neat, tidily against a wall, thinking about what she has read. Is she between two parts of her life? Is she considering a change, a marriage, an unthinkable divorce? She is existing in pale domestic calm but something is happening in that stillness.

Woman in Thought (1900)

I think it would be a mistake to think the decadent young woman is frivolous and silly, just because she is sprawled out on her sofa.  To give him his due, the women who populate a lot of Casas's canvases seem intellectual as well as beautiful.  Although we don't know who the decadent young woman was (presumed to be a professional model) I think she is the same woman as in Woman in Thought (1900).  Strangely (or perhaps not strangely), Casas's main muse, Julia Peraire, looks an awful lot like these auburn haired beauties...

La Sargantain (Julia Peraire) (1907)

Julia sold lottery tickets and/or flowers on the Plaza de Cataluña and met Casas in around 1905/6, at la Maison Dorée in Barcelona, a luxurious cafe-restaurant which had opened around 1903. They became a celebrity couple, with Julia appearing in many of his famous paintings.  She was 18 and he was 40 (ouch) and his family were not impressed, so the couple lived together for many years before getting married in 1922.

Turning back to my final painting, I wanted to finish with this image as, unlike the other pictures of women we have seen this month, I don't feel there is any judgement on her from Casas. This woman, although decadent, has every right to flop about in her gorgeous dress and her yellow book as that is her artistic right. As she also served as the poster girl for Pèl & Ploma, this is what being decadent looked like.  Now, I know there is a conversation to be had about agency of women, especially models, within art movements, but in Casas's images of his decadent women, you feel there is an appreciation rather than any mocking.

Have a really splendid Christmas and may you also collapse on a sofa with a great book.  Thank you for your company for another year and I will catch up with you again in 2026.