This works on so many levels.  Trust me.

      

 

      John Singer Sargent.  The Wyndham Sisters [Three Graces].  Detail.  New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I once tried explaining to a group of ten-year-old girls on a school trip why this painting was so important, that the pretty one in the middle was to become Lady Glenconner, the mother of Stephen Tennant who, having been a Bright Young Thing in 20s London and photographed by Cecil Beaton, would spend the remainder of his eccentric life in his parent's house in Wilshire surrounded by artistic decay, the loss of his own beauty and a profusion of sea shells [see previous post on Wilsford Manor].  I was trying to impress upon my students the responsibility they would have as future wives and mothers and hostesses in society, that their choices had consequences and could lead to great art and beauty as easily as madness, but I fear my words may have fallen on deaf ears.  Plus as I said they were ten years old.

Well, how timely my memory can be, because of a recent message from Didier!  Choices, Photography, Celebrity, Society ... they all converge in my poor dear young friend's life, as all of a sudden Life imitates Art which is working hard to keep up with the Past which has a way of coming back to Haunt.

It begins innocently enough (what doesn't?) a couple years ago, ostensibly in exchange for some very good recreational drugs and a fun-filled weekend, when a certain handsome and talented (but now unmasked as unscrupulous) photographer persuaded D. to pose for an "artistic" photo session.  Ah, youth!  Flattered, with clarity of mind compromised, D. acquiesced... and disrobed.  Fast Forward to St. Tropez [see also previous posts] -- a place known to be sophisticated but also chic, which is to say fickle, unforgiving, potentially cruel -- now imagine an unsuspecting D and his older traveling companion on the deck of a yacht moored off the coast, the sun glinting off the Mediterranean (and D's oiled, tanned form), the champagne flowing, when without warning the (so-called) friends of D's companion begin making sly, oblique references to a certain current issue of a European 'gay' periodical and the model on the cover of said issue which is gracing the racks of the local 'magazin'... and you can guess where this story is going.

Now, first of all, I know plenty of people who'd be thrilled to have this much exposure, as I told D., but I live on the west coast -- we tossed Modesty off the back of the wagon to lighten the load going over the Rockies.  Regardless of where you live, however, I think if you saw the cover shot (not to mention the interior spread and fold-out) you'd agree that to look this good with no clothes is nothing to be ashamed of, even if it means being seen by millions of people around the world, particularly those frequenting newsstands in the south of France, Paris, New York and L.A., and basically any place where they don't insist on a black wrapper [eg., Euclid, Ohio].  You and I, of course, are used to being objectified (been there, done that, right?) but in certain circles not everyone is so enlightened; there are the mean shallow jealous types who would try to make poor Didier feel uncomfortable for his youthful indiscretion, thereby driving a wedge between him and his current benefactor friend. 

However, as Justin said when we discussed the matter, Didier will simply have to turn this 'scandal' to his advantage, as we have seen so many people do, and rise above the fray, as it were.  I'm not sure how, but Justin insists it will be without any help from me, which I think is a little harsh, (my darling!), but in any event, I will follow the situation closely as it unfolds.

Did you know the bios they print of the models to accompany the photos are sometimes fraudulent, with false names and everything?  True story.  Don't believe everything you read.

Meanwhile, could it be more pertinent that we've been remarking on the world of photography and high society?  Doesn't the young Mrs. Tennant (nee Wyndham, Lady Glenconner in 1911 when her husband inherited the title) -- doesn't she seem to look back at you with a hint of something else now, something more than just, "I am confident, I am beautiful, I have married very well and I adore being looked at"? 

Coincidentally, it's a pose not dissimilar to the one struck by young Didier on the cover of _________.  Perhaps that's what makes the image so compelling, so endowed with meaning, so haunted by things to come.

Or perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.