Model & Muse - Misia Godebska Natanson Sert 1872-1950

Misia Godebska Sert (1872-1950) became a muse in Paris from an early age and maintained her influence for over 50 years.  Although she played the piano, she did not directly create anything; but she was an inspiration for a wide variety of other artists.

Photo by Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson

It is said that early in her life, the beautiful Misia took husbands rather than lovers & became a rich woman.

Photo by Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson

Admirers who couldn’t paint wrote poems & music dedicated to her.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in His Studio with Misia Natanson

Misia became muse to Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Vuillard, Renoir, Diaghilev, Cocteau, & Vallaton.

Photo by Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Misia and Thadee Natanson

Masia Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska was born on 30 March 1872 to Sophie Servais & Cyprien Godebski.

Photo by Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1897

She was born in Russia just outside of St. Petersburg, where her father, a sculptor, was engaged in reconstruction of the palace.

Photo by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson et Edwards assis sur le pont 1906

Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her.

Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1899

The motherless baby was called Misia, a Polish diminutive of the name Maria.

Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

She lived with her maternal grandmother & other relatives as a child, while her father was busy with a new wife.

Photo by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Mme Eugène Bonnard, Misia, et Ida Godebska en 1900

As a child, Misia was a talented pianist & pupil of Gabriël Fauré, who called her a prodigy.

Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

When she was 8, she joined her father and stepmother in Paris in 1880.  Even before she reached Paris, she was accustomed to associating with artists & musicians. When she was only seven, Misia sat on the lap of the great Liszt at the home of her grandmother near Brussels & played him a Beethoven bagatelle. "Ah, if only 1 could still play like that." the old man sighed.

Misia ran away from her harsh step-mother (a marquise, a dipso-maniac, whose breakfast included bread soaked in chartreuse) at the age of 12, and Faure, her early teacher & a great composer, helped her to set up as a music teacher.

When she was 14, the poet Mallarme wrote poems for her on her fan, and Debussy played to her from the score of "Pelleas and Melisande" on which he was working.

At 15, Ibsen took her to a dress rehearsal of his masterpiece "The Master Builder."

Photo by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert 1906

In 1893, she married Tadeusz Natanson, a Polish émigré to Paris, a politician & journalist, when she was 21, although later she lied about her age & claimed to have been married at 15.

Coco Chanel and Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

The newlyweds enjoyed access to the highest creative circles in Paris. Artists visited their home & were commissioned to create art for it.

Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

The high cost of entertaining and enjoying the high life took its toll.

Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

When her husband, editor of La Revue blanche magazine, was on the brink of bankruptcy, the newspaper magnate Alfred Edwards saved him, on condition that he surrender his wife to him.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson

Misia began living with Alfred Edwards in 1903. She lived with Edwards, until he fell in love with another woman.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert 1900

Around that time she started hosting a more formal literary-artistic salon in Paris.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1895

She acquired considerable influence in Parisian musical & artistic circles.

Félix Vallotton. (1865 - 1925). Misia at Her Dressing Table 1898

Stéphane Mallarmé, Claude Debussy, as well as painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, and Pierre Bonnard were among her guests.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1910

She was a confidante of Pablo Picasso & Jean Cocteau.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert

She became an early patron of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Model Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1895

Misia's third marriage was to the Spanish painter Jose Maria Sert (1876-1945).

Félix Vallotton. (1865 - 1925). Misa a son bureau

She loved Sert so much, that she let him leave her; when he fell in love with another woman, Roussadana Mdivani.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1897

When the “other woman” died, Sert returned to Misia.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson Sert 1904

Misia was painted many times by her artist friends.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Model Madame Misia Godebska Natanson

She became close friends with designer Coco Chanel.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) Madame Misia Godebska Natanson 1897

Proust immortalized her in 'Remembrance of Things Past' as his Princess Yourbeletieff. Ravel dedicated "Le Cygne" (The Swan) in Histoires naturelles, & La Valse (The Waltz) to her. To gain access to the Ballets Russes, a young Jean Cocteau became her protege and made her the heroine Princess de Bormes in his novel Thomas l'imposteur.  In the end, Misia seems to survive only in the work of others.

Jesus as Gardener - The Risen Christ Reveals Himself to Mary

1368-70, Probably by Jacopo di Cione(c 1325-after 1390) an Italian painter in the Republic of Florence. Resurrection Noli me tangere.   Jesus holds a hoe.

The Gospel of John 20:1-13 (NIV) contains a narrative of an empty garden tomb including the appearance of Jesus: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb & saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter & the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, & said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, & we don't know where they have put him!" 

So Peter & the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter & reached the tomb first. He bent over & looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived & went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw & believed. 

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb & saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head & the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "& I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around & saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, & I will get him."  Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him & cried out, "Rabboni!" ("Teacher"). Jesus said, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, & say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, & your Father; & to my God, & your God." 

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

13C Fresco - in Lower Basilica in Assisi Noli Me Tangere

Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 - 1337). Resurrection Noli me tangere - on North wall of Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua. 1305-1306

1460 The Meister des Göttinger Barfüßeraltars Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel. The wattle fenced flowery mead follows Boccaccio's model.

Fra Angelico, Noli Me Tangere 1440-42 Jesus and Mary Magdalene in a walled Garden

1460-90s Master of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (German; 1460 - 1470; fl. c.) Christ appearing as a gardener to St Mary Magdalene within a garden with wattle fencing. Jesus holds a shovel.

1469 Noli me tangere in Prayer Book of Charles the Bold, Lieven van Lathem. J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 37, fol. 46v. Jesus holds a shovel in a wattle-fenced mead.

Martin Schongauer German, c. 1450-1491. Noli me tangere. Here Jesus holds a staff but the garden is surrounded by a wattle fence.

1473 Martin Schongauer (1450–1491) Noli Me Tangere. This garden appears to be enclosed with a wattle fence, and roses grow in the background. Birds perch in the trees.

c 1500 Perugino, Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci 1445-1523) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Here Jesus holds a garden tool. Art Institute of Chicago

1506 Fra Bartolomeo (1472–1517) Noli Me Tangere. Depicted at the tomb with Christ holding a garden tool.

c 1500 by Master of the Chronique scandaleuse, illuminator (French, active about 1493 - 1510), Noli me tangere, French. Here Jesus & Mary Magdalene meet on a garden path.

1512 Titian (1490–1576) Noli Me Tangere. Christ appears holding a garden tool.

1500s Greek Icon Μη μου άπτου Crete Resurrection - Noli me tangere. Here Jesus & Mary Magdalene are in a flowery mead.

1526 Hans Holbein the Younger (1498–1543) Noli Me Tangere. Depicted at the tomb on a flowery mead.

1534 Antonio da Correggio (1489-1534) Noli Me Tangere. Christ appears as a gardener holding a hoe.

1548-53 Lambert Sustris (Dutch artist, c.1515-1520-c.1584) Noli Me Tangere
This image includes formal gardens used as the background for a Biblical scene. These gardens are primarily from the Italian Renaissance.  The trellis walkways & arbors were built to provide both shade & privacy. Planners raised beds to prevent plants becoming waterlogged. Gardens were used for recreation, relaxation, & sport. The garden consists of geometric beds of interlacing patterns designed to be seen from windows & hills above & is filled with herbs & favorite flowers. A fountain sits in the farthest parterre. Statues & symbolic ornaments are spread throughout the grounds.

1560-70 Unknown German artist. Christ appears here as a gardener to Mary Magdalene; part of a town beyond the garden & three crosses on the hill behind at left. Jesus holds a garden shovel in a bedded garden surrounded by a wooden fence.

Agnolo di Cosimo usually known as Bronzino or Agnolo Bronzino, Italian Mannerist painter, 1503-72) Resurrection, Noli Me Tangere Jesus holds a shovel, and a walled garden of flowers blooms just behind them.

1581 Lavinia Fontana Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel in a defined garden area.

1620 Abraham Janssens (1567–1632) painted figures & Jan Wildens (15841586–1653) painted the landscape Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel & the fruits of the garden are on the earth.

1630-35 Pedro Núñez del Valle (Spanish, 1597-1649)Noli me tangere. A garden of formal beds defined by a wattle wall appears to be growing food.

Ciro Ferri 1670-80s (1634-1689) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel in a garden protected by a wood fence.

1539 Hans Baldung (c.1484 - 1545) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a garden shovel.

"We Are Made of Starstuff.”

Dear old Hubble & the new James Webb Telescope, the largest space observatory to date, & thousands of scientists around the world will lead us into countless universes & 100 billion galaxies of composed of dying stars expelling dust & gas - elements & gases interchangeable with ours. We are part of infinity living on a tiny blue dot in space. “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

―American astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space