BY ZOE PADDOCK

The idea of a muse is incredibly romantic. They are supposed to inspire great feeling in an artist to the extent that they create something beautiful. In fact, a muse is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘an artist’s particular genius’, suggesting that the muse is an extension of the artist themselves. In the current climate, in which female artists are increasingly dominating popular culture; the prefix ‘male’ could be said to confuse this notion somewhat. Is a female artist still an autonomous genius if she is inspired by a male muse? I suggest, absolutely. The work of monochrome photographer Sally Mann and singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell exemplify how fruitful the relationships between the male muse and female artist can be.Rather than suggesting that men continually infiltrate and occupy the female imagination, Mann and Mitchell forefront a mutual dialogue. These mutual dialogues create a profound rendering of the devotion and frustration within romantic relationships.

Sally Mann presents the male muse as a figure of adoration. She captures the visual beauty of men, an aesthetic role stereotypically reserved for the pre-Raphaelite-esque female body; she transgresses the traditional masculine presentation. Her piece ‘Was Ever Love’ (2009) is undeniably sensitive. It depicts a man asleep and at peace. Compositionally, the viewer traces his horizontal profile, the imperfections of the wet print bring forth an otherworldly quality as he seems to almost detach from his body. Yet these qualities are not what I find most fascinating. It is that the man in question is her husband, Larry. As in her equally sensitive piece Hephaestus, she has portrayed him as both statuesque and fallible. These qualities are intrinsic to her ‘Proud Flesh’ collection which demonstrates the bodily vulnerability that came with Larry’s muscular dystrophy - a genetic condition which causes the muscles to weaken. In an interview with The Guardian, Mann suggests how, as his wife, she was uniquely placed to sensitively commit his body to celluloid. She said ‘Pictures of women taken by men tend to have a sexual element; with these, there's a tenderness.’ As such, the intimacy of this muse-artist dynamic can be seen to create a haunting portrait of sensuous and vulnerable masculinity.

Yet, Joni Mitchell demonstrates how the male muse is not solely an object of adoration, but also overwhelming frustration. Mitchell’s song ‘Carey’, with lyrics such as ‘Oh Carey, get out your cane’, and ‘You're a mean old Daddy / But I like you’, aren’t exactly complimentary. They suggest the image of curmudgeonly men, with tempers like the ‘bright red devil’ that she subsequently references. The man alluded to in ‘Carey’ is Cary Raditz, whom Mitchell met in Crete in 1970 and had a brief romantic relationship with. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal she described him as being ‘always detached and sometimes even disrespectful – either trying to belittle me or make me feel afraid.’ She goes on to say that ‘at the time he felt greatly superior to women, which is why I refer to him in the lyrics as a ‘mean old Daddy’’. Yet, there can be said to be an emotional tug of war at play. In Mitchell’s song ‘California’, from the same album as ‘Carey’, the simultaneous annoyance and fondness that characterises their relationship is clear in the lyrics referring to their time on a ‘Grecian Isle’: ‘He gave me back my smile / But he kept my camera to sell / Oh the rogue the red red rogue / He cooked good omelettes and stews / And I might have stayed on with him there / But my heart cried out for you California.’ Here the male muse is a source of friction, a figure Mitchell both taunts and placates. Critically, this is how Raditz is immortalised, at the mercy of Mitchell and her perception of him. He described to the New Statesman how the song trailed him through time, a sensation he described as ‘eerie’ but also said that ‘Carey can live out his variant forms in the minds of people without bothering me too much’. Mitchell and her artistic genius is in no way defined to or confined by using Cary as an unwitting muse. Instead Mitchell conjures the essence of a dysfunctional relationship looked back on with sweet regret, and does so masterfully.

Cary Raditz and Joni Mitchell. Photo: Cary Raditz.

These are the modern faces and temperaments of the time-honoured muse. As we see the greater appreciation of the female genius, her muse is brought to the forefront. The impact of this gender-reversal reflects the multiplicity of heterosexual relationships, with touching, amusing, and intriguing effects.