Post by tannis on Mar 3, 2008 1:00:44 GMT
KATE BUSH and HELEN OF TROY
Somewhere in London...
Where was the photo that appears on the front cover of Lionheart taken?
KB: "This photo was taken in a photographic studio by Gered Mankowitz somewhere in London."
Kate's KBC article, Issue 5 (April 1980)
gaffa.org/garden/kate6.html
...front cover concept: John Carder Bush...
I: How did the sleeve design come about, of Lionheart?
KB: "Well that was just an idea that we had that was basically around the title Lionheart. We wanted to get across a vibe within me of a lion. And for the front cover it basically comes from an idea that my brother had, which was an attic setting with me in a lion suit, so it's slightly comical, but just a really nice vibe on the front that would take away the heavy, crusader, English vibe, because Lionheart is always associated with Richard the Lionheart. And I think it's a word that could become more readily used, it's such a beautiful word. It's kinda like hero, and hero's a very cliched word now. It's used in so many songs."
Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978
gaffa.org/reaching/im78_lh.html
The surpassing beauty of 'Helen of Troy' led to the most famous war in literary history. Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, was a tantalizing enigma from the very first. She was flesh and blood certainly, but she was also immortal, since her father was none other than Zeus. Her mother was the beautiful Leda, queen of Sparta, who was ravished by the father of the gods in the form of a swan. Helen or Helene is probably derived from the Greek word meaning "torch" or "corposant" or might be related to "selene" meaning "moon".
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Helen of Troy (1863)
www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/9.jpg
A Greek inscription on the reverse of the painting, from the 'Agamemnon' of Aeschylus, describes Helen as 'destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities'. Each of the three Greek words begins with the syllable 'hel', repeating the first syllable of Helen's name.
Rossetti's 1863 work Helen of Troy depicts a stunning woman shown in three-quarter length. The model was Annie Miller. Her sumptuous robes and long flowing hair are painted in rich and fiery tones; they seem almost to glow. A typical Rossettian type, Helen has pale skin, full red lips, and big, expressive eyes. These eyes are perhaps the most important element of the woman's face. They gaze into the distance but seem almost blind, signifying that the woman's focus is directed inward. Thus, Helen of Troy can be read as a portrait of self-contemplation and an exploration of interiority.
Several clues in the painting attempt to explain just what Helen is thinking about. First, her hands are clasped around a pendant decorated with a fire emblem. One finger seems to both caress this ornament and to point to it, emphasizing its importance. Secondly, the space behind the figure of Helen is filled with a hazy representation of burning rooftops and spires. One might propose that this is meant literally, indicating that Helen stands with her back to the burning city. However, the indistinctness of the background seems to indicate that it is not meant as a literal landscape but rather as a type of dreamscape. The chaos of the flames and the edges of Helen's hair and body are not well defined; the entire canvas is united by similar tones. The fiery vision and the woman are inexorable connected, as though the vision is not behind her but rather an extension of her.
Several aspects of the composition support a reading that the fires exist only in Helen's mind. Evidence has been provided, in the form of the pendant, with which Helen toys. She is holding an image of fire to signal her thoughts of fire and, presumably, of the burning of Troy. If she is aware enough of the conflagration to think of it, then she likely has not turned her back on real flames. She would hardly appear so calm and detached. The calm atmosphere of reverie that pervades this image lends credence to the idea that the flames behind Helen are meant to show a vision or dream. Rossetti has painted a woman who is lost in thought, and has attempted to depict the content of those thoughts behind her. The apocalyptic hallucination could be read either as a premonition of what is to come or a regretful memory of the horrors of the past.
KATE BUSH and LIONHEART and HAMMER HORROR
Dennis loves to look
In the mirror
He tells me that he is beautiful
So I look too, and what do I see?
My eyes are full
But my face is empty
The influence of Pre-Raphaelite art is everywhere. The allegedly Pre-Raphaelite singer composer Kate Bush owns a picture painted by an unidentified artist, entitled "The Hogsmill Ophelia". It depicts an infant (or a doll) floating on its back in a dirty gutterlike area, and is a satire on Millais's 1851-52 painting, "Ophelia".
and see:
The Hogsmill Ophelia: a painting which Kate keeps on her wall.
gaffa.org/passing/ophelia.gif
Various different models posed for Rossetti, but his pictures are not portraits. Their titles refer to stories of beauty or love from all times and places in history, legend and literature.
The sensual presentation of Rossetti's figures is emphasised by compositions that bring them startlingly close to the viewer. Rossetti draws a relation between hair as a sign of erotic power and as a figure of entrapment. In Helen of Troy he uses rich, fiery, glowing tones, and big, expressive eyes that tell of interior exploration.
How did you pick the name of Lionheart for your latest album?
KB: "Well that was really from the title track called 'Oh England, My Lionheart'. And I just think it's a great word, it sorta means hero, and I think hero is a very clichéd word, so I thought Lionheart would be a bit different."
"Personal Call" (1979)
gaffa.org/reaching/ir79_pc.html
n.b. 'hero' is drug slang for heroin.
www.noslang.com/drugs/dictionary/h
'Lionheart' is the epithet of Richard I. Like Joan of Arc, he is an enduring, iconic figure known for great military leadership. On Lionheart, Kate Bush is photographed startlingly close to the viewer. Her seductive beauty is extolled especially by the "erotic entrapment" of her beautiful hair, and by her big, expressive eyes. She is photographed in rich and fiery tones that seem almost to glow. IMHO, Lionheart presents us with a typical Rossettian beauty! ...
BLOWUP: The Lionheart Photoshoot...
He's got a photo
Of his hero
He keeps it under his pillow
gaffa.org/sensual/p_hh2.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k88.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k89.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k91.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k272.jpg
Rossetti uses subtle and less subtle clues in his painting to reference what Helen is thinking. To understand what KaTe is thinking about in the Gered Mankowitz images, we play Lionheart...
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Kate_Bush_Lionheart.jpg
"front cover concept: John Carder Bush"
Lionheart and Ruth...
On the attic cover of Lionheart, Kate's slender, 'heroin chic' frame is photographed on top of a signed crate. What is hiding in the attic crate? What spot does the 'Pandora's box' mark? What is Kate concealing? A lionheart? A hero? ... What story does the cover tell? ... Don't Look Now! ... Kate looks startled, perhaps guilty... What is it, Miss Bush? I do not understand. What is it you fear? There must be more...
The game seems over. A phallic candlestick stands to the right of her sleeping male mask, its shaft covered in hardened white wax. Sunlight pours into the attic room, and Kate is all lit up...
The attic room reappears in Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' video, and similar costume and lighting effects are present in the video for 'Suspended In Gaffa'.
On the cover to Never for Ever, KaTe opens her 'Pandora's Box' attic crate...
Kate Bush - Running up that Hill
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZsXVf6INc
1:14
Kate Bush - Suspended in Gaffa
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4y1ekS_LE
Kate Bush revisits Helen of Troy in the JCB cover of Experiment IV (1986).
Helen of Troy, Frederick Sandys.
preraphaelitesisterhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/sandys-helen-of-troy.jpg
I prefer Rossetti’s Helen to Sandys’. Sandys shows Helen more like a petulant, fussy child who hasn’t had her way and is in great need of a time out. What do you think?
JCB cover of Experiment IV
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Experiment_IV.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k225.jpg
JCB's portrait of KB seems very much inspired by Sandys' Helen of Troy!
"Experiment IV" was the one new song on Kate Bush's hits album The Whole Story (excluding the re-recorded rendition of "Wuthering Heights"). "Experiment IV"/"Wuthering Heights (New Vocal)" was also the only single release from The Whole Story.
The song tells a story about a secret military plan to create a sound that is horrific enough to kill from a distance. The song is notable for featuring Nigel Kennedy on violin, who at one point replicates the screeching violins from Bernard Herrmann's famous scoring of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho (wiki). This (musical) link between Experiment IV and Psycho is interesting because there seems to be a (narrative) link between Psycho and Mother Stands For Comfort. Has KaTe got a thing for Alfred Hitchcock or Norman Bates?
see:
katebush.proboards6.com/index.cgi?board=houndsoflove&action=display&thread=1717
At the end of Experiment IV a helicopter is heard. It is the very same helicopter sound heard in Pink Floyd's The Happiest Days of our Lives[/i][/b] from their 1979 album, The Wall.
Kate Bush on The Wall: "It got to the point when I heard it [Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'] I thought there's no point in writing songs any more because they'd said it all. You know, when something really gets you, it hits your creative centre and stops you creating...and after a couple of weeks I realized that he hadn't done everything, there was lots he hadn't done."
"Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside" (1980)
gaffa.org/reaching/i80_mm.html
Somewhere in London...
Where was the photo that appears on the front cover of Lionheart taken?
KB: "This photo was taken in a photographic studio by Gered Mankowitz somewhere in London."
Kate's KBC article, Issue 5 (April 1980)
gaffa.org/garden/kate6.html
...front cover concept: John Carder Bush...
I: How did the sleeve design come about, of Lionheart?
KB: "Well that was just an idea that we had that was basically around the title Lionheart. We wanted to get across a vibe within me of a lion. And for the front cover it basically comes from an idea that my brother had, which was an attic setting with me in a lion suit, so it's slightly comical, but just a really nice vibe on the front that would take away the heavy, crusader, English vibe, because Lionheart is always associated with Richard the Lionheart. And I think it's a word that could become more readily used, it's such a beautiful word. It's kinda like hero, and hero's a very cliched word now. It's used in so many songs."
Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978
gaffa.org/reaching/im78_lh.html
The surpassing beauty of 'Helen of Troy' led to the most famous war in literary history. Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, was a tantalizing enigma from the very first. She was flesh and blood certainly, but she was also immortal, since her father was none other than Zeus. Her mother was the beautiful Leda, queen of Sparta, who was ravished by the father of the gods in the form of a swan. Helen or Helene is probably derived from the Greek word meaning "torch" or "corposant" or might be related to "selene" meaning "moon".
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Helen of Troy (1863)
www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/9.jpg
A Greek inscription on the reverse of the painting, from the 'Agamemnon' of Aeschylus, describes Helen as 'destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities'. Each of the three Greek words begins with the syllable 'hel', repeating the first syllable of Helen's name.
Rossetti's 1863 work Helen of Troy depicts a stunning woman shown in three-quarter length. The model was Annie Miller. Her sumptuous robes and long flowing hair are painted in rich and fiery tones; they seem almost to glow. A typical Rossettian type, Helen has pale skin, full red lips, and big, expressive eyes. These eyes are perhaps the most important element of the woman's face. They gaze into the distance but seem almost blind, signifying that the woman's focus is directed inward. Thus, Helen of Troy can be read as a portrait of self-contemplation and an exploration of interiority.
Several clues in the painting attempt to explain just what Helen is thinking about. First, her hands are clasped around a pendant decorated with a fire emblem. One finger seems to both caress this ornament and to point to it, emphasizing its importance. Secondly, the space behind the figure of Helen is filled with a hazy representation of burning rooftops and spires. One might propose that this is meant literally, indicating that Helen stands with her back to the burning city. However, the indistinctness of the background seems to indicate that it is not meant as a literal landscape but rather as a type of dreamscape. The chaos of the flames and the edges of Helen's hair and body are not well defined; the entire canvas is united by similar tones. The fiery vision and the woman are inexorable connected, as though the vision is not behind her but rather an extension of her.
Several aspects of the composition support a reading that the fires exist only in Helen's mind. Evidence has been provided, in the form of the pendant, with which Helen toys. She is holding an image of fire to signal her thoughts of fire and, presumably, of the burning of Troy. If she is aware enough of the conflagration to think of it, then she likely has not turned her back on real flames. She would hardly appear so calm and detached. The calm atmosphere of reverie that pervades this image lends credence to the idea that the flames behind Helen are meant to show a vision or dream. Rossetti has painted a woman who is lost in thought, and has attempted to depict the content of those thoughts behind her. The apocalyptic hallucination could be read either as a premonition of what is to come or a regretful memory of the horrors of the past.
KATE BUSH and LIONHEART and HAMMER HORROR
Dennis loves to look
In the mirror
He tells me that he is beautiful
So I look too, and what do I see?
My eyes are full
But my face is empty
The influence of Pre-Raphaelite art is everywhere. The allegedly Pre-Raphaelite singer composer Kate Bush owns a picture painted by an unidentified artist, entitled "The Hogsmill Ophelia". It depicts an infant (or a doll) floating on its back in a dirty gutterlike area, and is a satire on Millais's 1851-52 painting, "Ophelia".
and see:
The Hogsmill Ophelia: a painting which Kate keeps on her wall.
gaffa.org/passing/ophelia.gif
Various different models posed for Rossetti, but his pictures are not portraits. Their titles refer to stories of beauty or love from all times and places in history, legend and literature.
The sensual presentation of Rossetti's figures is emphasised by compositions that bring them startlingly close to the viewer. Rossetti draws a relation between hair as a sign of erotic power and as a figure of entrapment. In Helen of Troy he uses rich, fiery, glowing tones, and big, expressive eyes that tell of interior exploration.
How did you pick the name of Lionheart for your latest album?
KB: "Well that was really from the title track called 'Oh England, My Lionheart'. And I just think it's a great word, it sorta means hero, and I think hero is a very clichéd word, so I thought Lionheart would be a bit different."
"Personal Call" (1979)
gaffa.org/reaching/ir79_pc.html
n.b. 'hero' is drug slang for heroin.
www.noslang.com/drugs/dictionary/h
'Lionheart' is the epithet of Richard I. Like Joan of Arc, he is an enduring, iconic figure known for great military leadership. On Lionheart, Kate Bush is photographed startlingly close to the viewer. Her seductive beauty is extolled especially by the "erotic entrapment" of her beautiful hair, and by her big, expressive eyes. She is photographed in rich and fiery tones that seem almost to glow. IMHO, Lionheart presents us with a typical Rossettian beauty! ...
BLOWUP: The Lionheart Photoshoot...
He's got a photo
Of his hero
He keeps it under his pillow
gaffa.org/sensual/p_hh2.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k88.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k89.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k91.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k272.jpg
Rossetti uses subtle and less subtle clues in his painting to reference what Helen is thinking. To understand what KaTe is thinking about in the Gered Mankowitz images, we play Lionheart...
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Kate_Bush_Lionheart.jpg
"front cover concept: John Carder Bush"
Lionheart and Ruth...
On the attic cover of Lionheart, Kate's slender, 'heroin chic' frame is photographed on top of a signed crate. What is hiding in the attic crate? What spot does the 'Pandora's box' mark? What is Kate concealing? A lionheart? A hero? ... What story does the cover tell? ... Don't Look Now! ... Kate looks startled, perhaps guilty... What is it, Miss Bush? I do not understand. What is it you fear? There must be more...
The game seems over. A phallic candlestick stands to the right of her sleeping male mask, its shaft covered in hardened white wax. Sunlight pours into the attic room, and Kate is all lit up...
The attic room reappears in Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' video, and similar costume and lighting effects are present in the video for 'Suspended In Gaffa'.
On the cover to Never for Ever, KaTe opens her 'Pandora's Box' attic crate...
Kate Bush - Running up that Hill
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZsXVf6INc
1:14
Kate Bush - Suspended in Gaffa
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4y1ekS_LE
Kate Bush revisits Helen of Troy in the JCB cover of Experiment IV (1986).
Helen of Troy, Frederick Sandys.
preraphaelitesisterhood.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/sandys-helen-of-troy.jpg
I prefer Rossetti’s Helen to Sandys’. Sandys shows Helen more like a petulant, fussy child who hasn’t had her way and is in great need of a time out. What do you think?
JCB cover of Experiment IV
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Experiment_IV.jpg
gaffa.org/wow/k225.jpg
JCB's portrait of KB seems very much inspired by Sandys' Helen of Troy!
"Experiment IV" was the one new song on Kate Bush's hits album The Whole Story (excluding the re-recorded rendition of "Wuthering Heights"). "Experiment IV"/"Wuthering Heights (New Vocal)" was also the only single release from The Whole Story.
The song tells a story about a secret military plan to create a sound that is horrific enough to kill from a distance. The song is notable for featuring Nigel Kennedy on violin, who at one point replicates the screeching violins from Bernard Herrmann's famous scoring of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho (wiki). This (musical) link between Experiment IV and Psycho is interesting because there seems to be a (narrative) link between Psycho and Mother Stands For Comfort. Has KaTe got a thing for Alfred Hitchcock or Norman Bates?
see:
katebush.proboards6.com/index.cgi?board=houndsoflove&action=display&thread=1717
At the end of Experiment IV a helicopter is heard. It is the very same helicopter sound heard in Pink Floyd's The Happiest Days of our Lives[/i][/b] from their 1979 album, The Wall.
Kate Bush on The Wall: "It got to the point when I heard it [Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'] I thought there's no point in writing songs any more because they'd said it all. You know, when something really gets you, it hits your creative centre and stops you creating...and after a couple of weeks I realized that he hadn't done everything, there was lots he hadn't done."
"Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside" (1980)
gaffa.org/reaching/i80_mm.html