The Muse

As I interviewed Berlin based photographer Jo Schwab for the deviantArt group fineart-photography, he said something about his wife Minon being his muse. Do you photograph her all the time, I asked. No, I rarely do (she is an acclaimed self-portraitist ), but I discuss with her everything to do with my artistic vision.  

Minon by Minon

This is a different take on the idea of a muse but indeed a very powerful interpretation of the concept. The beautiful Minon has a role to fulfill as an artist in her own right. But she is also her partner's inspiration, the one who can discuss ideas with him and give suggestions. Presumably he does the same for her. This is a 21st century muse. The relationship is egalitarian.
I was more familiar with the idea of the muse as the one who is drawn, photographed, written and sung about (think of Patty Boyd, who had Eric Clapton and George Harrison writing songs about her which immortalised her)  often with her being completely overshadowed by the artist's intellectual weight - in this more standard conceptualisation of the muse she is but an object, a mirror of his soul reflecting back to the artist, but like a mirror, totally devoid of self.

I did some reading about muses. When did this concept of the muse become popular? The muses are of course of old lineage, being goddesses in the ancient Greek pantheon invoked by the artist, especially the poet, to come and give him inspiration.  The nine muses figure prominently in literature. In the 19th century the muse was exalted by the Romantics, especially the Pre-Raphaelite painters, but with a strange twist. She was a better muse if dead! 
The most interesting muse of the 20th century has to be Lou Andreas-Salomé, muse to Nietzche, Rilke and Freud, all three of them  more or less simultaneously. Says Francine Prose, in her biography of nine inspirational women: 


"Both Nietzsche and Rilke, it will be noted, commenced their most creative and important work in the period immediately following their separation from Lou. Perhaps it was just coincidence, and yet it seems clear that Lou (whom Freud would later refer to as “the great understander”) offered both men a generous, deceptively unlimited abundance of understanding, admiration, encouragement, a sense of common mission, a vision of the future, and the explicit or implicit promise that they would enter that future together. The abrupt and shocking retraction of that promise was (as much as Lou herself) the muse that inspired them to seek out the consolations and distractions of work, and to re-create, alone and for themselves, some version of what they had counted on sharing with Lou. When Lou ceased understanding, it was necessary for them both to make the world understand, in her place"

Photographer: Vijay Jethwa

Intriguing. These days 'muse' is a word thrown about by many artists, to denote a 'favourite model'. Nothing as dramatic as Lou. Nothing as inspiring as Minon.


(All photos modelled by Alex B, unless otherwise stated)