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Henri Gervex (Paris 10 December 1852 – 7 June 1929)

His early work belonged almost exclusively to the mythological genre, which served as an excuse for the painting of the nude, but not always in the best of taste. His Rolla of 1878, based on a poem by Alfred de Musset, was rejected by the jury of the Salon de Paris for immorality, since it depicted a scene from the poem of a naked prostitute after having sex with her client.

Gervex afterwards devoted himself to representations of modern life and achieved signal success with his Dr Péan at the Salpétrière (“The Operation”), a modernized paraphrase, as it were, of Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson.

She was 15 when she left home. For a while she lived in boarding houses. Later she moved in with her older sister. She was 15 or 16 when we met. I was in my early 20s. I had just fallen in love with someone else. Maybe it wasn’t love. Lust has a way of clouding one’s sight. And then I had been betrayed. The details aren’t important. If they were, I would have remembered them. October had been a friend, one of a group of people that hung around together. I was in a mess. October took me in from my storm. (Friends would later tell me that they couldn’t believe how long it took us to get together, that October had been crazy about me for some time.) October and I got along well although I was never in love. I should have been. She was a terrific…

November – Something happened

November was always there. Like the sun. Orange. Her hair as fiery as her personality. She could not be controlled. When I was five, I was beaten up. By a kid named Dennis. November, who was a year younger than me, stalked up the street and waited outside his door.  When Dennis stepped out of his house, she socked him. Right in the nose. We moved to the suburbs. I slipped into the neighbourhood kid culture. Easily. Playing sports. Not so with November. She would not obey the commands of other kids in the neighbourhood. She would not comply. So they bullied her. Invited her to parties at houses. Where no one was home. Invited her to the library to take out books. Then slipped out and left November alone. When she showed up an hour or so later they waited. On their door steps. Laughing…

December – All Good Things Must End

I was wearing my denim jacket. The one that was prayed over at Lourdes. Might have had a toothpick in my teeth. Cuban heels. Sunglasses. Asleep on my head. Leaning against my motorcycle. I might have been wearing a grin. December stood there. Elegant. Like a tall thin wine glass. Hair long, flowing over her shoulders. A long printed dress that reached down to her ankles. She looked a maiden from the 15th century. Except for the cigarette. In her smile. I had 2 helmets. ‘Would you like to go for a ride?’

I had fallen in love. With Virginia Cherrill. In City Lights. The Chaplin film where the tramp falls in love with a blind flower girl. Who mistakes him for a rich duke. And now I could see that December was blind. To who I really was. A lonely displaced poet…