rtrait. I looked at some portraits for the anatomical details, and I did this portrait. First some sketches in ink, and finally the oil painting, and at the bottom of this painting I put the last sentence of his testament, which is great, by the way. […] Sade was initially afraid of being buried alive: his body would have to stay forty-eight hours before being buried.”
Man Ray explained that the coloring in the painting is meant to connect Sade inextricably with the Bastille and with the foundation of Paris itself, as if he is part of the fabric of the city that birthed Surrealism. He says, “It is gray because I painted it like the stones of the Bastille! Because after the Bastille was dismantled, a pile of things was built with its stones, in Paris, several bridges, several buildings. That’s why they are gray and that’s why Sade’s portrait is gray.”
Apparently this portrait came about because of a conversation with Heine, who said that it was a shame there would be no image of Sade to go along with the new annotated publication he had worked so long to prepare. Man Ray said, “Heine told me, ‘I’m going to publish unpublished manuscripts, but it’s a pity: there’s no portrait of Sade, except in the family, where there was a little pastel of him, when he was twelve, dressed like a little gentleman; it’s all that has ever been published.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll make you one.’ I knew enough, I had read a lot of articles, the archives of the police in Marseilles, and Apollinaire’s book on Sade. Apollinaire said, ‘He is the freest man.'” This portrait began as a series of equally moving, if stark, sketches, where Man Ray plays with the shape of the head and especially the depth of the eyes.
Man Ray would go on to explore his favorite Sade novel, Aline et Valcour; ou, Le Roman philosophique (1795), Sade’s most overtly political work. It’s essentially an epistolary novel that recounts the story of two lovers, but is also an adventure narrative about travels through a cannibalistic, barbaric African kingdom, which is contrasted with a more utopian government in the South Pacific. Man Ray said, “I read all the novels of Sade, I have some rare editions, Juliette for example, and especially Aline and Valcour which is the most important, in my opinion, because it is all the political issues that are dealt with and very little pornography.” This particular painting is the most overtly surreal of the bunch, and is essentially a variation, or combination, of an image he created of a decapitated woman’s head underneath a glass dome for Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution, and an early photograph of a wooden sketching model.
This is the most abstract of these images, with no overt connection to Sade outside of its title, but the French writer’s work would also influence Man Ray’s photography—for which he is primarily remembered—in more subtle ways. While his surreal, photographic experiments and various forms of print work are celebrated, as well as his portraits of muses and friends like Lee Miller, his erotic photography hasn’t received the attention it deserves—possibly because of the sadomasochistic nature of some of it.
Much has already been written about the Surrealist obsession with and use of the female form, which is often seen as misogynistic in nature. It certainly celebrates a symbolic function of womanhood, rather than an attempt to realistically portray women or their experiences. Dave Bate writes, “The female nude stands in for the image of the idealizing of love. She is love personified, the unattainable thing they crave in their ‘imagination.’” Some of Man Ray’s erotic photography represents the contradiction found throughout Surrealism, with the dream of idealized love always at odds with the fixation on violence and destruction. This is exemplified in Nu attaché (Tied Naked) from 1930.
These sadomasochistic experiments have recently been touched on in The Strange World of Willie Seabrook, written by Seabrook’s partner Marjorie Worthington and published by the wonderful Spurl Editions. Seabrook was a writer and an exp