Differentiating between model, lover and muse

Study, Torso, Effect of Sun by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1875-76)

I was once asked to differentiate between model, lover and muse. When does one become the other? Without love - albeit platonic - between artist and model very little of real worth can be accomplished. But the transition from model, to lover, to muse is a relationship that seldom materialises. On the other hand, the muse is not necessarily model or lover; at least not in the accepted meaning of lover. 

Once in a while the role muse can be mutual, as was the case between Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman and myself. Forty years ago Sheila expressed our creative relationship in her poem "Revelations".

 

I am a seeker of wisdom

You are the active force

That manifests my truths

For the good of humanity.

I am a contemplator of what was and shall be,

You are the revealer of the link that is.

I am of the sky and would flee the cares of men.

You are the Earth, the balance that keeps my sanity.

I am night, the creator of fear and uncertainty

You are the sun, that brings me ecstasy

At the dawn of our union.

I am black with the seed of knowledge

You are fair

And the fire of your purity

Bounds me to the seat of wisdom.

It is possible that Renoir's model for his painting Study, Torso, Effect of Sun fulfilled all three roles. Marguerite Legrand (1856 –1879), known as "Anna", was a nineteen year old seamstress and single parent when she first modelled for Renoir. Sadly she died of smallpox at the age of twenty-three. The painting now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay and her beauty forever lives on.

In my book Notes on the Nude I delve deeper into the relationship between artist and model.