LGBTQIA+ symbol: Sapphic Violet
Information about the symbol:
Author: Tumblr user “pride-color-schemes”
Year: 2017
Description: Association with love between women This connection originates from fragments of a poem by Sappho about lost love in which she describes a female waring violets.
Symbolic meaning of violet flowers: Due to their heady, sensual fragnance, violets are most commonly associated with love. Additional meanings are honesty, protection, dreams, healing, remambrance, determination and the idea of setting goals.
Sybolic meaning of the color violet: The crown chakra Sahasrara, which focuses on matters of enlightenment and awareness, has the color violet. Therefore, violets can also symbolize growth, expansion, peace and mental clarity.
Evolution of the contemporary symbol: On the first version of the Sapphic Pride Flag, there were realistic violets. Because it was difficult to replicate them in the centre of the flag, the Tumblr user “pride-color-schemes” reduced them to one simplified, more abstract flower on June 25, 2017.
Evolution of the symbol: from naturalitic to abstract
Story behind: historical context
About Sappho:
Born: 625 BC on Lesbos, Greece
Died: 570 BC on Lefkada, Greece
Occupation: Poet
Language: Ancient Greek
Genre: Lyrical poetry (Greek lyric)
Notable works: Ode to Aphrodite, Tithonus poem
Other names: “Tenth Muse” or “The Poetess”
Beyond her poetry: known as a symbol of love and desire between women (the English words sapphic and lesbian are derived from her own name and home island)
“In the Days of Sappho” (1904). John William Godward (1861-1922)
Biography:
Little is known about Sappho’s life. She was from a wealthy, aritstocratic family from Lesbos, but her parents’ names are unknown. According to ancient sources she had three brothers, of whom two are mentioned in the “Brothers Poem” discovered in 2014. Due to the involvement of her family with the conflicts of political elites on Lesbos in this period, Sappho was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC. She may have continued to work until around 570 BC. The legend about her death, in which Sappho killed herself by jumping off the Leucadian cliffs for love of Phaon, a ferryman, are regarded as ahistorical by modern scholars. It may have resulted in part from a desire to assert Sappho as heterosexual in the following centuries. The three main reliable sources about her life are her testimonia, the history of her times and what can be gleamed from her own poetry.
Sappho holding a lyre and plectrum while turning to listen to Alcaeus One of the earliest surviving images of Sappho (470 BCE.)
Sexuality:
In classical Athenian comedy Sappho was caricatured as heterosexual. According to the Suda, Sappho was married to Kerkylas of Andros. “Kerikas” comes from the word “kerkos”, a possible meaning of which is “penis”, while “Andros”, which comes from the the Greek word “aner”, means name.It is not clear wheter this name represents a real man, it might also be a joke. The first time discussions about Sappho’s homoeroticism were explicitly preserved was in the Hellenistic period in the first testimonia. It states that Sappho was “accused by some of being irregular in her ways and a woman-lover”. Still, it was not until the tenth century that Sappho was “slenderouly accused” of having sexual reationships with her “female pupils” by the Suda.Nowadays, the poet’s exact sexuality is still debated among modern scolars. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that her poetry portrays homoerotic feelings.
An unreliable legend: The Death of Sappho, 1881, by Miguel Carbonell Selva
Section 1:
Story behind: historical context
Poem fragments by Sappho featuring the symbol of the violet:
“Close by my side you put around yourself (many wreaths) of violets and roses”
In another poem, Sappho describes her lost love as wearing “violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around” her neck
Section 2:
Use of the symbol: in a contemporary context
With indications about lesbian love, the topic of hiding your real feelings:
Almost!
by Emily Dickinson
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village, Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low, Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.
The Violet
by Jane TaylorDown in a green and shady bed
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head, As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower, No colours bright and fair; It might have graced a rosy bower, Instead of hiding there.
Calling the Violet
by Lucy LarcomDear Little Violet, Don’t be afraid!
Lift your blue eyes
From the rock’s mossy shade!
All the birds call for you
Out of the sky;
May is here, waiting, And here, too, am I
Sappho 625-570 BC, Greece Emily Dickinson 1830-86, US Jane Taylor, 1783-1824, UK Lucy Larcom 1824-93, USSection 1:
About Sapphos work:
Her lyric poetry was written to be sung while accompanied by music. Ancient authors claim that Sappho primarily wrote love poetry, according to the Suda epigrams, elegiacs and iambics can be attributed to her, as well. Through antiquity, her work was highly admired ,she was among the canon of Nine Lyric Poets most highly esteemed by scolars of Hellenistic Alexandria.
Ancient editions:
In the fifth century BC. Athenian book publishers began to produce copies of Lesbian lyric poetry. Based on those Athenian collections, a critical version of Sappho’s work was produced by Alexandrian scholars in the second or third century.
Surviving poetry:
Nowadays, most of the popular poet’s work is lost or only availible in fragmentary form. Only the “Ode to Aphrodite” is certainly compete. It is assumed that Sappho has comosed around 10,000 line during her lifetime, only about 650 have survived. Nevertheless, fragments of Sappho continue to be rediscovered. According to a legend from around 1550, Sappho’s poetry was lost because the church disapproved to her morals. In reality, reasons for the loss are the insuficcient demand of her poetry to be copied onto parchment when codices superseded papyrus scrolls as the predominant book and the diffculty for her readers, who started to speak Attic dialect, to understand the provincial Aeolic dialect in which the poetry was written.
The “Tithonus” poem on fragments of a papyrus roll. Sappho’s work was mainly preserved in manuscripts of other ancient writers.
Above: “fragment 2” on a potsherd. Another way of preservation
Style:
Innovative poetry for her time: adoption of the lyrical “I” instead of presenting herself as a conduit of divine inspiration. Composition for private and informal occasions. Clear language, simple thoughts, sharply-drawn images and use of direct quotation. Sappho as a member of the “élite” ideological tradition, which valued luxury and high birth. Still: flouery, adorned style. The effect of her work is due to the sophisticated deployment of strategies of traditional Greek rhetorical genres. - it still appears spontaneous, whist being very crafted.
A contemporary collection of the ancient poem’s work translated by Mary Barnard
Section 2:
Use of the symbol: in art history
The Little Shepertness Paul Plee 1892
Sappho (wearing violet) with Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, Simeon Solomon, 1864
Two Women Throwing Flowers Mary Cassatt, 1872
Best Friends (in a Spring Field)
Gregory Frank Harris, 1989
A Thorn Amidst Roses James Sant, 1887
Love’s Shadow Frederick Sandys, 1867
From “About a Girl” series of mini paintings
Sea of Change No 5 detail
Jana Brike, 2018
Fall in Love with your Truest Self
Jana Brike, 2015
He Doesn’t Love You Like I Like You
Bobby Zeik, 2011
Bridlington Violets
David Hockney, 1989
Flower Fall
Anna Razumovskaya, 2017
California Art Director
David Hockney, 1964
The Captive (Lesbian Play). Bourdet Edouard. New York: Brentano’s Publishers, 1926
The Captive
Written by: Édouard Bourdet
Date premiered: 6 March 1926
Place: Théatre Fémina, Paris
Original language: French
Genre: Melodrama, Tragedy
Aettings: Irène De Montcel’s room and the study in Jacques Virieu’s apartment
A different cover version of the same play
La Prisonnière was written by Édouard Bourdet and premiered at Théatre Fémina in Paris on 6 March 1926. The metteur en scène was André Gailhard. Producer and director Gilbert Miller announced to bring La Prisonnière to Broadway. Arthur Hornblow adapted and translated the play into English language, with the title “The Captive”. The three-act melodrama was among the first Broadway Plays to deal with lesbianism and debuted in the Empire Theatre in New York on 29 September 1926. The play cast Helen Menken as Irène and Basil Rathbone as Jacques. It ran 160 performances with a predominantly female audience, with one account placing the figure at almost 80 percent. Due to negative articles in the “New York Daily Mirror” and the “New York American”, The Captive was put on trial for indecency by the Citizen’s Play Jury and cleared of charges. After the pressure from the Society for the Prevention of the Vice, which collaborated with the catholic church, became too intense, Joab H. Benton ordered to “banish nudity and obscenity” from Broadway theatres on 5 February 1927. Four days later, he issued an order to have the casts of both plays arested.
Plot:
Irène is a lesbian tortured by her love for Madame d’Aiguines, but pretending engagement to Jacques. Though Irène attempts to leave Mme. d’Aiguines and marry Jacques, she returns to the relationship, saying that it is “a prison to which I must return captive, despite myself”. Mme. d’Aiguines leaves behind nosegays of violets for Irène, as a symbol of her love.
Effect on the demand for violets: Lesbian audience members for La Prisonnière in Paris pinned violets to their lapels and belts to show solidarity with the characters. Their association with homosexuality did not bode well for violet sales. Flower shops in New York City saw a decreased demand for violet sales.
This photograph by the Vandamm Studio is part of the performance documentation which was created for promotional articles which appeared in magazines. The picture shows Helen Menken as Irène de Montel in the Captive (1926) in the Arthur Hornblow Jr. adaption of Edourard Bourdet’s play. Returning from her honeymoon, she receives a package from a female friend. Opening it, she finds a corssage of violets.
News aricle of the arrest of Helen Menken on obscenity charges for starring in the play “The Captive”, in the year 1927.
Text: “Helen Menken, who plays the stellar role in “The Captive” in a drama of sex perversion, is shown above with her maid, in custody of detectives, as she left her theater last night after being arrested.”
Édouard Bourdet (SaintGermain-en-Laye, 26 October 1887 – Paris, 17 January 1945) was a 20th-century French playwright. He was married to the poet, Catherine Pozzi; their son was Claude Bourdet.
A romantic scene from “The Captive”
A group of seven gay male writers who met up regularly in Ney York City in 1980 and 1981 and named themselves “The Violet Quill” Christopher Cox, Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley, Andrew Holleran, Felice Oicano, Edmund White and George Withmore officially met up eight times over a one-year period, but unofficially before and after those meetings as well, to read and critique each other’s work.
Publication:
Works of the Violet Quill
The March for the Equal Rights Amendment took place on July 9, 1978 in Washington, DC. Over 100,000 people marched for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, which is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment and other matters. The marches have been successful, it was the first time that a proposed amendment to the Constitution had ever had its ratification period, which usually only lasts for 7 years, extended. Since 1982, extension of the ratification has been reintroduced in every legislative session. The National Organization for women, which focusus on on women’s rights, feminism and LGBT rights has invited 35 notable speakers. The Lesbian Nation group took part in the protests, as well. One of the members was dressed up as the Greek poet Sappho, the other supporters mainly wear white in homage to the suffragists who have marched in Washington 65 years earlier.
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon met in San Francisco in the 1950s, where they became a couple and founded the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the first lesbian organization in the United States. Together, they ran the lesbian magazine The Ladder and were active in Democratic politics. They were the first lesbian couple to get married in San Francisco, when then-mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the city to provide same-sex marriage licenses. They were married again when same-sex marriage was briefly legalized in California in 2008.
The Ladder, set up by the Daughters of Bilitis, was published from 1956 to 1972
We could see the resurgence of the color violet on the spring-summer catwalks 2020 in many diverse forms. It was explicitly celebrated by editor-at-large of American Vogue Hamish Bowles in his flamboyant Maison Margiela Artisanal ensemble at the 2019 Met Gala. If there’s one image that shows LGBTQ people that there is a joyous life out there, it’s surely Bowles flicking his fringelined cape with campish flair.
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon wearing violets to declare their love in public in 2004. Throughout their lives, both women were fierce advocates for human rights. In their last decades, they worked with Old Lesbians Organizing for Change and served as delegates to the White House Conference on Aging.
A model, dressed in violet, presents a creation by Loewe during the Women’s Spring-Summer 2020
Ready-to-Wear collection fashion show in Paris on Sept. 27, 2019.
Hamish Bowles attends The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp wearing a coat with violets: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2019 in the American city New YorkIn 2015, Amsterdam’s annual pride event took place from the 25th of July until the 2nd of August. The citywide festival attracts a large number of visitors every year. Celebrating its 20th year, it was one of the largest publicly held events in the Netherlands. The highlight of the festival was the Canal Parade which took place on Saturday, the first of August. Participants have been showcasing their pride on festive boats for four hours on a route which spanned more than 3 miles, allowing spectators to grab a prime spot along the canals. One of the boats was dedicated to Sapphic love and decorated with a countless number of violets and other flowers in the shades of magenta.
Southampton’s new Sapphic Cafe and Sapphic Cafe Community group: Meeting at The Art House and elsewhere, this group is named for the Greek poet Sappho. The group is for anyone who identifies as Sapphic and is inclusive of cis, trans and nonbinary people, bisexual, pan, omni, asexual and aromantic folks. The inspiration is drawn from Lesbian cafe culture, with a wider inclusive embrace and is in response to the need for Queer spaces that aren’t centred around alcohol. The next meet-up will be a Sapphic Café Salon & social at The Art House on 15 September where they share music, poetry, science, inspiration and conversation.The group has already marched together at Southampton Pride and enjoyed a lovely Sapphic picnic. Those meetups regularly take place throughout the entire year.
Amsterdam Gay Pride 2015
Sapphic Café solidarity campaign , online avertisement and recipe book
Section 4:
Bibliography:
Creation of the symbol: + different versions
https://lgbta.wikia.org/wiki/Sapphic
About the symbolic meaning of violets: https://florgeous.com/violet-flower-meaning/ About Sappho:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho
Sappho as a woman lover: Campbell, D. A., ed. (1982). Greek Lyric 1: Sappho and Alcaeus (Loeb Classical Library No. 142). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-99157-5
Accusation of sexual relationships: Hallett, Judith P. (1979). “Sappho and her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality”. Signs. 4 (3): 447–464. doi:10.1086/493630. S2CID 143119907.
Sapphos Poems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_(plant)#Lesbian_and_bisexual_ culture
Collecott, Diana (1999)
H.D. and Sapphic Modernism
1910-1950 (1st ed.).Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.p.126. ISBN 978-0-521-55078-9
Barnard, Mary (1958).
Sappho. A New Translation (1st ed.). University of California Press. p.42. LCCN 5800652
Contemporary poetry about violets: https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/violet-poems/ Artwork collection: https://www.instagram.com/sapphic.violets_/ The Captive:
https://www.yesterdaysgallery.com/pages/books/27622/edouardbourdet/the-captive-lesbian-play
https://archive.org/details/captive00bour/mode/2up https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/01/14/violets-vandamm
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-cc48-a3d9-e040e00a18064a99
http://joannestle2.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-lift-my-eyes-to-hill-life-ofmabel_27.html
Real life applications: Lyon and Martin:
https://cahalloffame.org/lyon-martin/ Lesbian Nation Group and Hamish Bowles: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/lgbtq-lavender-symbolism-pride/ index.html
The Violet Quill: https://glreview.org/article/the-violet-quill-club-40-years-on/ Lesbian Nation Group: https://www.shondaland.com/act/a21993326/women-instrumentalpride-lgbtq-rights-movement/ https://daily.jstor.org/four-flowering-plants-decidedly-queered/ Sapphic cafe:
https://business.facebook.com/sapphiccafe/
Amsterdam Gay Pride: https://www.bing.com/images/
Fanshop: https://www.etsy.com/de/market/sapphic_society
Sapphic Magazine: https://guhistfem.wordpress. com/2014/12/06/sappho-morethan-just-a-magazine/ https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Sappho_(organisation)
Fan articles as a sign of recognition and identification of the “Sapphic Society” online shop on the internet website “Etsy”
Section 2:
Sappho magazine and organization: Sappho magazine was first published in 1972. It appeared monthly and was intended to ‘educate society about the true facts of lesbianism, support lesbians and women’s causes.’ It was distributed at the weekly Sappho meetings which were held in The Chepstow – a public house in Notting Hill, London – sold in bookshops and dispersed within the gay nightclub The Gateways. Jackie Foster, charming feminist and lesbian activist, was responsible for founding Sappho and held the position of editor. Interestingly enough the weekly Sappho meetings would invite speakers. These included Anna Raeburn, Mikki Doyle from The Morning Star, Maureen Duffy who read her poetry, and the barrister Elizabeth Woodcraft who spoke on the rights of lesbian mothers. In 1981 the magazine wound up and it was said to be a result of ‘declining readership, falling subscriptions and criticism that it was not sufficiently political. ’However, it is unquestionable that the magazine was held with high esteem and it had a pivotal role in the lesbian community, with the breadth of information, local and national, the information the magazine provided for British lesbians was extensive, with the magazine offering contacts for groups and meetings, counselling and befriending sessions and lesbian religious organisations.
Cover of final issue of Sappho showing ‘the three Botticelli beauties’ turned away in order to face the future times
Cover of the magazine Sappho from November 1976 showing ‘the three Botticelli beauties.’
University: unibz
Faculty: Design and Art
Student: Sofie Neudecker
Supervisor: Michele Galluzzo
Year: 2021
The second edition of the magazine was published in a range of different colours The cover of the first edition from 1972 on which one women has violets pinned onto her hat.