One of my greatest inspirations when writing historical fiction is the art of the period. I saw the above painting by Edward Middleton Manigault, titled “Adagio,” in the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. When I was teaching college in Charlotte, I had students who had never been to an art museum before. So every semester I took my classes to view and write about art. (They loved it!)

This painting with its beautifully dressed, ghoulish-looking women captured my imagination. I’m not sure why Manigault titled the painting “Adagio,” which is a musical term referring to a slow tempo with soft tones. If you’ve ever heard Barber’s Adagio, you’ll know what I mean! That music makes me weep. Looking at the painting I see how fluid and musical the trees and clouds are in the background — and there’s something mournful about the tone. Perhaps those qualities inspired the title.

This painting was included in the 1913 Armory Show, which Louisa Delafield writes about for one of her columns in The Whispering Women. The 1913 Armory Show is famous to this day because it brought modern art to the American public. For the first time Americans saw the work of Picasso and Chagall. The critics hated it!

Here’s how I imagined it must have been for Louisa as she wandered through the show (The quotes from the ladies, the critics and Roosevelt are all real!):

As Louisa wound her way through the crowd, wealthy patrons scoffed and laughed at the works of art. She stopped to stare at an amazing and strange painting — all lines and distortions — by someone named Pablo Picasso. A couple of women looked at the painting, and one of them said, “Imagine being locked in here all night with these dreadful paintings. You’d surely go insane.”

Louisa looked around the gallery and standing in front of one of the paintings was none other than the former president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, with a critic hanging on his coat tails. They stared at a strange, enthralling painting of multiple figures that seemed to move along a staircase.

“This isn’t art! None of this is art. It takes no talent whatsoever to do this,” the former President blustered. “I’m in favor of progress, but this is not progress. It’s chaos.”

“It looks like an explosion at a shingles factory!” said the critic, a tiny dapper man with round spectacles that made him look like an owl.

It’s funny how tastes change. Chagall’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” seems quite tame to us now. 🤔