June / Wedding Day / "Coming Out" / Solstice / Gemini the Twins
The Romans named the month of June after Juno, the queen of the gods and patroness of marriage and weddings. She is often pictured as sitting with a peacock, in a mythological story that the artist includes in this scene. Scholars also suggest that the name June may also come from the Latin word iuniores, meaning "younger ones", as opposed to maiores ("elders"), for which the preceding month of May (Maius) had been named. The theme of a boy becoming a sexually liberated man also appears in this composition.
June has always been a popular month for weddings in American culture, but in ancient Rome, the period from mid-May through mid-June was considered inauspicious for marriage. Ovid says that he consulted the Flaminica Dialis, the high priestess of Jupiter, about setting a date for his daughter's wedding, and was advised to wait until after June 15th. Plutarch, however, implies that the entire month of June was more favorable for weddings than May. There seems to be mixed feelings on the matter which also plays right into the subject of this piece, as we will see.
The most obvious theme is that of the June bride, who in this case, does not seem at all happy about the prospect of getting married, at least to this young man. The expression on her face is ill at ease. Meanwhile, her ecstatic fiancé dances by her with gaiety as he drapes her in a veil of bridal illusion. Illusion is the name given to the silk or tulle fabric used to make bridal veils, and in this instance "veil of illusion" has a double meaning. The groom is currently under one impression about the joyousness of the occasion while she appears to be under another. Her apprehension in the form of a question, is in regards to her fiancé’s sexuality. Her right hand is open as if saying, "so what, are you gay?" She looks down at a pair of white hens kissing each other at her feet. This is a classic example of the dream symbolism Smarkusz uses to express his visions. (The bride herself may also have sexual identity issues, as in dreams there can be multiple meanings. For the sake of a simpler narrative we will narrow her meaning down)
Actually, the birds are her feet, suggesting an un-grounded feeling, or that her footing will just fly away from beneath her - another version of pre-wedding jitters or cold feet. The two birds are both hens which subtly reinforces the notion that they do in fact refer to the subject of homosexuality, and her main reason for being unsure about the commitment of marriage to this man. The behavior of the boys, also at her feet, serves to further contrast her feelings of being emotionally and sexually out of place in this otherwise "gay" scene.
From the brides face, downward diagonally past the boys in an embrace, we come to the youngest fellow in the frame. He sits playing his recorder as the peacock listens. It is no coincidence that the recorder is phallic and in proximity to the other "birds" in this composition of symbolism. The entire sequence back upward, from the young boy, to the teens as twins, to the young man as bridegroom, is a sequence of maturation. The man's expressions of his sexual identity through time is being depicted, right up to the moment of his future bride's realization of the situation - before he himself even gets it! While he flits about in premarital bliss, his bride not-to-be, is realizing that he is gay, and that the wedding will not proceed. "Why are we getting married?" she is now asking.
This is either a general depiction of a common situation, or the artist is expressing one of his own life experiences. The acceptability of homosexuality at the time of his marrying age (1940's) was very different than today's, and a closeted man stayed that way, especially into marriage with a woman. Did he have an idea that he was "different" from a young age, then realize it as a teen, only to come to terms with it right before his marriage to a woman was immanent as this depiction suggests? Or is he depicting some other man's predicament, perhaps a friend or even a brother, who did get married anyway, only to find himself trapped? The exact source of his inspiration matters less than the clarity with which we now see the narrative. It is one of natural beginnings (peacock and boy), through childhood attraction to the same sex, up to an adult decision needing to be made based upon the truth, otherwise the married couple would surely be unhappy. The moral of this story will be expressed in The Fable of Juno and the Peacock at the end of this interpretation.
Before we end however, an accounting of the various pairs is in order, as this composition also represents the Twins of the zodiac sign of Gemini. There are twelve individuals creating six pairs in this scene. These include the bride and groom of course, the twin boys, and three pairs of identical animals - hens, squirrels and cranes. The hens are of the same sex, the squirrel's genders we do not know, and the cranes are heterosexual as a strongly pair bonded species. The artist knew his birds, as cranes are perennially monogamous breeders, establishing long-term pair bonds that may last their entire lifetimes. So all three possibilities of gender pairing identities is available to us in this scene; homo, hetero, and uncertain (bisexual or asexual). They are in the background as dreamlike symbols of life's sexual choices.
Vincent often uses cranes in his work. The crane’s beauty and their spectacular mating dances have made them highly symbolic birds in many cultures with records dating back to ancient times. Greek and Roman myths often portrayed the dance of cranes as a love of joy and a celebration of life. The cranes in this scene are associated with the adult couple, representing their courtship ritual. Their long necks are not affectionately intertwined however, and they are separated from each other, as each is looking away from their respective human pairing. The one associated with the woman is standing tall like she is, and ready to exit left, and out of the scene entirely.
Then there is the most interesting pair of "birds" of all - the boy and the peacock. Both of them are natural, gentle and beautiful, but in very different ways. The boy is estranged in some subtle way, as he sits alone curled up in his own little corner of the world, playing his solitary tune. Not strange behavior for a child in itself, but in terms of the composition he is relegated to an extreme corner of the frame. In many of his paintings, the artist often alludes to his own sense of being seen as a "strange bird" in the eyes of most, and yet he became openly proud to display his identity like the peacock. The other males in this scene are rejoicing in the tune. It is the calling of an original homosexual nature which the pre-sexual boys are enjoying, and that the man must acknowledge and accept as a fully sexual adult. The fully open peacock's tail represents the overarching continuum which unites all three ages of his life - from that of his original self until his inevitable "coming out" to show his true colors.
The Summer Solstice occurs around the third week of June and is the time of the longest daylight hours of the year. The boy with his arms spread wide is basking in the sunshine of the season, and is enjoying being out in his original nature.
You may ask, if the boys in the scene are all the same persona of one man divided among phases in his life (perhaps even the artist's own life), then why are there twins of himself in an embrace? Besides the simple fact that this is also a story of Gemini Twins, it is also the artist's way of presenting dream imagery. Something can be something else or even many things at once in dreams (including divisions or multiplications of the self), which are framed within, but not limited by, the laws of reality:
This is why the artist uses magic realism to express his ideas, as it allows him to associate multiple themes in a conceptually cubist way. Whereas in his earlier Fusionism he sought to find the underlying unity of the subject/object relationship by reducing several themes to a single, nearly incomprehensible thing, his magic realism multiplies subject/object relationships by free associating and unifying several comprehensible themes under a single yet complex idea (to the point of being mysterious).
In a totally free associative process, the twin boys do not necessarily exist as, but could be, and are not limited to, the following paired combinations (depending on the needs of the narrative): his friends, his brothers, two boys in general, himself and his brother, even his father and himself. In this case it appears to be himself to himself as his alter ego (his twin), through whom one of his selves longs to be free while the other is playfully holding himself back. It is also an acknowledgment of his own homosexual nature - as he smiles while looking upon the kissing hens.
Basic composition also tells the story on a simple subconscious level. The frame is divided directly in half, with the woman and one tall crane on one side, pointing out of the frame. They will soon be out of the picture and the story, leaving the man with himself (selves, or other males). Meanwhile, in the other side of the frame, a triangular arrangement of the three ages of the man are all joined by the circular peacock's tail representing the unified relationship of the males in their identity, over the passage of time.
There is also a mythological pairing in "June" - between the peacock and the woman that are diagonal to each other. It is as if the artist himself is thanking the woman as the wise Juno for releasing him to his true self. It is in the form of a fable which also contains the moral of this story.
The Fable of Juno and the Peacock:
The peacock came to see Juno, because he could not accept with equanimity the fact that the goddess had not given him the song of the nightingale. The peacock complained that the nightingale's song was wondrously beautiful to every ear, while he was laughed at by everyone as soon as he made the slightest sound. Juno then consoled the peacock and said, 'You are superior in beauty and superior in size; there is an emerald splendor that shines about your neck, and your tail is a fan filled with jewels and painted feathers.' The peacock protested, 'What is the point of this silent beauty, if I am defeated by the sound of my own voice?' 'Your lot in life has been assigned by the decision of the Fates,' said Juno. 'You have been allotted beauty; the eagle, strength; the nightingale, harmony; the raven has been assigned prophetic signs, while unfavorable omens are assigned to the crow; and so each is content with his own particular gift.'
Moral: Do not strive for something that was not given to you, lest your disappointed expectations become mired in discontent. The young man should not strive to be in a heterosexual marriage, to fulfill unreasonable expectations of himself (or others) just to conform to society. To do so would lead to unhappiness. A fact much appreciated and practiced today, but which took liberated men like Vincent Smarkusz to help make it so.
Vincent Smarkusz created many of these dream like narratives, ripe with symbolism, to express complex themes in a simple unified way within a single painting. A picture is worth much more than a thousand words - especially when it comes in the form of a dream.
See also "Peacocks" by Vincent Smarkusz Interpreting "Peacocks"
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