#32: Snake Women by Boris Vallejo

Snake Women by Boris Vallejo, copyright 1980. From his book Mirage.

This analysis copyright 2010 by Scott M. McDaniel.

The Image

When I decided to do a Vallejo picture here I asked my Facebook friends list what kind of cheese they thought best represented his art. Answers were generally high-end or gourmet: Raclette, Manchego, Pont-l’Évêque, Gouda. Someone threw out “processed cheese food,” but I think I’d have to go with Havarti. I like Havarti. And the cheese enthusiast in me likes Vallejo. He’s the first artist I learned to identify based on style alone.

Unfortunately I can’t find a link, but I once saw a cartoon with a woman in a +5 chain mail bikini. She had half a dozen arrows stuck in the chinks on her bosom, and she was saying how glad she was she wore her armor. (I think it was in a Dragon magazine.) Anyway, Vallejo epitomizes that barely-there style of fantasy clothing. It fails in providing warmth or protection, but it allows publishers to put naked babes and guys on book covers without being sued. I also think it dovetailed with Vallejo’s love of painting the ideal human form. This painting, Snake Women, is from his book Mirage. Here he dispenses with the chain mail bikini level entirely to create fantasy erotica.

The Composition

I’m going to get into more specifics of style shortly, but first lets start with the basics of the composition. The image is a vignette that shows three snake women, apparently identical. The basic shape is a triangle with the middle woman’s head at the top and the mass of snakes at the bottom as the base.

As a vignette there is a hint of background, but this picture isn’t part of a larger scene or narrative. It’s a character study. As such, Vallejo sets up several pathways to guide our eyes from snake-person to snake-person. The tallest woman’s hands take us directly to the women on either side, and their poses generally guide us across the picture to each other. The one exception is the arm of the woman on the left. It points down and left, out of the painting. It’s certainly necessary for balance in the pose, though, and it’s not that hard to get back into the main painting.

The Values and Color

This is a very dark painting. Take a look at the greyscale version:

Vallejo also goes with a narrow color palette:

He ranges from yellow to reds, with just a couple of purples. What is remarkable, though, is how much saturation he uses. This is the most saturated image I’ve analyzed up to this point. The dark, intense reds create a mood of danger and give us an other-worldly, hellish setting.

The subject matter reinforces the hellish mood – snakes symbolize danger and cunning. Not only is there the serpent in the garden of Eden, but snakes can also be physically dangerous. The combination of color and snakes puts us on our guard, and I’d say even the posture of the snake women provide warning. It’s a little too inviting. The open arms and gorgeous women are an invitation, of course, and that conflict is what Vallejo is playing with here. It’s the central concept of the painting. Not all erotica is safe and romantic – the danger can be a turn on.

The Style

Wikipedia refers to Vallejo’s “hyper-representational paintings.” The style appeals to me in part because I like the contrast between fantastical creatures and realistic painting. A heavily stylized picture of these same snake women wouldn’t carry the same impact. Imagine a Picasso version of them. We’d be so focused on the style and shapes that we’d only get to the snake women later, once we parsed the picture. So much for the sense of danger and wonder.

So what is it that makes this painting classically “Vallejo”? Here are some elements that I see repeated over and over again in his work: