{"id":304126,"date":"2026-02-27T02:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304126\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T02:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T02:06:10","slug":"swans-have-been-seducing-us-for-centuries-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304126\/","title":{"rendered":"Swans have been seducing us for centuries. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the artist Nieves Gonz\u00e1lez, recently commissioned to paint the portrait of Lily Allen for her West End Girl album cover, also produced the painting La Santa y el cisne. Featuring a\u00a0near-expressionless female figure in a puffer coat with a perfect white swan sitting in her lap, it makes you do a double take.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe swan, no 1, 1915, by Hilma af Klint \u00a9 Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk. Photograph, Albin Dahlstr\u00f6m\/Moderna Museet<\/p>\n

\u201cI am particularly interested in the duality of the swan,\u201d says Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a>. \u201cIt is an animal associated with beauty, purity and elegance \u2013 but at the same time it carries something unsettling, even aggressive, that disrupts that idealised image.\u201d<\/p>\n

A black swan still lives somewhere inside me<\/p>\n

Artist Mamma Andersson<\/p>\n

Swans, associated with Aphrodite, Venus and Apollo, have long been a source of mythic fascination; during the Greek Archaic period they were considered a symbol of good health, music, divination and grace. They have inspired artists for millennia, from the Greek myth of Leda and the swan and its depictions by Leonardo, C\u00e9zanne or Boucher, to Hilma af Klint, whose portrayals, from figurative to\u00a0abstract, will feature in an exhibition opening at the Grand Palais<\/a> in Paris this spring (6 May until 30 August). Shannon Cartier Lucy\u2019s 2019 oil Girl with Swans features a woman carrying a plastic bag of\u00a0swans, which she likes painting for their \u201cloaded symbolism\u201d. Her solo show\u00a0Bucket of Birds will open in April at\u00a0Night Gallery<\/a> in LA.<\/p>\n

\"LedaLeda and the Swan, c1530, by Michelangelo \u00a9 Bridgeman Images\"SwansSwans and pots (four), 2024, by Rosalind Nashashibi \u00a9 Jonathan de Waart\/Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of the swan is widely acknowledged,\u201d says designer Sabina Savage<\/a>, who has used the motif in her latest scarf collection Fairytale di Firenze. \u201cBut my real fascination with them comes\u00a0from the darker side of their nature.\u00a0Just as\u00a0their pearlescent white feathers gleam above the\u00a0water, the swelling depths conceal black, gnarled legs and cumbrous feet.\u201d For\u00a0British-Palestinian artist Rosalind Nashashibi<\/a>, meanwhile, the\u00a0birds in her paintings teeter between \u201cpeaceful and warlike, beautiful and kitsch\u201d. She likes to\u00a0use them as signifiers for her complex political feelings.<\/p>\n

\"GirlGirl with Swans, 2019, by Shannon Cartier Lucy \u00a9 Shannon Cartier Lucy<\/p>\n

Swans have long featured in luxury and high culture. Until the 18th century they were a gourmet delicacy: it\u2019s reported that in 1247, King Henry III ordered 40 swans for\u00a0Christmas dinner. Swan decorations adorned Marie Antoinette\u2019s bathroom at\u00a0Versailles, and the queen favoured accessories featuring swan feathers (you can see further examples in Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A<\/a>, until 22 March). Fashion still loves swans. At his debut womenswear collection for Dior<\/a>, Jonathan Anderson presented a skirt of swan-like plumes; the skirt was later worn by the actor Natalie Portman to a special screening of Darren Aronofsky\u2019s film Black Swan in 2025. When Meryll Rogge, the new creative director at Marni<\/a>, co-launched her BB Wallace knitwear brand last year, she chose the swan as one of its key emblems.<\/p>\n

\"Swans,Swans, 1996, by Mats Gustafson \u00a9 Mats Gustafson<\/p>\n

Fashion illustrator and artist Mats Gustafson<\/a> began making pastel drawings of\u00a0swans in the early \u201990s. His images have featured in various exhibitions, including a 2023 show at Stockholm\u2019s Millesg\u00e5rden<\/a> museum where 10 swans appeared on an elegant room screen \u2013 a\u00a0piece of furniture that now resides in Toteme<\/a>\u2019s Swedish flagship store. Later this\u00a0year, Gustafson will present his latest versions in a solo exhibition at MA2 gallery<\/a> in Tokyo. He traces his interest in the birds back to a winter in Stockholm, walking along the water by the Royal Palace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so much mythology around them,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I did the first swans there was maybe a touch of irony that I used something so overly considered as beautiful \u2013 but I am drawn to their graphic beauty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SwanSwan Pond, 2016, by Mamma Andersson \u00a9 Per-Erik Adamsson\/Courtesy of Galleri Magnus Karlsson<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe swan is bound to the idea of love,\u201d says the artist Mamma Andersson<\/a>. \u201cThe romantic, infatuated kind, where two swans glide so closely together that their necks form a heart, and the love that has been lost, where an abandoned swan moves through the water alone.\u201d For a long time, she avoided swans because \u201ccertain symbols are so saturated with clich\u00e9 that one instinctively resists them\u201d. Then, in 2016, alongside artist Tal R<\/a>, she created an exhibition titled Svanesang (Swan Song), which featured the\u00a0likes of Svanedamm (Swan Pond) with five birds gliding on water together. She returned to the subject with Swannery in 2019; she will be showing works at David Zwirner in Paris from 23 April. \u201cA black swan\u00a0still lives somewhere inside me,\u201d she says. \u201cSooner or later it will\u00a0find its way into a painting. They say a black swan\u00a0can change everything.\u201d<\/p>\n