Orgies can be regarded as a part of the dark and hidden side of society and culture. They disregard all norms and even laws that have existed throughout history. There have always been loopholes in societies that were monogamous and heterosexual, and at the same time banned homosexuality, but also incest or sodomy. People who acted against the law and moral rules have always found a way to fulfill their sexual desires, urges and perversions. This sometimes hasn’t been realized in a real-life context, but in the form of artistic expression. Besides literature, we can also find the depiction of orgies in art that give us interesting insights of what was regarded indecent and forbidden.
Fig. 1: Untitled, lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 2: photography by Alexandre Dupouy, Paris
Anything Goes
What we see in those orgies is that people lose control, especially by drinking alcohol. Disinhibition by drugs is something very common in order to overcome moral restrictions, sense of shame and all regulations regarding marital obligations and love. We can find single people or couples form groups of four (called quartets), eight (called octets) or even more in those depictions. The lines between heterosexuality and homosexuality blur or vanish. There are no age limits, even incest is not a taboo. In literature, but also art, we find scenes between humans and animals and all psychological limits are broken, according to the motto “anything goes”.
Fig. 3: untitled, lithograph, 1830, anonymous
Fig. 4: Blindman’s Buff, 1830, anonymous
Fig. 5: Les Petits Jeux I (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 6: Les Petits Jeux II (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 7: Les Petits Jeux III (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 8: Les Petits Jeux IV (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 9: Les Petits Jeux V (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 10: Les Petits Jeux VI (little games), lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 11: Illustration “Musée des Familles“, colored lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Divine Frenzy
Orgies, whether in real life or art, have probably always existed. In Ancient Rome people had boisterous feasts like the Roman Saturnalia celebrating the God Saturn. Those feasts were also connected with fertility and potency, and everyone was basically invited to celebrate their unbridled lust and sexuality. “Humans are besides themselves in order to be completely absorbed and enraptured by divinity”, Proclus, a Greek philosopher explained. These ecstatic states could be trance-like and orgiastic. Plato called them “divine frenzy” and the word orgy refers to this sort of mad rush.
Fig. 12: “Journal des Connaissances Utiles”I (Journal of Useful Knowledge), colored lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 13: “Journal des Connaissances Utiles”II (Journal of Useful Knowledge), colored lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 14: “Journal des Connaissances Utiles” III (Journal of Useful Knowledge), colored lithograph, 1840, anonymous
Fig. 15: “Journal des Connaissances Utiles” IV (Journal of Useful Knowledge), colored lithograph, 1840, anonymous
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Click here for part II or click here for a rare set of 15 German erotic engraving from around 1840 also depicting orgies.
Source: Orgien, Ekstatische Feste in der Kunst, Hans-Jürgen Döpp (Hrsg.), Palast Verlag, 2007