Julia Robinson The Infernal Cake Cathedral/bridal satin (70m), thread, silk ribbon (approximately 100m), beads, stuffing, MDF, timber, fixings.
Dimensions (variable): 275 x 200 x 200 cm
Photograph by Christian Capurro, J. Dillon & Über Gallery
O you, whose honour, knowledge and each art,
say, who are these whose status gives them claim
to here assemble in a sphere apart ? (The Inferno, IV, 73-75) 1
It stands an imposing 2.75 meters tall, voluminous and slightly burlesque. It resembles a decapitated Southern belle in a ballooning hoop skirt, swathed in the pearly whiteness of nearly seventy meters of Cathedral satin. 2 No, it is not some mutant refugee from the Bridal Expo, but Julia Robinson's remarkable textile sculpture, the inedible but symbolically gluttonous, ‘Infernal Cake' (2007).
The structure of the work inverts the nine circles of hell, as prescribed in The Inferno , the first volume of the epic poem La Divina Commedia (c.1300-21) by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), to form twenty tiers of a perverse and sumptuous wedding cake. First installed at Über Gallery , Robinson spent just over four months nearly full-time on sewing and construction; the basic structure is of graduated discs with the satin padded and stapled around the edges, and then stacked up. Each layer is embroidered with evocative and meticulously rendered scenes from the text; they spiral upwards like flourishes of coloured sugar scrolled on an impervious granite-like surface of royal icing.
The luridly violent and gratuitous content of the poem, explicitly depicted, is a somewhat jarring contradiction within the feminine tradition of the ‘genteel arts'. In attempting to emulate the scope of Dante's vision, it is one Robinson enjoys. ‘I delight in the tension between the beautiful and the grotesque, the repulsive and the compulsive, the comical and the macabre. These discordant elements are at the heart of my work...', she reflects. Robinson toys with our visual associations; the white satin of a christening robe, first communion, debutante, or wedding dress symbolising purity and innocence. From a distance the structure seems quite passive, benign, pillowy almost. On closer inspection, the viewer is confronted with harrowing scenes of torture, sadism, and degradation. The countless agitated souls are finely embellished with black and red beads—bloodied, fiery, and sickly sweet,
Tears of poisoned blood oozed from their eyes
and down their faces, dripping to their feet (III, 67-68) 3
Robinson based her drawings on a 14 th Century Italian manuscript (possibly Genoan) of The Inferno from the Bodleian Library (MS. Holkham misc. 48). 4 It was formerly owned by the agriculturalist and MP for Norfolk Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester (1752-1842), from the great library at his seat of Holkham Hall. Within the layers Robinson has included charming portraits of her supporters; she and her Mother appear in the circle of the Hoarders and Spendthrifts (pushing large boulders around) as spendthrifts, and her film-maker brother Simon as a hoarder (pushing a boulder in the opposite direction),
...'Spend it now!', and ‘No, no, hoard!'
Round the circle on a zig-zag track
they drove, from one point to its opposite;
here, they bawled the slogans of their claque,
before reversing in their semi-circuit,
and returning for another bout. (VII, 30-34) 5
Her partner, sculptor Roy Ananda, is in the circle below, the Gluttonous, who are mired in a bog and beset by relentless freezing hail,
Here Cerberus conducts his strange assize:
with all three throats he barks and slabbers at
the muck-bound prisoners he triple-tries. (VI, 13-15) 6
Beyond Robinson's undoubted technical achievement, the work offers a wider social commentary on the institution of marriage; the sacrament which so often turns sour. When the statistics of marital breakdown in Australia remain at one in three, and with the trend set to continue, 7 the grandiose appearance and darker subtext of this wicked faux confection skewers our fondness for ‘Happily Ever After'. The ‘Smug Marrieds' who famously plagued Bridget Jones don't seem to be faring so well after all. This is exemplified by the adulterous relationship between Francesca da Polenta (1255-85), unhappily married to the deformed Giovanni Malatesta of Rimini (d.1304), and her brother-in-law Paolo (c.1246-85) from the text. 9 Robinson first depicts them on the second circle (from the bottom) with the Lustful,
As doves, with wings extended, paraglide
the air; when, summoned by desire, they swoop
into their nest like a loving groom and bride (V, 82-84) 10
Across many cultures, weddings have long been a means of social display, a vehicle for one-upmanship and competition. Indeed, such is the mounting pressure often associated with ‘The Big Day', theatrics seem an inevitable consequence. As the potential for family discord, rows, and simmering resentments escalate, the approaching nuptials would seem to bring out the worst in the participants,
Three sparks- Envy, Pride and Avarice-
fire up the others from their beings' core. (VI, 74-75) 11
This is particularly evident in the rise of the ‘Bridezilla' phenomenon, 12 which has entered the vernacular as characterising the hysterical, demanding, control-freak, poised-on-the-verge-of-meltdown would-be bride. As the saying goes, it's only a cliché because it's true. Although figures of audience contempt and appalled amusement, these women are still offered up as compelling entertainment, currently numbered amongst the guiltier pleasures of popular culture.
In the scale and decadence of the ‘Infernal Cake' there is also an implied criticism of the burgeoning bridal industry, with the excessive, some would say ludicrous, fees asked for everything from photography to bonboniere. The cake can be one of the most expensive components of the formal wedding reception, depending on how elaborate it is. These seemingly impenetrable structures are often made all the more unpalatable by being imprisoned in layers of marzipan, icing, and fussy decorations. The more outlandish examples entail figurines, arches, joining bridges, and sometimes entire water-features. The bridal gown itself is often an exercise in extravagance since, with changing fashions, it will presumably be worn only once. The well-known bane of every bridesmaid is a costly dress and accessories in an unwearable colour and dated style! The accoutrements of the modern wedding would seem to satisfy, at the very least, the Cardinal Sins of Greed (with treachery and covet ousness), but also Gluttony in the wider sense of waste, overindulgence, and intemperance.
Dante's ‘terza rima' poem 13 written in a rhyming ballad-style, represents a cautionary tale; piety mixed with pragmatism, vulgar, bawdy, humorous, repellent , excoriating, sympathetic, and strangely tender. Robinson offers a distinctive and enthralling ‘translation' of its ravishing imagery and lyricism- a panoply of fabric and thread. In her nimble hands The Inferno is re-configured as a harbinger, a monument to marital malaise; a traditional endeavour often beset by unrealistic expectations, against the contemporary back-drop of ‘affluenza' and rampant consumerism,
See the fortune-telling hags who fled
the needle, shuttle, and the spinning-wheel,
to take up herbs and witches' dolls instead. (XX, 121-23) 14
Notes
( 1 ) Ciaran Carson (ed./trans.), The Inferno of Dante Alighieri , Granta Books, London, 2002, p.25. (all references are to this edition).
( 2 ) quite unintentionally, the same length as the the Bayeux Tapestry (c.1070's).
( 3 ) Ibid, loc cit , p.18.
( 4 ) to view examples see: www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/holkham/misc/048.a.htm#catinfo
( 5 ) Ciaran Carson (ed./trans.), op cit , p.44.
( 6 ) Ibid , p.37.
( 7 ) Jacqueline Maley, ‘Till divorce do us part', The Sydney Morning Herald , 3 November, 2006.
( 9 ) Dante was personally acquainted with the family. Paolo was also married, to Orabile Beatrice, last Countess of Ghiaggiolo, and had issue. The doomed lovers are the subject of two plays, by George Henry Boker (1853) and Gabriele d'Annunzio (1901), two operas, by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1906), and by Riccardo Zandonai (1914), all called ‘ Francesca da Rimini', as well as numerous artworks. Ciaran Carson (ed./trans.), op cit , p.250-51.
( 10 ) Ibid , p.34.
( 11 ) Ibid , p.40.
( 12 ) US Reality-TV genre series (2005-07) on the WE Network, with the tag line of ‘ Engaged, Enraged. About to be committed.'
( 13 ) Dante first used this form of rhyming verse stanza. There is no limit to the number of lines, but poems or sections of poems written in 'terza rima' end with either a single line or couplet, repeating the rhyme of the middle line of the final tercet. First used in English by Geoffrey Chaucer, also by Milton, Byron, Shelley, and T. S. Eliot, among others. Ibid, loc cit , p.xxi.
( 14 ) Ibid , p.138.
