Thursday, November 20, 2025

Jean Harlow: caught mid-thought between sin and shampoo

A black-and-white photograph of Jean Harlow seated in a bathtub, captured in a moment of startling vulnerability and poise. Her pale hair is piled loosely atop her head, echoing the gleam of the porcelain around her. Turning toward the camera with wide, kohl-rimmed eyes, she embodies the uneasy glamour of pre-Code Hollywood — sensuality rendered with both frankness and restraint. The vertical wood panelling, modest lace curtain, and long-handled brush hanging on the wall suggest a setting of domestic privacy, yet the actress’s direct gaze breaks its intimacy, transforming it into theatre. The chiaroscuro lighting sculpts her shoulders and cheekbones, turning a simple bathing scene into a study in exposure — of body, of fame, and of the fragile boundary between artifice and authenticity.

Apologies, folks, for the lack of posts of late. Am physically unwell and have sunk into a quasi-catatonic state, devoid of will or inclination to do anything—not even to share images of the goddesses, as I so dearly love to do. It is a season of reflection and profound remorse, of revulsion and horror at the state of all things; yet perhaps, too, a season of spiritual purgation. What this world hath wrought upon us all is sickening beyond the reach of words.

Still, here is Jean Harlow, for this is what Lord Arthur does: he strives to preserve beauty, even as he and the world he inhabits have known almost nothing but ugliness. I long to return to this vocation in full once more, though I cannot at present say with any certainty what the coming days and weeks may bring. —Arthur Newhook, 20 November 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

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Jean Harlow: caught mid-thought between sin and shampoo

Apologies, folks, for the lack of posts of late. Am physically unwell and have sunk into a quasi-catatonic state, devoid of will or inclinat...