In the Frame for May

Having recently seen a body of contemporary artwork work by Heather and Ivan Morrison inspired by the life and work of the novelist Anna Kavan (1901-1968), on display at The Hepworth Wakefield until 10 June, the Archivist has written the following about Kavan’s portrait of Luz, the ‘elusive protagonist’ of her novels Ice and Mercury:

The phrase ‘elusive protagonist’ might appear a contradiction in terms, but anyone who has read Anna Kavan’s Ice will understand. Its plot centres on the narrator’s pursuit of a desirable yet unattainable young woman through a dystopian ice-bound landscape. By its absence as well as its presence, her slender figure – depicted in turn as vulnerable, ethereal and painfully thin – dominates the narrative, for the greater part of it in absentia. As a recent reviewer has commented, it is nearly impossible to provide a plot spoiler for Ice, because “its meaning shifts with each reading”.¹

None of the characters in Ice are named, but its female protagonist reappears as ‘Luz’ in Mercury, in which Kavan extends her apocalyptic imaginings. Her work has inspired Heather and Ivan Morrison to create an installation of contemporary art (and script a puppet show for performance within the installation) at The Hepworth Wakefield, in which the woman, depicted in white chalk and bone, is named ‘Anna’. To regard Ice as simply autobiographical, however, would be to diminish the imaginative achievement of its author.

Indeed, Kavan’s creative powers extended to painting, and one of the Archives & Museum’s recent acquisitions is Kavan’s imagined portrait of Luz, “her extreme thinness corresponding as it does to Anna’s idea of the female stereotype…nonetheless sexualised by full breasts and defined curves”.² This haunting image seems to capture well the impression of alternating corporeality and insubstantiality left with the reader of Ice.

Kavan’s only association with Bethlem and the Maudsley was a brief spell as a research assistant at Mill Hill Emergency Hospital, to which Maudsley staff were evacuated for the duration of the Second World War. In the 1940s she also wrote for the literary review magazine Horizon. One of her pieces could be considered without anachronism to be a product of the anti-psychiatric movement, if only it had been published twenty-five years later.³ Kavan is best remembered for her visionary fiction, but perhaps deserves more recognition within the pantheon of twentieth-century British authors than she has received to date, despite the existence of a learned society dedicated to her memory. It is good to see her work continuing to fire the artistic imagination. Perhaps one day her painting will be the subject of an extended study worthy of comparison to those that have taken her writing career as their point of departure.

1 Hannah Freeman, ‘Winter Reads: Ice by Anna Kavan’, The Guardian, 21 December 2011.

2 Jeremy Reed, Anna Kavan: An illustrated catalogue (York, 2005), p. 34.

3 Anna Kavan, ‘The Case of Bill Williams’, Horizon vol. IX no. 50 (1944), pp. 96-99.

In the Frame for April

Two weeks or so ago we were pleased to welcome a year 9 student from a local high school on a work shadowing placement here at the Archive and Museum. We are grateful to her for taking responsibility for this month’s In The Frame. She has chosen Mountain Range by ‘Spicer’.

“The first thought I had when looking at this painting was that it was a reflection. In the middle to the left are several curved brushstrokes that, to me, give the impression of a water droplet hitting the surface of a smooth, still lake. After further inspection of the painting, I realised that perhaps it could be an indication of wind, or maybe just some random brushstrokes inserted by the artist.

“We don’t know much about this painting, except what we see, and the same goes for the artist. The artist (male or female) was named ‘Spicer’, and painted this in January 1950. Otherwise, mystery surrounds this piece of artwork, which is probably why it appeals to me.

“The whole effect is quite unexplained – we don’t know where this place is or if it was just imagined by the painter. The different shades of blue and purple give an aura of the unknown, almost like a mystical land. It almost looks like, with a stretch of the imagination, that there is a castle sitting on the middle mountain. The flowers too (though I confess that the extent of my knowledge of botany goes no further than watering my mum’s garden) look like there is something different about them.

“But the main reason I chose this painting is the use of colour. To begin with, the colours used are quite dark, which could reflect this person’s state of mind, but gradually change towards the top of the painting. I especially like the strips of orange and bright blue behind the mountains, since they compliment each other and stand out.

“The sky has a small range of colours – mainly indigo, lilac and peach – but is the most beautiful part of the whole painting. The clouds were formed very well – not too abstract yet not just a load of shapes – and give an impression of dusk, twilight or sunset. The other colours used in the painting are either quite bright and loud, or depressed and miserable, so the sky offers an alternative and a mix of both.”

 

In the Frame for March 2012

This month for In the Frame, our Friends Secretary has chosen to highlight an anonymous sketch, which forms part of the lantern slide collection put together in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by Bethlem Chaplain, Geoffrey O’Donoghue. She writes:

“While researching my PhD, I’ve recently been reading through early copies of the Bethlem magazine, Under the Dome, and uncovered some interesting background about a sketch that has long interested me. The drawing, used by O’Donoghue in his lectures on the history of the Hospital, depicts the distinctive, dome-topped St George’s Fields building as a birdcage. The image is double-edged. One obvious interpretation is its representation of the loss of freedom for certified patients (patients are depicted inside the cage while the staff, one of whom holds a large key, are outside). In addition, however, the birdcage became a widely-used symbol of asylum life in the period. Many hospitals, including Bethlem, kept birdcages on wards, representing the keen interest many Victorian psychiatrists held in the importance of domestic life to therapeutics. The asylum was intended to provide a sanctuary that, nonetheless, was reminiscent of home, and the birdcage was both decorative and provided “natural” companionship through domestic pets; the parrot on male ward 3 received a veritable plethora of mentions in Under the Dome until its sad obituary in September 1895.

“Since I first encountered this image a few years ago, I’ve remained interested in the variety of associations within it, as well as its potentially subversive nature. What surprised me in my recent discovery was to learn that the artist of the sketch was female. The vast majority of asylum art, poetry and other artefacts of the period retained by (male) doctors was created by male patients, making this sketch by “Kentish Scribbler” (the artist’s pseudonym) unusual to say the least. Two additional points are also of interest, and might suggest some re-evaluation of asylum life in this period. O’Donoghue describes the sketch as having been drawn “when the artist was a patient”, which must have been in the mid-1870s given the medical officers she depicts. Within the birdcage are “are the figures of the artist, and other well-known patients of the period.” The artist herself is presumably the female bird depicted in one of the circular windows of the dome: most of the other “well-known patients” are, however, male, which puts a question mark over the strict segregation of the sexes we often assume in this period. What’s more, Kentish Scribbler gave the sketch to O’Donoghue more than twenty years after its completion, at which time she was apparently no longer a patient. Nonetheless, her association with the Hospital was ongoing: she began contributing puzzles and poems to Under the Dome in its first printed issue in 1893, and appeared in every issue until her sudden death in May 1902 (when a short obituary, retaining her pseudonym, was printed). Having depicted the Hospital as a cage in the 1870s, why did Kentish Scribbler remain associated with it into the twentieth century? Did she regularly visit, or even work in the 1890s Hospital? It seems the more I learn about this sketch, the more intriguing it becomes…”

The four staff members on the outside of the bird-cage are (clockwise from top-left): Mr Haydon (Steward 1853 – 89), Rev. Vaughan (Chaplain 1865 – 91), Dr Williams (Superintendent 1865 – 78), Dr Savage (Assistant Medical Officer 1872 – 78)

In the Frame for February 2012

This month our Registrar has chosen to highlight a painting by Charles Sims (1873-1928) entitled The Swing. She writes:

I am intrigued by this watercolour painting by Charles Sims, as it looks like it could be a reinterpreted version of Jean-Honore Fragonard’s 1766 painting of the same name (which is on display in central London at the Wallace Collection).

Sims studied at the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. He was an accomplished artist, who would have had training in art history and been aware of Fragonard’s painting. Through visually referencing the composition of the historic work, Sims would have been demonstrating his knowledge as well as his compulsion to revisit the work with his own thoughts and style. Where the Fragonard painting focuses on the flagrant eroticism between three figures, Sims’ rounded composition has created a softer, more organic scene, which is reinforced by his subtle brushwork and natural palette. Sims has concentrated on natural playfulness, shown through the dappled light and the delicate treatment and integration of the figures into the overwhelming presence of trees and greenery.

The focus of Sims’ painting seems to have been on the natural landscape, and he was perhaps saying through his version of The Swing that people and their actions are as much a part of nature as are plants and trees.

In the Frame for January 2012

In February 1988, artist Bryan Charnley described his recent works as ‘an interior journey in which landscape, figure and object stand as symbols of intense inner conflict and other states. Drawing to some extent on dream material, I work slowly, allowing the painting to explain itself.’ His painting Indecision, (from about four years earlier), is a prime example of this style of work.

Standing on a multi-coloured floor, a blind man must decide which of two alternative doors he should pass through. To take the door on the right will be difficult, for there are steps to climb, which he can feel with his stick. To go left will be easier. The coloured flooring extends to the room beyond, perhaps indicating that with this choice, nothing will change, but the blind man has no way of knowing this. To him, both doors lead to darkness – an uncertain and perhaps frightening future. The psychedelic flooring on which he stands, contrasting with the darkness glimpsed from beyond the doors, is perhaps an allusion to the artist’s expressed opinion that ‘current medical practice attempts to suppress both the patient and his symptoms’, and in particular that the medication prescribed to control his illness was stifling his creativity.

The real impact of this painting however, is not so much in its relationship to the artist’s own mental condition, but rather in its depiction of a dilemma common to us all: How can we make informed choices while facing an uncertain future?

More information on Bryan Charnley is available here.