The Colour of Memory

It has been twenty years since the last exhibition of paintings by the late-impressionist Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was displayed at Tate Modern. Now, until 6th May, the artworks have returned to introduce a new generation to one of the greatest colourists of the early 20th century. Beginning around 1900, Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory focuses on his mature work, many of which allow a glimpse into Bonnard’s private, domestic life.

Bonnard with his dog, 1941, André Ostier

Whilst the exhibition is in chronological order, very little of Bonnard’s life prior to 1900 is alluded to, therefore, the painter as a person remains rather elusive. Further research reveals that Pierre Bonnard was born on 3rd October 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, just south of Paris. He was the second of three children; the elder, Charles, became a chemist, whereas the younger sister, Andrée was a musician. Neither of Bonnard’s parents had any art connections and his father, a departmental head at the French Ministry of War, intended his son to study law.

Bonnard did begin studying law faculty in Paris during 1887 but found he had no interest in the subject. Instead, he enrolled in schools, such as the Académie Julian, where he befriended the painter Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), and the École des Beaux-Arts, where he met Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), with whom he would become life-long friends. Through these two friendships, Bonnard became associated with the Nabis (the Hebrew word for “Prophets”), a group of artists who saw themselves as prophets of modern art, often acting as a mystical brotherhood, wearing Oriental costumes to their monthly meetings.

Through his association with the Nabis, Bonnard developed a passion for Japanese art, earning himself the nickname “le Nabi très japonard”. He admired the decorative flatness of Japanese art, which lead him to experiment with painted screens, posters and book illustrations. As a result, Bonnard was well-known in the graphic design field, however, by 1900, he had left this aesthetic behind, in favour of the impressionist style shown in the exhibition.

Young Woman in the Garden, 1921-46

Mirror above a Washstand, 1908

There were two women in Bonnard’s life who were frequently used as his muse. The first was his long term partner Marthe de Méligny (1869-1942), who he met in 1893 and married thirty-two years later. As Bonnard discovered due to marriage, Marthe’s real name was Maria Boursin, however, she had changed it in an attempt to appear more than a working-class girl.

Despite not marrying until later in life, Bonnard and Marthe defied convention and lived together as a couple, therefore, Marthe was often on hand to act as Bonnard’s model. Many of the paintings Marthe inspired, as the first few rooms of the exhibition reveal, involved nudity, however, there was nothing corrupt or shameful about the way these figures were portrayed.

Bonnard prefered to paint from memory rather than on location, therefore, his paintings of female nudes were not posed or portrayed in contrived positions. Instead, Bonnard captured natural, casual moments, for example, a woman washing or dressing. Mirror above a Washstand (La Glace du cabinet toilette) shows the back of a naked woman reflected in a dressing table mirror. It is as though the model is unaware of the painter’s presence, however, she is not ashamed of her nakedness, emphasised by a female companion seen drinking a cup of tea in close proximity.

The other regularly occurring woman in Bonnard’s paintings is his lover Renée Monchaty. The true nature of their relationship is unclear, however, it does not appear to have been too private because she accompanied him to public places. Although this affair must have put a strain on Bonnard’s relationship with Marthe, he eventually broke it off with Renée and married his long term partner in 1925. Renée, perhaps heartbroken, took her own life the following month.

“I leave it … I come back … I do not let myself become absorbed by the object itself.”
– Pierre Bonnard

One of the first paintings in the exhibition, Young Women in the Garden (Jeunes femmes au Jardin) shows both of Bonnard’s women. The central figure seated at a table is Renée and the profile of a woman in the lower righthand corner has been identified as Marthe. The significance of this painting, however, is not the presence of both women, but the length of time it took Bonnard to complete the picture. After beginning in 1921, Bonnard put the canvas aside for many years, finally coming back to it in 1945 after both women in the scene were dead. This was a common occurrence for Bonnard, he would leave paintings and come back to them at a later date to add more detail. In fact, he never considered a painting to be completely finished.

Coffee, 1915

Open Window Toward the Seine, 1911

Dining Room in the Country, 1913

Although it often took Bonnard years to complete a painting – if they can be called complete – his subject matter was inspired by the camera. Bonnard and Marthe were keen photographers and the notion of being able to capture a single moment helped Bonnard to move away from the typical poses of artists’ models. A camera can seize an image in a split second in a way that painting never could. It can capture a movement, freezing it forever. Bonnard, in his own unique way, attempted to replicate the unplanned, spontaneous abilities of the camera.

Unlike the camera, however, Bonnard explored the possibilities of colour, settling for bold, expressive combinations. Bonnard, along with artists such as Henri Matisse (1869-1954), earned the nickname “Fauves”, the French word for “wild beasts” on account of their use of raw colour.

“You see, when I and my friends adopted the Impressionsts’ colour programme in order to build on it we wanted to go beyond naturalistic colour impressions. Art is not nature – we wanted a more rigorous composition. There was also so much more to extract from colour as a means of expression. But developments ran ahead, society was ready to accept Cubism and Surrealism before we had reached what we viewed as our aim.”
– Pierre Bonnard

Around the time that Bonnard was distancing himself from the Nabis group, he purchased his first car in 1911, which allowed him to explore the countryside and the power that natural light had on the landscape – something he tried to express in his later paintings. A year later in 1912, Bonnard bought a house in Vernonnet, Normandy, which he called Ma Roulotte (My Caravan). It is from here and the surrounding areas that the majority of Bonnard’s work in the exhibition were produced.

Except for the paintings of his nude partner in the bedroom or bathroom, the room that features the most in Bonnard’s work is the dining room whose windows look out onto the luscious, green back garden. Although the scenes may change, the room is recognisable from painting to painting.

Bonnard’s exploration of colour can be seen in the Dining Room in the Country (Salle à manger à la campagne), which was one of the first paintings he produced at his home in Normandy. The crisper, fresher colours of the garden contrast with the warm glow of the interior. The woman’s presence, most likely Marthe, leaning on the window sill, looking into the house was not posed for the painting; Bonnard was painting from memory.

There are many examples where Bonnard has contrasted the colours of the exterior and interior. Another is Open Window Towards the Seine (Vernon) (Fenêtre ouverte sur la Seine (Vernon)), where the green and blue hues are total opposites to the darker orange tones of the room. Almost missable at the edge of the canvas is a small figure of a boy in the doorway looking out into the garden. It is uncertain who the boy is because, although not much is known about Bonnard’s private life, it is believed he and Marthe never had children.

The contrast of colour between outside and inside in the painting Coffee (Le Café) is much starker than the previous two paintings. The intensity of the tones on the table cloth, yellow jumper and dog are much more precise than the gloomy grass and pathway that can be seen through the window. This suggests that the painting was produced, or at least the vision or memory in Bonnard’s head was formed, in the early evening or during a winter afternoon, the lack of sunlight dulling the natural colours of the garden.

View from Uhlenhorst Ferry House on the Outer Alster Lake with St. Johannis, 1913

A Village in Ruins Near Ham, 1917

The Fourteenth of July, 1918

The majority of Bonnard’s paintings show peaceful, tranquil scenes, however, during the years surrounding the First World War, Bonnard experimented with busier images. In some ways, Bonnard’s View from Uhlenhorst Ferry House on the Outer Alster Lake with St. Johannis (Fête sur L’Eau), resembles the genre of scenes that the impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) produced in his heyday. Renoir is famous for his paintings of bustling Parisian society and leisure activities, such as boating on a lake. Bonnard’s painting, whilst resembling Renoir in terms of content, sticks to his loose, painterly style full of shimmering light and colour.

View from Uhlenhorst Ferry House… is a response to the new sights and activities Bonnard experienced when visiting Hamburg with Édouard Vuillard at the invitation of Alfred Lichtwark (1852-1914), the Director of the Kunsthalle, the city’s museum. The regatta in the harbour is a completely different reality to Bonnard’s day-to-day life.

When the war began in August 1914, Bonnard was 46 years old and eligible to serve in the French army. Nonetheless, he opted not to fight in the conflict and continued to focus on his art. Whilst he continued to paint his usual topics, he did not entirely ignore the death and destruction occurring around him. In 1917, Bonnard painted A Village in Ruins near Ham (Un Village en ruines près de Ham) to record the devastation the war caused. Ham was a commune in the Somme, which was the scene of a lengthy battle in 1916. The painting, which looks unfinished, uses a watery-technique to reflect the desolation.

Towards the end of the war, Bonnard painted yet another artwork that transcends the usual genre of his work. The Fourteenth of July (Quatorze Julliet) shows the hustle and bustle of a crowded street during the night of 14th July, France’s national day. Although the Armistice was yet to come, the celebrating crowd emphasises the patriotism of the French, which Bonnard captured with urgent brushwork.

The Bowl of Milk, 1919

Piazza del Popolo, 1922

The Violet Fence, 1923

Basket of Bananas, 1926

After the war, Bonnard’s painting returned to the calmer, more precise method he had previously honed. Whilst this may have symbolised the return to peace, it also coincided with the death of his mother Elizabeth, which, for Bonnard, signalled a larger break with the past. Whereas most people separated their lives into before war and after the war, Bonnard used the death of his mother to split his before and afters.

Just as Bonnard returned to painting the female nude, his interior scenes continued to have the same background features – a window and a door. The Bowl of Milk (Le Bol de lait), however, only contains one window and, instead of a garden, looks out over the sea. The room appears to be lit by the reflection on the water rather than the sunlight itself.

Vernonnet, where Bonnard lived, was a short distance from Giverny where the prolific artist Claude Monet (1840-1926) lived. Bonnard regularly visited the older artist, whose landscape paintings encouraged Bonnard to create his own, away from the house. Nonetheless, whilst Monet worked en plein air, Bonnard continued to memorise the scene in his head and paint at a later date.

Although Bonnard began producing landscape paintings, they continued to contrast man-made and natural environments. His use of colour, however, continued to go beyond the realms of natural colour. This may have been in order to distinguish himself from other artists at exhibitions in Paris that he sent artworks to every year.

At this time, Bonnard was having a love affair with Renée Monchaty with whom he visited Rome in 1921. Similar to his trip to Hamburg in 1913, Bonnard recorded the sights he saw in his artwork, for example, Piazza del Popolo, Rome where his nephew Charles Terrasse (1893-1982) was studying. This fact, along with letters sent to Marthe from both Bonnard and Renée suggests that the affair was not a secret.

The scenes in Rome are urban and feature many figures, both in the foreground and the background. Monet, however, had convinced Bonnard to experiment with countryside landscapes, such as that which can be seen in The Violet Fence (La Palissade violette). True to Bonnard’s style, the green landscape is made up of unnaturally bright green hues and is contrasted with the paler, man-made wooden fence.

As well as landscapes, Bonnard turned his hand to still life, devoid of human presence and the outside world. Basket of Bananas (Le Corbeile de bananes) uses a similar colour scheme to the interior of rooms he painted in the previous decade, thus suggesting these still lives may have been painted or seen in the same setting.

The Table, 1925

The Dining Room, 1925

One room of the exhibition contains a number of paintings that Bonnard produced in 1925. What sets these particular paintings apart from the rest of the display is that a number have been removed from their frames in order to provide an insight into how the artist worked. Rather than using an easel, Bonnard pinned his canvases directly onto the wall, allowing him to paint the entire surface. Often, he pinned several on the same wall so that he could switch between paintings whenever he felt like working on something different.

In Bonnard’s work, there is a sense of cropping with some features only half in the picture. This, in a way, echoes the camera, which can only capture what can be seen through the lens. By removing the frames, viewers can see that the cropping was intentional and not an effect of the frame. On some paintings, Bonnard sketched in lines where the frame would fall in order to make sure everything he wanted in the scene would be on view.

The Boxer, 1931

The Garden, 1936

Large Dining Room Overlooking the Garden, 1934-5

In 1926, Bonnard and Marthe moved to the village of Le Cannet in the south of France. The name of their new house was Le Bosquet (The Grove) on account of its surrounding thicket of trees. His painting The Garden (Le Jardin) shows the mass of growth the Bonnard’s had in their back garden, emphasised by Bonnard’s rapid brushstrokes.

The walls of the final rooms in the exhibition are painted Naples yellow, which was the same shade that Bonnard painted his dining room at Le Bosquet. The common theme of contrast between exterior and interior continued in his new home, as can be seen in Large Dining Room Overlooking the Garden (Grande Salle à manger sur le jardin). This painting took over a year to complete, which goes to show how good Bonnard’s memory (or imagination) was since there was no way he could possibly set up his canvas in the same room for that length of time.

The colour yellow became more prominent in these later paintings, perhaps due to the colour of Bonnard’s dining room walls. Bonnard began experimenting with self-portraits, such as The Boxer (Le Boxeur), which also has a yellow background.

Steps in the Artist’s Garden, 1942-44

Bathers at the End of the Day, 1945

The Studio with Mimosa, 1939-46

The final years of Bonnard’s life were marred by the Second World War and the death of his life-long companion Marthe in January 1942. The war and subsequent travel restrictions meant that Bonnard was mostly confined to his home and the surrounding countryside. Nevertheless, he persevered with his paintings, finding solace in his encounters with nature, which he recorded on canvases, for instance, Steps in the Artist’s Garden (L’Escalier dans le jardin de l’artiste).

In a slightly different from usual manner, Bonnard depicted swimmers in the sea in Bathers at the End of the Day (Baigneurs à la fin du jour). Whilst the deep blue tones cover the majority of the canvas, the colours merge into greens and yellows at the top and bottom to form the shore and sky.

Despite subtle changes over the years, Bonnard continued to return to his typical interplay between interior and exterior. The Studio with Mimosa (L’Atelier au mimosa) was begun in 1939 and took until 1946, the year before his death, to complete. Unlike the contrasting colours used in previous examples, these tones appear to explode from the canvas, taking on a fiery atmosphere. Bonnard claimed his choice of colours were emotion driven, which in this instance could suggest feelings of anger and frustration over the losses he had suffered in life through war and death.

“I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practise his art.”
– Pierre Bonnard

For a painter who never thought his paintings were finished, Bonnard completed a large number of canvases. By omitting his work produced prior to 1900, Tate Modern create a picture of an artist who discovered a method he could work with and stuck with for most of his life. At a time when the art world was moving on to newer, abstract things, Bonnard stuck to the style that had worked for him and produced a unique collection of work.

It is a shame that so little is known about Pierre Bonnard’s life, however, Tate Modern provide visitors with photographs and correspondence that reveal a little of Bonnard’s personality and daily situation. He was a contemporary of Matisse and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), who had differing views about their friend’s style of art, the former believing that Bonnard was “one of the greatest painters”.

Whilst Bonnard’s work may not be to everyone’s taste, his paintings are pleasant to look at and, despite some nudism, are not repulsive in any way. In art history, the focus tends to be on the prevailing art movements of the time, so it is thanks to Tate Modern that this unconventional artist will not be forgotten.

Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory will be on display until 6th May 2019. Tickets cost £18 for adults, although members of Tate can visit for free.

My blogs are now available to listen to as podcasts on the following platforms: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Spotify.

If you would like to support my blog, become a Patreon from £5p/m or “buy me a coffee” for £3. Thank You!

Advertisement

Staging Magic

Magic, or the art of appearing to perform supernatural feats, has been popular throughout the world since the 16th century. People have been and continue to be fascinated by illusions, entertained by rabbits appearing out of hats and mystified by seemingly impossible acts. This year (2019), the Senate House Library in London has staged an exhibition containing over 60 magical stories that focus on legerdemain (sleight-of-hand) and stage illusions from the past four centuries. Staging Magic: The Story Behind the Illusion, uses books, manuscripts and other items once belonging to the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature to piece together the history of one of the oldest performing arts in the world.

Studio Portrait of Harry Price

Although not all made it into the exhibition, the Harry Price Library contains over 13,000 items dating from the 15th century until the present related to magic, witchcraft, parapsychology, the occult and other similar subjects. This huge collection was bequeathed to the University of London after the death of its owner, Harry Price (1881-1948), which has been useful for research into “rare, old and curious works on magic, witchcraft, legerdemain, charlatanism, and the occult sciences.”

Harry Price, born in London, was only a young boy when he first became fascinated with magic. At a travelling magic show, Price came across the Great Sequah, a man who he later claimed was “entirely responsible for shaping much of my life’s work”. As a young boy with a toothache, Price was fascinated when the Great Sequah “extracted” his tooth and proceeded to perform a series of other magical wonders. Naturally, Price demanded to know how the tricks were accomplished, for instance, how could an empty hat suddenly contain two doves?

Modern Magic

Due to his obsessive need to know how the Great Sequah performed such feats, Price was eventually given a copy of Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic (1874) in an attempt to satisfy his curiosity. Instead, this book was the small spark that fueled his passion for magic, psychical phenomena and the occult, culminating in an enormous collection of books, some of which can be seen on display today.

Angelo John Lewis (1839-1919) was an English lawyer and professor who went on to become the leading writer about magic of his time under the moniker Professor Louis Hoffmann. Modern Magic, published in 1874, was the first ever encyclopedia of performance magic. The first edition of 2000 copies sold out in seven weeks due to its popularity. Eventually, 15 editions of the book were published by the end of the 19th century and, being the first in a tetralogy, was soon followed by the titles More Magic (1890), Later Magic (1903) and Latest Magic (1918).

As well as reporting on past and present magicians, Modern Magic became a favourite amongst aspiring conjurors, including Price who became an expert in sleight-of-hand and joined the Magic Circle in 1922. The British organisation was founded in 1905 after 23 amateur magicians met at Pinoli’s Restaurant in Soho, and was dedicated to promoting and advancing the art of magic.

In order to join the Circle, applicants had to qualify through either a performance exam or a written thesis about a branch of magic. Only then could they be designated a Member of the Magic Circle (M.M.C.). Further distinctions were later formed, for instance, Member of The Inner Magic Circle (M.I.M.C), which was limited to a select 300 members.

Although the Magic Circle aimed to promote magic, members had to give their word that they would not disclose any of their magic secrets to the public. The society’s motto indocilis privata loqui, meaning “not apt to disclose secrets” (lit. “incapable [of] speaking [of] private [things]”) emphasises this rule.

Being a magician, however, was not Harry Price’s aim in life. Instead, he would become famous for investigating mediums, hauntings and other supernatural phenomena, exposing numerous fakeries. His most famous investigation took place at Borley Rectory, which was purportedly haunted, its first paranormal event taking place in 1863. Price and a team of 48 “official observers” spent long periods of time at the rectory reporting on any paranormal activity. During this time, a planchette séance took place and two spirits, one who claimed to have been murdered on the site, were supposedly contacted. Six years later, Price discovered the bones of a woman buried in the cellar of the old house. Unfortunately, after his death, Price was accused of faking the phenomena.

Indian Rope Trick

High German Ritual

Kuda Bux

As well as collecting books, Harry Price was a keen cinematographer and often filmed his experiments in phenomena. In 1935, the National Film Library compiled a few of these demonstrations and investigations to create a short film. The Senate House Library plays three examples on a loop as part of the exhibition. The first, known as the Indian Rope trick, was a cause célèbre at the time, involving a boy climbing a rigid rope that had once been limp. The performer Karachi, real name Arthur Claude Darby, was filmed proving the rope’s flexibility before making it stand upright, allowing his son to climb it several feet into the air.

Another experiment involved walking on fire, which Kuda Bux (born Khudah Bukhsh, 1905-81) was filmed doing twice without burning his feet. The twelve-foot long pit of burning hot coals measured a temperature of 2,552 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius), which is hot enough to burn steel. Price thought the trick was performed by stepping on “safe spots”, however, a later suggestion claimed that because coal cools rapidly, it would be possible to walk over them quickly without being burnt. Regardless as to the veracity of this statement, when a spectator tried to walk across the coals shortly after Kuda Bux, he severely burnt his feet.

Also in the film, Price debunked a ritual found in a 15th century “High German Black Book.” The ritual claimed that by carefully following the instructions, a goat would be transformed into a man. In front of a crowd, Price performed this ritual but, of course, the goat remained a goat.

The Discoverie of Witchcraft

Art of Legerdemain

The Whole Art of Legerdemain

Tricks for the Trenches and Wards

The Wonder of All the Wonders

Despite the Magic Circle endeavouring to keep their secrets, magical revelations had already been shared with the world. The earliest book in Price’s collection is The Discoverie of Magic by Reginald Scot (1538-99), which was published in 1584. Scot, a member of the English Parliament, wrote the book in order to dismiss the myths about witchcraft. At the time, the majority of the population held beliefs about the supernatural, however, Scot wished to propose a more rational approach. In order to convince his readers, he included highly detailed sections on legerdemain and “the art of iuggling”, which he explained made things appear to be magic but were rather very clever illusions.

At the time, The Discoverie of Magic was a risky book to publish. England was still struggling with the effects of the Reformation, and there was a strong divide between Catholics and Protestants. Scot was a Reformed Protestant, also called Calvinism, and stated in his book that “it is neither a witch, nor devil, but glorious God that maketh the thunder…God maketh the blustering tempests and whirlwinds…”. Catholics held strong beliefs in the power of witches, and later, King James I (1566-1625) condemned the book out of fear that it would stop people from staging witch hunts – a purge that had once caused mass hysteria.

Nonetheless, Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft went on to inspire many people and countless new books were published over the coming centuries. The Whole Art of Legerdemain or Hocus Pocus in Perfection published in 1727, borrowed a lot of its content from Scot. The author, Henry Dean, described a number of different tricks, including magic lanterns, producing eggs and hens from an empty bag and turning water into wine. These were accompanied by woodcut illustrations that helped to further explain the tricks.

Broadsheet newspapers, which could be produced much more cheaply than books, began to appear as forms of mass entertainment. Topics, such as legerdemain, were suddenly available to a much wider audience. One example shown in the exhibition promised to give concise instructions on how to perform acts involving cups and balls, fire-eating and walking on hot iron bars.

Although Harry Price’s books imply that the popularity of magic and illusion began in England, the craze quickly spread across the continent. Price owned copies of books in German (Hocus Pocus: Die Taschenspielerkunst Leicht zu Lernen, 1730), Spanish (Engaños a Ojos Vistas y Diversion de Trabajos Mundanos Fundala en Lícitos Juegos de Manos, 1733), and French (Aracana Mirabilia, ou, Magie Blanche et Tours de Physique & d’Excamotage, 1824).

In the 19th century, magicians and conjurors began adopting Chinese, Japanese and Indian styles of dress and sets in order to make their performances look more mystical. Later, towards the end of the century, Western performance magic spread to Asia, was adapted slightly, and published in books such as Mo Shu Ta Kuan (The Devils Art From Top to Bottom) in 1916.

The fascination with magic tricks was still strong in the 20th century. During the First World War, Charles Folkard (1878-1963), a children’s book illustrator who had a brief career as a professional magician, published a couple of pamphlets under the pseudonym Draklof. Tricks for the Trenches and Wards (1915) was one of the titles, which Draklof wrote with the intention of providing some entertainment to British soldiers. The tricks involved objects that could be found while sitting in trenches, such as matches and coins, and could be easily mastered by those convalescing in hospitals.

As with any increasingly prevalent topic in popular culture, magic was not immune to satire. In 1722, the Anglo-Irish author who went on to write Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) mocked the illusions and language of magic by writing about impossible feats in his pamphlet The Wonder of all the Wonders that Ever the World Wonder’d at (1722). He warned his subscribers to not be taken in by the claims from magicians that would most probably end in disappointment.

Robert-Houdin

Poster

Magie et Physique Amusante

Memoirs of Robert-Houdin

By the mid-19th century, magic acts had become successful forms of theatrical entertainment. The period was considered to be magic’s golden age and one performer stood out amongst them all. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-71) was a French magician who combined sleight-of-hand with technical innovations and is now regarded as the father of the modern style of conjuring.

Robert-Houdin became a magician almost by accident. Intending on becoming a watchmaker, he had ordered a couple of books on the topic, however, they got mixed up during delivery and Robert-Houdin – then Jean-Eugène Robert – ended up with a two-volume set on magic called Scientific Amusements. Rather than returning them, Robert-Houdin curiously began reading and was soon hooked, practising the rudiments of magic at all hours of the day.

Most of what is known about Robert-Houdin’s life comes from his memoirs published in 1859, of which Harry Price owned a copy. Originally published in French as Confidences d’un Prestigitateur (1858), Robert-Houdin describes the many events in his life that led him to become one of the greatest magicians to date. He writes about his introduction to magic and illusion and some of his greatest achievements, for instance, convincing people in Algeria that French magic was superior to their local mystics. There is some suspicion, however, that many of his stories have been embellished or, perhaps, made up in parts.

Another of Robert-Houdin’s books that Price owned was his posthumously published Magie et Physique Amusante (1877), a sequel to Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie. Both books explain and offer explanations to some of the most famous stage illusions of the time. Not only did he include his own Magic Portfolio, but Robert-Houdin also revealed the secrets of other magicians, illusionists and spiritualists.

One of Robert-Houdin’s famous illusions was named The Ethereal Suspension in which he convinced his audience that the pungent liquid ether could cause a person to become as light as a balloon.

Harry Houdini

The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin

Houdini’s Magic

Robert-Houdin inspired many people, none more greatly than Erik Weisz (1874-1926), more commonly known as Harry Houdini. With a stage name inspired by his idol, the Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer quickly became known for his incredible escape acts. He first became noticed after challenging police officers to keep him locked up, yet no matter how hard they tried, he always managed to escape. Eventually, his repertoire included being tied up with heavy chains, hanging from skyscrapers, placed in a straitjacket underwater and being buried alive – from all of which he escaped.

Like Harry Price, Houdini was a keen collector of books about magic. Many titles feature and were discussed in their letters of correspondence. In 1921, Houdini sent a portrait of himself to Price signed “To my friend Harry Price, best wishes, Houdini”.

In 1908, Houdini published The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin after discovering that there was not enough evidence about the stories his idol had written about in his autobiography. Initially, Houdini was writing a book about the history of magic, however, it evolved into an exposé of his former hero’s potential dishonesty.

At the age of 52, Harry Houdini unexpectedly died from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix. Despite being unwell, Houdini had continued performing, thus making his condition worse. As a result of his early death, many of his secrets about magic and escapology were taken to the grave. Nevertheless, the magician and author Walter B. Gibson (1897-1985) managed to, with the help of Houdini’s wife Wilhelmina “Bess” (1876-1943), decipher some of Houdini’s notebooks in order to put together a biography: Houdini’s Magic (1932).

The Art of Conjuring

Tarbell System of Magic, Vol. 1

Lessons in Conjuring

Conjuring for Amateurs

The Magic Show Book

Amongst Harry Price’s impressive collection are a number of books aimed at teaching the art of conjuring. The subject of magic was as popular for amateurs and hobbyists as it was professionals. Manuals for beginners were in great demand, hence the number of instruction books Price owned. These types of publications began as far back as 1722 with Henry Dean’s Hocus Pocus that offered to teach “any person that is desirous to learn any part of this art.” Ever since then, books of this genre have continued to flourish.

Aimed at children, The Art of Conjuring from the late 18th century, taught simple tricks involving eggs, cards and coins, whereas, Harlan Tarbell’s (1890-1960) System of Magic provided over 60 lessons for those who were more serious about learning the elements of magic. Lessons in Conjuring (1922) by David Devant (1868-1941) emphasised the importance of knowing how to perform a trick well. Although knowing how to do the trick was, of course, necessary, the success lay in how it was presented.

Ellis Stanyon’s (1870-1951) Conjuring for Amateurs (1897) and Alexander the Magician (Claude Alexander Conlin, 1880-1954)’s The Magic Show Book were written for true beginners, the latter being aimed at 10 to 14-year-olds. With books such as these, anyone could learn a trick or two to impress their friends and family. Stanyon maintained that practising magic as a hobby was “a wholesome and moral one”, but more importantly, these books aimed to amuse the public.

With so many books on display, it is hard to take everything in at the Senate House Library’s exhibition. Fortunately, visitors are provided with a written guide that contains all the information about Harry Price’s collection, the history of magic and each individual item.

Seeing the books and items in display cabinets does not fully explain the story behind magic and illusions, however, there is so much history hidden within them.

The art of illusion has come on a long journey and, through one man’s book collecting hobby, its development is there for all to see.

Staging Magic is free and open to the public. Tickets are available on-site at the Library membership desk on the 4th floor of Senate House.

Previous exhibitions include Reformation: Shattered World, New Beginnings.

My blogs are now available to listen to as podcasts on the following platforms: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Spotify.

If you would like to support my blog, become a Patreon from £5p/m or “buy me a coffee” for £3. Thank You!

Good Grief, Charlie Brown!

Earlier this winter, Somerset House on the south side of the Strand in central London hosted an exhibition celebrating Snoopy and the enduring power of Peanuts. As most people are aware, Peanuts is a long-running cartoon strip that features the iconic deuteragonist beagle Snoopy who has become as easily recognised as the protagonist, Charlie Brown. The successful exhibition Good Grief, Charlie Brown! took visitors on a “behind-the-scenes” tour of the Peanuts franchise from its early beginnings until the present day. Most importantly, the man behind the illustrations, Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000), was brought to the forefront through the presentation of seventy years worth of work.

Since the creation of Peanuts in 1950, the comic strip has continuously entertained and inspired others, touching over 355 million people in a whole variety of ways. Through his drawings, Schulz tackled recurring themes that many can relate to, such as anxiety, love and failure, as well as issues along the lines of racism, war and feminism. With a total of 17,897 hand-drawn strips, Peanuts was published in over 2600 newspapers throughout 75 different countries. The strips have also been translated into 21 languages, making them one of the most widely accessible art forms in the world.

Charles M. Schulz in 1956, drawing Charlie Brown

Most of Schulz’s inspiration came from his own life, particularly his childhood growing up as an only child in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Charles Monroe Schulz was born on 26th November 1922 to immigrant parents Carl Schulz and Dena Halverson. His German father was a barber, a profession Schulz appropriates for the father of his character Charlie Brown. Like Charlie in the comic strips, Charles was a shy, introverted child who felt out of place around his Norwegian mother’s family who were a boisterous and occasionally violent crowd.

“When I was small, I believed that my face was so bland that people would not recognise me if they saw me some place other than where they normal would. I thought my ordinary appearance was a perfect disguise.”
– Charles M. Schulz, 1975

“Sparky”, as he was nicknamed at only two days old, after a racehorse in the Barney Google comic strip that his father enjoyed, grew up to love comics, regularly reading them with his father on a Sunday morning. Sparky grew up with cartoons such as Mickey Mouse and Popeye and decided from the age of six that he wanted to become a comic strip artist. For a child that believed he was nothing special, this aspiration gave him a purpose in life.

Just as Sparky would go on to base the “bland” faced Charlie Brown upon himself, he also used his family pet as a model for another famous character. At thirteen years old, Charles and the Schulz family became the owners of a mixed breed dog called Spike. Being mischievous and rather intelligent, Spike kept the family entertained with his tricks and ability to eat everything and anything. Later, Schulz used Spike as the model for his character Snoopy who shares the same markings as his beloved pet. Although Schulz designated Snoopy a Beagle, this was due to the amusement the sound of the word brought him rather than the drawing being an accurate representation of the breed.

Schulz chose the name “Snoopy” because his mother, who died prematurely from cervical cancer, once said she would name her next dog, if she ever had one, Snoopy. Spike, however, was used as the name of Snoopy’s moustachioed brother who was introduced to the comic strip in 1975.

1953

Schulz drew throughout his childhood without any form of training until his final year of high school when he applied for a correspondence course run by Art Instruction. These lessons Schulz completed at home, sending in assignments that racked up a cost of $170, which his father struggled to pay. His comic strip career could not start off straight away, however, because, in February 1943, Schulz was drafted into the US Army, a traumatic experience which coincided with the death of his mother.

After the Second World War, during which he was stationed in France and Germany, Schulz began working for Art Instruction, whilst trying to sell his cartoons. He eventually sold his first series of one-panel cartoons in 1948 to the Saturday Evening Post. He then focused on developing a cartoon revolving around the lives of children, which he titled Li’l Folks. When he sent these to the United Features Syndicate in New York on the very slim chance they would be accepted, he received a response asking him to create more. Unfortunately, he needed to change the name because Li’l Folks had already been copyrighted. Thus, Peanuts was born, despite Schulz’s dislike of the name: “I wanted a strip with dignity and significance, ‘Peanuts’ made it sound too insignificant.” Yet, as the exhibition proved, Peanuts was by no means insignificant.

Although colour would be added later once Peanuts had become more commercialised, Schulz produced his comic strips by creating quick, simple line drawings with different sized dip nib pens, such as the Esterbrook Radio 914, which due to its flexibility, was able to produce both thick and thin lines. With these economical pens, Schulz was able to produce simplistic cartoons that seemed to vibrate with life. Carefully placed marks easily altered a character’s emotions and various lines effectively represented action.

Whilst the characters’ appearance helped to tell the brief story, speech bubbles let the readers know exactly what is occurring in the strip. Just as he did in the illustrations, Schulz used different line thicknesses to denote a large range of emotions and tone of voice. The thicker and darker the line, the more frustrated the character was. Schulz also used this technique to represent other sounds, such as the letter “Z” for snoring. Quiet sounds were written with a thin nib, whereas loud noises were shown in BIG, BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS.

Charlie Brown

Peanuts consisted of many characters, which were added to over time. The main character, as already mentioned, is Charlie Brown, who has been hailed as one of the best comic strip characters of all time. Slightly based on his creator, Charlie has a gentle, loveable personality with a whole host of insecurities. Whilst he is intelligent, he has the tendency to overthink and procrastinate.

Schulz’s aim was for Charlie Brown to be seen as an “everyman” or a “loser” who experiences disappointment after disappointment. He never wins at baseball games, his friends often ostracise him and he is convinced he is a worthless person. Whilst this may sound rather depressing, his vulnerability reminds everyone that we are small and alone in the universe; we are human.

“Charlie Brown must be the one who suffers because he’s a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning. Winning is great, but it isn’t funny.”
Charles M. Schulz on Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown often worries about letting people down and will often go along with his friends’ ideas even if he ends up being ridiculed. For example, every year his friend Lucy promises to hold an (American) football in place so that he can run up and kick it. Every year, Lucy removes the ball at the last minute causing Charlie to trip over. This became a running joke throughout the series and likens Charlie Brown to the mythological figure Sisyphus who was doomed to repeat the same trivial task of pushing a boulder up a mountain for it to only roll back down to the bottom.

Lucy van Pelt

“Lucy comes from that part of me that’s capable of saying mean and sarcastic things, which is not a good trait to have, so Lucy gives me a good outlet. But each character has a weakness and Lucy’s weakness is Schroeder.”
– Charles M. Schulz on Lucy van Pelt

Lucy van Pelt is probably the most major female character in the Peanuts series. Described as the Ying to Charlie Brown’s Yang, Lucy is a bossy, crabby, selfish girl, prone to tantrums. Although she appears in a whole host of comic strip scenarios, she is particularly known for Lucy’s Psychiatry Booth in which she offers poor advice in exchange for five cents. Lucy’s booth is a parody of the lemonade stand that children operated in their front gardens in many American towns. It also recalls the peanut stand that Charlie Brown had in Li’l Folks, which undoubtedly gave Peanuts its name.

The inclusion of the psychiatry booth was Schulz’s way of mocking the “shrink culture” that was prevalent at the time, in which many Americans thought it was fashionable to see a psychiatrist. Lucy’s unhelpful answers reflect the trivial matters people discussed with their shrink, however, she could, on occasion, be more insightful.

Schroeder

Lucy’s one weakness is her love for Schroeder who is nearly always drawn sitting at his toy-size piano. Lucy often tries to talk to him, admitting her unrequited love, however, Schroeder is always too absorbed in his music.

“I kind of like Schroeder. He’s fairly down to earth, but he has his problems too. He has to play on the painted black piano keys, and he thinks Beethoven was the first President of the United States.”

Schroeder is usually an impassive character, only angered when someone insults his playing or his hero, Ludwig van Beethoven. In most strips involving Schroeder and his piano, the music notation of Beethoven’s Second Symphony are drawn on staves above his head. As a way of poking fun at Schroeder’s total preoccupation with music, Schulz occasionally depicted the staves as a physical object that could bend, stretch or even interact with the other characters.

Linus van Pelt

Whilst Charlie Brown may overthink things and have many insecurities, there is no one more anxious than Lucy’s younger brother Linus. Often depicted with a blanket, Schulz popularised the term “safety blanket” as an object of comfort that helps people deal with their insecurities. Linus commonly appeared with his thumb in his mouth, another typical soothing technique of the anxious.

“Linus, my serious side, is the house intellectual, bright, well-informed which, I suppose may contribute to his feelings of insecurity”
– Charles M. Schulz on Linus van Pelt

Much to Linus’ horror, his sister is forever trying to “cure” him of his blanket habit. Without the security of his blanket, Linus feels extremely paranoid and is frequently depicted as a shaking, worried, sweating figure. A running gag in the comic strip involves his sister, or sometimes friends, stealing his blanket and turning it into something else.

November 9, 1971

Over time, more characters were added to comic strips, for instance, Charlie Brown’s sister Sally who appeared in 1959. The tomboy Peppermint Patty arrived in 1966 and was a key character when Schulz tackled themes of feminism. Although Schulz’s cartoon strips were meant to be a bit of fun, they often reflected current events. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, Schulz introduced his first black character, Franklin. Regrettably, this caused a lot of antagonism and Peanuts lost many readers, however, Schulz stuck to his guns and Franklin remained a regular feature.

Snoopy

When it came to current events, Schulz often used his canine character Snoopy to reflect the issues in the comic strip.

“Snoopy’s whole personality is a little bittersweet. But he’s a very strong character. He can win or lose, be a disaster, a hero, or anything, and yet it all works out. I like the fact that when he’s in real trouble, he can retreat into a fantasy and thereby escape.”
– Charles M. Schulz on Snoopy

Snoopy had many strips devoted to his own adventures, during which he was able to speak English and thus be understood by readers. Snoopy had a wild imagination and often assumed fictional roles. His main alter-ego was the World War One Flying Ace who first appeared in 1965 shortly after the first American combat troops arrived in Vietnam. Initially, it was not Schulz’s intention to use Snoopy’s war antics as an allegory for Vietnam, instead, it was a way of expressing the horrors he had witnessed during his time in the US Army. By turning Snoopy into a World War One character, no one could accuse Schulz of mimicking the combats in progress at that present time.

Woodstock

For the most part, Snoopy’s comic strips involve everyday things, such as eating – he was particularly partial to root beer and pizza – sleeping, doing “dog things” and playing with his friend Woodstock.

“Woodstock knows that he is very small and inconsequential indeed. It’s a problem we all have. The universe boggles us…Woodstock is a lighthearted expression of that idea.”
– Charles M. Schulz on Woodstock

Woodstock is a tiny yellow bird of undisclosed breed who debuted in 1966. Being so tiny, Snoopy almost becomes Woodstock’s guardian, particularly since he cannot fly very well. Woodstock often joins in Snoopy’s fantasy games, however, is very easy to upset, which more often than not results in arguments. Nonetheless, the pair always hugs and makes up, their latest disagreement quickly forgiven and forgotten.

Although Woodstock sometimes appears in comic strips with human characters, no one but Snoopy can understand what he is saying. On the occasions that Woodstock talks, his words are represented as short lines resembling chicken scratches. The reader only knows what Woodstock has said by Snoopy’s response.

Snoopy & Woodstock ”Peanuts” Strip Hand Drawn by Charles Schulz

As years went by, Peanuts became more commercialised with figurines, badges, t-shirts and toys appearing with the faces of the well-known characters. Unsurprisingly, the most popular character was the happy, fun-loving Snoopy. In the presidential elections of 1968 and 1972, a disillusioned young group of Americans voted for Snoopy as their “write-in candidate”. This resulted in the production of banners, flags, badges and so forth featuring the beloved character and the words “Snoopy for President.” Since then, legislation has been issued making it illegal to nominate fictional characters.

In 1969, Snoopy became the safety mascot for the Apollo 10 mission, whose job was to skim the moon’s surface to within 50,000 feet and “snoop around” in order to find a suitable place for Apollo 11’s historic moon landing. Due to this, Schulz drew a corresponding storyline in which Snoopy on his kennel raced the neighbour’s cat to become the first animal on the moon. A large number of plastic Snoopy dolls dressed as an astronaut were produced in honour of Snoopy being made a mascot by NASA.

The exhibition Good Grief, Charlie Brown! turned what at first appears to be an innocent, amusing comic strip, into something meaningful and important. Over time, Peanuts developed into something more than a strip on the “funnies” page in newspapers. It dealt with everything from irrational fears and childhood dread to war, racism and feminism.

Peanuts opened the minds of adults, causing them to see the world from a child’s perspective. The fears and misunderstandings of events, such as the Cold War, shone through, as did the range of confusing human emotions people experience every day.

Ironically, Schulz’s form of popular culture introduced readers to high brow forms of art. Oftentimes, people first came across names of books or types of classical music while reading a Peanuts strip. Schulz also included references to other artists, such as Vincent van Gogh, of whom Snoopy was a fan.

Personally, until I visited the exhibition at Somerset House, I was only vaguely aware of the Peanuts characters and, as far as I can recall, had never seen any of the comic strips or television episodes that evolved from them. By being introduced to Charles M. Schulz’s background, the individual characters, the methods of production and the themes involved, it is clear that Peanuts is much more than a comic strip. With simple but clever illustrations plus huge and relevant ideas, Charles M. Schulz is someone who deserves recognition for his work and Peanuts deserves a permanent place in the world.

My blogs are now available to listen to as podcasts on the following platforms: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Spotify.

If you would like to support my blog, become a Patreon from £5p/m or “buy me a coffee” for £3. Thank You!

Of a Life/Time

Imagine it’s early January 2019 and you are walking the back streets of Marylebone, wrapped up against the chill of the winter air. Chances are you will find yourself turning into Chiltern Street, a street full of character and red-bricked buildings. Full of specialist shops, Chiltern Street was voted “London’s Coolest Street” by the magazine Condé Nast Traveler due to its timeless quality and historical atmosphere.

Despite the selection of premium niche retailers, your eyes are instantly drawn to a small bright red shop front with a bold sign that boasts “Barber Shop”. Complete with a bench against the front window, and striped barber’s pole, it almost feels as though you have travelled back in time, however, if you wanted to get your hair cut, you are about to be disappointed.

The old barber shop is now the location of The Gallery of Everything, opened in 2009 by curator director James Brett. The gallery belongs to the critically acclaimed touring installation The Museum of Everything founded the same year, which is the leading advocate for non-academic and private art-making, collaborating with a whole host of contemporary artists, curators, writers and institutions. The gallery is the museum’s personal space to display works by masters and newly discovered creators of all backgrounds.

“Our aim is to challenge institutions which, often unintentionally, deny wall-space to people of colour, vulnerable adults, untrained artists and other so-called minorities. Look at many of the most important museums in the world, from the Whitney to Tate Modern, you will find their definitions of art are much narrower and more restrictive than you imagine. What we lobby for is not simply equality, but change. We are not here to read art history, we are here to write it.”

Walking past the gallery during the first weeks of the year, you would have seen a brightly coloured tapestry featuring images of people and writing in Russian. This was just one of many contemporary tapestries created by the octogenarian Olga Frantskevich that featured in an exhibition titled Of a Life/Time, which ran between 25th November 2018 and 27th January 2019. Using her artwork as a discourse of memory, this was Frantskevich’s first exhibition outside of the eastern bloc.

Frantskevich has sewn all her life and recalls being taught by her grandmother at an early age. Sewing gave Frantskevich a creative outlet at a time that paper was not readily available and, therefore, drawing out of the question. Whilst working on a farm to earn some money to help support her mother and younger siblings, Frantskevich would practice her embroidery on pieces of sackcloth she found discarded about the place.

Swans

Although the majority of Frantskevich’s tapestries have been produced within the last decade, they recall her personal life and memories of a childhood traumatised by war. Born in 1937 in Vitebsk in northeast Belarus, a country that was ruled by the USSR throughout the twentieth century until receiving independence in the 1990s, Olga Frantskevich was a child of war living under German occupation during WWII until she was seven years old. Her embroidered autobiography summarises the things she and her neighbours went through, including being challenged by soldiers, losing loved ones, celebrating their freedom and welcoming home the war heroes.

Occupation of Belarus (or Byelorussia as it was then called) began on 22nd of June 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union by German troops. At the time, Frantskevich was four years old and the occupation would not end until she was seven. During the war, the Nazis destroyed over 5,295 Belarusian settlements, in the process killing most, if not all, the inhabitants. Some towns and cities were deliberately attacked and burnt down, whereas others were bombed by planes flying overhead, just like many areas throughout Europe. A number of villages, for instance, Khatyn in central Belarus, were massacred by police battalions, resulting in the death of all 156 inhabitants. Although German occupation only lasted for three years, it is believed an estimated 2,230,000 people were killed in total.

Frantskevich embroidered her memory of bomb attacks in one of her tapestries. Women and children can be seen fleeing from burning buildings, their arms raised in panic whilst forbidding, grey aeroplanes fly overhead. Since the majority of men were in the army, women were left to fend for themselves during these attacks, often finding themselves homeless after their houses had been destroyed. They could not even find shelter in nearby forests due to soldiers and attack dogs patrolling the area.

During the early days of the German occupation, a resistance Soviet partisan movement began, engaging in guerilla warfare against the invaders. They used the woods and swamps as places to hide and plan their next attacks, hence Nazi soldiers began to keep a close eye on the Belarussian woodlands, as shown in a couple of Frantskevich’s tapestries. The partisans were responsible for the heavy damage to German supply lines and communications. They disrupted railways and bridges, intercepted telegrams and attacked depots in order to block or hinder the enemy. On occasion, the partisans ambushed and captured Axis soldiers (Germans, Italians and Japanese). Due to the amount of sabotage, the Germans ended up withdrawing many of their forces from the front line.

Keep Still, My Darling

The Final Offensive

300 Grams of Bread

Many of Frantskevich’s memories of the war period are actually recollections of stories told by her aunt who was a nurse during the war. Frantskevich dedicated her piece called The Final Offensive to her aunt – her mother’s sister – Olga Yakovlevna Ginko, and her uncle Nikolai Dmitrievich. Frantskevich’s uncle was a soldier during the war, however, he was wounded in battle. As a result, he lost the use of one of his hands and could no longer serve in the army. Nonetheless, he continued to fight for his country by assisting the partisans for the remainder of the war.

Frantskevich’s aunt spoke of the wounded soldiers, those who lost their limbs, those she nursed and those she could not save. She spoke of things she saw, things no one should ever witness, and Frantskevich, many decades later, translated them onto tapestry. With precise embroidery, the horrors of war are vividly shown, complete with bloodstains and flames. Although Frantskevich never witnessed the combat first hand, her aunt’s haunting tales have stayed with her all her life.

What Frantskevich experienced herself was the poverty and hunger of the people left behind while their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers were out fighting. At this time in history, women were not seen as equal to men and had not been allowed certain “male” careers. The war, however, took many men away from their jobs and women had to fill their places.

Frantskevich captions one of her works with “My mother was given 300 grams of bread for all the work that she did.” Under the Nazi regime, some workers were paid with food rather than money, however, the amount was paltry. Three-hundred grams of bread does not last long, particularly in large families, and who knew how long it would be until the next payment?

Widows of Russia

Widows of Russia

Widows of Russia

A number of Frantskevich’s tapestries set in 1945 are titled Widows of Russia and focus on women whose husbands have been killed or are missing. Rather than showing a group of weeping ladies, Frantskevich reveals the determination these people had to keep going. One image shows women working hard in a field doing the work their husbands once did. The caption reads, “With love in their hearts, the faithful wait. Perhaps their husbands are alive, perhaps one day they will come home.” The one-line heartbreaking story, however, that accompanies the piece indicates, “It is already autumn, still they wait.”

Another tapestry shows the widows cooking potatoes in a pot over a fire. Whether this in some way indicates their financial or home situation is unknown, however, the most important part is the embroidered text at the bottom of the 142 cm length of cloth: “They hide love in their hearts. Their silent song is weeping.” A different tapestry, featuring the women seated around a table spread of potatoes and bread has a similar caption: “They keep love hidden in their hearts, but their songs are not silent, they are weeping.”

The widows shown in Frantskevich’s work have united in their grief. They may have lost a husband but they still have each other. Life must continue, upon which these women are endeavouring to focus. Frantskevich was obviously too young to have a husband, however, she did lose her father in the war, so she understood the feeling of grief.

Hello, Mamma!

The Champions

The Hero

Victory Day

The Hero Returns

Victory Day occurred on 9th May 1945 beginning with the Soviet Union following the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender in the early hours of the morning. Since Belarus gained independence from the USSR in 1991, the 9th May has become a non-working day with a ceremony on Victory Square in Minsk to commemorate the ending on the war. In Frantskevich’s tapestry The Hero, she shows their village accordion player, Leonid, still in uniform, delivering the news that the war had been won. A similar piece, Victory Day, contains two fictional people who represent that “when they heard that the war was over, people met and sang and cried with joy.”

The joy people felt can be seen in The Champions in which three soldiers are dancing in celebration. This particular scene represents the liberation of the burnt-out village of Sarya after the soldiers had cleared the area of mines, making it safe for the villagers to return home – or, at least, what remained of home. The middle soldier wears a women’s headscarf, although he is clearly a man. The silly behaviour emphasises the happiness of the soldiers who then invited the village-folk to share a meal and celebrate together.

The end of the war meant the return of loved ones, those who had survived the fighting and lived to tell the tale. Hello, Mamma! shows a returning son greeting his mother much to her delight. It may have been months, even years since they had last seen each other and they have been reunited at last. Scenes like this were common all over the world as the soldiers gradually made their way home to their families. Life, however, could not return to the way things were before. Places had changed, people had changed and the echoes of war were not easily eradicated.

Although most men returned to their day jobs, others were in no physical and mental shape to be able to do so. The Hero Returns shows the fate of one of the soldiers who, despite being lucky to survive, has returned home an amputee. He can no longer work on the farm as he once did, therefore, the women who took on the jobs of men during the war were required to continue.

Among the Cornflowers

May Day Celebration

For Frantskevich, her family life could not return to the way things were before the war. In the years after Victory Day, she remembers visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where she laid down flowers in memory of her father who had no grave of his own.

Nonetheless, Frantskevich’s post-war childhood was not all doom and gloom. One tapestry shows a scene from 1951 when she was in the seventh grade at school. Apparently, there were only nine children in her class, however, that did not stop them from joining in state celebrations, such as May Day on the first of the month. Frantskevich remembers designing the posters for the school, state farm and rallies with slogans, such as, “We celebrate May Day.”

I Love You

I Love You

Autumn

Not all of Frantskevich’s embroidery shown at The Gallery of Everything was about the war. A few small pieces were intended for pillow or cushion cases, such as Autumn with birds and rowan-berries that are frequently seen in Belarus at that time of year. Two other cases feature two pigs and are both titled I Love You. Whether the animals represent specific people is unknown but the idea is clear. In one, the pigs express their love for each other by sharing gifts of vegetables. In the other, they display the same sentiment by giving flowers.

The display of Olga Frantskevich’s work at The Gallery of Everything unfortunately finished at the end of January, however, her work is held in several museums in Russia, including Muzey Balashikhskiy and the Muzey Russkogo Lubka i Naivnogo Iskusstva. Although the style of her tapestries may not appeal to all, it is amazing how easily she captures her memories and history of the war in the former USSR. History books tend to focus on the facts, usually directed at those who played significant parts in the making of history. Frantskevich, however, gives the lesser known perspective of the common people, those who were oppressed by the Germans; lost their homes and their fathers and husbands; those whose lives were changed forever.

Another factor that makes Frantskevich’s work so remarkable is that it is all hand-woven, a time-consuming task that is even more extraordinary for someone in their eighties. Where some artists may sketch their memories, Frantskevich embroiders hers instead, resulting in some bright, precise designs that perfectly portray the thoughts, pictures and memories in her head. Thanks to The Gallery of Everything, the people of London were able to experience and admire these phenomenal works.

The Gallery of Everything is open from Wednesday to Saturday from 11am until 6:30pm. It is also open on Sundays at 2pm until 6pm. A number of exhibitions run throughout the year, details of which can be found on their website: www.gallevery.com

My blogs are now available to listen to as podcasts on the following platforms: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Spotify.

If you would like to support my blog, become a Patreon from £5p/m or “buy me a coffee” for £3. Thank You!

A Lone Woolf

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

Virginia Stephen (Woolf) in 1902 Photo: George Charles Beresford

Considered to be the most important modernist writer of the 20th-century, Virginia Woolf is continuing to inspire feminism long after her death. Born in an era when women were fighting to be seen as equals to men, Woolf was influenced by women’s rights movements whose ideals are reflected in many of her novels. Known for the phrase “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” from her essay A Room of One’s Own (1929), the author has been honoured by statues, societies and a building at the University of London in her name.

Whilst her popular novels and ongoing feminist movements keep her memory alive, her struggle with mental health problems and death by suicide, no longer the taboo subject it once was, is gradually being understood and accepted. Yet what is repeatedly overlooked is the woman herself. Who was Virginia Woolf? Everyone has heard of her regardless as to whether they have read her books, but who was the woman behind the pen?

Virginia with her mother, 1884

Virginia with her brother Adrian, 1886

Virginia with her sister Vanessa (1894)

Virginia with her father, 1902

Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25th January 1882 in South Kensington, London. Her mother Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895), originally from Calcutta, British India, had once been a model for the Pre-Raphaelites and had three children from a previous marriage: George (1868-1934), Stella (1869-97) and Gerald (1870-1937). An exhibition last year (2018) at the National Portrait Gallery, featured a photograph of Julia taken by her aunt and celebrated photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79).

Virginia’s father had also married prior to meeting her mother. Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), a writer, historian and mountaineer, married Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), the youngest daughter of the famous novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63). Unfortunately, Minny died in childbirth leaving Leslie to care for their only child Laura (1870–1945) who, due to developmental handicaps, was eventually institutionalised.

Julia and Leslie were married on 26th March 1878 and welcomed their first child, Vanessa (1879-1961), the following year. The next four years saw the arrival of three more children: Thoby (1880-1906), Adrian (1883-1948) and the second youngest, Adeline Virginia in 1882. Fortunately, the family was wealthy enough to cope with eight children and, whilst the boys were sent off to schools and universities, the girls were homeschooled in subjects such as English classics and Victorian literature.

Most of the details about Virginia Woolf’s childhood can be found in her own writings. These include essays, such as A Sketch of the Past (1940), but she also alluded to some of her childhood memories in her fictional novels. Woolf also kept a diary for twelve years beginning in 1897, “the first really lived year of my life”.

Due to the nature of their father’s career, Virginia and her siblings were brought up in a household often frequented by well-known members of Victorian literature society. Amongst these were writers Henry James (1843-1916) and Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), the poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-92), and the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98), Virginia’s honorary godfather. As a result, the Stephen children were keen readers and writers, making their own magazine in 1891 called Hyde Park Gate News to record the events that occurred within their family. Their mother was recorded saying the magazine was “Rather clever I think”.

Naturally, Virginia Woolf showed an early proclivity for writing and was later encouraged by her father to pursue a career as an author despite his disapproval of educated women. From the age of five, Woolf was penning letters and making up stories that she often recited to her father, which, along with her love of books, created a strong bond between them.

Talland House, St. Ives, c. 1882–1895

Every year from 1882 until 1894, Leslie Stephen rented Talland House in St. Ives, Cornwall from mid-July to mid-September. He referred to it as “a pocket-paradise” and stated that his happiest memories were passed there. This was also the same for Virginia who, when writing about her childhood, mentioned fond memories of Talland House more than years spent in London. For Virginia and her brothers and sisters, it was the highlight of the year. It was also a setting that inspired a handful of Virginia’s novels, including To the Lighthouse (1927).

“Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One’s past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain.”
The Diary of Virginia Woolf Volume Two 1920–1924

Virginia Woolf’s childhood ended in 1895 with the death of her mother after a three-month battle with influenza. Having felt her life had fallen apart, this moment sparked the beginning of Woolf’s mental health issues that would plague her future. To make matters worse, her pregnant step-sister Stella, who took charge of the younger siblings died two years later. Suffering from nervous breakdowns, Woolf became dependant on her older sister, Vanessa.

In 1902, Leslie Stephen underwent an operation but never recovered, leaving his children as orphans in 1904. This sparked another breakdown for poor Virginia who later described the feeling of grief as being a “broken chrysalis”.

The family home was now a dark, gloomy place of mourning and the siblings were desperate to escape, which they did by travelling to the village of Manorbier on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. A couple of months later they decided to holiday in France and Italy, spending time with their friend Clive Bell (1881-1964), who would later become Vanessa Stephen’s husband. Unfortunately, Virginia’s mental health was still fragile and she suffered another nervous breakdown resulting in her first suicide attempt on 10th May 1904.

46 Gordon Square

On returning to England, the Stephen children decided to sell their South Kensington property and look for accommodation elsewhere. Vanessa found a house in the leafy, bohemian district of Bloomsbury and she and Virginia moved into 46 Gordon Square before the end of the year. By now, Virginia had recovered from her most recent mental health ordeal.

Life began to feel more positive for Virginia, helped with the Thursday Club that her brother Thoby began hosting in the girls’ house from March 1905. This was initially made up of a group of Thoby’s intellectual friends from university, including writers such as Saxon Sydney-Turner (1880-1962) and Lytton Strachey (1880-1932). Together, they discussed various matters from literature and the importance of arts, to feminism and sexuality. The Thursday Club later became the famed Bloomsbury Circle, which included well-known members, for instance, the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), whose English Heritage blue plaque can be seen in Gordon Square, the painter Ducan Grant (1885-1978), the novelist E. M. Forster (1879-1970), and the political theorist Leonard Woolf (1880-1969).

Later that year, Virginia began teaching at Morley College of adult education whilst Vanessa started up another group, the Friday Club, which met at their house to discuss the fine arts. Although things were beginning to look up for Virginia, she was soon to receive another blow. In 1906, Virginia lost her brother Thoby to typhoid fever, which he had caught on their recent holiday in Greece.

29 Fitzroy Square

Whilst trying to come to terms with Thoby’s death, Virginia had to deal with the news that Vanessa had accepted Clive Bell’s proposal of marriage (his third attempt). The couple were married in 1907 and Virginia needed to find a new place to live. In April 1907, Virginia moved to the Fitzrovia district in central London, where she lived in a house once owned by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) – 29 Fitzroy Square.

In her new home, Virginia and her brother Adrian resumed the Thursday Club, which began to explore more progressive ideas than before. More importantly, however, Virginia began working on her first novel. With the intended title of Melymbrosia but the eventual publication title of The Voyage Out (1915), it was “… a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a South America not found on any map and reached by boat which would not float on any sea, an America whose spiritual boundaries touch Xanadu and Atlantis.” (E.M Forster, 1926)

Although living separately from her sister, Virginia continued to go on trips abroad with Vanessa, for instance, to the French capital and other areas of France and Italy. Unfortunately, there began to be a little rivalry between the sisters, perhaps spurned from jealousy, not helped by Virginia’s flirting with Clive. This may have contributed to the breakdown of Vanessa and Clive’s marriage, however, Vanessa’s affairs would have had a greater impact on the situation.

On 17th February 1909, Virginia was proposed to by Lytton Strachey but, although she accepted, he quickly withdrew the offer. This blow along with the stresses of daily life prompted her close family and friends to suggest that Virginia needed a quiet country retreat. Accompanied by her brother Adrian, Virginia had a brief stay in Lewes, Surrey, where she set about looking for a place to buy that would be easy to reach from London whenever she needed to retreat from the city. She eventually settled on a house in Firle, which she named Little Talland House.

Back in London, however, the lease was coming to an end of Virginia and Adrian’s house and they needed to move once again. Rather than buying a home just for the two of them, the brother and sister moved into a four-storey house in Bloomsbury, which they shared with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant. Their new home, 38 Brunswick Square, was adjacently opposite the Foundling Hospital, which Virginia found oddly amusing, however, the three-acre public garden provided the house with a beautiful view from the front facing windows.

Leonard Woolf

Engagement photograph, Virginia and Leonard Woolf

Leonard Woolf with Dog by Nigel Henderson

In June 1911, Leonard Woolf, a friend of Thoby who Virginia had met in 1904 before he took up a position in the civil army in Ceylon, returned to London on a one-year leave. Yet, he was never to go back to the army. After renewing old friendships, Leonard met Virginia once again at Vanessa’s house along with many other members of the future Bloomsbury group. In fact, Leonard, when asked the date the Bloomsbury group formed, responded with the date of that very meeting – 3rd July 1911.

Leonard once described Virginia and Vanessa as “formidable and alarming”, recalling their “white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one’s breath away”. Therefore, it did not take much persuasion to convince him to join Virginia at Little Talland House for a long weekend. By the end of the year, Leonard had moved into the Brunswick Square household and in less than a month had decided he was in love with Virginia.

On 11th January 1912, Leonard Woolf bared his heart to Virginia and asked her to marry him. With the failed engagement to Lytton Strachey still on her mind, Virginia told him she would think about it, however, time was running out for Leonard. The one-year period of leave from the civil army was coming to an end and despite continuing to pursue Virginia, she had not yet made up her mind. Leonard’s application to extend his period of leave was refused, so he sent in his letter of resignation instead.

Eventually, Virginia agreed to marry Leonard and their wedding took place on 10th August 1912 at the St Pancras Register Office. They continued living at Brunswick Square, however, Leonard was gradually becoming aware of Virginia’s mental health problems, which he had previously not known about. Within the next few months, Virginia’s mental ill health had increased rapidly and in 1913 she made another suicide attempt.

After these events, the couple decided to move away from Brunswick square, first in October 1914 to Richmond in the suburbs of London, and then, in early March 1915, to Hogarth House, Paradise Road also in Richmond.

Little Talland House

Hogarth House

Shakespeare plays hand-bound by Virginia Woolf

Since the age of 19, Virginia had enjoyed bookbinding as a pastime. Knowing of his wife’s passion, Leonard suggested setting up a publishing company as well as publishing Virginia’s own works, thus The Voyage Out was published in 1915 – unfortunately followed by another suicide attempt. Hogarth Press, as it began to be called, was not fully set up until 1917, although, at this stage, it was merely a printing press on their dining room table.

The first publication under the name Hogarth Press was Two Stories which consisted of two short stories, one by Virginia, The Mark on the Wall, and one by Leonard, Three Jews. Although only 32 pages, the publication process took over two months, each of the 150 copies being hand bound and sewn. The stories were accompanied by woodcut illustrations designed by Dora Carrington (1893-1932), which helped to make the publication a great success. Other short stories quickly followed, such as Kew Gardens written by Virginia and illustrated by her sister Vanessa.

Woolf’s bust in Tavistock Square

To begin with, Hogarth Press only concentrated on small publications, often works that commercial publishers would reject or overlook, however, the Press eventually moved on to bigger things. In 1924, the Woolfs took out a lease at 52 Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury where they used the basement space to run Hogarth Press in a more efficient manner. Virginia also had a personal room where she could concentrate on her writing, which was published by the Press. Subsequently, other notable authors began to approach Hogarth Press with their own work, particularly the poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).

A large number of publications by Hogarth Press were, of course, written by Virginia. Her second novel, Mrs Dalloway was published in 1925, which describes a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged high-society woman in post–War England. The story, which is arguably Virginia’s best-known novel, alternates between Clarissa’s preparation for a party in the evening and the psychiatric problems of Septimus Warren Smith, a war veteran with severe PTSD.

Her third novel, To the Lighthouse (1927), was published the following year and rates at 15th place on the Modern Library’s 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century selected in 1998. The story focuses on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye, however, it contains very little dialogue or action. Instead, the novel is formed of a series of thoughts and observations that recall childhood memories and adult relationships. To the Lighthouse has many similarities with Virginia’s own childhood and it is believed she began writing it in order to deal with unresolved issues concerning both her late parents.

Vita Sackville-West, 1934

Just as To the Lighthouse was inspired by her own life, her third novel Orlando (1928) was sparked after learning about the turbulent family history of her close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962). Virginia and Vita’s relationship was recently studied at the Barbican Centre in an exhibition called Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde. Despite being married, Virginia began an intimate relationship with the poetess Vita after meeting her through Bloomsbury Group connections in December 1922.

Virginia and Vita’s relationship was strongest between 1925 and 1928 but by the 1930s they had evolved into good friends rather than intimate lovers. During this time, Vita attempted to raise Virginia’s self-esteem and, regardless as to whether she was successful, Virginia’s work began to flourish. As well as To the Lighthouse and Orlando, Virginia also completed The Waves (1931) and wrote a number of essays.

Orlando is an eponymous novel that describes the centuries-long adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman. Despite being a work of fiction, the reference to Vita was obvious, causing her son to comment “The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her.”

Around the same time as her relationship with Vita, Virginia lectured Women & Fiction at Cambridge University. As well as exploring her own sexuality, Virginia was concerned about the rights of women and the importance of independence. From these lectures, Virginia penned the essay A Room of One’s Own.

The 172-page essay published by the Hogarth Press in 1929, argues both literally and figuratively for a space for women writers in a world predominately dominated by men. At the time of publication, women had only just been given the freedom to vote in Britain and were still a long way off the rights that women in the western world have today. Thus, A Room of One’s Own quickly became an important feminist text.

Before the essay was published, Virginia was worried that she would be “attacked for a feminist & hinted at for a sapphist [lesbian]”, however, the theme of lesbianism was discussed in such a discreet way that it avoided complaints of obscenity.

Virginia Woolf 1927

Plaque at King’s College

Suicide letter from Virginia to Leonard

Despite her lesbian tendencies – or, perhaps, bisexuality – Virginia remained married to Leonard for the remainder of her life. Unfortunately, these years were marred by her mental health, often suffering a nervous breakdown after the publication of each novel. After finishing the draft for her final book Between the Acts (published posthumously, 1941), Virginia fell into another bout of depression. Along with all the blows she had encountered in life, the war years had taken its toll of Virginia’s fragile mind. To make matters worse, the beginning of the Blitz saw the destruction of her London home, which, along with the death of a close friend, worsened her condition until she could no longer work.

During her final years, Virginia’s diaries were full of ramblings about death and in March 1941, she wrote a final letter to her devoted husband.

Dearest,

I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight it any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.

On 28th March 1941, Virginia Woolf walked into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex with her pockets full of stones. Her body, which was eventually found on 18th April was cremated and interred under an elm tree in the garden at Monk’s House, the Woolfs’ final home together in Rodmell, Sussex.

Since her death, Virginia’s mental health has received a lot of attention from professionals – the sort of attention that would have been more beneficial during her lifetime. Most psychiatrists agree that Virginia was suffering from Bipolar Disorder, also known as manic depression, which would account for her extreme mood swings and psychotic episodes.

Despite her untimely end, Virginia Woolf is known throughout the world for her contributions to twentieth-century literature, as well as the influence she has had on feminism. Many authors state Virginia as one of their greatest inspirations, including Margaret Atwood (b.1939) and Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014).

Virginia’s works have been adapted for the screen and her name has appeared in many other areas of popular culture. The play by Edward Albee (1928-2016) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a prime example. Also, in 2014, an exhibition about Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and it is believed her portrait on a postcard has been the most sold than any other person in their gift shop.

In 2013, King’s College London honoured the writer with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway. A plaque commemorating her work and contributions to the college is in pride of place on the building bearing her name. Sculptures of Virginia’s head and shoulders have also been errected near two places she once lived: Rodmell and Tavistock Square.

Virginia Woolf’s name and ideas will live on through her books, essays and organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. It is important, however, to remember Virginia as a human being and not just one of the greatest 20th-century writers. Everyone has struggles of one form or another but Virginia had more than her fair share. Nevertheless, this only goes to emphasise her talents; despite being very unwell, Virginia Woolf wrote and did things that people will respect forever.

My blogs are now available to listen to as podcasts on the following platforms: Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Spotify.

If you would like to support my blog, become a Patreon from £5p/m or “buy me a coffee” for £3. Thank You!