A painter on a painting: ‘Girl with a Kitten’ by Lucian Freud

Artist Catherine Beaumont looks at Lucian Freud's 1947 "Girl With A Kitten":

Image: Tate - http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T12/T12617_10.jpg

‘Girl with a Kitten’ by Lucian Freud, is to me as an artist, a very fascinating painting. It is a portrait of the artist’s first wife, Kitty Garman, who was the daughter of famous sculptor Jacob Epstein. Freud painted her in 1947, a year before their tempestuous marriage. The painter’s future wife is cloaked under the anonymous title, ‘Girl with a Kitten’, highlighting that this is a double portrait, equally of the ‘girl’ and of the young kitten who is clasped strangely by the neck.

The enigmatic pair are painted in muted, ashen colours, a myriad of dove greys and soft blues, set against the dark swathes of Garman’s mahogany hair, which seem frayed and static from the intensity of the painter’s gaze. The colours are a precursor of Freud’s later impasto flesh tones that would become so acclaimed, yet in this painting they appear restrained like the tight grip of the sitter on the kitten’s neck.

What so thrills me about this painting, as an artist and as a curious human being, is how impenetrable this portrait is. Freud structures the portrait with a three quarter profile of his future wife, with her gaze averted, making her inaccessible, yet he places the kitten staring directly out of the centre of the canvas. With such a direct gaze, it makes me feel that the kitten is more than just a passive addition to the painting, but an emblem of Kitty Garman herself. However, this is surprising as it is so unlike Freud to use symbols in his work, claiming that his ideal in art is to appear ‘in his work no more than God in nature’. But why is the kitten’s gaze so direct and unblinking? Why does it stare with such intensity at the viewer? To me it seems that the kitten plays with the sitter’s name, linking ‘kitten’ with ‘Kitty’, giving the anonymous ‘girl’ an identity and pairing their feline eyes and heart shaped faces.

If this is so, it would make me feel that it tells us more about Garman and Freud’s relationship. In the painting, the girl seems absent, with a look of almost horror in her eyes. She is distant from her grip on the kitten, which makes me wonder if this grasp reflects not herself but the artist’s grip on her, his ‘Kitty’, as her future husband. The look of tension in her eyes makes me think of ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning – “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”… I feel that Garman becomes a possession of the artist, as in the Duke’s ruthless collection, to be collected with many other women that he would love and paint. In this piece, it seems to me that it captures Garman’s dawning realisation of her partner’s turbulent nature, suspending perfectly this line - ‘Then all smiles stopped together’…

On the other hand, on closer inspection you can see that Garman’s eyes are painted in startling hazel green, whereas the kitten’s eyes are a lucid pale blue, which more closely resemble Freud’s eyes.

Source image for second detail:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/freud-man-with-a-thistle-self-portrait-t00422

Perhaps then, the captured kitten is not Kitty Garman at all, but represents how Freud felt trapped and suffocated by this serious, pre-marital relationship.

Stark Naked

It’s the minor characters that haunt me, in fiction as well as in real life. On history charges, carrying the important and the celebrated, the camera of our attention pans with it, and for the rest, who remembers or cares?

In Evelyn Waugh’s “Vile Bodies”, one of the Bright Young Things, Lady Agatha, is made to drive a racing car, drunk and without a clue how to do it. The race ends, she has disappeared but her pals continue on their jolly; she is found later by someone else, incoherent, and taken to a nursing-home. Eventually the in-crowd come to see her, bringing (of course) plenty to drink. What fun! That night, her mind begins to whirl again and her temperature soars. Later in the story, we hear as a by-the-way of her funeral.

Again, in the same writer’s “Decline and Fall”, at the school’s sports day the useless teacher Prendergast gets drunk and starts a foot race with a military pistol, shooting young Lord Tangent in the heel. The boy asks “Am I going to die?” through a mouthful of cake given to pacify him; only much later do we find out, in passing, that infection set in and he did.

Some ten years ago, I was working with young NEETS and we had a weekly computer training session in a suite at Edgbaston cricket ground, guided by a man from a local college. One week, he told us he had just been given notice of his redundancy. As the group left, I looked back at his face, trying to find something to say, but the group was going and I had to turn to them; the moment passed. Next week, he was very late, in fact, didn’t come at all. Turned out he’d been found lifeless at his home, apparently having failed to take his diabetes medication. If only I’d found a way to ask him for a drink without sounding patronising. My colleagues tried to reassure me, but I knew what his face had said and that there had been a moment. I failed.

1964: a 29-year-old Ken Kesey gets a gang together on an old school bus and goes on a drug-fuelled road trip. On the way, they pick up a 27-year-old with a young daughter, whom she leaves with a friend so she can join the raucous adventure. She has a complete mental breakdown, is naked on the bus for days and eventually abandoned by the Merry Pranksters, who phone her boyfriend to fly in from San Francisco and pick her up. I often wondered what happened to this minor character – after all, some people are Lead Roles and others, well… - but thanks to the Internet, now I know. A site dedicated to Cathryn Casamo is here: (1)

She was lovely, she was charming, she had this great laugh… another pick-up for the daring boys of the Sixties. So long Marianne, goodbye Ruby Tuesday and so on. She did live, into her fifties and a deliberately nothing burial at sea off Marin County; a footnote. Some may say, she made her own choices. But Kesey himself felt he should answer for his irresponsibility, in a book published not long before his death called “The Further Inquiry.” (2) 

Leaders have to stand in the rye and catch their followers, like Holden Caulfield.

“Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world,” says the Talmud. (3)

Next time. Please.
_______________________________________________

(1) http://www.cathryncasamo.com/index.html
(2) http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/09/books/what-a-long-strange-trip-it-was.html?pagewanted=all
(3) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talmud

Future culture: the Starknado phenomenon

Maenads are worse than sharks...

Starknado!

A worldwide smash-hit film series that began with the legendary “Starknado”.

Winkipedia summarises it thus:

“Starknado” is a 2017 made-for-television disaster film about a waterspout that lifts a group of female skinny-dippers out of the ocean and deposits them in Los Angeles. Hormonal and enraged, the women embark on a terrifying rampage through the streets of South Central LA, butchering gangbangers and creeps of every description until, screaming that they literally haven’t got a thing to wear, they storm through a shopping mall and into a series of high-end clothing outlets. They successfully effect their escape because none of the surviving witnesses can remember what their faces look like.

Aside from sequels and spin-offs, the film spawned many imitations, notably the Drawers series, of which the latest is “Drawers 4: The Revenge” (2022). Billions have been made from associated merchandising and computer games.

A noteworthy social response has been the massive increase in men applying to enter monasteries. 

Reading 2 weeks of the Daily Mail, so you don't have to

Back off a fortnight's hols last weekend, and a pile of newspapers kept for us at the agent's. We keep the crosswords and I thought I'd see which stories still looked worth reading. Here's my digest:

Psychoanalysis that aims to gets results fast: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3726372/The-3-000-psycho-detox-s-life-track-Sienna-Miller.html ... the Guardian tried it, too - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/15/why-tried-hoffman-process-psychoanalysis

A pill that might cure asthma:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3726307/Could-end-inhaler-Game-changing-pill-asthma-cut-lung-inflammation-80-cent.html

Can't find the DM link just now, but it's where I found the following item. Labour voters were even more definitely for "Leave" than Conservatives:

https://medium.com/@chrishanretty/most-labour-mps-represent-a-constituency-that-voted-leave-36f13210f5c6#.dhxdy8n3m

Can you know when you're lucky? -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3721459/Family-scoop-60m-EuroMillions-jackpot-lucky-call-mum-Florida.html - which reminds me of a very old news item about a man who shook a Royal's hand, reckoned it was his lucky day and did the football pools - only one line, though he was entitled to several - writing above it "winning line" - which it was, "big-time". The company was understandably suspicious and investigated, but it was genuine.

Trump, the Mafia and his vengefulness:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716125/How-Trump-Mob-offer-not-refuse-killing-building-skyscraper-Donald-s-shrewdest-investment-MAFIA.html - having said that, the Clintons have previously been described by "a Beltway insider" as "retributive" and there are some very nasty rumours about what happens if you cross them. Here's one recent one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3726250/Enemies-Hillary-Bill-say-27-year-old-murder-victim-Seth-Rich-suspected-leaking-DNC-emails-belongs-Clinton-Death-List-people-ties-couple-died-time.html

The 5p "nudge" succeeded hugely in reducing unnecessary plastic bag use:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3715469/YOUR-plastic-bag-victory-Shoppers-home-SIX-BILLION-FEWER-environmentally-damaging-carriers-year-5p-charge-helps-cut-use-85.html

How the introduction of easy credit via cards 50 years ago tempted and stuffed the British consumer:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3715504/The-day-thrift-died-launch-credit-card-50-years-ago-hailed-moment-social-liberation-ushered-wanton-consumerism-instant-gratification-left-millions-saddled-debt.html

And one non-DM story off the internet that I didn't expect - Icelandic horses walk differently (and now we know why):

http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/08/10/origin-smooth-icelandic-gait-discovered - possibly related to the Vikings: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/science/horses-gaits-ambling-vikings.html?_r=0

Friday Night Is Music Night: Sol Gabetta

JD:

I gave up watching The Last Night of the Proms many years ago. Too boring and predictable, orchestra and audience just going through the motions in a parody of a sacred ritual.

The first night on the other hand is always worth watching and this year, as usual, it featured something new and interesting.

Sol Gabetta is a young cellist born in Cordoba, Argentina and now living in Basel, Switzerland. I had never heard of her before but after a splendid performance of Elgar's cello concerto and an unusual and excellent encore I went looking for more of her work.

This is part of what I found covering a wide spectrum of music, all of it wonderful -



This was her encore at The Proms. The Beeb version has poor sound quality (unusual for the Beeb) so this is a different recording but still excellent -





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"Reasonable adjustment" for smokers

There are many smokers who strongly and quite understandably resent their exclusion from society by stupid blanket bans. Here is a current post airing some of those feelings: 

https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/three-comments-on-facebook/#comment-131908

I gave up cigarettes nearly 40 years ago, but I don't see why they should be chosen as the one minor vice to be stamped out. This is not Puritan England. If we don't try to accommodate differences, we will be perpetually at one another's throats.

So I comment on the above piece in this way:

Targeted change is what we need.

In schools, there is an expectation that schools will make "reasonable adjustment" for special needs children, to promote inclusion. Special needs children aren't expected to stand outside the school building in the cold and wet.

Yet as you say, in other contexts the approach is draconian.

I would suggest that the way forward is to campaign for "reasonable adjustment". If airport smoking lounges are dingy goldfish bowls, get the airport to improve the furnishings. If pubs can offer a separate and nicely-appointed smoker's room, why not?

Besides, if the government succeeds in its obvious plan to legalise cannabis and find another way to raise tax that soaks the lower orders and makes vast, low-taxed profits for beardy businessmen, there will have to be somewhere for stoners to go, too.

"Reasonable adjustment": the war is won by language.

Squaring The Love Triangle

Imposing a way of life can have terrible consequences. This story has a universal feel to it, about the dangers of trying to dam natural drives:

I well remember an aboriginal couple who were married "Christian way in church". The woman was not aware that the union was a fixed one - not as in the tribe, where the people can become divorced by mutual consent.

The marriage irked her so much that she decided to break it up and take to herself another man of the tribe. Her method was simple and ingenious.

She became the friend of another native man I knew and, unknown to him, used him as a means of arousing her husband to such a jealous madness that he crept upon the man, who he thought was his wife's lover, and killed him with a spear.

I found it all out too late, and even then I could not stop the self-satisfied smile on the real killer's face, as her husband went to jail whilst she returned to her true lover.

From "Life among the aborigines" by W E Harney, Robert Hale, 1957 (pp. 31-32)

This post appeared first on The Polynesian Times.


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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.