In the Labyrinth

Reading Art: The Maiden

After I posted on the painting fragment of the unknown girl by a Dutch painter (also unknown) I went searching for other portraits -- to see what in her might be considered the conventions of such portraits at that time,  -- and really, I found almost none that matched the uniqueness of this painting. There were many paintings of much younger girls dressed as adults (which was the fashion of the day) -- but their faces are round and sort of flat, with only a hint of personality which I suspected reflected the way the painter felt about them -- as objects along with the accompanying birds, ponies, flower, toys also in the composition. The only real exception I found is Rubens -- who was painting different portraits of his daughter throughout her life. Here there is love, and familiarity, the features distinct -- the eyes watching the painter (and father) with mild amusment. A true face, like my unknown girl, very much alive. 

 

Reading Art: The Torn Away Girl

I collect images that either amuse or inspire me. Sometimes they remind me of things I have written on or thought about--almost like proof of collective consciousness -- and other times, they appear before me to ask that I consider them. Such is this lovely and haunting image that crossed my path in an unrelated google search. How could I not stop and stare? She comes from a fragment of a much larger 17th century Dutch painting, a work that at some time in its past was torn apart, and on which her face still bears the golden scars of the knife. (She is currently in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.)

It is hard not to want to write her story, perhaps as a way of resolving the contradictions of her situation of beauty and violence. She is like one of those figures in a family portrait, the soon-to-be-wed daughter, standing on the edge of assembled aristocratic family members, the parents in the center, the very young in front with their small dogs. She seems at first fragile, her soft hair, uncoifed but lightly held in place with thin black ribbons around the heart-shaped face. But the strand of pearls at her neck, the heavy gold earring at her cheek suggest adult adornments, the signs of her wealth and potential as a bride. Her mouth is small, a hesitant smile above the narrow point of her chin. Yet, it is those eyes that stop the viewer. They stare back, watching you, watching the painter with interest as he watches her appear on the canvas. Wary, but curious. 

And over that, the thin lines of golden scars from the knife that cut her out from the painting. Vandals who attack art often do so as though the art itself was a person, someone who threatened or engraged them. They attack the face, the eyes, and the body with axes and knives, trying to destroy something in the expression of the art which both terrifies and infuriates them. On this young almost-woman's face they score her high forehead as if to deny her thought, those intelligent eyes as if to refuse the penetrating gaze, the soft edge of her mouth as if to reject her voice. But because none of the cuts completely obliterate her features, as if even the attacker in his fury was humbled by the strength of her portrait, she appears now doubly resilent.