Painting Rooms of Their Own: Gendering Art, Space and Biography in Margaret Forster’s Keeping the World Away Nadine Muller (University of Hull) Painting Rooms of Their Own: Gendering Art, Space and Biography in Margaret Forster’s Keeping the World Away Nadine Muller (University of Hull)

Gwen John, ‘A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris’ (1907)

Painting Rooms of Their Own It seemed irrelevant. Did she need to know where the artist was born, or trained? All that mattered now, surely, were the paintings themselves and what she could see in them. The artist’s intention didn’t matter, did it? If a painting didn’t speak for itself, what use was it? She was convinced that art should be looked at in a pure way, uninfluenced by any knowledge of the artist or the circumstances in which it had been painted. (Forster 2006:x) [T]he lives of the actual paintings, especially one of hers. I was wondering where it had been, who had owned it, who had looked at it. And other things – I mean, what effect did it have on the people who have looked it? What has it meant to them, how have they looked at it, did they feel the same as I did, did they see what I saw. (Forster 2006:xi)

Gwen John, Self Portrait (18xx)

Gwen John, Self Portrait (19xx)

[...] calm and collected, aware of her own strength, a little superior and extremely serious. This was to be a portrait of a woman who was no adornment of the fair sex but a member of a new generation that intended its work to be important [...] Sometimes, she felt she was a mere shadow of a person. Her portrait reassured that she was not’ (Forster 2006: 45). [The room] was a clever exercise in deception [...], it was not her, this room. It was an image of how her lover wished her to be, and how she had tried to be. All the violent tumult in her was supposedly stilled here. But the struggle went on, and no one, not even Rodin, knew how she was losing the battle. Sometimes, she was afraid of the power of the room she had created. She loved it, but it could make her want to scream and wreck it, hurl the chair out of the window, tear the curtains to pieces, smash the flower pots, and then say to Rodin, Look, behold, this is me. But she never did. She went on straining to match herself to the room and make herself a true reflection of it. Gradually, this led her to paint it, the room on the courtyard, the room as he would have her be. The lie. (Forster 2006: 64) Painting Rooms of Their Own

It was [...] a life inside which has been brought outside. The empty chair, the parasol leaning against it, the table bare except for the flowers – they were all disguises [...] The corner of the room was soon invaded by the real Gwen, the distraught Gwen longing for her maitre who no longer deigned to visit her. He would not be fooled. Indeed, Ursula found herself thinking, in all probability he had never been fooled. Gwen had intrigued him, and he had undoubtedly felt passion for her, but he had always been wary of being consumed by her, and when that became too great a danger he had extricated himself. Ursula felt such pain for her friend. She walked around the room, cradling the painting in her arms, and there were tears in her eyes. (Forster 2006: 85) The apparent serenity, the prettiness, of the painting did not fool her for a moment [....] it looked peaceful, innocuous, but she thought the hand that painted it might have trembled. Effort was there, an absolute determination to remain calm. Someone’s breath was being held. And the sense of waiting, the anticipation of someone’s arrival, was painful. (Forster 2006: 201).

Painting Rooms of Their Own: Gendering Art, Space and Biography in Margaret Forster’s Keeping the World Away Nadine Muller (University of Hull) Painting Rooms of Their Own: Gendering Art, Space and Biography in Margaret Forster’s Keeping the World Away Nadine Muller (University of Hull)