Let's talk about the writing

When people talk about Brontë novels, it seems to me , the discussion centers on the exciting  Gothic plots. But let's look at the writing....which is amazing in my view

Here is a piece
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It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar.  I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps.  Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. 
  ‘Who can it be?’ I thought.  ‘Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no!  The voice has no resemblance to his.’ ‘I have waited here an hour,’ he resumed, while I continued staring; ‘and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I’m not a stranger!’ A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular.  I remembered the eyes.

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That last sentence is so simple, imperative and modern, it is startlingly. This is, of course,  when Heathcliff returns. Nelly Dean is speaking. She knew him from childhood, yet she was unsure who this was... it was  the deep memory of his eyes that convinced her.  

He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself.

Here Emily's shows the danger, and Nelly's notice right away...wow. 
 

 Reading Brontë....they don't use Victorian language because they are not Victorians...if anything they are romantic Georgians , a spectacular throw back to an earlier age, its last, brilliant crescendo ....indeed, most, if not all the novels, are even set in that earlier age.  If Charlotte had lived, she would have likely  found it difficult to keep write as she would  in the increasingly straitjacketed Victorian years ahead. The cries of " coarseness ! " would have increased  to even more of din as the age wore on.

As it was in 1857, Mrs Gaskell spent a good deal of ink  to  apologize  and make excuses for Charlotte's supposed "coarseness" when she was dead...One can see  the difficulties CBN , the living author would have had.  The Victorians were embarrassed by their free wheeling ancestors....a clamp down trend that  continued  to tighten until  the 1890's began to loosen it  and WW1 broke up the social straight jacket altogether.

Renewed interest in  the Brontës cropped up every decade during the last half of the 19th century as almost a permissible relief ( They were dead and long ago after all) ...it's fun to read the Victorian articles declaring, " Surely, interest in the Brontës must finally wain? " lol...Why, no, it won't and it hasn't. 

What is also interesting in reading  the fragment of Charlotte's last effort," Emma", she seemed to be  returning to her "sober as  Monday morning " kind of novel. She  always answered one kind with another. There was  quite "The Professor" and then " oh damn it! I'll write as I please,"  "Jane Eyre.". The purposely prosaic "Shirley"  and then she indulged herself again with " Villette" ....an emotional  see saw which answered to Charlotte's duel nature of  forbidding sober sides and molten lava fount  lol 

Perhaps it's because I'm writing myself ,and for years now, but I see and experience reading differently ...and my admiration for the Brontë's writing grows. As I have said, if you would know these young women, read their books.

In researching for a historical novel it's a mistake  to only look for information....information and facts  are vital of course, I stick to them ...but you must stop , consider, even dwell on,  how your protagonists felt. That  is what bridges our time to theirs. How such information as you just read in a source material, would have effected them emotionally? It's simply information to us; to them it could be a life and death development . 

The aim and point of an historical novel is to show the reader how the people felt. If you have the desire to show that, you should do well, or at least be able to jog on. If it wasn't for the emotions in the story, my book would be three pages long. But I have read about this story for decades,  written about it for years and have talked about it for hours at a time. Emotion is the jet fuel .

Meanwhile I'm working away. There is awhile yet until it's done, but the pieces/ scenes  are coming together. What is interesting is running into an idea or insight  placed in different scenes. Such as the observation that in all the eight years Arthur was at Haworth, before his proposal to Charlotte, there was never a moment where he could declare himself, until he did. Arthur did so at the first real opportunity.

It was only a little over a month into Arthur's  Haworth career when Mr. Robinson sacked Branwell . So there were the years of young Patrick's decline and the ensuing domestic upset to go though. Then everyone is dying , then Arthur learns Charlotte is a world renowned author, with London calling for her presence. ( How even further beyond his grasp she must of seemed then.) So it was a bit ingenuous of Papa to storm Arthur had " long hidden his aim!". When during all that turmoil could ABN have spoken up? 

This insight could be placed in a number of areas and was. Now I have to choose exactly in which scene to place it for good. I love also how things mentioned earlier come into play later...that redoubles the effect later. I have some themes that pop up and develop though out the book.

I have been thinking of painting Romanovs again...it's been four years ( amazing) since I finished my painting of the Tsar and Alexi. I do intend to take up painting the family again some day. It's too much fun not to! When you engage in a creative project, be it painting or writing, you truly enter into your subject's world. Meanwhile I recently uploaded a new video 

The Romanovs. Olga Nicholaievna

Okay ,  til next time, back to work!
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OTMA and the railroad children 1916

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Nicholas, Alexis and the River 1916

Nicholas, Alexis and the River 1916

My portrait of Tsar  Nicholas II  and Alexis Romanov  from 1916 was  finally finished   May 30th ....just two months shy of 3 years.  I started in July of 2012

The last 2 weeks I was aware that  in a sense, a  window was closing . The painting was ready to be finished. So I painted a great deal near the end. The painting at the end is indeed  the most intense. Everything must be resolved and the best you can do. You can't say " I'll deal with that later." There is no later. It's an exciting time  really

 Alexis's portrait  was smiling and laughing for most of the nearly three years. This was a happy time for him. He was in fairly good health and  with his father all day.   I intended to have him smile. One of the remarkable aspects of Alexis was his great merriment when well ;even hemophilia could not damping  his joie de vive. 

But in the end the painting would not have it and he did have a serious side. Finally this portrait emerged. Now I have a portrait of  a young man who knows pain intimately and consequently feels empathy for the viewer who may not be as experienced as he  in enduring pain 

 As my husband says , Alexis looks right though one . We all have an ache. He sees it . Because of his disease, Alexis was a passion barrier well before captivity and the cellar .

With Nicholas I wanted to show the older Tsar as best I could . I needed every bit of the 34 months to gain this portrait . I was constantly refining him.

It's now out of the studio and  hanging in the gallery. It feels odd  and lonely in the studio without  them. This is what it must be for empty nesters! lol

I'm very pleased with it and grateful. It's great to have battled it though to success. Often I was painting in a mist. But the answer is to just keep on . Many thanks  to all those who bravely kept asking after it year after year ! lol 

To see it larger,  open the photo above in a new window 

Of course I have a video for the painting. It's been ready for years, just awaiting the final photo

This link will take you to its You Tube page 

 Nicholas , Alexis and the River 1916


My next Romanov painting will be of Empress Alexandra to complete the family . But before that, I will be painting Brontes! They have been waiting two years!

   Brontes!

 I will be painting  portraits of  Rev. Patrick Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and  Rev Arthur Bell Nicholls. I also plan  to paint  at some point the interior of the old Haworth church before it was pulled down in 1879.

 There are two old postcards which show either side of the church. The most common one , ( pictured above )shows the old pulpit .  My plan is to put the two  sides of the two postcards  together to make the whole

But before all that I will be working full time on  the Bronte novel which I have been writing since Dec 2012. Up to now I have been happily  skipping  here and there, gathering scenes like moor land flowers.

Now I will be putting what I have together and fill the holes. Luckily for me I have only to follow the the events time line these real people lived . The hard  part is to get the sequence exactly right.

Currently I'm making a study of Charlotte's London visits  when famous and after losing her siblings , what happened when. People tend to lump the  London  events together, I know I did, but that's not good enough.

 Every event in the book  is like a link in a chain. It must be in its rightful place  or it ruins the rest . There is plenty of room for creativity found in  fleshing out this time line spine.

I really don't see this book  being finished any time soon, but I'll have a better sense of that after pulling it together for awhile

WHAT FUN!!

I tell everyone, oh write a novel! It's FUN

For the most part it is the greatest  fun. But dear Reader when I have to deal with Charlotte's illness and passing, just as she has at last  found love and happiness,  it is not  fun. It's  rough, sad work . I believe this one of the reason's this part of the Bronte story is often glossed over..it's so damn sad .

But this is also a  story of redemption, of joy in grief . Because  in my opinion if one asked Arthur Bell Nicholls would he choose again to win  Charlotte Bronte, be her husband for so short a time and then  have to suffer  those 50 years of grief,  Arthur  would say  " yes, always yes"


Okay! Back to work!

Anastasia Nikolaevna, 1917 : The Swan

After 8 and a half months, my painting of Anastasia Nikolaevna is finished! It's based on a photograph taken in the park of Alexander Palace during the summer of 1917....and so Anastasia and her family are in captivity

This is a fascinating photo. Somehow this young woman best known for being an impish child , makes a golf hat a crown and a tree stump into a throne. Usually I'm not greatly interested in the family's royal heritage. But here, Anastasia shows me what it's all about. Whether by breeding or training or both , she has an innate dignity that has been brought sharply into focus by her circumstances. The world has turned upside down seemingly over night. She , her family and Russia face an uncertain future. But she's facing it with remarkable self possession for one so young. She has just turned 16....

Well, her body language is so, yet her expression is unsettled. After years of wondering, I believe I know why...she was not quite ready for the photo when it snapped.

I say this because after many years, I finally realized what appears as the Imp's hand, it not all hand. There is a ribbon of skirt above her hand, and with her hidden index finger and thumb, she is yanking at her skirt that is caught on the sharp edges of the tree stump. She was not 100% ready for the snap of the brownie
camera



The mystery of Anastasia "huge" hand.

For years I wondered at the large hand in this photo because of the four girls , I believe the Imp's hands were the smallest. It was only after months of looking and painting, I saw the situation. Finding the gold bracelet was a help, that told me the limits of her wrist. But also looking at the creases on her lap was key . They line up with where her fingers would be as she's pulling on that material .Those creases are there because she's pulling. In the black and white photos, the shirt and hand share a very similar grey and highlight. So the ribbon of skirt became hand in the photo print.

Once I saw it was not just her hand , I painted a small line of skirt above ( indeed one can see some skirt above her right sleeve as well ...this is discovered ribbon but a continuance of that) ....and now we see Anastasia Nikolaevna's hand as it was .




What teenager would not be unhappy if the camera snapped before they were ready? Well at least this is how it now seems to me.

The Swan
The name of my painting is "the Swan" and the thought behind it is: Anastasia reached at least the beginning of her physical maturity before she and her family were murdered a year later in the summer of 1918. She was no longer a child, yet that is how history sees her. I aimed to change that a bit.

I see a remarkable young woman here: on the threshold and full of adult potential. One is keenly aware of what was lost when she, and we ,were robbed of her natural life. But I did want to say that over the course of the painting I gained a clear sense of Anastasia's shyness. Yes, Anastasia Nikolaevna, shy. At least as she emerges from childhood to being a young woman. Shyness can be also hidden in outlandish pranks , roughhousing and cutting mimicry.

Anastasia Nikolaevna had many nicknames, "The Imp" , being the most famous. I would add another: "Quicksilver". She was constantly on the move and darting about. In many family photos, someone is holding on to The Imp to keep her put. But in this photo the young woman has composed herself. Here , in a lighting flash, we are given a glimpse of what was and what could have been. At times my emotions welled up and it made painting difficult





Close up of The Imp

It was most likely Anastasia's sister, Marie, who took this photograph. Marie was a keen photographer as they all were. But Marie learned how to develop film and print photos as well. No easy matter at that time . In our digital age, very shortly people will forget the mental and even physical intensity film developing and photo printing required .

Now we press buttons, but back then there was chemicals, timing , working in the dark...on and on. The down side of Marie's interest for us today is there are more photos of the others in captivity than of her.

Anastasia and her grandmother, Princess Alice

Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova was the great granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her grandmother, was Princess Alice, the Queen's second daughter. I found a photo of Princess Alice that goes nicely with the photo I used for Imp's painting

The painting took 8 1/2 months. But far from being bored, I constantly discovered new things in the photo though out that time. I posted earlier about discovering a gold bracelet on her hand ... I just discussed her hand, and since posting my video of the painting on You Tube, I discovered her hat had a triangle of bow at the back of her head. I had missed it completely ..it's shares the tone of the trees...but looking at other photos of her hat, I realized it could be there, then I could see it.

These details swim up or pop out...but it's rare week when one doesn't come forward . Let me just say it's a great thrill seeing a detail that has been overlooked for nearly a century . Invariably they add to the picture....every hidden detail is a gem that suddenly flashes and then one sees it . I know my eyes get a big as Marie's " saucers " at that moment.

I could start it over tomorrow and still find it fascinating....true of every painting really

While I was never bored, I salute and thank those who kept asking after the painting all this time ! I believe I answered these inquiries with the same sentence for months, "I'm finally getting that skirt " It was nice people kept asking! lol One never knows how long a painting will take., each has its own requirements While thankfully her face came though steadily, the skirt was a real challenge of months duration. The hat was very difficult as well. I was painting both til the end , and in the hat's case, beyond!

I take photos of the process to try and understand how I'm able to paint the family as I do... but it's still unexplainable to me, besides "something" happenings in the studio as brush meets canvas and I'm smart enough to see it and keep it It's difficult to state the blessing I feel, as a Romanov enthusiast, to be able to somehow express my emotions in the creation of paintings of this caliber...perhaps only other Romanov fans can understand. It's a dream come true.

Just before I finished the painting , I saw photos of Children's Island at Alexander Palace Park, taken by fellow Romanov enthusiast,and Alexander Palace Forum member, lynn. She took the photo just a few weeks ago and so very likely around the same time of the years as the 1917 photo itself . lynn posted them on Alexander Palace Forum and has kindly allowed me to post one here.

Children's Island
Unless you see a photo, it's hard to believe just how green the grass and blue the sky is there.... almost surreal . So this was hugely helpful as I was about to finish...it certainly informed the colours . Thank you, lynn! Today we know the family from black and white photographs, but they lived in a very technicolour world . Adding that colour back is one of the joys of this work

Anastasia Nikolaevna : the swan 1917, is now installed in my Romanov gallery. She is a commanding presence. What is remarkable is scale wise, she would fit right in to her sister's earlier painting. Now OTMA is complete .

Imp in the gallery

Of course Anastasia has her video, in fact she has two. The main one shows Anastasia though out her life then the progress of the full painting. The 2nd video is a short one showing the development of her face over 8 months. I wish to thank my friend, Helen Azar, for her help with the tittles in the main video. It adds so much!

The music of the main video is from two film scores by the wonderful composer, Rachel Portman : " Lake House" and " One Day "

The music of the shorter video is Thomas Newman's wonderful " Green Fried tomato "

Anastasia Nikolaevna,1917 : The Swan











Anastasia Nikolaevna: Her portrait 2012














My next major painting






The Tsar and Alexis on the Dnieper River 1916

Their faces aren't very clear, I will use other photos to help. An exciting aspect of my art work is bringing clarity where we don't have it otherwise. I am itching to start this painting of father and son on the beach at dusk. I'm so fortunate to have friends who know the uniforms and are eager to help me in that regard. In art, military uniforms are like religious vestments...they have to be right!

This time on the river in 1916, could easily be the happiest of young Alexi's life. His health was fairly good and he was with his beloved father in the military atmosphere he adored. The canvas is 36 X48

My Romanov art on the Web

I really should post on my own art blog where else on the web one can find my Romanov art.

The first place on the web to feature my Romanov art was

The Sword and the Sea. A wonderful blog about Baltic culture and much more.

http://swordandsea.blogspot.com/2010/03/russias-daughters.html


Thanks Materhorn! Your support means a great deal.



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In July I had the privilege to be interviewed by Laura Mabee and was featured on her amazing Romanov site, Frozentears.org This was such an honor! Every Romanov enthusiast knows about Frozentears!



Thank you Laura! You put together such a beautiful page for me too!

http://www.frozentears.org/Pages/Annie.html


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Then in Sept 2011, a cultural blog in Russia did a post about my work after I left a link in the comment section of a wonderful post devoted to the family's nursing during WW 1. The photo files are stunning. This is thier post from July 17th


http://history-life.ru/post176753019/



Thanks to my friend Nadine ,a.k.a Voyage of Freedom , for telling me about this amazing blog. You can imagine how thrilling it was they thought enough of my work to feature it.

http://history-life.ru/post195211666

The blogger's name is Leonsija and that's all I know.

We communicate via Google translation!


As for my current Romanov painting of Anastasia, I hope to post it within two weeks.








A photo of Maria and Anastasia with thier father, the Tsar.

1914

Nikolaevna 1915

When all was said and done, my 48 X 36 painting of the Grand Duchess Olga,Tatiana and Maria Nikolaevna from a 1915 photo ,took nearly a year.

Remarkably, everything but their faces was a battle. The faces came in early and acted as north stars to keep me going. How could I quit if they were looking at me? It was getting the complicated dresses , body placements and creases to fit together properly that took the time. I painted Marie's skirt and Olga's sleeve many times over , even Marie's hat took a week to gain a foot hold much less the amazing veils worn by the other girls! But also one needs to take one's time in order to expand one's vision. I'd love to capture a good likeness and move on...but the paintings always seem to ask for more than that. They say: you have come this far...why not come a little further? So in a real sense I'm grasping and reaching footholds up a mountain's face as I paint ...that's how it feels.

Indeed...for me, as an untrained person, painting the Romanovs is like taking a trek across a mountain range and really, I can't predict what will happen. However I'm not complaining! It's a marvelous journey each time . I'm very blessed to have this creative endeavor in my life . But every inch of canvas has its story

It took a year... and I repainted many areas over and over , but it was never boring or repetitious because each time I had more knowledge about that area and was eager to apply it

The whole Romanov painting experience is a miracle to me

In this photo the three eldest daughters of Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II , are awaiting transport to the last state funeral of Imperial Russia in 1915. It was for their father's cousin, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. It was a funeral for a Grand Duke and a world.

It's the only photo take of them that day that I have ever seen and it appears to be taken causally as a late minute affair....It's quite a picture of sisterly devotion and one can see Marie taking her place as a pillar of the family. Anastasia is missing because it was felt she was too young to attend .

I'm certain this photo of the girl's mother Empress Alexandra was taken at the same time. It's also a powerful photo and I believe I will have to paint this one some day...the suffering her face is remarkable

My Nikolaevna 1915 painting is now in the Romanov gallery I have established in my home.


This painting was so big, I had to make two videos and not just one. The first one is a short one just about the painting. The 2nd video puts the painting into context and tells the story of 1915, the family's own funeral 80 years after thier deaths and hope for the future one when Alexis and his sister join the rest of the family

Nikolaevna 1915

Nikolaevna 1915-1998

I'm well into my next Romanov painting and it's the first one from a photo taken in captivity. After spending nearly a year painting the three eldest daughters of the last Tsar, I knew the most famous one , Anastasia, would want her own! As with most of them, her face is well along as I labor though the skirt and hat. Her shirt is caught by the tree stump edge and that effects the creases. It may be a stump, but at time it appears to be a throne. It's both causal and formal at the same time. There is apprehension and caution on her face and small wonder. The world has turned upside down . I'm doing the whole figure, but I'm posting a close up of the painting in progress...

in progress: Anastasia 1917