Celia Paul - Letters to Gwen John

Gwen John, The Convalescent, c. 19234

On the shelf in my studio in Bloomsbury are four postcards of paintings that I love: The Blue Rigi, Sunrise by J.M.W. Turner; Stonehenge, a watercolour by John Constable; Self-Portrait by Rembrandt, dated 1658; and The Convalescent by Gwen John.

Just one look at this reproduction of Gwen Johns painting and my breathing becomes easier. The whole composition is a symphony in grey. She must have mixed the colours on her palette firstPaynes Grey, Prussian Blue, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Rose Madder, Flake Whitethen all the other colours would be dipped in this combination so that every form is united in grey: the dark blue of the girls dress, the thrush-egg blue of the cushion behind her back and the tablecloth, the rose pink of the cup and saucer echoing the delicate pink of her fingernails and lips, the teapot like a shiny chestnut. The wall behind her is flecked with mustard-coloured dots placed randomly and precisely, as marks in nature always are, like the speckles on an egg. The painting is as fragile and robust as an eggthe structure of the composition holds everything in place; this delicate painting will endure.

Gwen John instructs the model to loosen her hair and part it in the middle. She wants the model to resemble her. Before Gwen starts the painting, she positions herself in the wicker chair and tells her model that she must sit in exactly the same pose. Gwen lowers her eyes and holds a small piece of paper in her hands. She is completely still, and her stillness pervades the space around her. The room becomes silent. The model now copies Gwen; she looks down at her hands, and she doesnt look up until she has heard that Gwen approves. Gwen is pleased with her. Gwen was in her forties and living alone in Meudon, on the outskirts of Paris, when she befriended Angline Lhuisset. Angline was often ill. Gwen wrote, it may not be always a misfortune to be ill. One may have thoughts then that one would never have had being well, good thoughts I mean...

In a letter that Gwen wrote to her friend Ursula Tyrwhitt in 1910, she said, As to me, I cannot imagine why my vision will have some value in the worldand yet I know it will... I think it will count because I am patient and recueillie [collected] in some degree.

I know this painting well. The original painting is small, measuring about the same as an A4 sheet of paper. I have often stood in front of it, trying to learn from Gwens composure and presence of mind. It hangs in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, where my mother lived and where my son and his wife and children still live.

I have been thinking of Gwen Johns early years when her mother, Augusta, was still alive. Gwen was the second child, born on 22 June 1876. She had an older brother, Thornton, with whom she was affectionately close. I am trying to imagine her as a baby. I think she had a stillness about her, and that she watched and noticed from early on. But then she could cry inconsolablynothing could comfort heruntil suddenly she was distracted by a little bird hopping on a branch outside the window, or she noticed her mothers earring twinkling in a shaft of sunlight coming into the room, and she would be stilled again. Her eyes were very blue. She gazed at her pretty mothers face as she looked down at her. The mother and daughter looked into each others eyes. The daughter loved and was loved. She wanted nothing more.

And then her brother Augustus was born. Augusta must have had a deep attachment to him from the start. She called him Augustus to signify to the world their closeness.

Augusta, Augustus. And there would be Auguste, later on. Did that nameAugusta, the first of the threesuggest a sort of template of deep attachment? In my own life, the two men I have been most intensely involved with, Lucian Freud and my husband Steven Kupfer, in both cases their girlfriend before me was called Kate, the name of my younger sister, the sister I am closest to; I had suffered terrible jealousy at her birth and felt supplanted by her in my mothers affection, but then grew to love her particularly.

Jealousy heightens love; the special intensity with which we observe the object of our mothers (or lovers) devotion narrows down the beam of our focus. Who was it who said that love is the highest form of attention?

My husbands mother was called Kthe, and he has suggested to me that part of the heartbreak he suffered after his girlfriend Kate left himand she chose to leave him as his mother was dyingwas that hed lost two mothers. Lucian was named after his mother, Lucie, because she sensed a special bond with him at first sight. So often there is a tangled web of emotion surrounding a namejealousy, possessiveness, entitlementfor the named person and for the person who named them.

Gwens mother was a painter. She used to sign her paintings Gussie, the name that Augustus was also called by his family and friends. One painting she signed A. John and it hangs in the Dalton Collection, in Charlotte, North Carolina, because the collector thought it was by Augustus. The walls of the sitting room in the family home were covered with Augustas paintings: pastoral scenes of women and children on lonely roads. She decorated the nursery walls with images, for the childrens amusement. She taught her children how to paint by filling in the outlines of a colouring bookthis is a technique Gwen adapted in her own work much later on; Gwen always acknowledged her indebtedness to her mother.