Introduction to the work of Rosalind Whitman
By Dolores Le Fanu
Rosalind
Whitman had always been fascinated by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and
when she chose it as an object of study and inspiration for her work she
reflected on the themes of the book, the sense of longing and the need for
fulfilment, their being irresolvable on this earth. The very duality and ambiguity, a mine to tap into, to try
and visualise the stark emotions present in the book. The close focus, the medium and the way of working were also
a response to the subject and a development in Whitman’s career.
Trained
as a sculptor and later a painter-printmaker, Whitman has travelled widely and
the experience of living and travelling in the Middle East and the Far East gave
her a different view of the world and made her more aware of her surroundings.
Previously her work had been more inward looking, based on imagination
and dreams; but in time, travel informed a more direct way of working, and of
recording her experiences, which she describes as ‘invigorating, a real sense
of being alive’. Her contact with
the busy life of Cairo resulted in a free style of watercolour painting, one of
the freshest in her career, the immediacy of the medium allowing her to respond
almost naturally to her surroundings. In
her travels to the Yemen, and later to Java and Bali, Whitman set out to find
inspiration for her work and to explore those aspects of Arab and eastern art
and culture that were of particular interest to her.
She loves arabesque and geometry, and she found an immediate affinity
with the architecture in Cairo and later on in the Yemen. Yet despite the natural attraction to surface decoration,
Whitman found deeper satisfaction in the construction and sense of proportion of
buildings such as the mosque of Ibn Tulun, in Cairo, a great favourite.
Geometry as part of that construction is reflected in the architectural
prints that resulted from the Yemeni experience.
The richness lies less in the colour, which can be rather muted, although
the light is important, especially where it filters through screens, separating,
dividing, creating pattern or enhancing the feeling of mystery.
It is the rhythmic surface of the beautiful, decorated buildings that
provides a natural compositional rhythm.
In
some of her painting, some of her landscapes for instance, there is a rejection
of certain European traditions. Whitman
liked the far eastern approach to space. The
non-perspectival or undefined space suited her painting, the feeling that the
imagery would emerge from a neutral bare space in a mysterious way.
In the Yemen she had little contact with people but was exposed to the
spectacular landscape, which drew an immediate response – the great distances,
the sense of a wide horizon, a big space - have a special appeal.
Space was appropriated through drawing, whether by actually taking what
is there, or moulding it into an inner landscape, as a way to liberate the
internal world and gain freedom.
There
is a striking contrast between some of the open spaces in her earlier work and
the very confined inside/outside world portrayed in the Wuthering Heights
etching series. Fusing inside and
outside views in many of the prints increases the sense of claustrophobia and
intensifies emotion. It fits the
text and Whitman’s decision to concentrate on the first generation of
characters. It also stems from a
personal response to a novel that resonates the feelings of many independent
women confined by domestic activity and responsibility.
The series had a long gestation period from the time Whitman decided to
work on Wuthering Heights to actually determining on a series of etchings.
She
considered paintings, even something three-dimensional, living the book in her
head, feeling compelled to respond to it to give life visually to the
characters, the emotions. During
this intense period of study she pondered on what gave the book its impact, and
thought hard about the meanings while conscious of their complexity and
uncertainty. She was aware of the
inextricable links between form and content.
The form constitutes much of the content, and the meaning is as much in
the form as in anything that can be distilled from the narrative and she was
compelled to create a visual equivalent. The
vivid images that are the etchings condense the physical world, the internal
world, the world of dreams and the actual action in a tableau of intense
emotional expression.
The
fine balance between conveying complexity and wealth of meaning, and creating an
intelligible yet expressive image, led Whitman to move almost cyclically in her
series. Some etchings depict mostly
self-contained scenes, but, given the fluidity of the connections between
situations and characters, she felt it necessary to combine them in images which
are complex yet readable and powerfully expressive.
The final image, also the last etching of the series, returns to
simplicity, responding to the subject itself - the narrative, but also closes
the series full circle formally.
While
understanding the cyclical nature of the novel, Whitman, like many others who
have responded to it, felt it necessary to focus on the first part of the book,
the first generation, although characters from the second generation appear as
babies in her series. The elements
that most attracted her – the active imagery, the transitions of being inside
and outside, the climbing in and out, the breaking down barriers – are all
there in the first part of the novel. The
etchings reflect a personal interpretation, a desire to highlight the conflict
and ambivalence present in the text. The
etching Storm Over the Heights illustrates this.
It is when Heathcliff, unseen, overhears Catherine tell Nelly Dean that
she has accepted Linton’s hand in marriage, and tells her a dream, albeit not
the one she had threatened to tell.
Whitman’s
early work was based on dreams and myths. The
vividness of dreams is something she understands and feels able to convey.
The fluidity in Wuthering Heights between tangible, real life and that
other world had an echo in her. The
prints enhance the ambiguity and open-ended nature of the book and visually the
compositions can convey a disturbing sense of disharmony.
The challenge was to reflect the multi-layered richness of the novel into
images through a medium that lends itself to clarity.
Drawing
has always been the vehicle to comprehend, a way to understand things.
The process of extracting meaning from the book was assisted by the
artist’s need to draw. From childhood Whitman drew actively, not just as a way to
record her world, her favourite things but as a means to escape.
She drew as a reaction to things that were within her experience, quite
simple things like cats, which she determined to ‘get right’.
Yet above detail Whitman has always had a feeling for gesture and
expression. She loves dance, watching dance as a vehicle of expressing
emotions or creating shapes and rhythm.
The
drawings that would lead to the Wuthering Heights etchings were particularly
interactive. She drew small groups
of people enacting a particular drama to gauge its impact, as if unfolding
before our eyes on a theatre stage. Figures
and objects were drawn again and again details and gestures altered according to
context. Drawing from imagination
was supported by active sketching, in and around Haworth to feel the physical
geography. The architectural
context for the etchings was gleaned from both historical records and drawings
of buildings like Ponden Hall, which may have inspired the Thrushcross Grange of
the novel.
If
the details were worked out through drawing, the generalities of the composition
were arrived at by a cut up process, juxtaposing drawings, combining interior
and exterior details. The
composition and the space were approached three-dimensionally, physically,
literally constructed. The spatial
relationships are fundamental to the juxtaposition process.
It is that particular method of communication that makes the etchings so
strong as images. It underlines the
ambiguity of the text while delivering the artist’s temperamental and formal
preference. The strong sense of the
psyche being reflected in the physical world of the novel makes this way of
working almost inevitable. Combining
various scenes in the same image is not just a translation of space but also of
time, as we learn with hindsight of events happening simultaneously in the book.
To express this Whitman manipulates space and the elements that break it
up: architecture, the setting, the components.
The
emotional charge of the novel is contained within the confines of each print in
a very small space, the artist assuming the role of narrator to give an
overview. The very limits of the
etching plates, the indentations, the white space surrounding the print contain
but also concentrate the image. The
restrictions imposed by the physical necessities of making an etching help to
channel the different elements into an intelligible whole.
At the same time Whitman did not want to feel confined by the role of
illustrator. She wanted to be able
to depict situations or elements within them that might be questioned by other
viewers or readers, to bring in her personal interpretation.
The novel is very rich in allusion and can be read differently but
Whitman’s etchings offer a personal reading, the medium being exploited for
her own interpretative ends.
Whitman
felt that in Wuthering Heights she had found a grand theme, one that wasn’t
only relevant to our time but spoke to people down the ages.
She was also conscious of the significance of adopting the device of
simultaneous narrative used traditionally in Gothic and Renaissance panel
painting. She felt that the stature
of this book not only lent itself to it but could be comparable to those
religious paintings.
The
series was executed in different stages over a period of five years between 1997
and 2002. The prints were conceived
to be seen together as a book. Relationships
established within each plate mean that prints may have their individual entity,
but will always exist as part of a whole, which has a stronger impact as the sum
of the artist’s vision. The plates - of identical dimensions, the treatment, and the
use of black and white, provide cohesion. The
marks, though varied, are part of an identifiable style.
In
the making of the prints she combined etching and aquatint in a particular
working method developed while etching the Yemeni series. Tight drawing with the etching needle was combined with
aquatint, arrived at by painterly brushstrokes during the stopping out process
in an almost expressionistic use of mark making.
Her approach developed within the series and so did to some extent her
way of working, often on two plates at a time rather than singly.
Throughout the series Whitman never approached image making with
preconceptions in terms of technique. The
marks vary according to her response and the demands of the subject represented.
The etching in the early prints is open, experimental, searching.
The tone is light with evident use of aquatint.
A Perfect Misanthropist’s Heaven and Bulldog Bite are
examples of this although the latter was revisited at a later stage.
The final print, The Death of Heathcliff, condenses the
artist’s experience with the medium, affinity and control of the subject. It was drawn in a single session and etched in a stronger,
heavier style making almost exclusive use of the needle, the darker print
reflecting the mood of the scene depicted.
If response to the subject is through drawing, the marks are the pulse
that breathes life into the image.
Some
images work on a direct level in terms of meaning or creating an impact.
Flight Over Rooftops, the first executed etching says exactly what
it sets out to say. Others bring
out the viewer’s deductive powers, urging them to return to the text to
elucidate the meaning. Deranged
at the Grange teases both memory and imagination by showing the elopement of
Heathcliff and Isabella in the same print.
The composition impacts at a distance, yet repays close examination not
least for the beautiful, delicate marks that make up the sky.
There are similar passages of exquisite mark making in Bulldog Bite,
one of the first prints, with The Fall of Hareton, to show inside outside
ambiguity.
While
developing compositions on the plate, Whitman realised the potential of the
tilted scene or element as a destabilising device and a powerful tool for
expression. Tilting is exploited
almost as a trademark but selectively used to underline meaning or visualise
emotion. Lockwood Attacked by
Dogs is a piece of dynamic, almost comic theatre yet conveys a sense of
disquiet as we too enter the unstable and often violent world of Wuthering
Heights and are drawn into the emotional and psychological turmoil so vividly
depicted in The Last Meeting or Isabella Escapes her Tormentor.
The world of the prints is encompassed by its own style of architecture,
used in a way that closes things in, and often underlines the feeling of
oppressive claustrophobia.
There
is too, stylistic continuity in the figures, a range of gestures threading them
through the series, a strong sense of movement, more emphasized, more violent in
some than in others. The
expressiveness of the figures reflects Whitman’s love of dance and gesture,
both stylised and emotionally initiated. She
refers to a certain ‘restlessness’ as a stylistic trait, a preference for
the dynamic figure rather than the human figure as object.
The artist’s choice of period costume in the series invests the drama
with the magic of the period piece counteracted by the modern approach and
unconventional compositions. This apparent contradiction heightens the psychological as
well as the visual impact of the etchings.
Whitman’s
images are expressive to the point of expressionism. She feels particular affinity with Medieval Art, especially
International Gothic painting, attracted by the simplicity of gesture, its very
abstract nature all the more powerful because of it. Black and white, a natural choice for the etcher, also suits
the story, not in terms of simplicity but in terms of impact.
Whitman felt that for the images to work visually it was necessary to
have a sense of the light and the dark as a way of showing the kind of spiritual
play that great masters like Rembrandt brought to his religious etchings and
which she wanted to convey.
‘Black
and White in Wuthering Heights’ represents a coherent vision, yet Whitman
reserves the possibility that she may add to it at some stage in the future.
As she acknowledges, she returns to things. The ‘tableaux vivants’
she created fed on an early interest in the illusion of theatre.
At the Slade she realised that printmaking was the perfect channel for
her strong drawing and choice of imagery. The
etching series on Wuthering Heights may prove a fertile ground on which new
ideas will flourish.
Dolores
Le Fanu
January
2003