Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 13 Number 3, December 2012
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PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER: SELF-PORTRAIT AGAINST A GREEN BACKGROUND WITH BLUE IRIS, 1900-1907
The tip of her nose points upward. Its wide ridge
keeps her intense eyes somewhat far apart. Her
lips are red; the upper one, bow-shaped, highlights
its fuller lower partner. Her face is oval and her brown hair,
parted in the middle, is pulled back with strands curling
at her temples. She is wearing what looks like an onyx
necklace and a décolleté green top with white trim. Irises
dance around her head. Referencing van Gogh,
or is she the messenger goddess?
Born in 1876, she could be from twenty-four to thirty-one.
She always looked girlish and never got to be old, dying
just a few weeks after the birth of her daughter. She painted
a portrait of her friend Rilke and he wrote a requiem for her.
If she carried a message, Iris-like, it might be, “look again.”