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.”

 

- Per Brask