Throughout art history, female artists' self-portraits have offered a new perspective on the figure of the woman, departing from the traditional male gaze. In these works, it is the woman herself who reflects on her place in the world through her own experience.
Gwen John, a British painter from the early 20th century, embraced this self-exploration. While she created intimate and traditional self-portraits, her unique perspective also extended to subtle and even unconscious forms of self-representation. John often depicted other women with whom she identified, as well as interior scenes of her own home that reflected her inner world. A close study of her work reveals a deliberate and patient approach. John built her paintings gradually, achieving an almost spiritual quality through contemplation and slowness.
Born in Wales in 1876, John studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London. Hers was one of the first generations of women admitted to the school, and while many of her female colleagues soon married and abandoned their careers, John fiercely protected her independence. She moved to France and lived an extremely simple life, which was also reflected in her works and her palette. Her themes focused on details of everyday life.
John's self-portraits possess a particular strength. She paints herself as a young woman looking directly at the viewer. With sobriety and simplicity, yet with a firm presence, she demonstrates her control of painting in a way that she could not control her own life.
John's life has been strongly linked to two male figures. One was her younger brother and painter Augustus John, who achieved great fame during his lifetime. The other was the world-renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she was a model and lover. Like so many others, she lived for a long time through a man who surpassed her in age, recognition and power, marking the following years of her life in a tragic sense.
Yet even in the most turbulent moments of her relationship with Rodin, John managed to paint with extraordinary strength. In her work, she took the submissiveness that characterized her relationship and reversed it, becoming the subject of her paintings, both as a model and as an artist.
Gwen John ignored the artistic revolution that was happening around her in Paris and created her own world. She lived her life around painting and a solitude that guaranteed her beloved independence, becoming the painter of silence.
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