I’ve recently taken part in the latest installment of the “Interventions” project at Leeds College of Art. Curated by Catriona McAra, this series asks artists to:
“…re-discover, re-invent and re-invigorate the creative realms of the library. Different strategies are deployed in order to explore the inner territories and outermost reaches of the library’s collection.”
I used my time at the Vernon Street Library to research and develop a new performance piece. I searched the shelves for paintings of people reading. Amongst the many images I found, two paintings previously unknown to me offered pause for thought.
Mary Cassatt’s “Reading Le Figaro” (1883) shows an older woman reading a newspaper. There is nothing untoward about this until you consider that such “intellectual” activity would have been deemed highly inappropriate for a woman at the time… and yet there she is, reading in full, glorious and conspicuous daylight and neither concerned about being seen nor being recorded. I find myself drawn to the defiance of the image.
Joseph Wright’s “A Girl Reading a Letter by Candlelight with a Young Man Peering Over Her Shoulder” (1760) is harder to read. What interests me in Wright’s painting is not the contents of the letter, nor the girl’s reaction to it, but the tension created by the man’s presence. He is really annoyed that we are there, catching him out in the act of peeking. We are frozen in looking at each other, and in that moment neither of us can read that letter.
I find the tiny moment this painting captures oddly hopeful, because it allows the girl privacy and an opportunity to be lost – even if only momentarily – in a space less oppressive than the one we can see she is in.
