Thoughts of melancholy and absence

The Brontë Parsonage Blog has post devoted to the forthcoming exhibition of works by Victoria Brookland at the Parsonage. It opens on July 1 and closes on September 30, so you have plenty of time to go and see it.

A series of striking new paintings by artist Victoria Brookland will be exhibited shortly at the Parsonage, which has been developing a reputation for bold projects with visual artists, most recently Turner-prize nominee Cornelia Parker, as part of its much praised contemporary arts programme.
Secret Self, the new exhibition, features fourteen works by the Leicester based artist, who has used dresses in the museum’s collection as her inspiration, transforming them into powerful evocations of the Brontës’ enduring mystery.
What I found most moving and unsettling about the dresses was the way they evoked thoughts of melancholy and absence, of a great depth of silence and yearning. It seemed to suggest the unspoken aspects of womens’ lives - feelings too acute to be written, voices not heard. Not just the Brontës’ voices - but all womens’. I was struck by the realisation that despite being the most examined and analysed women writers in history the Brontës still retained absolutely their mystery, the secret of their deepest selves died with them - albeit with a wealth of tantalising clues left behind. (Victoria Brookland)
Items of Brontë clothing are amongst the most powerful and popular exhibits in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and these paintings use images of dresses from the museum’s collection to powerfully evoke the mystery surrounding the Brontës’ unrevealed lives. They accentuate how much there is that we do not know about the Brontës, that we cannot define or contain them. (Andrew McCarthy, Deputy Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

Check out our post on Victoria Brookland to see three samples of her work.

LibriVox forum members, after creating their audiobook version of Villette, are now working on the Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. It looks like all the poems are already either completed or assigned, but do check this thread to listen to the poems.

And finally Girlebooks briefly reviews Jane Eyre.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Audio-Radio, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Jane Eyre, Poetry