The Brontës' handwriting

The Telegraph and Argus carries an article about the Brontës' handwriting and its corresponding events at the Brontë Parsonage Museum next year.

The Brontës’ miniature books and handwritten correspondence have inspired an arts programme running at Haworth’s Parsonage Museum early next year.

The programme includes an exhibition of abstract paintings by Haworth artist Victor Buta, based on the Brontës’ handwriting and signatures.

The paintings emerged from Victor’s interest in signatures of questionable authenticity; those invented or used in a conscious effort to mask or change identity.

Victor has developed several projects and exhibitions based on signatures, including a series of paintings using doctors’ signatures now in the permanent collection of the NHS Hospital Teaching Trust.

In Alter Ego, running from February 6 to March 31, he explores the Brontës’ writing pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, and the origins and development of the family surname. Numerous items from the museum collections, including the tiny books the Brontës made out of sugar paper as children, have been used as source material.

Diane Simpson, a founder member of the British Institute of Graphologists, who worked with West Yorkshire Police on the Peter Sutcliffe case, has analysed the handwriting of historical figures including Elizabeth I and Anne Boleyn.

On Saturday, February 14, she will be helping visitors unravel graphological clues revealing the personality traits of each of the Brontës. It’s also a chance to discover what your handwriting says about you.

The Parsonage’s contemporary arts programme – celebrating the ways in which the Brontës’ lives and works have continued to inspire writers and artists across three centuries – has included Brontëan Abstracts, the result of a year-long collaboration with artist Cornelia Parker, and readings from writers Beryl Bainbridge, Simon Armitage, Bonnie Greer and Helen Dunmore.

This year the Parsonage Museum has been celebrating its 80th anniversary with events including a puppet show based on the Brontës’ life, a chainsaw sculpture created from a tree planted by Charlotte and the first exhibition devoted solely to Emily Brontë, No Coward Soul.

The exhibition includes a manuscript of Emily’s Gondal poems and an 1858 reissue of Wuthering Heights, containing Emily’s biography notes and newspaper cuttings of reviews.

“There’s little surviving evidence of her personality,” said Ann. “She didn’t have the recognition that Charlotte had in her lifetime and is thought to have cared little about success, but on display are reviews of Wuthering Heights found in her writing desk, which suggests she did care how her work was received.” (Emma Clayton) (Picture source; Ann Dinsdale, the Parsonage Museum’s collection manager, holding one of the tiny books made by the Brontës when they were children)

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Talks