Painting Analysis in Jane Eyre Essay

From the source chapter of Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre the reader becomes aw be of the indicantful role that device plays. in that respect is slightlything extraordinary close to the pictures Jane admires from other operatives, as well as the mold she creates herself. Her solitary preceding(a)ime often operates as an outlet of hurting, either past or present, and offers her the opportunity to deal with unpleasant emotions and memories. Janes art transcends her isolation by bringing her into contact with others who see it it functions as a affiliate between her desire to be a l peerlessly(prenominal) and her need for companionship. Despite her struggles with interior(a) conflict and the people in her action, Janes art helps her find own(prenominal) power, marking her true identity as her own woman. Whether it is her honey of gulps or the creations of her own, ar t shit has provide Jane a means of agency to survive the plow conditions afforded to the orphan child, al l(prenominal)owing her to emerge as a wealthy, independent social equal.The primary glimpse of Janes resourcefulness and mental escape comes from one of the frontmost activities in the novel. She escapes from her powerless place in the hostile vibrating reed nursing congeal temporarily through a book taking c are that it should be one stored with pictures (2). She retreats to a solitary window-seat, having drawn the red moreen curtain virtually c lapse shrined in double retirement, and buries herself in Berwicks A write up of British Birds (2). The window offered protection, exactly non separation from the out side of meat At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afterwardnoon (2). Through the images and quotes contained therein, Jane manages to acquire the sole(prenominal) kind of power to she door to- knowledge, Each picture told a story mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet eve r profoundly interesting (3). Her rendition of the illustrations provides training for the young girl, who will later produce her own images. Her prosecution for identity and power has begun, and the young orphan get under ones skins to discover how she can begin her journey to find her place as a social equal.Interrupting her content retreat, looking at the pictures, is her wretched cousin John reed instrument. He claims that Jane, as a dependent in his household, has no right to look at books without his permission. As punishment for her transgression, he throws her favorite Berwicks Birds at her, physically knocking Jane down with its force (3-5). A fight ensues, with Jane comparing Reeds actions to those of murderers, slave drivers, and Roman emperors. Adults intervene Jane is blamed for the conflict and is confine to the red room where she experiences terrible suffering. In this mis gage, Janes visual delectation takes the form of looking at art objects in prints and illus trated books. Instead of beingness a harmless leisure activity, this looking is regarded by the male reference book as a provocation, setting off various stratagems aimed to reconfirm rights of self-command by laying down restrictive or subordinating conditions of approach shot (Kromm 374). Confrontations between Jane and male authority would follow her from her removal from the Reed home to her schooling at Lowood.Early on in her education at Lowood, Jane finds herself in a situation similar to that of the breakfast room incident at Gates subject. Trying to escape the notice of the head police chief Mr. Brocklehurst. With no enormous curtain to shield her this time, she held her slate in such(prenominal) a modality as to conceal her face (62). The treacherous slate slipped from her grasp and crashed to the floor. As she rallied her forces for the worst. It came (62). In a humiliating flight of indignation, Mr. Brocklehurst, placing Jane on a draw for all to see, publically admonishes her for dropping school property. He further attempts to eschew her from the others by condemning her a liar (information he received from Mrs. Reed, Janes wretched benefactress). Jane serves the time, designated by her punisher, sobbing and full of shame.She realizes that this wrongdoing would eliminate set down tabernacles promise to teach her drawing and to learn French. Jane descends from the denounce in search of Miss Temple, her pricey superintendent, who often listens to Mr. Brocklehursts sermonizing in dolllike silence with her address closed as if it would have undeniable a sculptors chisel to open it (Gilbert 784). Miss Temple kindly allows Jane to speak in her defense, such an unfamiliar concept advance from the Reed residence. at one time Janes story is corroborated she is rewarded with beginning lessons in drawing and French.Her subsequent years at the Lowood Institution, although glossed over by Bront, are when Jane emerges as an creative person. Her first gear sketch is landscape with a crooked cottage whose in writing(p) limitations bring about a daydream that veritable(a)ing in which she envisions a feast of more accomplished imagery(72).Each imaginary icon is one she anticipates producing with her own hands picturesque landscapes with ruins, lowing cattle that recall Dutch painters like Cuyp, butterflies hovering snuggle roses, birds pecking at fruit. Through this elegiac, bucolic, wish-fulfilling dreamscape, she sees herself become adept at making freely-penciled, rather than minutely copied, renderings of the natural world intensively and exuberantly observed. (Kromm 377-378) Janes goal is clearly much higher than reproducing others works. She sees herself acquiring the skills of a professional artist. Jane learns at Lowood that she can create and lose herself in alternate worlds when she draws and paints. She shows the ability to envision a cheerful life different from her circumstances. However, following Miss T emples departure from Lowood, Jane returns to feelings of isolation. Once a earnings she finds solace gazing out a window, realizing the promise the other side has to offer.Her restless desire of life outside the classroom leads Jane to seek drill elsewhere. It is through her preparations to leave Lowood that the reader learns of Janes growth and achievement as an artist. Her pictorial facility is a landscape, a weeweecolor given to the superintendent of Lowood, who had interceded on her behalf with Brocklehurst to obtain for Jane a reference and permission to leave the school (Kromm 379). The characterisation was framed, and placed prominently over the chimney-piece, in the parlor at Lowood. Her painting is one of several accomplishments that impress Bessie, the Gateshead servant who visits upon learning of Janes departure for her next job at Thornfield.Bessie thinks the painting is beautiful It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reeds drawing-master could paint, let alone the you ng ladies themselves, who could not come near it (90). Jane now possesses the accomplishments of a lady, and to a degree which will ensure her frugal independence as a teacher. The picture Bessie sees is not described it has no significance for Jane other than as a social gestureit functions exactly as a milestone on her advance to independence (Milligate 316). Janes artistic confidence and her newly acquired social view, follow her to her next adventure at Thornfield.During her time as a governess, Janes art continues to gain the attention of others. Shortly after Rochesters first appearance at Thornfield, he summons Jane and tries to get to know Janes qualifications as governess for Adle. Rochester asks to view again some of her work the young girl had shown him, adding, I dont know whether they were tout ensemble of your doing probably a master aided you? (124). Jane vehemently denies his accusation, yet Rochester remains skeptical. He sites Jane to fetch her portfolio, and investigates her work, smart her, I can recognize patchwork (124). Somewhat satisfied after his perusal, that the work is from one hand, a hand that she confirms is her own.Focusing his attention on three watercolors he asks Jane, Where did you get your copies? When Jane replies Out of my head, he continues to goad her, That head I see now on your shoulders? (124). Jane passes his dilettanteal judgment without befitting unsettled. She offers her own critique of her work that is occupying Rochesters attention her judgment upon them was nada wonderful because her manual skill was not quite able to get under ones skin the vivid subjects that she had imagined with her spiritual eye (Gates 36).The watercolor landscapes, although produced at Lowood, are outlying(prenominal) from the scene that been so admired A seascape, a landscape, and polarscape respectively, each dotty natural setting has the disturbing feature of a dead, fragmented, or cropped run into (Kromm 379). In the se ascape, a wrecked ships mast rises above the water in composition dominated by rough seas and clouds. A lone cormorant sits on the mast with a sparkling bracelet in its mouth pecked from the arm of a womans corpse lying around submerged in the foreground (Kromm 379). The second painting shows a leafy, grasslike hill with a large stretch of dark blue twilight sky.Rising into the sky is a bust-length view of a woman She is an allegoric soma, her gauzy lineaments and crown justifying her description as a vision of the even out Star. The pleasant otherworldliness of this princess-like delineation is subverted by the account of her features, which include wild-looking eyeball and hair streaming in enervated disar quill (Kromm 379). The third watercolor is a polarscape whose winter sky is pierced by the peak of an crisphead lettuce against which a gigantic head rests, its forehead supported by two hands. The focus is entirely placed on the singular head whose black, bejeweled toq ue registers a note of orientalist exoticism. The eyes of this giant are glazed, fixed, blank, communicating only a sense of despair (Kromm 379).Her descriptions of her work display the limitless depths of her imagination. They are, as Rochester observes, like something Jane must have seen in a dream (126). He asks whether she was happy when she painted them and remarks that she must surely have existed in a kind of artists dreamland while she blent and arranged these fantastical tints (126). Here Rochester catches the essence of surrealistic art, which tends toward the kind of involuntarism best known in dreams, aiming at automatism and toward the unconscious. Jane of course was not aiming anywhere (Gates 37). Jane says she was simply absorbed and her subjects has go up vividly on her perspicacity (126).Jane has the visions but lacks the skill to accurately deliver them whereas the superintendents picture indicated accomplishments with social and economic value, these pictures reveal Janes emotional statusshe has made little progress (Millgate 316). Jane is still maturing. The paintings may evidence a halt in her artistic promise, however, the conversation with Rochester, about her artistic promise, ignites a sense of equality between the pair. Jane views Rochesters investigatory comments as a, breath of life he is the only qualified critic of her art and soul (Gilbert 352). Jane and Rochesters shared love of art plants the seeds of their unwashed affection and taste sensation of one other.Besides using her art as a means to access Janes thoughts, Rochester offers Janes work to the public. Rochester becomes, the link that enables Jane to expand her ability to share imagination (Cassell 112). She informs her reader, One day he had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents (129). Jane placidly accepts Rochesters display of her work, possibly as an affirmation of the value of her talent, or perhaps as a means to communicate her imaginative self with a larger audience (Cassell 112). Jane takes a risk and allows herself, through her work, to be insecure to societys scrutiny.Personal scrutiny, in addition to public, accompanies Janes work as it transitions from the familiar natural landscapes, to the unfamiliar world of enactmenture. Here Jane uses her art as a sort of punishment for not seeing verity.The stylus Janes creative imagination goes to work on its materials is quite merely revealed in the genesis of the pictures she actually completes while at Thornfield, those transmission lineing portraits of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain and of Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank which she intends as medicine for a mind which love of Rochester has infected with wishful thinking. (Millgate 317) Janes ivory miniature of Blanche Ingram is executed before Jane has laid eyes on Blanche and is based upon Mrs. Fairfaxs flattering description of her. When Jane asks Mrs. F airfax for her opinion of Rochester, she says of the womans response, There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things the good lady evidently belonged to this class (104).However, when describing Janes rival for Rochesters affection, Mrs. Fairfaxs playscript is bond. Studying her own face in the mirror, she finishes her a charcoal self-portrait in less than two hours, omitting none of what she calls her defects, the harsh lines and displeasing irregularities of her face, refusing to set the artists option to use the chalk to soften or sully the sharp planes of her features (Kromm 382). Jane paints Blanches portrait on smooth ivory, taking a fortnight to finish it, and the result is a Grecian beauty whose features are called smooth, soft, sweet, round, and delicate (Kromm 382).Looking at both portraits, she asks herself which woman Rochester would prefer The contrast was as great as self- control could desire (162). The painting exercise becomes a means of self-discipline, and a trend of representing social hierarchical position through the creation of concrete images (Azim 192). Contemplating the two works, and their disparities, she sics herself firmly in her place. She scolds herself for her sentimentalist fantasies about Rochester that could ruin herself and her career. The contrast between the real and the ideal is imagined and put forth, to keep in mind the distance between desire and reality(Azim 193). Here Jane paints out of her minds eye, not in order to indulge her imagination, but to control it.Jane returns to Gateshead to visit her dying Aunt Reed. Bessie greats her kindly, but Jane otherwise receives a cold greeting from her aunt and cousins. Returning to such a disheartening place, coupled with missing Rochester, Jane uses her art as a means of comfort. She carries her art with her because art supplies her with occupation or amusement (250). Her firs t sketch there shows her thoughts in line with Rochesters as she sketches the characters that he often associated with her (Cassell 116). She drawsFancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever- permutationing kaleidoscope of imagination a glimpse of sea between two rocks the raise moon, and a ship crossing its disk a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiads head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them an elf session in a hedge-sparrows nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom. (236-237) Her fantasies shift to real possibility, she sketches a face-Rochesters, all in heavy black pencil and complete with flashing eyes (237).Jane describing her own work and the qualities she seeks to emphasize in the portrait strength, determination, flexibility and spirit reinforce what Jane finds attractive in Rochester. The portrait of Rochester is involuntarily made and, in fact, helps to close the gap between the mind and the representat ional object spontaneity, imagination, sexuality, and sexual desire combine to produce a portrait that faithfully represents the painters state of mind (Azim 195). In a time of emotional need, she unconsciously conjures up a verbalize likeness of the man she loves (237).After leaving Thornfield, following the interrupted man and wife ceremony, Janes art provides a temporary asylum, as she grieves for Rochester. During her stay at the Moor house, her artwork earns her the admiration of Diana and Mary Rivers. They are so affect with her talents that they give her all of their drawing supplies (360). Once again Jane attributes her talents with social status when she remarks, My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them (360). Their appreciation of her artistic skills, and their generosity help strengthen Janes weakened disposition. As Jane struggles to cope with losing everything that mattered to her, her artwork enlivens those around her-especially Ros amond Oliver.Janes art excites admiration, impressing Rochester with its peculiar power and electrifying Rosamond with surprise and delight. Janes painting and sketching quietly satisfy an passion toward a kind of display that is itself subordinated to pleasure in looking, as when she mirthfully agrees to sketch a portrait of Rosamond I felt a vibrate of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model (Newman 157). Janes first description of Rosamond presents a figure seen entirely from an artists angle eyes shaped and colored as we see them in lovely picturesthe penciled browthe livelier beauties of tint and ray (372).The ease with which this terminology is manipulated shows a new detachment in Jane, as well as suggesting a certain superficiality in the figure she exams (Millgate 319). Even though Jane can use her imaginative faculties to alleviate the pain of reality, she does not separate from reality (Cassell 116). She grieves constantly for the loss of Rochester and her identity. Her art does not offer the same gratifying rewards that it once did. Her work has continued to arise and is evident by Rosamonds portrait. Mr. Oliver and St. John Rivers authenticate the precision of the portrait. The painting also causes St John to admit to Jane what she already knows that he is in love with Rosamond and it is while he gazes at the picture that he allows himself to give way to his feelings for a set period of time a little quadruplet for delirium and delusion, he calls it (Losano 256).The painting also serves another function. The portrait of Rosamond Oliver brings to fruition, Janes aspirations for independence. St. John recognizes her as the rightful heir of a fortune. His verification of her identity consists of a signature in the ravished margin of a portrait-cover, which Jane confronts as if it belonged to another He got up, held it close to my eyes and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words JANE EY RE (392). Jane construes her signature as the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction and thus disowns it as the product of her own volition, even as it fulfills the conditions of he uncles will and her own desires to be financially independent and to belong to a family (Marcus 217).Jane Eyres art is mode of self-expression, telling in rare glimpses her depth of character and aspirations for independence. As Millgate suggests, her work is one means of charting her growth to maturity (315). Beginning in the window-seat at Gateshead, a ten-year-old girl escapes abuse and neglect by escaping through images in her beloved books, through twenty years of creating herself through her art, Jane ends her career as an artist when she becomes Mrs. Jane Rochester. In the account of her married life in the final chapter, all her imaginative activity and visionary skill are devoted to the problem of embodying in words, for the benefit of her blind husband. Her gift of words helps her to cr eate a new artist identity-a storyteller.Works CitedAzim, Firdous. Rereading Feminisms Texts in Jane Eyre and Shirley. The colonial Rise of the Novel From Aphra Behn to Charlotte Bront. London Routledge, 1993. Bront, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York Barnes and Noble, Inc, 2001. Cassell, Cara. The Infernal World whim in Charlotte Bronts Four Novels.Diss. Georgia land University, 2001.Gates, Barbara. Visionary woefulness and Its Revision Another Look at Jane Eyres Pictures. ARIEL, Vol. 7 (1976) 36-49. Gilbert, Sandra. unambiguous Janes Progress. Signs, Vol.2 (1977) 779-804. Kromm, Jane. Visual Culture and Scopic Custom in Jane Eyre and Villette. Victorian literature and Culture, Vol. 26 (1998) 369-394. Losano, Antonia. The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature. Columbus Ohio State University Press, 2008. Marcus, Sharon. The Profession of the Author Abstraction, Advertising, and Jane Eyre.PMLA, Vol.110 (1995) 206-219Millgate, Jane. Narrative Distance in Jane Eyre The Relevance of t he Pictures. The advance(a) Language Review, Vol.63 (1968) 315-319. Newman, Beth. Excepts from Subjects on Display. Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre A Case Book. Ed. Elsie Browning Michie. NewYork Oxford University Press, 2006. Starzyk, Lawrence. The impetus of Memory The Pictorial in Jane Eyre. Papers on Language and Literature, Vol.33 (1997) 288-307.