Heterotopic and holey spaces as tents for the nomad: rereading Gwen John's letters

Abstract

In this article I look into the letters and paintings of the expatriate Welsh artist Gwen John, tracing her spatial practices in the urban spaces of modernity. Drawing on Foucault's, Deleuze's and Guattari's analytics, I argue that John's spatial narratives chart heterotopias and holey spaces that challenge the hegemonic spaces of modernity, temporarily giving shelter to what Braidotti has theorized as female nomadic subjects. John's fluid spatiality is thus conceived as an event that interrogates static conceptualizations of spaces and identities and foregrounds difference, movement and forces of desire as constitutive of the real.

En este artículo observo las cartas y pinturas de la artista galesa inmigrante Gwen John, siguiendo sus prácticas espaciales en los espacios urbanos de modernidad. Basándome en los métodos de análisis de Foucault, Deleuze y Guattari, sostengo que las narrativas espaciales de John diagraman heterotopías y los espacios agujereados desafían a los espacios hegemónicos de la modernidad, dando refugio, temporalmente, a lo que Braidotti ha teorizado como sujetos nómades femeninos. La espacialidad fluida de John es por lo tanto concebida como un evento que cuestiona a las conceptualizaciones estáticas de los espacios y las identidades, y resalta la diferencia, el movimiento y las fuerzas del deseco como constitutivas de lo real.

Keywords:

• desire
• epistolary narratives
• nomadic subjects
• Gwen John
• heterotopias
• holey spaces

Keywords:

• deseo
• narrativas epistolares
• sujetos nómades
• Gwen John
• heterotopías
• espacios agujereados

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of East London for supporting my archival research at the archives of the Rodin Museum in Paris and the National Library of Wales. Thanks also to the archivists of the above institutions and to Sara John for granting me permission to quote from John's letters. Final thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editors of Gender, Place and Culture for insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

 1. MR/MGJ, B.J5, undated letters, citing persons.

 2. See Tamboukou (2010b).

 3. See Massey (2005) for an analysis of the fluidity of space.

 4. There is indeed a growing literature amongst critical geographers, cultural theorists and sociologists, drawing on the concept of heterotopia. See Saldanha (2008) for a critical overview of this literature and an interesting critique of the concept itself.

 5. See Smith and Watson (2001) for an overview and discussion of this literature.

 6. John was passionately attached to her cats and lived surrounded by them throughout her life. For a discussion of her relationship to cats, see Tamboukou (2010b), particularly Chapter 7.

 7. For a discussion and analysis of the entirety of John's correspondence, see Tamboukou (2010b).

 8. Lloyd-Morgan (2004, 130).

 9. As pointed out in Perry's (1995, 16) study of women artists in Paris in the early twentieth century, ‘there were […] many women artists from Europe and America who were coming to Paris for shorter periods to work and/or study and exhibit [since] Paris had become an undisputed international centre with a seemingly magnetic appeal’.

10. NLW, MS 21468D, ff. 3–4.

11. NLW, MS 21468D, f, 6.

12. NLW, MS 21468D, ff. 7–8.

13. Lloyd-Morgan (2004, 157).

14. Lloyd-Morgan (2004, 40).

15. John lived in a series of independent studio apartments. When she first settled down in Paris, she took a room at 7 Rue St-Placide, which was rather dark and cold and following Rodin's encouragement and financial support, she moved to 87 Rue du Cherche-Midi, in 1907, the room she loved and painted most. In 1909 she moved again to 6 Rue De l'Ouest till 1910 when she took the top flat at 29 Rue Terre-Neuve in Meudon, keeping the Parisian room as a flat till 1918. In 1929 she bought a plot at 8 Rue Babie, Meudon, but only moved there in 1936, just three years before she died. All her rooms in Paris were in blocks of flats in the area of Montparnasse.

16. See, Langdale (1987): La Chambre sur La Cour, pl. 47, cat. no. 15, 34; A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris, pl. 183, cat. no. 16, 138; A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris with Open Window, pl. 32, cat. no. 17, 30; The Artist in her Room in Paris, pl. 33, cat. no. 18, 30; A Lady Reading, pl. 53, cat. no. 24, 38; Girl Reading at the Window, pl. 54, cat. no. 25, 38; Interior, pl. 84, cat. no.49, 61; The Brown Teapot, pl. 203, cat. no. 50, 150; The teapot (Interior: Second Version), pl. 204, cat. no. 51, 150; Interior, Rue Terre Neuve, pl. 93, cat. no. 226, 64; Interior Rue Terre Neuve, pl. 115, cat. no. 123, 75.

17. Langdale (1987), 34, pl.47, no. 15, http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_198116/Gwen John/Woman-Sewing-at-a-Window.

18. Gwen John's paintings can be viewed on different websites, see the Bridgeman Art Library for a comprehensive collection http://www.bridgemanart.com/search.aspx?key = Gwen%20John&filter = CBPOIHV#top

19. NLW MS 21468D, f. 44.

20. MR/MGJ/B.J3.

21. During the 10 years she was in love with Rodin (1904–1914), John sent him around two thousand letters, but she continued to write to him sporadically till his death in 1917. There were only 69 letters from Rodin in the Archives, mostly short notes arranging meetings and encouraging her to look after her health.

22. MR/MGJ, B.J3.

23. See Tamboukou (2010b) for a discussion of John's amorous epistolary discourse, particularly Chapter 6.

24. MR/MGJ, B.J4.

25. For feminist discussion of women artists' relation to the urban spaces, see amongst others, Pollock (1988), Wilson (1991), Parkhurst-Ferguson (1994), Ryan (1994), Wolff (1994), Perry (1995) and Parsons (2000).

26. MR/MGJ/B.J4, letters to Julie 1906–1907.

27. See Nesci (2001) for an interesting discussion of the fin-de-siècle woman who walks in the streets, not necessarily as a flâneuse.

28. NLW MS 21468D, ff. 38–40.

29. MR/MGJ/B.J4, undated.

30. MR/MGJ/B.J4, undated, f. 14.

31. MR/MGJ, B.J3, undated letters without name or place.

32. MR/MGJ, B.J3, undated letters without name or place

33. NLW MS 21468D, ff. 36–37.

34. For an overview and appreciation of this literature, see Scott and Keates (2004).

35. MR/MGJ/B.J3, undated letters without name or address.

36. Hilda Flodin was a Finish sculptress from Rodin's circle.

37. Lloyd-Morgan (2004, 38).

38. MR/MGJ/B.J3, undated letters without place or name.

39. MR/MGJ/B.J3.

40. Lloyd-Morgan (2004, 21).

41. Indeed, these were more or less the regular events structuring the life of many of her contemporaries, See Thomas (1994).

42. The rhizome is an important concept in Deleuze and Guattari's (1988) geophilosophy configuring horizontal and surface relations between disparate elements and unsettling fixed structures and positions.