Talk:Self-Portrait (Ellen Thesleff)

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Re: Poetry

Latest comment: 12 hours ago4 comments1 person in discussion

It can't be a coincidence that Thesleff was writing poetry around this time while creating a Self-Portrait that was in part, a homage to Paul Verlaine by Eugène Carrière. How does her own personal poetry connect to this work? There are some hints here and there, but I need to find out more. Viriditas (talk) 22:45, 22 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

It looks like Monica Schalin partially addresses this question. Thesleff self-identified as a målarpoete or a "poet with paint", attempting to carve out a unique style all to her own. Because many of these works are in private collections and research is somewhat new and rarely in English, it is difficult to get to the bottom of this. But if I read closely, it looks like Thesleff's poetic lyricism is closely aligned with Nordic "mood painting". More work is needed tying all of this together. Viriditas (talk) 23:16, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Another wiki says the death of her father a few years before impacted this work, but I can't find anything to directly support that claim. Still looking. Viriditas (talk) 11:20, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Fi.wikipedia: "Thesleffin isä oli kuollut paria vuotta aikaisemmin, ja surun Omakuvan katseessa ajatellaan johtuvan isän kuolemasta." ("Thesleff's father had died a couple of years earlier, and the gaze of the self-image of grief is thought to be due to the death of his father"). This is sourced to works that are excellent but I don't have access to at the moment. My general policy is not to add content I can't verify myself as sometimes it doesn't pan out. I have to say, I haven't run into this claim anywhere else. The one thing I can do at the moment is note that her father died young at 54 years of age, and that it had an impact on her life. The sources do mention that. But I don't see where they draw the direct connection with this work. Another thing, none of the sources I've seen mention anything about "grief", so I wonder if that is even true. Virtually every source on this subject describes the gaze as meditative and introspective, not grief-stricken, so that's a bit of a red flag that something isn't right. Viriditas (talk) 20:16, 23 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

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