I recently had the pleasure of watching a BBC production entitled Lady Chatterley (1993) and directed by Ken Russell. Who better to direct this steamy British TV production than the sensual Ken Russell. Well worth the watch, this made for TV movie stars Joely Richardson and Sean Bean.
The BBC Lady Chatterley led me to read the book it was based on, Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence. First published privately in Italy in 1928, this hot novel about sex and class was banned from the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia until about 1959. The D.H. Lawrence novel was controversial because some people objected to the use of four-letter-words, the overt sexuality and the love affair of an upper class woman with a working class man. Some even called it pornography.
The cover of the Penguin edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover that I purchased has a painting of what appears to be a tree god holding up a naked woman by the hair. A deer in the forest looks on at this surreal, narrative painting. The painting is entitled The Creation of Eve and was painted by a British artist named Mark Gertler who was also a friend of D.H. Lawrence. The painting style reminded me of William Blake and Henri Rousseau, both Outsider artists of sorts.
Here is a painting by Mark Gertler from 1912 entitled The Apple Woman and her Husband. Gertler uses the texture of the wall behind the couple as well as the polka dot pattern on the woman’s head and blouse to tie this composition together. The painting was meant to show the hardship of new immigrants and is also a portrait of the artist’s parents who were Jewish immigrants from Poland. The prominence of the woman in the foreground of the painting suggests the dominance of Gertler’s mother, the father is only a tiny slice compared to his wife. Also, the mother meets the eye of the viewer and the father looks away. This double portrait has the intensity of German Expressionist Otto Dix and the intense psychology of Sigmund Freud.
Mark Gertler seems to have led a tumultuous life. Gertler had success as a painter but had trouble getting along with his wealthy art patrons. As a conscientious objector during World War I, Gertler cut ties to patrons and friends whom he perceived as being part of the war machine. Gertler struggled physically with tuberculosis, which led him in and out of a sanitarium for awhile. His writer friends D.H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield both died of tuberculosis. In 1939, afraid of an impending World War and in financial difficulties, the artist Mark Gertler killed himself at the age of 47.
More Mark Gertler artwork here.
If you are not familiar with the work of Ken Russell, I recommend Tommy (1975), Altered States (1980), Gothic (1986) and Lair of the White Worm (1988)
