Renk, Kaos ve Matisse: A. S. Byat’ın “Sanat İşi”nde Temizlikçi Kadının ‘Sanat Yapıtı’

İngiliz yazar A.S. Byatt sanatı ve sanatçıları ön plana çıkaran anlatıları ile bilinir. 1993 yılında yayımlanan ve üç öyküden oluşan Matisse Öyküleri yazarın sanata olan ilgisine iyi bir örnek oluşturur zira her bir öykü Fransız ressam Henri Matisse’e ait bir resimden esinlenmiştir. Üç öyküden biri olan Sanat İşi’nde sanat ve renk hikayenin temelini oluştururken, Byatt farklı yaklaşımlar benimsemelerine rağmen Matisse’den esinlenmiş iki karakter, evin babası Robin ve temizlikçi kadın Bayan Brown arasındaki gerilim üzerinden hikayesini oluşturur. Robin, uyum ve yalınlık üzerine kurulu son derece katı bir renk teorisi benimseyen, karısı Debbie’nin kişisel fedakârlıklarını tamamen görmezden gelerek sadece kendi çalışmalarıyla ilgilenen biridir. Robin’in aksine Bayan Brown ise, etnik kökeni ve farklı materyalleri bir araya getirip, sentezleme kabiliyetleri ile çok daha renkli, karmaşık hatta deneysel bir yaklaşım sunar. Bayan Brown on yıldır çalıştığı evde biriktirdiği kumaş parçaları, hatta elektrik süpürgesini dönüştürerek son derece renkli, yenilikçi ve özgür ruhlu bir sanat yapıtı üretir. Nitekim Bayan Brown’un bu son derece yaratıcı çalışması bir sanat galerisinde sergilenir ve bir gecede ona ün getiren bir başarıya dönüşür. Dolayısıyla, Bayan Brown’ın birçok renk ve materyali biraraya getirerek oluşturduğu yapıtı sadece Matisse’in sanat anlayışını yansıtmaz aynı zamanda onun bir hizmetçi ya da kadın olarak hislerini aktarabileceği sanatsal bir alan oluşturur zira bu evdeki emeği, kişisel girişim ve yeteneği sadece ona başarı getiren gizli bir sanat işinden öteye geçerek sınıf, ırk ve cinsiyet ayrımlarını da işaret eder.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Sanat, renk, Matisse, Byatt, kolaj, yaratıcı, kadın

Color, Chaos and Matisse: The Cleaning Lady's 'Work of Art' in A.S. Byatt's Art Work

British writer A.S. Byatt is known for her fictions foregrounding descriptions of art and artists. Published in 1993, The Matisse Stories, a collection of three stories, is a good example of her fascination with art as each narrative is inspired by a painting of French artist Henri Matisse. Of the three, “Art Work” thematizes art and color as reminiscent of Matisse and Byatt creates her story through a tension between Robin, the father, and Mrs. Brown, the cleaning lady of the house who are both Matisse-inspired artists in different approaches. Robin embraces a rigid color theory based on harmony and pureness and he is completely obsessed with his works ignoring his wife, Debbie’s personal sacrifices. Unlike Robin, Mrs. Brown represents a more colorful, creational and even experimental practices derived from her ethnic origins as well as abilities of knitting and collaging unusual materials. Besides her own creativity and free spirit, Mrs. Brown gets the material and ideas from the household like pieces of fabric or the vacuum cleaner but recycles and transforms them in such a flamboyant and innovative way that it gains a showing in a gallery and her exhibit becomes an overnight success. Her colorful, chaotic and collage work of art does not just serve as an embodiment of Matisse’s art but she also finds an artistic medium of expression to transplant her emotions as a servant or woman as her personal endeavor and talent turn into a secret work of art addressing certain inequalities of gender, class and race.

Keywords:

Art, color, Matisse, Byatt, collage, creative, woman,

PDF

___

Alfer, A. & A. J. E. de Campos. (2010). A. S. Byatt: Critical Storytelling. Manchester University Press: Manchester and New York.
Brodskaïa, N. (2011). The Fauves. New York: Parkstone Press.
Byatt, A. S. (1995). The Matisse Stories. New York: Vintage Books.
Byatt, A. S. (2002). Portraits in Fiction. New York: Vintage Editions.
Campbell, J. (2004). A. S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Eagleton, M. (2005). Figuring the Woman Author in the Contemproray Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillian.
Elderfield, J. (1992). Henri Matisse: A Retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Fernandes, I. (2006). Matisse and Women: Portraits by A.S Byatt. In R. Carvalho Homem & M. de Fatima Lambert (Eds.), Writing and Seeing: Essays on Word and Image (pp. 201-210). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Fishwick, S. (2004). Encounters with Matisse: Space, Art, and Intertextuality in A. S. Byatt’s “The Matisse Stories” and Marie Redonnet’s “Villa Rosa”. The Modern Language Review, 99(1), 52-64. doi:10.2307/3738865
Flam, J. D. (2003). Matisse and Picasso: the story of their rivalry and friendship. New York: Artists Rights Society.
Gardam, S. (2013). Sound Apples, Fair Flesh, and Sunlight: A. S. Byatt’s Feminist Critique of Matisse’s depictions of Women. In N. Pedri & L.Petit (Eds.). Picturing the language of Images (pp. 119-133). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Leymarie, J., H. Read & W. S. Lieberman. (1966). Henri Matisse. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Millard, C. (1978). The Matisse Cut-Outs. The Hudson Review,31(2), 321-327. doi:10.2307/3849913
National Gallery of Art. (2013). An Eye for Art: Focusing on Great Artists and Their Work. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Petit, L. (2010). Inscribing Colors and Coloring Words: A. S. Byatt’s “Art Work” as a “Verbal Still Life”. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 49(4), 395-412. doi: 10.3200/crıt.49.4.395-412
Pokhrel, A. K. (2015). Re-(en)visioning “the vanishing of the past”: Myth, Art, and Women in A. S. Byatt’s “Medusa’s Ankles” and “Art Work”. Women’s Studies an Inter-disciplinary journal, 44(3), 392-424. doi: 10.1080/00497878.2015.1009763
Spurling, H. (1998). The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Stewart, J. (2008). Color, Space and Creativity: Art and Onthology in Five British Writers. New York: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Stone, D. (2007). The Achievement of Matisse. The Sewanee Review, 115(1), 152-155. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40211554
Thomas, D. M. E. (2016). Texts and Textiles: Affect, Synaesthesia and Metaphor in Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Wallhead, C. (2007). A. S. Byatt: Essays on the Short Fiction. Bern: Peter Lang.
White, R. (2005). A Studio of One’s Own: Fictional Women Painters and the Art of Fiction. New York: Rosemont Publishing.
Woolf, V. (1986). Mrs. Brown and Mr Bennett [1924]. In P. Faulkner (Ed.), The English Modernist Reader, 1910–1930 (pp. 122-128). Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.