Radical Woman: Gwen John & Rodin
London, 1897: Gwen John’s work as an artist was for many years overshadowed by that of her boisterous and domineering younger brother Augustus, though he prophesied that one day she would be rated the better artist. At the centre of the novel is John’s relationship with the considerably older Rodin, whom she refers to as “my Master” in more senses than the artistic, and to whom she writes using the formal “vous”. John herself is gauche, with a penchant for saying the wrong thing, revealing her feelings in ways that render her vulnerable. The more she is in thrall to Rodin, the less good he is for her own art.
Humm writes beautifully, with compassion as well as with a considerable erotic charge in handling Gwen John’s affairs with both sexes. The phrase “[my] passion for Rodin is restrained by my dress buttons” encapsulates the constraints of her life – at the Slade School of Fine Art, sexes were segregated. Her early passion for a fellow artist, already engaged, is described thus: “[he] always seemed to see happiness as if on the far bank of a river. On this bank is the McEvoy I love, and there across the water, deep and unreachable, is a mirage of our future”.
Radical Woman is full of vivid portraits of John’s contemporaries, Grace Westray, Ursula Tyrwhitt, Hilda Flodin and a kind Rainer Maria Rilke amongst them. There is an odd slip concerning Mère Poussepin, who appears as a contemporary in the book; the multiple portraits of her have all the vivacity of having been painted from life, but they are posthumous. That aside, Humm’s research is impressive and her ability to get inside her protagonist’s head in this first person telling even more so.
