University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2001 Poetic Anatomy of the Numinous Creative Passages into the Self as Beloved ZIA, PARTOU http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/2620 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. Poetic Anatomy of the Numinous Creative Passages into the Self as Beloved by PARTOU ZIA A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Research Falmouth College of Arts 2001 2 ABSTRACT PARTOU ZIA Poetic Anatomy of the Numinous Creative Passages into the Self as Beloved This research is shaped by the actual experience of practice: as painter and writer. My preoccupation is with the nodal moment when conscious awareness is suspended, and both the corporal and psychic involvement in realising the work almost transport one to another zone of effectiveness. This zone, which I name as the poetic zone, is where the numinous enters the ordinary. The investigation for a space/place/moment that lies beyond the logic of acceptable discourse can help initiate and give shape to a new vocabulary - visual or literary. By orchestrating a methodology, which functions on several layers, I have endeavoured to create a synthesis between painting and writing. My method in all the aspects of this research -·the thesis, play scripts, studio paintings, and albums - is firmly rooted in the conscious and critical intellect, as the vehicle that helps facilitate my need in establishing a personal arena for Becoming: - a deliberate yet semi-controlled state of charged eidetic experience, whereby the 'other' of the self is met with and (perhaps) named. By probing into the specific makeup or anatomy of the poetic moment, and coming to understand how it functions within both the pragmatic and the apparently undecipherable creative processes, the artist/poet, like the mystic visionary, may give an affirmative answer to the Self, as /-that-is-not-the-other. Thus I hope that this research will contribute to the feminist project engaged in trying to delineate the divine presence in 'feminine writing', as a powerful guise and method for a clearer understanding of the psychological other. 3 LIST OF CONTENTS * Foreword 10 * Artist's Journal: Month the First 16 .. Introduction 17 "' Extracts from tbe 'Diaries of Eve' 18 "' Artist's Journal: Month tl1e Second 22 "' Differentiating the Beloved/Other in Myth 23 .. Artist's Journal: Month the Third 32 .. The Momentary and the Infinite 33 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Fourth 38 .. In Words and Image 39 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Fifth 44 .. The Scribe 45 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Sixth 56 "' Interiors of the Sacred and Profane 57 .. Artist's Journal: Month the Seventh 67 .. Still Life 68 .. Artist's Journal: Month the Eighth 80 "' Word and Flesh 81 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Ninth 88 .. The Self-Portrait and the UEye 89 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Tenth 99 "' The Three Graces 100 "' Artist's Journal: Month the Eleventh 118 .. My Beloved - My Muse 119 .. Artist's Journal: Month the Twelfth 128 .. Appendix: Crossing Lingua/[Borderj/andllines) 129 .. Dlustrations i-xxviii 133 .. Endnotes 135 .. Bibliography 163 .. Further Reading 168 .. Visual Documentation on C.D. Rom - PC only fcover sleeve) 4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1 Passional of Abbess Kunigunde, MS XIV A 17, fol.7v National & University Library, Prague (1314 and 1321) Fig. 2 Image du M on de, Paris BN, MS fr. 547, fol. 140r. ( 1171) Fig. 3 Villers Miscellany, Brussels, Bib. Roy; MS 4459-70, fol. 150r. (1320) Fig. 4 Cistercian Nun, Private Collection, Aachen (early fourteenth century) Fig. 5 Gwen John 'A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris' (c.1907-9) Oil on canvas 32.5 x 26.5 erns. Fig. 6 Vincent van Gogh 'The Artist's Bedroom' (October 1888) Oil on canvas 72 x 90 ems. Fig. 7 Pieter Saenredam 'The Grote Kerk, Haarlem' (c. 1635) Oil on panel 59.5 x 81.7 ems. Fig. 8 Pieter de Hooch 'The Pantry' (c. 1658) Oil on canvas 65 x 60.5 erns. Fig. 9 Partou 'Lent, St. Peter's' (1999) Oil on canvas 140 x 90 ems. Fig. 10 " 'Open Door' ( 1999) Oil on canvas 90 x 80 ems. Fig. 11 " 'The Chapel, St. Peter's' ( 1999) Oil on canvas 140 x 90 ems. Fig. 12 " 'Green Stairs' (2000) Oil on canvas 225 x 100 ems. Fig. 13 " 'The Red Chair' (2000) Oil on canvas 122 x 122 ems. Fig. 14 " 'The Studio 11' (1999) Oil on canvas 130 x 95 ems. Fig. IS " 'The Studio, White Slippers' (2000) Oil on panel 122 x 122 ems. 5 Fig. 16 Miniature showing Marcia, c.1402 from a French translation of Boccaccio's 'Concerning Famous Women' Fig. 17 Miniature showing Marcia, c.1404 from a French translation of Boccaccio's 'Concerning Famous Women' Fig. 18 Sofonisba Anguissola 'Self-portrait Painting the Virgin and Child' (1556) Oil on canvas 66 x 57 ems. Fig. 19 Frida Kahlo 'Self-portrait' (1940) Oil on canvas 62 x 47.5 erns. Fig. 20 Leonora Carrington 'Self-portrait' (1936-7) Oil on canvas 81 x 64.5 erns. Fig. 21 Helen Chadwick 'Vanity 11' (1986) An image from a large installation cibachrome Photograph mounted in 60.9 erns. Diameter circular matt. Fig. 22 Partou 'Painting Myself (2000) Oil on canvas 100 x 100 erns. Fig. 23 " 'Self-portrait wiih Goya' ( 1999) Oil on panel 122 x 122 erns. Fig. 24 " 'Self-portrait with Brushes' (2000) Oil on canvas 90 x 70 ems. Fig. 25 " 'Drawing (Self)' ( 1999) Pencil on graph paper 35 x 40 ems. Fig. 26 'Looking In the Mirror' ( 1998) Oil on canvas 160 x 120 ems. Fig. 27 'With Bra' (1998) Oil on panel145 x 50 ems. Fig. 28 'Drawing with Postcards' (2000) Pencil and chalk on paper 70 x 50 ems. 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To My dear family for having always believed in me Professor Penny Florence for her insightful support an~ encouragement And Professor Linda Anderson & Julia Farrer for their generous and professional advice 7 DECLARATION At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award. This study was financed with the aid of a studentship from Falmouth College of Arts, and carried out in collaboration with Plymouth University. A programme of advanced study was undertaken, which included Fine Art practice. Relevant seminars and conferences were regularly attended at which work was presented; external institutions were visited for consultation purposes, and papers were prepared for publication. Publications or presentation of other forms of creative work: 1998 Solo Show, Newlyn Art Gallery - 'Church Paintings' 1999 Solo Show, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro - 'Place & Persona' Mixed Show, Art Space Gallery, London -'Four Young Painters' 2000 Solo Show, Plymouth Arts Centre - 'Church Paintings' Solo Show, Art Space Gallery - 'New Light' 2001 'Transitions', Newlyn Art Gallery - 'Presence- New Painting: Self-Portraits & Interiors' South West Arts Award, Fine Art Presentation and Conferences Attended: 1998 Going Australian: Reconfiguring Feminism & Philosophy, an International Conference, University of Warwick, Coventry Regional Research Seminar, Falmouth College of Arts The Relationship of Making to Writing; Practice, History & Theory, University of Plymouth Research Workshop, Exeter School of Arts & Design, University of Plymouth 1999 Theorama: Regional Seminar, Falmouth College of Arts - Introduction and Paper Differential Spaces: European Axes of British Modernism, A Conference, FCA 2000 Complexity Conference: Dartington College of Arts Practice Related Research in Fine Art & Performance, FCA 2001 Enactment of Thinking: Plymouth University, Exeter - paper External Contacts: I have had correspondences and I or meetings with: Professor Linda Anderson Arts Council, London Rosemary Betterton South West Arts, Exeter Sister Wendy Becket Tate, St. Ives Deanna Petherbridge, RCA Newlyn Art Gallery The Laboratory, Oxford Arnolfini, Bristol Slade School of Fine Art The British Museum, London s; ..,..,~· Date:.S.I.njVJ/-2.. 1. 8 No poetic fantasy but a biological reality, a fact: I am an entity like bird, insect, plant or sea-plant cell; I live; I am alive; take care, do not know me, deny me, do not recognise me, shun me; for this reality is infectious- ecstasy. [H. D., Trilogy; The Flowering of the Rod, 9] 9 FOREWORD The impulse that has shaped this doctoral research is derived from the actual experience of practice - focusing on the affect of both the sensuous and the cerebral, as a final outcome: how those qualities, in the realisation processes of the paintings, the albums, and poetic prose may be delineated. My artistic and poetic preoccupation is in trying to configure, and make coherent, the nodal moment when the conscious side of awareness is suspended; whence both the corporal and psychic involvement in realising and making the work almost transports one (the artist/poet) to another zone of effectiveness. This is what I consider and name as the poetic zone, or the moment of being, where the numinous enters the ordinary and the mundane. It is the space where the interiorised need to express imagery that is as yet not adapted to the so called 'logic' of acceptable discourses, begins to originate its own forms of expression. These instances of epiphany note what truly hold my research interest. Areas of transcendental expression, not easily defined, are what I grapple with in both my painting and writing practice.