“What does ‘T.E.’ stand for in this portrait?”, I hear somebody ask. It’s for “any given psychological interpretation, based on this firm’s intuition”. The portraitist-psychologist notices a state that’s exhausting over the long haul. But the girl is not tired enough to feel feelings. And the “p.p.c.” noticeable next to the artist’s signature stands for “almost after dark” (Polish: prawie po ciemku). Dusk falls. The girl hits a pose. Striking an attitude while striking a pose.
At this point, I want to draw your attention to similarities between these two portraits. One eyebrow like Malý Pyšný štít, a mountain in the Slovakian High Tatras; the other also raised, if less so, like Giewont, the massif in the Polish Tatras. Eyes wide open, tense, fixed, staring ahead. Cheeks and chin overflow with toxic air. Lips pursed. And the corporeality all the same: piercing, with an inkling of the unconscious.
And one more thing: examining the portrait, as with the previous one, I feel that along with anger it holds allure. Could anything be more dangerous than temptation simultaneous with a tantrum?
Female anger was wed to hysteria. Movement, gestures, facial expressions, poses of a hysteric – everything the male gaze will try and subdue, and which is nothing short of idiom. A proto-language. Through her body swollen with anger, a hysteric transmits what defies verbalisation. Here’s the first stage of feminism. But this painting is no self-portrait, nor is it a story about the anger of a woman (or a girl). It’s the man, the creator, who outlines hysteria, his-story, his history, his history of male fear.
Dear daughter, show the gentleman the middle finger of your anger.
