‘I Seemed to Work Under a Spell’- How One Gothic Classic Haunted the Career of the Artist Edna Clarke Hall

Mauve

October 5, 2024 • 1:12PM

(Above painting: ‘Catherine’ by Edna Clarke Hall, c. 1914-15, watercolour and pencil on card)

Hues of umber and burgundy enmesh a canvas, bleeding together into a desolate sandy land and fuming overcast clouds. Blue skies - a promise of a better time, of a calmer time – slice through the turbulent atmosphere, yet they are just out of reach. Will the warmth of clear summer sun every be felt, or is it too late, its’ sight set upon unknown lands? Two slightly dishevelled masts protrude from the ground like tattered war flags, signalling defeat and devastation. A child stares faceless, emotionless, towards the picture plane where a young girl walks indolently towards him, hair windswept. There is something quiet and unsettling about her fluid but unnatural pose. Like the young boy her identity remains hidden - a quick glance to the object label sparks a surprised reaction. Because this sombre figure, is in fact a protagonist that many readers are familiar with, but the languid portrayal completely juxtaposes the fervent character from the novel.

This is Catherine Earnshaw, the flawed female protagonist of Emily Brontë’s famous classic Wuthering Heights, and the character that has enchanted the artist Edna Clarke Hall for over three decades.

Born in 1879, as the tenth of twelve children, then Edna Waugh lived a fairly liberal childhood, being allowed to pursue her interests where she displayed particular talent in art. At 14, with the help of her father’s barrister friend William Clarke Hall, she enrolled into the Slade School of Fine Art swiftly becoming a protegee. At 19 Edna went on to marry William, and despite the promise of freedom to pursue art professionally, the young artist felt increasingly burdened by the pressures of domestic life. Feeling isolated from the world, and longing for love, it is no surprise that Wuthering Heights had such an impact on the artist. Wuthering Heights is an intense and brooding story about the obsessive love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a couple tragically separated by the devastating impact of social class and gender roles of the time [for my full review of the novel please follow: https://www.pagesofmauve.com/reviews/wuthering-heights-emily-bronte-review].

In her biography The Heritage of Ages, Edna Clarke Hall admits the deep influence this book had on her:

‘It held me in its grip as no other book ever had. Was it the long lonely days at home, the isolation of the house in the wider setting of the landscape…which so reminded me of this book? I lived the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine myself, I simply was them...I just had to draw Wuthering Heights.’

This is evident in the artist’s body of work, where elements of her life are seen in the depictions of Catherine. Take for example, the painting mentioned above. In the novel, Catherine Earnshaw is described as ‘a wild, wicked slip of a girl.’ However, the blazoned character seen in the book is not present in Edna Clarke Hall’s work. Instead, there is something unhurried and liminal about Catherine. Her simple dress, pale complexion and slow pace embraced by a barren land creates a feeling of isolation and melancholy, which complements the artist’s feelings at the time. Unfortunately, Edna Clarke Hall felt so isolated and despondent at this time of her life, that just a few years later in 1919, she suffered a nervous breakdown. The Cornish landscape depicted in the painting looks less like the idyllic holiday spot her family often frequented in, and more like a bad omen for a hard time to come. Catherine here is ghost-like, the symbolic expression of an artist walking forwards like a phantom, towards an unhappy place in their life.

But perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel. With the help of her art school teacher Henry Tonks and psychologist Henry Head, the artist got better and gained a studio in Gray’s Inn, London, where she was able to resume her career and consolidate her artistic identity. What is extremely interesting is despite this change, the tone of her work only seems to get more melancholic.

Take for example Edna Clarke Hall’s Study for 'Wuthering Heights' (an illustration to Chapter XV) from Manchester Art Gallery [for image access please follow: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/study-for-wuthering-heights-254051]. Chapter fifteen is the climax of the story, portraying an intense yet passionate argument between Catherine and Heathcliff which would soon trigger Catherine’s death. In Study for ‘Wuthering Heights’ we see this heartbreaking scene take place, the couple hold tightly to each other, and despite her worsening condition Catherine grips tightly to Heathcliff’s arm, her wide eyes expressing the pleading line for the novel: “You must not go! You shall not, I tell you.” Heathcliff’s face is cast shadow, which to me foreshadows that her imploring is futile. Heathcliff will leave her.

Another important aspect of this study is its expressive quality, seen from the loose but brisk hatched brushwork, which portrays the emotional intensity of their couple’s argument seen in the novel. Art historians comment on Edna Clarke Hall’s skill of keeping the Romantic spirit in her work whilst moving towards a more expressive mode of painting. One of the best examples of this, is her watercolour painting Heathcliff Supporting Catherine which is believed to be painted around a year later in 1924 [for image access please follow: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/clarke-hall-heathcliffe-supporting-catherine-n05418]. Here we see Heathcliff supporting a dying Catherine. There is a hint of the past in this painting, signified by Catherine’s Victorian style dress that does not reflect the radical changes in fashion of the 1920s. Yet, the characters seem more mature here compared to the depictions of Catherine seen years earlier, indicating a sense of the present in the artist’s life as well.

The expressive quality of line and colour is most striking. There is a battle between the cold-flamed blue and fiery red surrounding Catherine, illustrating the struggle between her and Heathcliff and her ultimate losing battle. “You have killed me and thriven on it,” says Catherine in Wuthering Heights. The focus on the unsettling, distressing and tragic romance between the two is paramount. But why is this? What drew Edna Clarke Hall to focus so intently on this specific moment from the novel?

Eliza Goodpasture writes in her article for Art UK that the artist’s ‘embodiment of both Catherine and Heathcliff can be read as an interpretation of her own inner conflict over her identity as an artist and as a woman.’ As shown above, we know this was a major struggle for the artist, having drastic consequences on her health, and therefore this could be why the artist focused on this desperate and intense moment of Wuthering Heights. We also know from the artist’s biography that the longing for love and being deprived of it also resulted in hardships for her. Edna Clarke Hall writes:

‘My chief ill is an overwhelming desire for love, both in its spiritual sense and in its physical expression… I have got into such a state sometimes my thoughts run like haunted creatures…I stand in my despair destroying myself. I take my face and cast it from me.’

The similarly between the artist and Catherine is evident, both dealing with a self-destructive inner struggle surrounding love. Perhaps Edna Clarke Hall saw a kindred spirit in Catherine, both women heavily constrained by society in matters of the heart, and for the artist also affecting her career due to the expectation of domesticity. Heathcliff’s harrowing question springs to mind: “Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy?”. The tragic truth is that women often had no choice but to betray their own hearts to societal pressures. It could very much be a possibility that this is why the artist decided to focus on this particular chapter.

It is also important to note that the artist suffered from severe arthritis, which ultimately ended her career. Perhaps Catherine needing to be supported by Heathcliff and her arm lying limp by her side could symbolise this physical struggle. The genius in Edna Clarke Hall’s work is that there seems to be a complex reflection driven from the artist’s life and society she lived which complements the characters of Wuthering Heights and their struggles. It is an experimental form of self-portraiture where she takes herself out of her own body and imbues her struggles in two of literature's most well-known characters.

A lot of readers out there would probably relate to feeling so familiar with a character that we almost embody them and their experiences. Or perhaps we imagine ourselves in their world. It is a feeling of escapism, and for many and most definitely for Edna Clarke Hall a coping strategy to deal with the harshness of real life.

In 1971, American art historian Linda Nochlin wrote her essay ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’ where she discusses the institutional limitation that led women to not being able to succeed in the arts, and even when they do, the bias against them that prevents them from standing hand-in-hand with their male peers. Nochlin’s perceptive analysis stands true for Edna Clarke Hall, whose oeuvre has largely gone unnoticed in recent art history. My first thought when I encountered her work was: Who is Edna Clarke Hall and why have I not heard about her work before? Her work is a unique, captivating and deep exploration of the intersectionality of the literary and visual arts. Through a pictorial format she portrays how an obsession with a book impacted her life forevermore, which many readers would sympathise with. It is experimental so that is stands with her Modernist peers and yet keeps a heartfelt Romantic spirit that many contemporaries turned their backs upon. Edna Clarke Hall like Catherine burnt too bright for the world, yet I hope this article will connect more readers and those interested in the arts to her brilliant work, because she is a great woman artist that I think everyone should know of.