Essays on Paula Rego: Smile When You Think about Hell

Description

In these powerful and stylishly written essays, Maria Manuel Lisboa dissects the work of Paula Rego, the Portuguese-born artist considered one of the greatest artists of modern times. Focusing primarily on Rego’s work since the 1980s, Lisboa explores the complex relationships between violence and nurturing, power and impotence, politics and the family that run through Rego’s art. Taking a historicist approach to the evolution of the artist’s work, Lisboa embeds the works within Rego’s personal history as well as Portugal’s (and indeed other nations’) stories, and reveals the interrelationship between political significance and the raw emotion that lies at the heart of Rego’s uncompromising iconographic style. Fundamental to Lisboa’s analysis is an understanding that apparent opposites – male and female, sacred and profane, aggression and submissiveness – often co-exist in Rego’s work in a way that is both disturbing and destabilising. This collection of essays brings together both unpublished and previously published work to make a significant contribution to scholarship about Paula Rego. It will also be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary painting, Portuguese and British feminist art, and the political and ideological aspects of the visual arts. Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Images Prologue: A Patriot for Me Pre-Figuring the Motherland The Things that Define Us From Practice to Theory 1. Past History and Deaths Foretold: A Map of Memory Ideal Homes A Home is Not a Home Without a Pet A Dog’s Life 2. (He)Art History or a Death in the Family: The Late 80s Families and Other Animals So Sorry For Your Loss 3. The Sins of the Fathers: Mother and Land Revisited in the 1990s Burning Books A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words All at Sea 4. An Interesting Condition: The Abortion Pastels Christmas by Any Other Name Infallible Fallacies Life, Death and Russian Roulette Look at Me Enjoying Myself The Image as Problem Child Watching Him Watching Her: Everything Depends on the Eye of the Beholder A Target of Indifference Child Brides The Mother’s Dilemma The Counter-Purification of Categories The Wages of Sin 5. Brave New Worlds: The Birthing of Nations in First Mass in Brazil Unexpected Visitors Little Strangers Goodbye and Thanks for All the Fish 6. I Am Coming to Your Kingdom, Prince Horrendous: Scary Stories for Baby, Perfect Stranger and Me It’s Fantastic Prince? Frog? Or Worse? Sweet Dreams, Scary Nightmares: Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes Why Are You Glaring at Me? In Theory Anyone Can Be a Fairy Freud & Daughters: A Family Concern Revolution in the Nursery Women Telling Tales Stay by my Cradle till Morning is Nigh: The Nursery Rhymes What’s It All About? Black Sheep, Strange Creatures and Dangerous Rogues One Elizabeth, Two Marys and Assorted Royals Beautiful Princesses, Evil Stepmothers and Wicked Witches: Who is Dead Now? Women Against the Canon: Who is Cannon Fodder Now? Bad Wolves, Beastly Beasts and Bluebeard: They Had it Coming, M’Lud Size Does Matter: Angry Jane, Gothic Bertha Dearest Satan: The Lady with a Cloven Hoof Lady, May I Kiss Your Hand? Inês de Castro 7. Paula and the Madonna: Who’s That Girl? (Un)Like a Virgin Just a Girl Where’s God Gone? Is He Dead or Just Resting? His Mother’s Little Boy A Mother’s Work Is Never Done Making His Mother Cry Where Is She Going Now? 8. Epilogue Let Me Count the Ways I Love You Appendix AA Dama Pé de Cabra (The Lady with a Cloven Hoof) First Canticle Second Canticle Third Canticle Appendix B‘Fascinação’ (‘Enchantment’) Works Cited List of Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 E-figures Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Index