Litchfield County versus New York
Another meaningful pair for the contemporary myth of the American woman artist is within the narrative contrast between Litchfield County/Wall Street. It makes even more intricate the struggle of Leila who refers to her new sober, crystalline period in elevated, spiritual terms. Leila, the narrator, cannot help approaching it with a great deal of irony.
From a spiritual awakening to a visit from Lionel Schaffer - how literally can you take the phrase ‘from the sublime to the ridiculous?
Lionel Schaffer belongs to the ‘New Money Elite of New York’ and is a noted Wall Street tycoon, but in Erica Jong’s mythological reading he is always referred to as a ‘voyager from another galaxy, the galaxy of Mammon’, who lands with his chopper in the garden. His chopper is the profane machine that whirls, brutalizing the air above Leila’s ‘sweet green hillside’. The incompatibility of the two world views is so immense that it results in the cosmic clash of Earth and n UFO. As two worlds set apart, Wall Street comes to Litchfield County - 239/XV. What is more striking is that when this ET enters the sacred world of Leila he cannot help but behave as a proper ET. Into the silo they go and Lionel refuses to take off his jacket and tie, perhaps ‘wanting this formality, this contrast between Litchfield and Wall Street.’ For a complete stranger, for a traveller from another galaxy it is certainly ‘idyllic’ to visit the artist in her native habitat. As if to draw a general borderline between the two worlds E. Jong calls forth the idyllic ambiance of other women artists’ studios: Georgia O’Keeffe on her mesa, Romaine Brooks with Natalie Barney at Villa Gaia in Florence, Louise Nevelson in Little Italy - 248/XV.
In a broader frame of mind Connecticut versus New York is also very substantial binary opposition indeed. It consolidates the persistent romantic notion of the verdant country studio far enough from the crazy and ugly New York, this ‘Rome-at-the-fin de siecle’, again in contrast to ‘Hogarth’s London’. Quite haunting for the woman artist is the image of the New York garbage heap that is paradoxically perceived as ‘beautiful and worth to be painted once’ - 141,2,3/VIII. Hence New York is considered both as an exterior and interior profile and opposed to lovely, romantic Connecticut.
Copyright © : Iliyana Nedkova,1996-7
N.Paradoxa : Issue No.6, 1998