'I believe in Salvation by Art'.
@IrisMurdoch and Artworks - a 🧵... 1/17
As a small child Iris was enthralled by visiting galleries with her father, especially the @WallaceMuseum. She'd return here throughout her adult life for inspiration...
2/17 https://t.co/HXnxJ3JYhKsoundcloud.com/user-548804258…
When she reached @BadmintonSchool she began creating. Here's one of her woodcuts she made whilst there at about 16. Can you spot her in the photo?
3/17
Her first novel, Under the Net, employs Hals' 'Laughing Cavalier' from @WallaceMuseum - her central character Jake Donahue sits and listens to the Cavalier:
"An entertaining story...I applaud your decision"
4/17 https://t.co/SuUdWRDJ3Wirismurdochsociety.org.uk/2021/11/01/the…
In The Bell, Dora Greenfield has a moment of transcendence in @NationalGallery in front of Gainsborough's 'The Painter's Daughters Chasing a Butterfly'.
"She looked at the radiant, sombre, tender, powerful canvas...and felt a desire to go down on her knees"
5/17
Her eighth novel, The Italian Girl, is suffused with art. Her close friend, the artist Reynolds Stone, designed the front cover as well as providing woodcuts for the interior.
Iris is photographed here by Janet Stone at the Stone's house in Dorset.
6/17
Her eleventh novel was inspired by a trip to the @NationalGallery with her husband, John Bayley.
Her most potent and erotic novel, The Nice and The Good, is based on the interplay in Bronzino's 'An Allegory with Venus and Cupid'.
7/17 https://t.co/WvVItlB8X3soundcloud.com/user-548804258…
Her fifteenth novel, and winner of the #JamesTaitBlack award, The Black Prince, features her favourite painting Titian's 'Flaying of Marsyas' which she saw 'as a sort of religious icon'.
Bradley Pearson - another egocentric male - is being mentally flayed by the cast...
8/17
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, has parallels with Titian's 'Sacred and Profane Love' with Harriet and Emily, the two lovers. But it is Giorgione's 'Sunset Landscape' that Harriet visits in the @NationalGallery.
The truth of the painting causes suffering here
9/17
In Henry and Cato, Titian's 'Diana and Actaeon' features when Henry visits the @NationalGallery.
'Henry felt such an intense pleasure as he looked at the picture, he felt so purely happy that he wanted to howl with delight'.
He accepts his fate is beyond his control.
10/17
Her @TheBookerPrizes winning 'The Sea, The Sea's Charles Arrowby has an encounter with Titian's 'Perseus and Andromeda' - and the monster- in @WallaceMuseum.
'It was suddenly more disquieting than it had ever been since the first shock of its appearance'.
11/17
And in her penultimate novel, The Green Knight' Rembrandt's 'The Polish Rider' Moy has an experience much like Dora's .
'Looking toward the Polish Rider she met his calm, tender, gentle, thoughtful gaze...She thought, he is so beautiful, he has the beauty of goodness'.
12/17
She would regularly visit galleries across the world, both on her own and with friends. Later in her life the painter Harry Weinberger became her regular gallery companion.
Here's a postcard from Iris to Harry, and one of two portraits he created. 13/17 https://t.co/B2oWq7vItoirismurdochsociety.org.uk/2021/01/13/wri…
Iris had many portraits painted of her during her life, and here are two: one by John Bratby (Private Collection) and one by Motesiczky (held at @StAnnesCollege). 14/17
The most famous is held, and is currently on display, at @NPGLondon. Painted by @TomPhillipsArt after she was made a Dame.
In the background you can see a detail from her favourite of Titian's paintings. 15/17 https://t.co/U5d8bceNaPirismurdochsociety.org.uk/2023/03/03/tom…
During her life she occasionally tried her hand at painting, but perhaps not to great effect! These rather naïve works are held in the Murdoch Collections at @KingstonUniLib. 16/17
'The art object, transcendent, clarified, self-contained, alone, secure and time-resistant, shedding light upon the miserable human scene, prompting compassion and just judgement, seems like a picture of goodness itself, a sort of semi-sensory image of a spiritual ideal.' 17/17
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