Escape elsewhere: inside artists’ homes
By Imogen Sabharwal
Many artists’ source of inspiration is sought ‘elsewhere’ from everyday reality, retreating to inner worlds of fantasy and surrealism, or seeking solace in lush, fragrant gardens. Some curate their domestic spaces to encourage inspiration and serve as an escape or sanctuary, leaving behind magical, vibrant houses for fans to visit, explore, and step into the materialisation of famous paintings.
Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst’s farmhouse:
During the relationship between surrealist pioneers Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst, they briefly resided in an 18th Century farmhouse in Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche, an intimate retreat and Arcadian utopia far removed from the looming war, a period which Carrington described as ‘a moment in paradise’. The farmhouse’s interior walls are adorned with vibrant murals and bas-reliefs of fantastical, hybrid creatures, a treasure trove of surrealist symbols drawn from both their works and imaginations. A blood-red unicorn watches residents from a teal window-like hatch against mustard tiles, a golden bat stares up from mosaic flooring, a mystical sea creature floats on a viridian door.
A treasure trove of surrealist symbols
The house materialises the couple’s artistic dialogue and inner worlds, becoming a living, breathing piece of art, reflecting an idea Carrington writes of in her book The Hearing Trumpet; “Houses are really bodies. We connect ourselves with walls, roofs, and objects just as we hang on to our livers, skeletons, flesh, and bloodstream”. Sadly their idyllic escape was abruptly cut off with Ernst’s arrest for being a ‘hostile alien’, which catapulted Carrington into a psychological breakdown, leading to her institutionalisation in Spain, where she continued to produce art. The chimerical collage of the couple’s love and labour is not open to the public, but was available to Carrington’s relative Joanna Moorhead who wrote her biography, claiming the untouched house ‘remains its tangible relic: a tribute to two artists, the summer they shared together and their boundless creativity’.
View images here: https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/leonora-carrington-max-ernst-surreal-farmhouse-france
Charleston House:
Charleston House was owned by artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and was the heart of a constant flux of modernist writers and artists of the Bloomsbury Group, including Bell’s sister Virginia Woolf. The charming Sussex farmhouse has a magical garden and an interior adorned with wonderful murals, artistic trinkets, and delightful detail. The furniture and walls are all embellished with spring colours and swirling patterns while the summery garden is bursting with hollyhocks, apple blossom, ripe fruit, and fragmented sculpture, the whole place a haven for beauty and inspiration. It is also home to the Famous Women Dinner Service, commissioned by art collector Kenneth Clark with no brief. Bell and Grant produced a series of 50 ceramic plates painted with famous women throughout history (as well as two self-portraits), subdivided into categories of ‘Women of Letters’, ‘Queens’, ‘Beauties’, and ‘Dancers and Actresses’, but all tied together with blue and yellow details. This feminist collection reflects the themes of Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’, and the collection epitomises the tie between the domestic, artistic pursuit, and social statement.
Monet’s house and gardens at Giverny:
It feels like stepping through a portal into the magical, ethereal world of his paintings
Monet’s home is certainly the site of inspiration for his most famous works, as well as being a representation of his favourite art and colours to surround himself with. He wanted to build something “for the pleasure of the eye and also for motifs to paint’, so evidently his living space was a deliberate construction to be a well of ideas and inspiring beauty, though for the half a million annual visitors it feels like stepping through a portal into the magical, ethereal world of his paintings. There is a clear influence of Japanese art and culture with the woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) lining his walls, a fascination shared by fellow artists Auguste Rodin and Vincent Van Gogh, as well as in his Japanese Gardens, that emphasise geometrical aesthetics and of course his famous water lilies and the Japanese footbridge over the pond which he painted 18 views of since 1899. The house itself is vivid and pigmented, with a sunshine yellow dining room and a blue kitchen decorated with Rouen tiles, exhibiting Monet’s love of colour. But the garden is an otherworldly ‘elsewhere’ and his paintings come to life; “the richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration”.
Emily Powell’s house:
Emily Powell is a contemporary artist who turned her house into a living work of art, a rebellion against minimalist trends, particularly in response to Pantone’s colour of the year being ‘Cloud Dancer’, white, asserting “It’s all about the colour”. Instead, she records in prismatic paint memories from her travels, ‘from a street scene in Paris to the pudding houses of Tiree, snow capped mountains of the Arctic to turquoise Scilly bays and fields of sunflowers’, her life illustrated into a personal gallery. The sense of freedom evoked is noticeable, contrasting renting rules that have constrained her in the past, as well as conveying the child-like rebellious creativity of drawing on plain white walls. She plans to sell her liveable vivid dreamscape, letting someone else enjoy her memories captured in fruit sorbet tones and decorative detail, as she moves on to saturate another house’s plain white walls — someone who is inspired, not deterred, by the allure of a blank canvas.
View images here: https://emilypowellstudio.substack.com/p/the-art-of-living-step-inside-my
Images: Andy Scot via Wikimedia Commons, Dmicha via Wikimedia Commons.
