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Lot Essay
Schjerfbeck first travelled to St. Ives in Cornwall on the south-west coast of England in July 1887 at the invitation of her artist friend Marianne Preindelsberger, who was then married to the English artist Adrian Stokes. She stayed until the Spring of 1888 and then returned in the Summer of 1889, when she shared a studio with Maria Wiik, staying until the following Spring. During her first stay in 1887, Schjerfbeck was still suffering emotionally from the break of her engagement to an English artist whom she had met in Brittany. Despite this, her letters to Maria Wiik demonstrate her keen interest in her new surroundings that are mirrored in the acute observation of her paintings from this time. 'Helene Schjerfbeck had a rare gift of seeing much in little, and found beauty where others saw only the trivial' (R. Konttinen, exh. cat., Helene Schjerfbeck, Helsinki, 1992, p. 46).
Just as Virginia Woolf would later recall the strong colours of her childhood holidays in St. Ives at around the same time, Schjerfbeck's letters also reveal how much she was struck by colour. 'You should see the fishing boats return in the moonlight. A mass of lanterns - the sea looks like the Champs-Elysées. They come closer and closer together as they approach the harbour. They pull in the nets and gather up the fish - herring and mackerel - which shimmer in the moonlight. There are hundreds of people on shore, most of them fishermen in their red and brown oilcloth coats. As the tide goes out, they gather around the lanterns and collect the fish from the nets. The light from the lanterns makes their faces red while the moonlight makes their backs blue. Here and there you can see a white fishing boat reddened by the light against the sea. It's a shame you can't paint it, but it would be impossible' (Schjerfbeck, letter to Maria Wiik, January 1888, quoted in exh. cat., Helene Schjerfbeck, Helsinki, 1992, p. 48).
While the aesthetic influence of Paris and Brittany is obvious in her work from the first half of the 1880s, the second half of the decade is very much characterised by the influence of St. Ives. It was in Cornwall that Schjerfbeck's art came out of its transitional period and rediscovered the palette of her earlier style. This sensitivity to colour is perfectly demonstrated in Profile of a girl in the subtle pinks and reds of the girl's lips and cheek and also in the innovative addition of the green highlight at the top of her jawline. Furthermore, the delicately rendered wisps of hair at the back of the girl's neck and the subtle splashes of light at the top of her head bear witness to the ongoing tendency towards reduction that had begun to appear in the mid-1880s and which now in St. Ives carried Schjerfbeck towards a lighter and freer brushstroke.
Typically for Schjerfbeck, it is the faces of the people surrounding her and her ability to portray in them so many facets of human character and emotion that dominate her art. The fresh face and rosy cheeks of the young girl in the present work, as well as the treatment of light and colour, recall Schjerfbeck's seminal 1888 painting The Convalescent. Finnish art at this time was dominated by an increasing sense of nationalism and Schjerfbeck's subject matter and treatment were considered too influenced by foreign artistic trends. While paintings such as The Convalescent and Profile of a girl undoubtedly demonstrate first French and then English influences on her art, it is in these works from the 1880s that her originality and singular vision first emerges. Profile of a girl is a stunningly serene and beautiful image by an artist whose personal means of expression and creative individuality was in its first blossoming.
Just as Virginia Woolf would later recall the strong colours of her childhood holidays in St. Ives at around the same time, Schjerfbeck's letters also reveal how much she was struck by colour. 'You should see the fishing boats return in the moonlight. A mass of lanterns - the sea looks like the Champs-Elysées. They come closer and closer together as they approach the harbour. They pull in the nets and gather up the fish - herring and mackerel - which shimmer in the moonlight. There are hundreds of people on shore, most of them fishermen in their red and brown oilcloth coats. As the tide goes out, they gather around the lanterns and collect the fish from the nets. The light from the lanterns makes their faces red while the moonlight makes their backs blue. Here and there you can see a white fishing boat reddened by the light against the sea. It's a shame you can't paint it, but it would be impossible' (Schjerfbeck, letter to Maria Wiik, January 1888, quoted in exh. cat., Helene Schjerfbeck, Helsinki, 1992, p. 48).
While the aesthetic influence of Paris and Brittany is obvious in her work from the first half of the 1880s, the second half of the decade is very much characterised by the influence of St. Ives. It was in Cornwall that Schjerfbeck's art came out of its transitional period and rediscovered the palette of her earlier style. This sensitivity to colour is perfectly demonstrated in Profile of a girl in the subtle pinks and reds of the girl's lips and cheek and also in the innovative addition of the green highlight at the top of her jawline. Furthermore, the delicately rendered wisps of hair at the back of the girl's neck and the subtle splashes of light at the top of her head bear witness to the ongoing tendency towards reduction that had begun to appear in the mid-1880s and which now in St. Ives carried Schjerfbeck towards a lighter and freer brushstroke.
Typically for Schjerfbeck, it is the faces of the people surrounding her and her ability to portray in them so many facets of human character and emotion that dominate her art. The fresh face and rosy cheeks of the young girl in the present work, as well as the treatment of light and colour, recall Schjerfbeck's seminal 1888 painting The Convalescent. Finnish art at this time was dominated by an increasing sense of nationalism and Schjerfbeck's subject matter and treatment were considered too influenced by foreign artistic trends. While paintings such as The Convalescent and Profile of a girl undoubtedly demonstrate first French and then English influences on her art, it is in these works from the 1880s that her originality and singular vision first emerges. Profile of a girl is a stunningly serene and beautiful image by an artist whose personal means of expression and creative individuality was in its first blossoming.