Anne Bronte – Wedded bliss

I’ve finished my contribution ‘Wedded bliss’ for the Anne Bronte p200 exhibition celebrating the life and work of Anne Bronte on her 200th anniversary. All the contributors were given a page from her novel The tenant of Wildfell Hall and asked to make an artwork using the page and the same size as it. 200 pages from the novel have been allocated and the resulting artworks will be exhibited in Scarborough in January and February 2020. In my piece, the little veil with the fringe of pins references the sharp reality of marriage for Helen and many other 19th century women. From a distance the fringe sparkles with promise but closer inspection reveals its sharp edges. The harsh reality for Helen is that she has no influence over her dissolute husband and no legal right to remove her son from his malign influence. As a married woman she has no money or property of her own either, women had to wait until 1883 for the right to retain their own money on marriage. Anne Bronte was a supporter of women’s education and rights and this novel shows the harm that could result from the prevailing situation of inequality. In the novel, Helen bravely runs away from her husband with her son and, pretending to be a widow, maintains them both through her painting. She returns to her husband on her own terms solely to nurse him through his final illness.