The Written Portrait

When Vanessa Bell read her sister, Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, she marveled at the ode to their mother Woolf had produced in Mrs. Ramsey. Her letter of May 3, 1927 is touching to read as she describes feeling as if their mother had come off the page. Their father too.

Vanessa Bell was a painter who had studied at the Royal Art School but, like many of the women of the Bloomsbury group, did not propel her efforts to greater fame than the occasional notice they naturally received. Married to the art critic, Clive Bell, she also had an affair with the art critic and professor Roger Fry whose portrait she sketched and was used as the cover for the first edition of Virginia Woolf's biography after his death. Vanessa Bell's letters portray her warmth to all, and her regular concern for Virginia Woolf's health.

Despite the many portraits that she painted, in her letter to her sister, she writes, "so you see as far as portrait painting goes, you seem to me to be a supreme artist." What a wonderful statement to make to a little sister who occasionally envied the language spoken by a circle that largely focused on the fine and decorative arts.

Vanessa Bell does permit herself, however, also to laugh at the idea that Lily Briscoe, the artist of the novel, would place damp cloths on her paintings to keep them wet. Virginia Woolf could be wrong too.