Tracing Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s painting, Self-Portrait with Two Pupils (1785): the reader is encouraged to follow along with a copy of the self-portrait by their side.
HER HAT
To be looked at, really. To feel as if another is gazing beyond the surface of how you might appear, to be considered somebody worth examining—everyone adores that sensation. Attention. To be acknowledged as a person deserving of a place in a painting, of course. Who wouldn’t? To be inspected by the subject of one, to be glanced at with oh so much care—she wants to observe you—you—how thrilling. To be anointed the catcher of a perusal of genuine curiosity, in the form of an invitation, a glint in a stranger’s eye.
HER HANDS
I was worried for a moment. More than a moment, minutes. Staring at Adélaïde Labille-Guiard now, in her self-portrait, a revelation: I’m a disappointment. For years, interrupted by work shifts, bus rides, new tattoos, itchy skin, new addresses, breakups, recipes learned and forgotten; between now and the last reunion, I’ve been blockaded, emotionally, by an endless parade of domesticity and bureaucratic nonsense. Completely unaware of what was going wrong with me while knowing, utterly, that something was wrong. Too long, it had been, since this eye contact.
HER FRAME
Come on in. To be encouraged, why not you, too? To be reminded, being scared is a little bit the point. To remember, who cares, so what? To be enticed, try, try, try here—with me.
THE MIRROR SHE’S LOOKING AT, INVISIBLE TO US
Trying to memorize the angle of my chin. Hair’s growing longer. Not enough yellow in my wardrobe. Not enough shoes, too many pants. I’m walking home alone as much as possible, leaving friends at bus stops and train stations so I can see what other people are wearing, and if I want to try to steal an outfit for myself. Not the clothing itself, but the frame of it. To try to mimic the decisions they made, one choice on top of another fabric lingering on the side of a loose strand of hair, and as I touch mine, tug mine, I worry I’m getting hesitant, unsure, waiting, waiting to hear someone tell me: wake up.
THE VERMILION STOOL, WITH DISCOUNTED MATERIALS
Eve Kosofsky Sedwick has written about the notion of “fantasy books” as a genre of text not in the utopic sense, but as those we feel around us, unread but keeping us company. Those which have been collected but not yet consumed, present and contained alongside us, but not yet visited. This practice of existing alongside books that have been collected for a future not yet arrived at, Sedgwick believes is a ritual that leads her to “enhance and enrich [books] over time, investing them with [her] own obsessions and the fruits of [her] varying thought and self-relation.” How many times have I looked down at a book, one recommended by a friend, or left behind by a stranger, or simply pulled down from a shelf of a used bookstore because I liked its spine, and taken a glance at a sentence or two, and then put it back down for an afternoon of leisure without another minute spent inside of it? Too many to count. This active practice of procrastination, Sedgwick proposes, is a “spiritual practice,” something other than simple avoidance. What if this idea of “fantasy books” were extended outside of texts and into all types of art? There are so many paintings, I might have seen by now, but haven’t. Not yet. Whether intentional or for a lack of trying, they hang out as company as I become a museum of unseen images, ideas, feelings, memories. An “accumulated reverie.”
HER SHOE, PEEKING OUT OF HER DRESS
A friend and I, over pasta and wine, spend hours at San Matteo’s after looking at the painting in question in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for almost an hour. I think, initially, it was assumed that after dinner, we would each go our separate ways. But the conversation turned caramel and at some point, I noticed that two different pairs had been seated at the table next to us, and, in turn, each had left. Now, it was empty again. I forget what topic got us going; the Steppes and her research on it, my confusion over my sister’s relationship with Japan, my friend’s experience designing a show while also producing it, or perhaps we were riffing about maps or tattoos or itchy skin or new addresses or breakups or recipes learned and forgotten. Maybe it was when I mentioned that this all started for me in 2020 when, on a powder blue couch, I wrote out a list of questions for myself and landed on a key after seeing Self-Portrait with Two Pupils for the first time. Specifically, the same question I like to ask anyone when I feel a conversation’s flowing. Most recently in a workshop a few weeks before: what would you write about, if you could write about anything?
THE EMERALD CHAIR WITH GOLD TRIM
To gaze at a flat surface and to feel it speak. To buzz with the urge to enter it, be within its frame. To be invited in. I know now that from a historical perspective, the artist was painting herself into her own manifesto, claiming herself as a worthy successor to the mantle of Artist in a time that rather wished she wouldn’t. At once a teacher and an artist, she frames a scenario to demonstrate her own talent as worthy of being shown in the grandest of salons while also inviting anyone who looks at her work to become its student and, if they so desire, join her. Inclusion is rare. In 1785 France, and even now, when there’s so much money for the arts but rarely is it disseminated in a way that supports the livelihoods of those scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get by, to try. It’s the fault of the system, sure, but also the scarcity mindset that seems to have taken over so much of the art world, even as people increasingly stage rogue exhibitions, performances, and concerts in warehouses, subway stations, and living rooms. Most of us who dedicate our lives to art know that institutions usually aren’t open to the possibility that studio heads, gallerists, and those with power, with PhD’s, with money, don’t always have good taste. This painting bridges the worlds of those with power and those without. Too big, too sumptuous, too open, too much in cahoots with the flavor of rebellion to be tame; but made out of materials purchased with the support of a queen. Her eyes tease her viewer into reaching for the fun(ds) she’s managed to catch.
HER TWO STUDENTS: MARIE-GABRIELLE CAPRET & MARIE-MARGUERITE CARREAUX DE ROSEMOND
In a car with an uber driver, on the street as someone paints a mural, listening in on a conversation about a Sicilian writer on YouTube. A chance to sit and observe, be invited into confidence with another person, to share in the intimacy of what electrifies them. To be given a chance to witness someone in thrall to a passion; become a guest of what turns someone into a host.
HER PALETTE
This portrait declares its own artist as its primary subject. Not out of narcissism, but as an indication of belonging within the tradition of art history. She was one of only four women admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (the academy that hosted the annual Paris Salon) in the 18th century. This was painted two years after she was admitted, the year that saw her and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun both join. Fearing an influx of women artists in reaction to the public’s embrace of Vigée-Lebrun and Labille-Guiard’s talent, alongside the popularity of the workshops they ran for women students that indicated more were interested in joining the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the men in charge decided to restrict the entrance of women to four at any given time. By including two of her students in the painting—one studying the portrait in awe and the other looking at a mirror; the subject of the painting, her teacher, and herself reflected in its depths—Labille-Guiard painted this work explicitly in defiance of the new rule. Rather than towing the line and retreating to painting aristocrats, she painted herself. She was thirty-four when she made this; a woman in a glorious steel blue dress, a ridiculous hat and probably a wig, in a studio with a dirty floor in the midst of making this exact work, painting with her students behind her in eager attendance. The left eye of the painter is directly at the center of her image. Like Mona Lisa but with a twist in her lips as if she’s about to smile despite all the odds stacked against her, her eyes follow her own viewer, whoever they are.
A SCULPTURE, HIDDEN IN DARKNESS
While I was sitting in front of the portrait, I felt depleted. On a bench and facing her. I arrived to it emotionally spent, blockaded by an endless parade of domesticity and bureaucratic nonsense. But you know that already. My friend was perched on the other end of the bench, until she started to straddle it. Eventually, she was looking at the painting face-on, too. As I was talking with her, I kept glancing back and forth between her and the painting—watching her turn into its student. But also for reassurance, for the painting to give me the thrill I felt the first time I saw it: an invitation to go for it.
THE BUST RIGHT BEHIND HER
At one point, a woman with a bob and the energy of a runner wandered by to take a picture of the painting. She said, “it was featured in an episode of my favorite show.” According to her, she never watched TV until she retired, but she’s been indulging in this one. “It’s in French, but I watch with subtitles.” The main characters are a detective and an art historian. Every episode, some painting becomes the center of intrigue and the artists who paint them appear as apparitions, documentarians, biographers of themselves.
SIX BRUSHES IN HER LEFT HAND
We stand up to leave. I turn to the right as I look back at it. Walk a few steps, turn to my left. Stare for an extra second, wait for hers to hit me in the chest. Don’t know where the impulse comes from, but I wink.
A STORAGE CHEST
How to describe. It, how, this. A thrill. This opening, release. Sense of space. Freedom. Place, within my body, my mind, my spirit. I feel… as if I’m back aboveground. Outside of the darkness, the place inside me where I seem to go when I feel enclosed. Trapped. In a labyrinth, in the middle of a test, a slog; without any idea how to find the exit. Out of angst, that bubbling that percolates until I find the right key to unlock its door.
AT LEAST SIX BRUSHES IN HER LEFT HAND
The feeling that’s been so elusive. One that never arrives unless I clear the floor, so it can dance around. That needs a blank canvas so whatever I think, whatever excites me, can bounce off its plane. That glimmer. The same painting looks back at me and I can register its gaze anew. Return it. A look that says: I’m doing this, painting myself, like this. Why not you, too?
THE DRESS
Powder blue. I’m writing here, this morning, with my old uniform on that chaise in its hue: a pair of jeans and a black tank top. Satin. A creative practice needs to be flexible. Pale blue. I start the day cross-legged, unlike her. In silk. Maybe I’ll come up with a new list of prompts, pick one to answer for today. Like when I was in this exact apartment some years ago and decided I wanted to know what was happening inside of me: what would you write about, if you could write about anything? Steely, grayish blues.
THE MAHL STICK
I’m not at the beginning anymore. Even if I start, and start again and again, the pigments have already been assembled. The tools, too—for the most part. The styles, the forms, the tones. I know what I like, where I tend to go. How I try, change directions. The edges of the world I like to linger at, on my toes, leaning over I’m about to fall over its edge—at the tip of a spiral.
Micaela Brinsley is a Tokyo-born writer, editor, and researcher of art and performance. Her debut pamphlet, “Forward,” was published by Cutt Press. A contributing essayist for the journal A Women’s Thing where she writes about portraiture and the surrealist period, her prose can also be found in Another Gaze, Tenement Press, and Asymptote. She is an assistant editor for TDR: The Drama Review, the academic journal on performance and the avant-garde, and serves as the co-editor-in-chief of La Piccioletta Barca, an international arts and literary magazine. She is primarily based in Buenos Aires.
