I watched a strange and fascinating movie the other day. "Séraphine" is a French movie that came out in 2009, based on a true story. If you look it up and read about it, it is often described as a tragic story. Perhaps, for us looking in, but not so much for her, I wouldn't think. Her being Séraphine Louis aka Séraphine de Senlis. Séraphine was a naive, self-taught painter, who, as a poor housemaid, often used things such as animal blood from the kitchens or clay she collected on river banks, as her materials to paint with....
She was born in Arsy (Oise) in 1864 and did domestic work all her life, starting in a convent where it is rumored she first had the visions and inspiration to paint. Her works are repetitive images, that are often described as fluid and moving, of vivid color and inspired by the outdoors and the nature she seemed to love. Often times she would paint in a trance like frenzy and it is said that examinations of her signature, often cut into canvas with a knife, revealed several layers of paint.
In 1932 Séraphine was put into a lunatic asylum for the very "chronic pychosis" that probably fueled her talent and from this imprisonment was no longer able to paint. She died in 1942 there, alone.
Of course there was a life lived in between these dates I've put down. I hesitate to say it was a lonely life because she created a beauty that was so intense, whether it was one she observed outwardly or one that lived inside her, she could hardly have been lonely or even poor or even "crazy" as the creator of such scenes that continue to inspire today....having kept her company as she painted them and still dancing on canvas for us today.
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