Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1890. Her literary masterpiece Wild Sargasso Sea is set in Jamaica but the scenes relate directly to the countryside that surrounds my studio.
Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near.
Jean Rhys's award winning novel was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. As one critic wrote:
Rhys took one of the works of genius of the 19th century and turned it inside-out to create one of the works of genius of the 20th century.
Whereas in recent years, from a painterly point of view, I have been surrounded by too much green, my earlier life was spent in the somber tones of Charlotte Bronte's countryside.
My painting of Marsh Hall was made on a visit "home" from the Caribbean on a bleak November day in 1992. The hall is located in the village of Northowram. The Bronte's family's home was only a few miles away and Charlotte's sister, Emily Bronte, taught at Law Hill School in the nearby village of Southowram.
Although Charlotte Bronte never visited Dominica, Jean Rhys went to live in England at the age of 16. She began work as a chorus girl for a travelling theater company and one of the towns they played in was Halifax - just two miles away from the scenes of my childhood.
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