Chapter 6.
'There was someone crying - there was!'
Summary: Follows on from the previous chapter
The Cry in the Corridor, set the next day. The weather is pouring down with rain which confines Mary to the four walls of her bedroom as she cannot go outside and play in the gardens. The disobedient girl that she is, Mary, decides to explore the forbidden corridors sworn off to her on her arrival by Mrs. Medlock to source the sound of the cry she heard in the previous chapter. Exploring the house, Mary comes across many tapestries, paintings and rooms. Mary takes a particular interest in one portrait of a girl not too different from herself. Mary gets caught snooping around by Mrs. Medlock and the chapter ends.
Characters: Mary, Martha, Mrs Medlock, several people in portraits.
Setting: Indoors (raining outside)
Quote to work from: "She always stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.
'Where do you live now?' said Mary aloud to her.
'I wish you were here.' ...
'She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer.' "
Research, references, inspiration: The first thing I had to look at for this chapter was what a "green brocade dress" would be for the girl in the portrait as I was unfamiliar with the word
'brocade'.
 |
| Green brocade fabric. |
Brocade is a type of fabric typical of Renaissance fashions imported from Italy. Made up of silks with woven patterns and detailed embroidery (typically flowers, vines, leaves) in rich threads. This would place the girl in the painting therefore somewhere in the Renaissance era (between the 14th and 17th century) as so, my next step was to look at existing Renaissance portraits of girls with a similar subject matter and find out the symbolism of a green parrot on the finger.
 |
| Amsterdam, circa 1610-1680, Unsigned, Portrait of a Child, aged 2½, holding a Parrot. |
 |
| 1644, Unknown artist of the Dutch School, Portrait of a Boy, Aged 3, with a Large Hat and a Parrot. |
'The green parrot plays also a great role as a symbol of love and peace.'
One of these paintings could very well be the inspiration for the portrait mentioned in Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, or, the portrait could be entirely fictional but it is useful to look at real life Renaissance paintings of a similar subject matter for ideas. Another source of inspiration would be to look at other illustrators interpretations of this scene and painting from the novel.
 |
| Charles Robinson's illustrative interpretation of this scene. |
The Renaissance paintings I found of young girls in similar fashions sets the girl in the painting in this chapter roughly in the mid-late 1600's. Having established this, I will explore the fashion typical of this era as Mary describes it as
"such odd clothes".
 |
| Late 1600's brocade dress. |
This dress is a late 1600's design and is more alike something that I had first envisioned the girl in the painting might be wearing, perhaps with a collar of some sort to make it more
'odd' as Mary describes it. The dress is quite simple, like the girl, as she was described as plain as Mary but wearing odd clothing I didn't think an overly elaborate design or something too decorative was appropriate.
 |
| Late 1600's hairstyles. |
I also looked into some hairstyles typical of the late 1600's.
Roughs/sketches:
Final artwork: This is the finalized drawing I intended to create a silk screen print from. The details are minimal as they will follow in the colour separation process. However, the series of screen prints I did for this project weren't 100% successful and my project took a different path and instead turned to digital collages.
 |
| Original drawing. |
 |
| Yellow layer. |
 |
| Red layer. |
 |
| Purple layer. |
 |
| Blue layer. |
 |
| 4 layer silk screen print. |
 |
| Final artwork. |
