Autobiography

Thématique du programme abordée :

Je de l’écrivain et jeu de l’écriture 

The I of the writer and the writer's eye

Session 1  :

- Brainstorming about what an autobiography is.

- Study of 3 self-portraits by LucianFreud

           1963                                    1985                           2002

 Info : Lucian Michael Freud (8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011)was a German-born British painter. Known chiefly for his portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time. His works are noted for their psychological penetration, and for their often discomforting examination of the relationship between artist and model

 food for thought :               Dali 1941, Soft self-portrait

- The notions of truth and reality, memory vs imagination, facts versus perception of events, art and the sense of aesthetics.

Recap made in class :

Autobiography: (notes taken by Thibaut)
The I of the writer and the writer's eye. (Le je de l’écrivain et le jeu de l’écriture.)An autobiography is a book or movie which speaks about / describes the life of its author. Its narrative is in the first person.
These self-portraits explore the aging process they show the evolution of the painter.
They appear in chronological order.  The expression of the face is the same in all the portraits  the but we notice that colours in the first two are warmer than in the last one.
We may assume that the choice of colours matches the painter's level of energy or vitality.
Over the years, Lucian Freud seems to move away from the initial close-up. He looks thinner and weaker in the last portrait.The painting technique also evolves whith more texture involved in the last one. All of them seem to be realistic.

(Notes taken by Doriane :)

Autobiography                                       - the life of the author                             
- the way the author                            
sees/ perceives his own life                  
- He can talk about his physical,                  
 appearence, his personality, memorable actions,childhoodmemories, teenage memories...Important events.   Self-portrait - the image of the painter - his appearence - the perception of the painter's personality/ mood     
*contrary to

Dali's self-portrait looks a bit like a distorted sculpture. Unlike* Lucian Freud's paintings, this portrait is abstract.We can recognize some of the features of Dali's theatrical face: the moustache and the large arched eyebrows. Because of the choice of colours: dark shades of red, and black, this character may look slightly evil. There is no body attached to this face and the eyes are just hollow holes so that it makes us think of a mask which seems to be melting.This painting is disturbing precisely because of this unusual texture which reminds us of thick blood and because of the nails that are piercing the mask.

Group work :

 autobiography seen by  :

- Sir Winston Churchill : My Early Life: 1874-1904 (1930)

- Maya Angelou : I know how the caged bird sings (1969)

- Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (1791)

- Timothee Dow Adams, Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiography, 1990

Class notes :

Benjamin Franklin (presentation made by Nathan)

One of the writers of the American constitution.

He considers that an autobiography is a sort of second life.

This means that it is a way of living his life a second time and correcting some elements.

In this case, the image given of the author is more favourable than reality.

Maya Angelou (presentation by Lucile and Léa)

She thinks that in an autobiography, you have to aim for nothing but the truth. This truth (of feelings) is more important to her than facts.