"No one is free, we are all captured in a picture".
Today I would like to tell the story of a well-known British painter named L.S. Lowry, born in November 1887.
Lowry's parents are middle-class, his father works in a real estate agent's office, and his mother's dream is to become a pianist. At the age of 18, he began to learn to paint under the french Impressionist painter Adolf Vallett. At the age of 20, Lowry worked as an insurance claims adjuster; later, the company laid off employees, and the unemployed Lowry worked as a rent collector in a property company.
Lowry, never married. In his life, his mother played a very important role. Or rather, Lowry's paintings have considerable connections with his mother.
Not enlightenment, but denial. (The following is the content of the movie, not a biography)
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (i</h1>).
How Mrs. Lowry belittled her son, and how Lori wanted to please her mother, are well described in the movie "Mrs. Lowry and Her Son".
After watching the movie, I found that Mrs. Lowry could almost come up with a small manual of "Mother PUA Technique" (Emotional Manipulation). The old lady's control over her son was too high. Interestingly, however, Lowry's best work comes from the days when he and his mother depended on his mother after his father's death.
According to the film, I divided Mrs. Lowry's control of her son into three steps:
The first step is the management of daily life.
The film takes place in 1934, when Lowry's father had been dead for two years and was left with a debt. Lowry lives with her mother in Pendlebury, an industrial village between Manchester and Bolton.
Mrs. Lori is bedridden, and the happiest thing every day is that Lori leaves work, makes dinner, and eats with her. Although she can't go to the ground, her "life management" of her son Lori is not slack at all.
When it rains, whether Lori has wiped his feet when he entered the door, whether he has shaken off the rain on the umbrella; whether Lori has put sugar when drinking coffee; and even if the sausage that Lori bought is not fixed, the old lady has to ask about it.
Fortunately, Lori is an obedient son who obeys his mother's words.
The second step is to belittle and suppress his son's works.
Not long after the film begins, there is a passage in which Mrs. Lori tells Lori through the mouth of a critic - you are not this piece of material, you can't draw anything...
This plot is still quite euphemistic, let's see how the old lady "tricks". She asked Lowry if she had bought the newspaper for the day, and Lowry replied, forgetting. So the old lady herself took out a newspaper from the bed and read a comment for her son.
This is an art critic's assertion for Lowry to the effect that the painting is messy, like a child's painting; the figures on the paintings are just smudges.
The art critics did not approve of it, but as a mother, Mrs. Lowry said directly to her son, "Your paintings are not wanted, they are all dirty industrial scenes", "Give up, even if it is for my sake." ”
Lowry's painting depicts a figure like a matchstick.
The saddest thing in the world is the blow from the relatives around you.
The old lady's stick swung quite fiercely.
This time, Lowry wasn't as obedient. He said, "Painting what I see, that's all."
So, what did Lowry draw? In his writings, people have large heads and thin bodies, and these people look like "matchsticks"; but what about the environment? It's the factory, it's the big chimneys, it's the steam and the flames.
Her mother didn't approve of it, so Lori waited until she fell asleep and hid in the attic, smelling the smell of pine oil and painting to the hiss of gas burning—this was Lori's world.
However, Lowry's talent was still seen.
Lori was excited by a letter from London, in which a gallery owner invited Lori to London for a painting exhibition. Well, the old lady's PUA technique began to amplify the move.
The third step is to ignore the praise and recognition of the son by the outside world.
The old lady posed as an elder, telling her son, "You can't believe the words in the letter, especially in London." Because, arrogant people make all kinds of promises, but don't keep them."
Isn't this the equivalent of telling your son that the outside world is too complicated and that you have to be careful; or listen to your mother and stay at home honestly?
This time, Lowry had a reaction. He took the letter, turned around, and read the words of the gallery owner word for word to his mother. However, the old lady did not pay any attention to Lori's reaction, and she sent her son away with a sentence of "my feet are cold".
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (ii</h1>).
In the film, Lowry asks her mother several times what she thinks of the painting.
The first time, he asked his mother, "You never liked my paintings, did you?" The old lady lay on the bed and did not answer positively.
The second time, he asked his mother, "Have you ever really liked my paintings?" The old lady looked directly at Lori, "No, it's obvious."
Ironically, however, one of Lowry's reasons for painting was to like it; the other was to please his mother. Not only did the old lady disagree with the painting; the content of the painting, the old lady was also disgusted.
Factories, chimneys and sirens
Speaking of which, we must talk about the values of mother and son. Mrs. Lowry, when she was young, dreamed of being a pianist; she considered herself to belong to the middle class. So when their family moved to that industrial village in 1909, Mrs. Lowry was very reluctant.
The best time in the old lady's memory was in 1898, when Lowry was 10 or 11 years old, and the family lived in Victoria Park, a leafy private estate where some of Manchester's wealthy people lived.
Here, the young Mrs. Lori can entertain rich relatives with exquisite tea sets and pastries, although the family has to make ends meet.
So, when the female neighbor, a middle-class woman, came to see the old lady, Mrs. Lowry was pleased. The female neighbor accidentally saw the painting hanging in the foyer, "Sailing Ship", and praised it as a wonderful painting, and Mrs. Lowry instantly found zhiyin.
She put Lowry on a local exhibition for Sailboat, because it reminded her of the good life of the past, because the paintings recognized by "Her in Victoria Park" should be paintings of beautiful things, not factories, chimneys and sirens.
Lowry wanted to refuse because "The Sailboat" was painted for his mother and was a "gift from the past."
In order to achieve the goal, the old lady played the "affection card", she said "it will make me very happy". Look, do you see something similar, in an intimate relationship, want to make the other party obedient to their own words, is it to "make me happy, make me happy" to do "sweet threats"?
The most deadly trick in the control relationship, moral kidnapping, the old lady is not a problem.
When Lowry's painting had a buyer and wanted to buy a "factory" painting for £20, the old lady began to accuse and accuse "you deprived me of my life", "I sacrificed everything for you, what did you do for me?" ”
All that is, to make the Son obey his orders.
In this plot, the dialogue between mother and son is very interesting, and it can be said that the old lady's control technique is vividly expressed. The original words are as follows:
Lowry: I paint.
Mother: A painting that no one wants.
Lowry: Mr. Stanhope (the male neighbor) bought it.
Mother: He doesn't know art.
Look at it, good or not, "it's all up to me." It is also a miracle to say that Lori's artistic life did not die at the hands of the old lady.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > (iii</h1>).
In 1939, Mrs. Lowry died. The shackles of control are finally gone.
That year, L.S. Lowry held his first major exhibition in London, and artistic recognition was long overdue.
Mrs. Lori, who has not been optimistic about her son all her life, does not know what else to say.
Mrs. Lowry's "PUA technique" is ironic enough.
P.S. Lowry, full name is Lawrence Stephen Lowry
To know more about Lowry's life, "directly enter it using the search box above today's headline app"
－END－